Woodchopper wrote: ↑Fri Apr 10, 2020 9:22 am
Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Thu Apr 09, 2020 3:43 pm
Woodchopper wrote: ↑Thu Apr 09, 2020 3:06 pm
Those vested interests tend to control or have a lot of influence over the media, economy and civil society (on the latter just look at who provides the funding).
It's true. I'm not taking success for granted - obviously any approach would be enormously challenging.
But I do think it's important to challenge the apparently forgone conclusions as to which approaches should be tried (especially as everybody seems to agree on the limited possibilities of the methods traditionally used by the Democrats).
Things do change by pressure. For instance, Sanders' Stop BEZOS Act had no chance of ever becoming law, but Amazon still started paying its employees $15/hour. The details of the bill didn't even matter as much as its existence and the controversy it generated. It's a small example of success, but it does illustrate a game plan: pressure your opponents into changing their behaviour, then get them on side to change legislation.
Start introducing bills and executive orders to hobble the fossil fuel industry, while ramping up rhetoric in public statements. By the time the legal dust has settled you've (potentially) already made progress on changing public, investor and corporate behaviour. That way the inevitable failure of your legislation doesn't preclude achieving your policy goals, whereas relying on the Republicans to support you straight off the bat is an obvious non-starter.
I think that the best strategy would be to focus upon the Democratic party at a local level. Fight for every county and district. The first aim should be to get get Democratic majorities in most state legislatures. Difficult, but not impossible. The most important aim once that has happened is to get rid of voter suppression and gerrymandering. Once that has happened the Democrats at least will both be more responsive to the electorate and in a position to control the Presidency, Congress and Supreme Court. It'll take at least 20 years, but at that point we could be looking at meaningful reforms to healthcare, student debt, welfare, gun control etc that will last longer than an election cycle. But why not, the Republicans have successfully implemented long term strategies. We are living in the result.
What it needs is a grass roots organization and party leadership which is united around that goal, and crucially, are willing to devote resources long term and not just every 4-8 years.
Call me a Leninist, but IMHO its the party that matters and a mass national party is the only way to achieve long term meaningful change.
I agree with all of this, FWIW, especially the bit in bold. I've certainly not intended to suggest that the party
shouldn't be doing those things; my point is that it's not enough.
If the USA takes 20 years to drastically reduce its contributions to climate change, the planet is toast.
Twenty years is a generation. If I were a young USian saddled with insane quantities of debt, massive and growing inequality, unaffordable healthcare an increasingly f.cked climate, continuing mass incarceration and slavery (especially of minorities) and so on, I would find it hard to swallow that "we're working towards it gradually and hope to get there in 20 years" is the best the largest party in the country can manage. The difference between that and doing nothing genuinely isn't very significant if you need help now. It's throwing a whole generation under the bus. It's very difficult for young people to have hope for their lives when so many issues that affect them, such as inequality and the environment, are getting worse at a faster rate than politics seems able to keep up.
It's notable that the centre-right of the Democratic party tends to be older. It's a generation that didn't face the same problems to the same extent, has exacerbated them for the next generation, and won't be alive to have to cope with the worst consequences of climate change. They complain about young people's anger and mock their ambition, and then talk about the importance of building alliances, but apparently without actually offering anything of immediate tangible consequence, without listening, and without empathising.
So yes, great, let's chip away at electing more Democrats. But while they're working on that, what else are they doing?
Alternatively, if the Democratic party is determined to focus solely on winning elections, some other movement is needed to improve society and the environment. But if the Democrats want loyalty from the left they need to earn it, and being or supporting that movement seems to me a more promising approach than the kind of hostility seen currently.
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.