General Politics Discussion VII [ARCHIVED] • Page 1013

“Punk should only be about bathroom humor, why girls don’t like you, and how you hate living in a boring town”

 

Naturally that FOPLodge5 Twitter has shirts “in support” of that dude.

 

Oh no, a Biden quote from the 70’s!

Wait...this one is actually okay

 

Vote for Biden, he’ll change things!
Biden: doesn’t support the basic demand of the protests.

 

My very first thought seeing that was shout out to the brilliant grifter who white guilted them all into buying kente cloths lol

 

Reading back on this thread feels like we might have another one of those, "How can I delete my account and all of my post" situations soon.

 

He keeps screaming for LAW&ORDER doesn’t he know a rerun starts on some channel every 5 minutes?

 

Pretty impressive how “defund” somehow became an ambiguous term

 

Reminds me of the people that didn’t like “American Idiot” because “it’s too political” when it had like two songs that broadly made fun of Bush.

 

No joke: former coworker of mine who is a huge trump head asked me for a music recommendation so I suggested sum41- Order in Decline. I would love to have been a fly on the wall when he listened

 

I personally do have a gripe with phrases like “Abolish the police” (and “defund,” but to a significantly less degree) and other things leftists love to chant as if what it really means is self evident. Not on whether it’s too radical or anything, but on the obvious vagueness of it and endless bickering that comes from it. It’s not like this is anywhere close to the first time that even leftists are fighting about what “abolition” entails, yet now it’s partially in the mainstream and anyone expects it to be clear to “normal” people? If you say a phrase, and the general response is either “well what exactly does that mean” or someone interprets it in a way you don’t intend, then maybe there’s more of an issue on the end of the speaker.

Doing something as drastic as “abolishing” the police is a completely alien idea to most people. And what it would entail is significantly more complicated on an abstract level than other major fights in recent American history. Something like “gay rights” is simple enough for people to understand, as it broadly means legal protections that are already afforded to other protected groups; you can debate which things should fall under those “rights” and why, but the framing of the discussion is clear enough.

But leftists really need to recognize that even they often don’t have this crystal clear idea of what exactly they mean for half the shit they say. And sorry but it’s kinda our fucking job to truly understand and convincingly convey these ideas if we ever actually want to win them. Telling people to just google shit is not how you convince anyone of anything. You need to be rigorous about it, because everyone else will always be looking for the slightest reason to dismiss you outright

 

There’s also the obvious risk that using vague phrases will also just make them ripe for being co-opted. We literally just went through this the past year with “Medicare For All,” and that had way more specificity and study behind it than something like “Abolish/Defund the police” lol

 

When's the 2nd stimulus comin...i could use $6,000 right now...

 

I just wonder if the movement could benefit from some kind of representative leader who can articulate the concerns and have specific demands for change before ending the protests. Not sure what that would look like though and am not claiming to really know what's best here

Only issue is that would give leaders and the police a specific person to target which we definitely don't want, either