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>Unfortunately, I don't believe voting one way or another will make much difference. One party might be slightly better than another, but ultimately none will d
by xoa 7y ago
>Unfortunately, I don't believe voting one way or another will make much difference. One party might be slightly better than another, but ultimately none will dare to implement sufficient measures.
Then you are simply giving up on the whole thing? Because there is no other way to make much difference. If the current party platforms aren't sufficient, then those who care must first work to change those too. Become party members, work to select delegates that will then change it, etc. Same as any other democracy, regardless of details (in the US "party" (coalition) platforms and choices are determined by primaries before the country decides which one will assume government).
>Climate problem will have to be solved outside of party politics. We need something akin to civil rights movement. On the global scale.
It can't emphasized enough how completely, utterly wrong this is. Solving collective action problems requires coordinated use of power, which by definition is politics. Regardless of how the politics gets changed, it still will ultimately depend on politics. It's not some dirty word or concept, it's a descriptive/truism, when you work to get groups of humans to do something you're doing politics. It is our great good fortune, built on a mountain of blood a treasure, that so many of us live in democracies where it is so easy relative to history to work for radical political change through parties and government structures.
You mention the civil rights movement, but that ONLY WORKED THROUGH POLITICS. There seems to have been a huge forgetting in modern times that protest movements and the like are only means to a political end, not constructive in and of themselves. The civil rights movement had organized leadership that used the protests to mobilize voters, to gain public interest and recognition, etc., all with the ultimate aim of changing politicians/parties and actually getting actual for real legislation passed. They worked to the extent they translated into votes and in turn into actual power.
Conversely, consider all sorts of modern disorganized protests, no matter the size. It's perfectly possible to spend enormous amounts of time, effort, and resources and accomplish absolutely nothing whatsoever. It's a very dangerous and corrosive form of virtue signaling, and can actively harm progress because it burns people's limited capital to no useful end. And that in turn helps further breed disengagement, because people feel "they did something" "yet nothing happened". But "doing something" doesn't mean it's actually useful.
- perfunctory 7y ago> The civil rights movement had organized leadership that used the protests to mobilize voters, to gain public interest and recognition, etc., all with the ultimate aim of changing politicians/parties I was trying to say more or less the same, but maybe a bit too terse. [edit: with the qualification that I believe that protests and civil disobedience are essential means in "changing politicians/parties"] What I was trying to say is that passive voting for the currently available options is not enough. People need to get off their couches and get actively involved in a climate movement and shift the overton window. > Conversely, consider all sorts of modern disorganized protests, no matter the size. Which ones do you have in mind specifically?
- xoa 7y ago>Which ones do you have in mind specifically? It's almost easier to ask the inverse, what modern "crowd movement" has had lasting effects at all? I'm thinking of big ones like Occupy, or Remain, or the Women's Marches, or Extinction Rebellion for really recent. What actual, tangible change did they directly effect? What concrete legislation? The US civil rights movement actually ultimately resulted in the enormous Civil Rights Act of 1964. Various movements created a full umbrella group, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, to coordinate lobbying efforts and help translate public will into Congressional action. And it was needed, because passage was fought vigorously all the way to the end, with heavy filibustering, rule maneuvering, etc. It passed not through some grand awakening but through sustained, multi-faceted application of power, including skillful use of grubby politics by supporters. And of course even it's passing was still only part of a process, there was resistance to implementation, lawsuits, and on and on. Yet none of that diminished the accomplishment or the lasting effect it's had on society. I'm definitely worried there is an increasing movement towards flashy, feel-good and "exciting" efforts without the necessary accompanying political party effort needed to actually do the work of translating popular will into concrete power. And as there isn't an unlimited budget of political capital or popular attention there really is something of a zero-sum aspect to all this, if people are spending their time and resources on ineffective measures that's quite harmful. We need full carbon cost internalization for example, which will not just dramatically aid in finding the most efficient ways to go carbon neutral but also be helpful in the critical next step of going carbon negative. Protests are likely a necessary component of getting carbon cost internalization laws passed, but we do in fact need those laws passed so while necessary they're not sufficient.