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Changes for the better will necessarily be extreme. If that weren't the case, we would have found a way to accomplish them already. Your "conservative" aunt won

Changes for the better will necessarily be extreme. If that weren't the case, we would have found a way to accomplish them already. Your "conservative" aunt won't like the changes we need any more than your "liberal" uncle will. News media firms are owned by people who like and propagandize in favor of the current system. It isn't important that all Americans like each other. In our current situation, 95% of Americans share certain interests even though they are culturally opposed. They could work together without liking each other. After annoying powerful interests for decades, Martin Luther King Jr. finally tried to unite poor blacks with poor whites, not because they liked each other but because they shared common interests. He was assassinated within five months. TPTB can abide less racism, but not more class solidarity.

leesalminen 6y ago
> Changes for the better will necessarily be extreme. It’s long been my loosely held belief that _extreme_ change to a political system will _necessarily_ harm the average citizen. I think history has shown that to be true fairly consistently.
- AshWolfy 6y ago
  sometimes the short term harm inflicted on a few is worth the benefits it will bring society in the long term "Our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break?"
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    But who among us has the moral authority to claim which harm is okay on which few? I remain convinced that the path to sustainable progress does not lie in the direction of extremes. Push too hard too fast, and you both amplify your opposition, and risk pushing in the wrong direction. But the great thing is we can all disagree on that, and still agree to work together where we can.
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      We are constantly gaslit by the war media, so there is a difference between perception and reality. It would not be extreme in any real sense to stop fighting all or even some of our stupid murderous wars. It wouldn't be difficult; we could just... stop. Yet every time there is a suggestion to stop antagonizing Russia or China, or stop attempting to depose every Latin American leader who isn't a right-wing hardliner, or relax the economic sanctions imposed on a third of humanity, or just accept that Near Eastern nations are going to build the pipelines they choose to build where they choose to build them, we are subjected to intense campaigns of sky-is-falling fear-the-brown-people bullshit. It would not be extreme in any real sense to give labor unions more power, or to imprison fewer people, or to end drug prohibition, or to stop brutalizing undocumented immigrants, or to have less racism enforced by our bureaucracies, or to reign in abusive social media firms, or to provide adequate health care to everyone. All of these things have already been done in particular states and municipalities. Large numbers of Americans already support these things. Even so, armies of Chickens Little lie in wait to assail those who reasonably suggest further improvements. We got in this position by gradual "sustainable" steps. Shit runs downhill. If everything continues to change in the way it has changed already, in ten years we'll be even further downhill. The 1960s' civil rights movement wasn't gradual accommodation. Old white people were angered all over the nation. That's why it led to genuine improvements. As Lenin said, one must always try to be as radical as reality itself.
      - nitrogen 6y ago
        The 1960s' civil rights movement wasn't gradual accommodation. And this and a multitude of other things drove some to double down on Confederate culture and eventually led to January 6th. The US abounds with examples of blowback at home and worldwide. That needs to be taken into account somehow in any future strategy for improvement. Giving the best and least committed of your opposition some dignity should make it easier to convince them to work with you to restore the much larger gap in dignity for others, and reduce the blowback.
        minikites 6y ago
jancsika 6y ago
> Changes for the better will necessarily be extreme. The aptly named "First Steps Act" smells a "No True Changes" fallacy here. :)

leesalminen 6y ago

> Changes for the better will necessarily be extreme. It’s long been my loosely held belief that _extreme_ change to a political system will _necessarily_ harm the average citizen. I think history has shown that to be true fairly consistently.

AshWolfy 6y ago
sometimes the short term harm inflicted on a few is worth the benefits it will bring society in the long term "Our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break?"
- nitrogen 6y ago
  But who among us has the moral authority to claim which harm is okay on which few? I remain convinced that the path to sustainable progress does not lie in the direction of extremes. Push too hard too fast, and you both amplify your opposition, and risk pushing in the wrong direction. But the great thing is we can all disagree on that, and still agree to work together where we can.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    We are constantly gaslit by the war media, so there is a difference between perception and reality. It would not be extreme in any real sense to stop fighting all or even some of our stupid murderous wars. It wouldn't be difficult; we could just... stop. Yet every time there is a suggestion to stop antagonizing Russia or China, or stop attempting to depose every Latin American leader who isn't a right-wing hardliner, or relax the economic sanctions imposed on a third of humanity, or just accept that Near Eastern nations are going to build the pipelines they choose to build where they choose to build them, we are subjected to intense campaigns of sky-is-falling fear-the-brown-people bullshit. It would not be extreme in any real sense to give labor unions more power, or to imprison fewer people, or to end drug prohibition, or to stop brutalizing undocumented immigrants, or to have less racism enforced by our bureaucracies, or to reign in abusive social media firms, or to provide adequate health care to everyone. All of these things have already been done in particular states and municipalities. Large numbers of Americans already support these things. Even so, armies of Chickens Little lie in wait to assail those who reasonably suggest further improvements. We got in this position by gradual "sustainable" steps. Shit runs downhill. If everything continues to change in the way it has changed already, in ten years we'll be even further downhill. The 1960s' civil rights movement wasn't gradual accommodation. Old white people were angered all over the nation. That's why it led to genuine improvements. As Lenin said, one must always try to be as radical as reality itself.
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      The 1960s' civil rights movement wasn't gradual accommodation. And this and a multitude of other things drove some to double down on Confederate culture and eventually led to January 6th. The US abounds with examples of blowback at home and worldwide. That needs to be taken into account somehow in any future strategy for improvement. Giving the best and least committed of your opposition some dignity should make it easier to convince them to work with you to restore the much larger gap in dignity for others, and reduce the blowback.
      - minikites 6y ago

jancsika 6y ago

> Changes for the better will necessarily be extreme. The aptly named "First Steps Act" smells a "No True Changes" fallacy here. :)