I think the following messaging would be useful and true:
“We don’t need a strong man to fix what’s broken in this country. An electoral landslide for a party committed to democracy would enable action and solution just as vigorous, without the lawless unaccountability of a tyrant.”
@GreenFire instead of a statement, maybe he could, like, write a letter.
i wanna quip that this is a campaign fueled by joy and gasoline, but i wonder if anybody would get the joke, and if they do, it doesn’t really quite fit.
@djc i think that’s right. but it’s a strange kind of democracy we’re running right now, is all i’m saying.
We’re kind of in a “You can read the bill after it passes” moment.
from #JoshEidelson https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-22/amazon-is-boss-of-subcontracted-drivers-violated-rights-nlrb-prosecutors-say?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTcyNDM1Mzc3MCwiZXhwIjoxNzI0OTU4NTcwLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTSU1QRkdUMVVNMFcwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJDQThGQ0Y4NkY1QjY0ODlCODA4ODkwNTFBNjMxRERBRCJ9.g3WIIH5wvPNfwiZK9essLliXJpatxrDkVN00x8epX0M
Text: Amazon.com Inc. was legally the boss of a group of subcontracted delivery drivers, US labor board prosecutors have concluded, rejecting the company's claims that workers in its sprawling delivery network aren't its employees. The general counsel office of the US National Labor Relations Board has determined that a group of drivers in Southern California were employees of Amazon itself, as well as of the "delivery service partner" company that hired them, agency spokesperson Kayla Blado said Thursday. The agency prosecutors also concluded that Amazon violated federal labor law by making illegal threats and refusing to negotiate after the workers organized last year with the Teamsters.
@desafinado sure, but both apply. personalism is a way of thinking that emphasizes the person and personal as key to understanding more broadly. in this sense, using a personal narrative as means of exploring and expressing ones political project is quite personalist. when we talk about a personalist leader, we conflate support of a person with support of a political project. the two senses are not the same, but they are not unrelated.
@marick @scott I really, really yearn for that kind of democracy. Without human access to representatives, it all loses form.It isn’t practical for us to be personally acquainted with US Presidents, but for legislatures and assemblies at a state and local level absolutely (though we might consider dividing bigger states), and i even play with ideas at the federal level. https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/9069.html
Parties once helped fill this role. But, ha!
@Lampa there are, but are they competing exactly? there’s a lot of admiration and fealty expressed by pretty much all of them, not to a platform or a party, but to a person.
@csweatpants I have some similar hobbyhorses, but about the scale of locality. I think the base level of democracy should mean so local that everyone interested personally interacts with representatives and officials at that level. Without that gateway, it is difficult to meaningfully participate. Impersonal tokens (votes, donations) are subject to so much manipulation. 1/
@csweatpants Politics should be an art of collective creation, not individual preference expression, not A/B testing of people isolated behind screens. /fin
@kentwillard to be fair, the contemporary Republican party has pretty fully acknowledged Iraq, not just with loose words but with some degree of accountability. none of that war’s protagonists have any place in Trump’s party. indeed some have become quite partisan Democrats (while retaining conservative views and commitments).
so many personalist narratives, from the party offering the alternative to personalist autocracy.
it suggests we’re in a pretty dangerous place, i think. parasocial attachment seems more in tension with than supportive of deliberative democracy. even when the object of attachment is not a wannabe dictator dick.
who has coopted whom?
i guess i must be weird, but among the least interesting things in politics to me are people’s inspiring personal stories.
i do have to confess, though, i think Kamala’s mom has the best name ever. Shamala. i just love the sound of it.
i wish there were less talk of breaking ceilings and more talk of raising floors.
@quixote when you go for supremacy, you’re more likely to get the hierarchy than the place you’d anticipated within it.
@quixote i remember! i wasn’t as opposed to encroaching commercialization of the internet as i should have been. i was at least aware enough to be mad about the crazy Clinton-era IP power grabs, the Mickey Mouse act and DMCA. but i still thought Google was the good guys!
in retrospect, i was kind of an idiot. at least there are some constants in life.
@Canecittadino@mastodon.world Only the future will tell, but I sure like to hope we’re still tabula rosa enough to remedy what we’ve broken and create something better than all the warts that were. We definitely have plenty to work on. I’m glad to sing on the same choir.
The price mechanism was broken not by communists with price controls but by market enthusiasts, when they allowed purchasing power to diverge very far from rough equality, which undermines completely the normative case for price rationing.
