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Bernie is asking you. That's all hes got. Sorry guys, no one else can do it.
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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Hear hear. When I look at the state of American democracy from outside, what I find really distressing is that it's not just Bernie; no mainstream person or organization with national reach is giving concrete advice and/or instructions on how to depose the oligarchy, so you have people's energy going to angry tweets and meaningless parades.
But how would they go about it? The system is so entrenched. Anything socialist is considered 'commie' and anti-american, a sentiment carefully cultivated since WWII. The two party system that relies on huge donations means the oligarchy has a huge input in politics no matter which party wins. The only thing that's being decided is which oligarchs will rule.
There's just no way to turn this around until things get bad enough that they can't hold the floodgates anymore. America is (fortunately for the little man who would suffer the most) still far from that.
What instructions are you looking for, exactly? Like, what are the instructions that 'should' be handed out at this point?
There's no simple, easy, or quick solution to this, and since the election, things have gotten considerably worse on the 'possible solutions' front. Calls to organize and seek alternatives to oligarch-controlled resources are the groundwork which orgs constantly call for but no one fucking heeds. So what're the instructions that will provide the solution that those calls haven't?
Yeah of course, which is why someone needs to be out there convincing people to do the things that aren't simple, easy or quick.
That's why I qualified my remark with "mainstream". I'm talking Bernie-like figures who are widely known and respected by liberals. Unless I'm mistaken that segment of the population still thinks elections and phone calls to Congressmen are going to fix this.
As I said above the problem is that the right people aren't providing those instructions, but also: strike, strike, strike. I'm getting past the point where I can make authoritative-sounding statements, but I find it really weird that what is arguably the strongest weapon in the working class's arsenal is barely being talked about. Yes I know groundwork is necessary for that (though I'd argue it's not nearly as much as commonly thought), but still someone needs to get the conversation from "strike? But my job/insurance/whatever!" to "how do we make it possible," and at least from my position outside America I haven't heard of anything on this front.
But Bernie constantly calls for people to organize at the grassroots level, to join unions, to seek alternatives to oligarch resources?
Bernie has spoken in support of strikes as a tool for pressuring not just employers but the oligarchy more broadly numerous times. If you're talking a general strike, that's a nice idea, but as you yourself note, there is a problem of needing groundwork (and support) for that. Groundwork which people seem disinterested in.
Organize and do what? Because the only thing I've heard Bernie saying in the past five months in the way of concrete action is "vote and call your representative".
Did he do so at any time after Trump's inauguration? If so I'll take back my statement, but I remember a conspicuous lack of such rhetoric during the oligarchy rallies, for instance.
Organizing is the first step, the groundwork. This is exactly what I'm talking about when I bitch about people wanting immediate action without placing the groundwork.
"Join your local unions, form local unions, support strikes"
Short of calling for illegal action (based but probably not realistic to expect from a sitting member of the legislature who will probably be hindered more than helped by a stay in jail) or a general strike (see: above comment about groundwork), again, as mentioned at the start of this, I'm not sure what you want him to be saying.
Fucking hate the enshittification of search engines, finding a set of transcripts or simply searching tweets is a fucking Herculean task. I'll get back to you on this if I find more than fucking two transcripts.
Certainly true, but what you're organizing for is also important, because organizing can be the groundwork for anything from negotiating better wages to starting a revolution. My point was that it's very possible that the sort of organizing we're talking about is very different from what Bernie is calling for. It's still useful advice, but not "fighting words," so to speak.
Uh... good luck, you'll need it.
I would argue that organization is a tool - unions have long been used for much broader ends than just the welfare of the workers in the individual union against the individual employer they are formed around. Being organized is, itself, a means to coordinate action on much broader issues - being organized to negotiate better wages puts you in a better position to start a revolution as well, even if that's not your initial intent. I mean, that's why unions have been at the forefront of nearly every major leftist revolution.
More broadly, it's why fascists (and, before fascism as a mass movement arose, late 19th century imperialists) co-op things like sports clubs, and why, historically, guilds and public fellowships were often suppressed or coopted by the reigning authorities - a tool may be made with a single intent, but it invariably has many uses if people become motivated to apply them.
Yeah, I'm... not sure that I have the motivation or morale to continue much more on that account.
Normally I'm an enemy of nostalgic thinking, remembering quite distinctly what the mid-late 2000s were like, but fuck, man, at least the search engines worked.
Of course, which is why it's still good advice, but to follow up on that example I'd argue that the unions at the forefront of major leftist revolutions were a lot more aggressive than anything America has now, because for instance they were the ones who (sometimes literally) fought for essentially everything modern workers have. Compare to modern unions who won't even strike if it's illegal and you'll see two completely different mentalities at work; unions back then were already predisposed to forceful direct action, which is at least part of why they were such important revolutionary actors. It's still better to have the organizational infrastructure (assuming it's not captured by capital) than to not have it, but the mentality shift needs to happen for anything near what 19th and early 20th century unions were doing to take place and so far almost nobody with nationwide prominence is even trying to have that conversation. This gets us back to my original point: The people best positioned to hasten this mentality shift such that it happens within a reasonable timeframe are all in denial. I'm not asking for people like Bernie and AOC to call for anything illegal, but the fact they're not out there actively calling for active resistance to the regime is a problem; someone needs to fill that hole and fast.