We had a lunch lecture where this environmental scientist gave a talk about critical materials and how big of a problem our reliance on these are. He links the whole thing up with politics pretty well, explaining how various political actors are involved and benefit from this or that.
At some point, he even mentions how in the netherlands, policy doesn’t get passed without a buy-in from industry. It means quite a lot, cause this guy is government hired in recommending policies.
Then he contradicts himself in the next paragraph by saying that this is the curse of democracy that people make stupid decisions.
I ask this guy about the contradiction. How you simultaneously harp about profits over needs, the evils of consultancy firms, and the inability of the Dutch government to do anything but pursue corporate interests, while also talking about the problems of “democracy”?
He just tells me “we are a democracy that’s why the Dutch government listens to industry”. Well not exactly that, but at least that’s the message I get when he talks about all the corporate controlled parties winning the elections and how that’s what the people chose.
Dude is this close to realising that the definition of liberal democracy is “legitimised rule by corporations” .
Of course, the lecture ends with a book recommendation for a book about the collapse of human civilisation. And a recommendation to go vote and participate in political parties.
Unlimited death upon elections.
This is like when I see libs online say things like “We need to get money out of politics!!” but it begs a question no one ever asks, which is “How?”. How do you get money out of a political system so deeply entrenched with lobbying at its core? Naturally, when pressed on the question, they fall back to “we just need to support progressive candidates, we have to be more ‘politically active’ and we have to educate people on the issues”. Yet,
that what constituents want, and what results from our political system, never actually align at all.
I wonder what it is that keeps even the most politically engaged, and highly educated libs, like the one you are referring to, on the treadmill for so long?
The system is still working well enough for them to not really question it too deeply. They see Drumpf mucking things up on MSNBC, but their daily lives are still basically the same, and treat-filled. (This is why they get angry and not curious when you tell them that it’s possible to change things without necessarily voting or doing peaceful protests.) For me at least, as a liberal I sacrificed so much to the system and just kept getting fucked so hard in return that (with the proper guidance) I couldn’t help but start asking deeper questions.
If the existing political system is untenable, then that means that they are morally required to overthrow it, an endeavor that involves a lot of hard work, personal risk, and sacrifice. As Nechayev said:
Thanks for this lovely quote.
I think it goes back to the Western Chauvinism problem. Progressive libs, even if they earnestly want a future with a more empowered working class, have too much emotional attachment to the assumption that the tools necessary for such a future are in the liberal democracy toolkit. The ideology is that the solution must always be within this particular precept, and if it isn’t working right now it just means we haven’t plumped its depths enough to find it.
The chauvinism is so deeply entrenched, even some close friends of mine that call themselves socialist have a hard time believing that China and Russia aren’t trying to destroy all civilized society. Even with the horrors we are well aware of, they still believe the US is trying to be good if we could just get rid of those dang fascists and racists.
Ideology
Not being aware of alternatives.
This was me as a teenager. I collected little bits of 60’s leftism but had no outlet in my bougie ass town I grew up in. The nearest city with any youth movement is like 4 hours away
We just have to
for people who won’t take the money but not now because we need to run the safe old guy because this is the most important election of our lifetime™