These proposals were rejected by John f Kennedy, a Democrat

Yeah - JFK was more than happy to commit acts of terrorism against Cuban people, but he drew the line at Americans. Great example of the difference between Democrats and Republicans.

Aw you’re right. Golly, I hate democrats so much! I’m going to vote red down the ballot this November. Thanks for clearing that up for us!

Obviously just because the Democrats are evil that doesn’t mean you should vote for the more evil party. You should recognize that Democrats aren’t the solution to the problem and look for some alternative pathway to real, long-term change. Don’t shoot the messenger.

I don’t see a solution where we don’t change the democratic party but I will say that most canidates I voted for did not win but its not all bad. Kat came very close to defeating biss which is historic in its own way given how young she was and how much of an established party guy he was. For senate we have stratton which I feel is better than the initial front runner but my real progressive pick was kelly. People need to realize how important the primaries are. ugh hynes won over kagi for comptroller. I saw a lot of twisting of situations to try and take back progressive winners from before back to machine party type of canidates. incumbent kept his state congressional seat in my area unfortunately to.

If our elections are not free and democratic, what makes you think the primaries are?

I don’t believe our elections are not free and democratic they just have a process that favors a two party system and people are easily manipulated. I mean my mind is blown by how aweful the typical politcal ad is and most will turn me more off to the canidate than get me to vote for them but unfortunately I believe the average person is nothing like me. I mean I don’t want everyone to be like me but I would not mind if most people had a greater level of cognitive ability. Sure it would make me an idiot relatively but it would greatly increase the intelligence of our societies. I do believe citizens need to realize how important and precious our system is under the constituiton and how bar none our biggest issue currently is the constitution being violated as a matter of policy (as opposed to single individual one time events which is as unavoidable as any other one single individual one time crime ).

Do you think that a candidate with a campaign backed by billion-dollar donors would have the same access to democracy as a grass roots candidate self-financing their campaign through working class donors? Or that a candidate backed by the mainstream media would be as likely to win as a candidate who is smeared by the mainstream media?

That’s what I mean by free and democratic - that each candidate has a fair shot of winning based on their policy platform and messaging alone.

this is on the voters. Oh no. They have so much money. I can’t resist voting for them. I mean while I can be mad that other folks don’t vote well and I agree we need to get money out of the sytem, I still live in a democracy where ballots are cast and counted and adjudicated fairly. I have been an observer which is not hard to do. Civic organizations, parties, and canidates are generally desperate for them as it takes time. That and being an election judge is an amazing experience and a good way to understand the election process.

It doesn’t really matter whose fault it is, though, the fact is that most people are completely unengaged with politics, so it doesn’t matter how progressive your candidates are, the capitalists can just flood the zone and manipulate those voters into voting against their own interests.

Electoralism simply isn’t a magic solution to our problems. Of course those who can should use every tool we have to try and shift the needle, but the system is rigged against us, we need to work on dismantling the system from outside it, as well as from within. Protest and elect, with an emphasis on protest. We need to build a real worker led movement.

yeah see im not cool with any system done so far in human history other than democracy. Im fine changing how we vote and such but this comes to close to well the real problem is democracy.

Remember that the Israeli Knesset is democratically elected. Democracy isn’t any protection from fascism.

How much do you know about anarchism?

yeah democracy can fall but its what I want and willing to go with. Certainly I would love to be able to setup the rules just based on my thinking but unfortunately the only legitimate framework document you can have has to be determined democratically to. You know they should have made a requirement that the populace has to renew the constitution every 20 years.

But don’t you recognize that trying the same thing again and again and expecting different results is just going to get us nowhere? The system is completely broken, it cannot be fixed by using the broken system, we need to take a bold new approach. We can regret mistakes of the past all we want but it changes nothing. We must focus on the future. We need to build a new society in the shell of the old one, and the only way to achieve that is anarchism.

we have gotten different results and things have changed greatly. building a new society it great for a hundred years later. Sometimes and sorta rarely. There are many revolutions around the world now and throughout history and only a fraction lead to something decent. You have about as good a chance of being liberated by a foreign power. Fixing systems have an effect now and is much more likely to work. Now yeah it takes more than voting. You can’t just vote twice a year and call it good. You have to push in all ways acceptable to you and excerise your rights or rights you should have.

we have gotten different results and things have changed greatly.

Yes, we have some progress, especially around social issues, but economically, things have only worsened over time. The 1% own more and more of everything. I’m glad to hear that you support protest as a form of pushing things in the right direction.

Social revolution isn’t the same thing as what people generally mean by revolution - so you should probably read a little more about that, I provided a link for your convenience in the previous comment. I really think it would open your eyes a lot to learn about anarchism. I really hope you give some of the links I shared a read, you owe it to yourself to learn about how we can achieve a better world together.

Anyways, I think we broadly agree on the important things, and thank you for the civil and engaging conversation. Much love and solidarity, and I wish you all the best.

The 1% have gotten a larger slice of the pie since 1970 but the great depression gave us changes that helped a lot and it can be repeated. The big problem is where it started to go with the policies of the 80’s and a transition from a sorta two steps forward one back to two steps back one forward to what is currently all back and if we get somewhat normalized there will be many backsteps to make up just to get back. I have looked at socialism/communism and anarchy in the past but again im not personally willing to deal with the collapse of a revolution in the hopes of a better future. Well until you get to one of the meanings with freedom which we are close to. Realize though that im a die for rather than kill for type of person so my contribution in a revolution is to die fast and skip that noise. Thanks for making the conversation more solidifying with your gracious comments understanding that there is one opponent in the 1% despite our differences in method of fighting. Honestly its more like 10% but that is because the 9% below the 1% don’t realize how much they are getting screwed and are ready to die because they think their wealth is being drained from the bottom rather than hoovered up by the top.