Yeah, I understand the possibility that a comment like that just isn’t worth responding to. Apathy is such a ubiquituous kneejerk response that it’s basically the fediverse’s equivalent of youtube’s “First!!” comments.

But we need more productive discourse, and sometimes that requires addressing all the potentially cynical readers out there who will just read the headline, see the apathy in these comments, and continue on with their doomscroll without a moment’s thought

It’s an ideological war. Most of it will look like talking until the talking pushes people to start acting. You can’t just skip ahead to the revolution and push the “riot” button, you have to convince people to act.

Everybody paying attention is already aware of these things.

They haven’t been paying attention and no, they’re not already aware. Not everyone in the nation is on the same page. Clearly.

I understand why you’re trying to find reasons to be upset, and simplify the situation. But what are you actually trying to find here? What are you contributing?

What did MLK’s “I have a dream” speech accomplish? What did Sophia Scholl’s leaflets accomplish? What are you accomplishing, right here, right now, with this comment?

I am by no means elevating the senator’s speech to that level of historical importance. But the point stands. It’s an ideological war. It has to be fought with ideas. There is no other way.

To fight fascism is to fight especially when it feels like it accomplishes nothing. To fight an ideological war is not just to fight against your enemy - it is to fight for the hearts and minds of your friends.

I think it’s important that we start filling the fediverse and the world with more productive discussion. It feels like every single post and thread around here is completely hijacked by the “centrist/leftist/third party voters” conversation.

The first comments you see on every news article aren’t even about the article, it’s unrelated complaints against the presumed opinions of other people who may or may not have voted, some of whom may have been bots or internationals or children.

It’s wildly counterproductive. We need to move forward and really push for solidarity and meaningful solutions. We can’t stop fascism by fighting each other.

He talked for a little over a day.

There’a a reason there was a 24 hour record to be broken in the first place. Standing and delivering a speech for 25 hours straight is a genuinely incredible physical and mental feat.

The talking is to hold up the Senate, give voices to seniors worried about losing social security, and to draw more attention to the absolutely broken state of our government.

It’s an ideological war. Most of it will look like talking until the talking pushes people to start acting. You can’t just skip ahead to the revolution and push the “riot” button, you have to convince people to act.

Government doesn’t issue the ID for free, and needs to send it to a valid address. It’s nothing more than an attempt to stop voters from voting. If they actually cared about preserving democracy, they would make the ID’s free and easily accessible before requiring them to vote.

The more important issue is that it’s not an issue. There are no indications that non-citizens or identity thieves have had any impact on federal elections. Voter fraud is simply not a problem, so new laws to stop voter fraud really only exist to stop voters.

A man stood and spoke for over 24 hours straight and so many are dismissing it as nothing more than “performative”

This is what it looks like to fight. It’s not perfect, it’s not easy, it’s not even clear if it will do anything. But it’s something. It’s someone standing up and forcing people to listen to the voices of the unheard.

That’s what it looks like to fight. It’s an ideological war for the soul and future of the nation - did you really think it would be simple, or easy? That we would have natural heroes and great victories?

Fight in whatever way you can. Yell from whatever rooftop you can find, including the senate floor. Kick and scream, even if it feels pointless. But don’t stand around doing nothing but questioning the contributions of others. We need solidarity.

What would a 21st century ‘New Deal’ even look like?

It could look identical to the original. Restore the capital gains and high-income tax rates. Do all the infrastructure investments over again with modern tech (high speed and light rail, renewable energy, desalination, etc)

Fair labor standards 2.0, with 32 hour workweek, guaranteed leave, triple the minimum wage, and medicare for all. The last one should save small business more than enough money and administrative overhead to pay for the rest, but tax incentives for small businesses will help too.

Reinforce the national labor relations and social security acts. Create the political transparency act to overturn citizens united. Throw out the parties and the political bribery entirely if you can, if you can’t, limit and publicize it. Tax 1-5% of all political donations over X dollars, and feed all of it into social security and medicare. All of federal legislature, executive, and judiciary now gets their salary from social security and their healthcare from medicare.

This wouldn’t really save the world, but it should be enough to keep the US going until we find better answers. Obviously there’s no guarantees we could find the political capital to get any of this done, even in the Great Depression 2: electric boogaloo.

No need for the messages to actually be deleted. Marking them for deletion is enough for the law. If the law was enough anymore.

Cancelled research into transgenics because it starts with “trans”