That’s why I find solarpunk to be an interesting idea. Rather than imagine the apocalypse, imagine the solutions to it, then put them into practice in reality.
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Which is what Nix’s speech was likely based off.
Personally I don’t have any bandwidth for anyone who’s already given up in defeat before the fight has even truly begun.
I say again;
Unfuck 'em; I will survive.
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Indeed!
Obligatory…
Actually, Kathleen Hannah said something similar once, about how she had this urge to tear shit down, but realized that in order to do that, you need to have models to rebuild, even if it was just “a little lego house”… Any sort of positive modeling of an alternative to what does exist is necessary to move forward. And we can model the negative or the positive. That’s up to us.
I’ve been pondering lately the whole cynicism that’s seemingly been the predominant tone since at least the 70s…
Could be!
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The usual extremist radicals who think that all humans should enjoy basic human rights, that equal rights are, in fact, human rights, that destroying the only planet capable of supporting us is a bad idea, that science beats opinion. You know, those kind of extremists.
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Clearly, a bunch of Stalins, that lot…
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I think they’ve been pushing for it long before Jan 6th. Had to look up how long ago Ruby Ridge and the Bundy case happened. That anti-government rhetoric and Second Amendment supporter mashup is the toxic stew they’ve been marinating in since Reagan.
I have to disagree. The major problem that hasn’t been resolved yet is that the extremists on the right and their allies (corporate interests, wealthy individuals, and those willing to gain profit or power no matter what the cost to others) are dominating the dialogue and they have been working on that since the '80s. Now, we are seeing the terrible payoff for allowing all of their “media spin,” lies, mischaracterizations, and manipulation of the facts air 24/7, make front page news, and achieve the highest ranking on social media. Those reports were lightly challenged or contested, if at all, and of course facts, truth, and retractions wound up somewhere near the back page, or as follow-up pieces which gain a fraction of the attention of the original.
Publications and news networks that used to be considered bastions of the left have been corrupted by their corporate owners, so now they are echo chambers that will take any poll, ill-considered study, or opinion piece, and publish it. The GOP/GQP used both-siderism to game the press so that it all largely reflects their interests and views, and casts anything positive from the left in a negative or threatening light. It’s gotten so bad that even supposedly liberal late night talk show hosts are repeating these talking points as jokes.
Hence the unchecked Biden-bashing (active and passive) we see on a regular basis, in terms of the pandemic, the supply chain, the economy, and the stock market. Every gain is immediately followed by some measure to detract from or derail it, but for some reason, I haven’t seen much in the press about how that mysteriously happens every time. Stock market starts to rally, and suddenly a few tech firms or industry leaders make announcements or make moves to tank it again. I expect this to continue through the mid-terms, because the narrative they are pushing is “the economy is bad because Democrats are in charge.”
The big challenge is getting that message to the people when those in opposition control most of the media. It’s in the interest of media moguls and pols to keep people uniformed and fighting each other, rather than paying attention to what they are doing. This is how they repeatedly convince people to vote against their own interests.
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I ride. So getting trampled by a horse is a distinct possibility. I hadn’t thought about it until now. Gee, thanks! 
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That’s not what I meant at all.
What I consider too far others might consider not far enough. And my middle of the road opinion is considered too far left by lots of conservatives.
My best guess is, average citizens just trying to survive are closer to the middle than the right or left.
There is definitely a you’re either with us or against us attitude in this country which forces people to choose sides making things worse.
I have no idea what the solution is but it it ain’t a civil war.
Agreed. I’m surrounded by “less civilized” people but I also think you’ll find those types everywhere in the US.
It’ll be a scenario of neighbors vs neighbors, too.
Best to be active, vote, donate, and cultivate goodwill with as many decent folk as you can find around you.
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Average citizens just trying to survive are much more closely aligned with leftist policy, provided you don’t tell them it’s leftist policy. Which is a good chunk of the problem.
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Pffft. Like those cosplay cretins know anything about sustainable food. Their dream is the rest of us
bedraggled and begging for their (somehow) never ending supply of k-rations.
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The major issues for people who are literally trying to survive right now are a living wage, womens rights and trans rights. The only people I see who are fighting for those are on the left. The “moderates” are trying to water them down and the right are trying to remove any possibility of them.
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also by having bad ideas that don’t work
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Or making it clear to anyone on the right thinking of starting a war that they won’t necessarily find it the pushover they expect.
(NATO/Ukraine and Russia come to mind as an analogy, albeit imperfect in several ways.)
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Yes, by all means, let’s poison America with even more guns in hopes the people completely detached from reality will take notice, and stop their paranoid fantasies about the chance to murder people they hate accordingly. 
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I was not indicating approval - apologies for appearing to do so - just noting that there may be other motivations for giving the other side the impression of being prepared.
Ultimately, the continuum has Popper’s ‘do not tolerate intolerance’ (or ‘punch a nazi’) at one end and civil or other war (e.g. WWII) at the other end. I’m not sure where on the continuum being prepared is, but I can’t ultimately separate them as different issues, just differences of scale. If people are completely detached from reality, though … well, you may have a point: there’s a difference between extremist and nutter (detached from reality).
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given that every state, regardless of population, gets two senators
Does no one take civics or history or anything anymore?
I keep seeing this argued as a point on how the US isn’t a democracy because of the senate.
The balance between “rep by pop” and “rep by region” has been a struggle that most democracies deal with. So many countries around the world use the two house system as a compromise. A lot of blood has been spilled and a lot of rallies have been held to get to this point.
One house gives seats for population. The other gives seats per region. That way the populous areas don’t completely steamroll the less populous areas, and the government must be for all the people. It’s a tale as old as time.
This doesn’t make the governments of those countries any less democracies.
The issue is that right now in the US, the populous areas are mostly the left, and the less populous regions are mostly the right, so the two houses are almost always at odds. The left wants to get rid of the senate so that they have control, and suddenly “democracy” and “land doesn’t vote!” are battle cries once more.
Everything old is new again.
The left wants to get rid of the current stranglehold in the Senate by regressive theocratic fascists, so we can get done things that will improve the material living conditions of our citizens.
FIFY.
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People who believe in the core liberal-democratic value of “one human, one vote” would like to reform Congress to better reflect that ideal. One completely Constitutional way to do that is to have the House and Senate vote together.
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Personally I am in favour of something like Murray Bookchin’s Communalism, where power comes from the bottom up rather than the top down.
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