Hope you have a well used firearm and some training, because we had a functional government when all of these things happened, and do not now, this is the difference, maybe in 20 or 30 years we will get a 15$ minimum wage, and only another 15 or 20 after that and we might get health care
If youâre specifically looking for a list of all progressive policies/laws/court decisions that were enacted since Gingrich became Speaker of the House in 1995, I doubt that anyone here can provide a comprehensive list. But in addition to the life-altering, totally non-trivial right of gay folks to marry who they love, there are definitely a few other things that have moved in the right direction:
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The Affordable Care Act enshrines in law the right of all individuals to access health insurance regardless of pre-existing conditions. Maybe not as good as true universal health care would be, but still a big deal thatâs life-saving to many people, and also something that allows others to not be permanently chained to lousy jobs just because they donât want to lose health insurance.
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Gay and transgender folks can now serve openly in the military.
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The Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia Supreme Court decision now prevents employers from firing people based on their sexual orientation.
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Many state governments have enacted laws improving access to paid family leave to care for babies or other family members. In California that includes new fathers, and I was able to take advantage of it to help care for my last two kids. It wasnât very long ago that a woman could lose her job if she had to take off even just a couple weeks to care for a newborn.
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The Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia Supreme Court decision now prevents employers from firing people based on their sexual
Not where I live and work, in fact I have been fired for cause for being bi, I agree state level laws in some places has gotten better, but I am speaking to federal law, and with the current government do you think anything progressive will be passed? That is our collective problem, we have nazis as governors, and an opposition that dosenât want to rock the boat, we can probably get some democrats to quit, but if expletive deleted is going to keep her seat then there is no will to actually fix anything and in two years it will be "man those republicans are making everything so impossible, we just couldnât get anything done, please give us more money " and the gop will continue to nazi and figure out how to kill us better and more legally
Birmingham Church Bombing - HISTORY
The truth behind Americaâs most famous gay-hate murder | LGBT rights | The Guardian
For a certain value of âfunctional.â It is much easier to give up. Not in my nature, nor in many others.
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Right!? Anyone who says âpast generations of political activists were only able to get shit done because they werenât facing the challenges we have todayâ needs to take a step back and get some perspective.
Fighting for social progress has NEVER been easy.
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It seems like your mind is pretty made up despite several people offering evidence to the contrary. Iâm not sure what you hope to accomplish trying to convince people who are willing to organize and work and fight to make things better that there is no hope and nothing will change for the better, though. Whatâs the point in trying to demoralize people fighting for and (albeit slowly) achieving positive change?
It seems that time would be better spent calling your representatives and letting them know what you want them to do. Or just doing a sudoku or something.
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My rep doesnât give rats ass about the gen population. Now, if you call his office and say that you are a lobbyist for Corp x or defense contractor y, you might just get an invite to his Spring BBQ.
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Okay, maybe not calling your rep, then. It just seems like actively trying to discourage other people from working for change is worse than simply sitting this one out.
And negating all the progress on the state level, as is being done here, is myopic. That is a proven path to national change. 
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Yep, start even more local. School boards, Sheriff, Mayors, etcâŚ
⌠state reps, state senators, county supersâŚ
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Exactly and the midterm elections / local election are even more important than Presidential elections. If you arenât voting in 2022, then you are helping the opposition.
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As I have said before, the right figured out way back in the 80âs how important it was to invest in local elections and dominate at the local, then state level , particularly in places like VA were off-off year elections used to ensure that only the really motivated would bother to vote. That strategy worked marvelously for them. We need to take a page from their book and focus on local elections and state elections to break the stranglehold they have on the rules regarding voting. Then we can look at actual representation.
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Yes. This. The run off in January here was a great example of people not letting up the pressure to get out the vote. I think one thing that people did learn this year was that voting does matter. I can only hope this will be true in 2022 as well, up and down the ticket.
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Iâm not trying to to get anyone to stop trying to make change, I have been saying that what is being done is not working, and we should figure better ways to try and make things better, and that those governing us do not care about anything we do. Iâm not saying change is unachievable, but with the current situation it is, and there is no will on either side of our elected officials to make any of the changes we need to survive, but I guess fuck me cause I donât believe in nacy or chuck are going to save us
In the kinds of places I work, anyone flailing about like you are would be sedated and removed so that the serious people can get some work done.
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Nancy and Chuck are not going to save us. We are going to save us. That is the only way this works. And the GA run-off and Stacy Abrams organizing and GOTV efforts have shown that this absolutely does work. It is not easy, it requires a hell of a lot of work. The right put in that work back in the olden times to get a stranglehold on state and local government. We need to get it back. Period.
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Who in this forum suggested or implied we can all sit back and relax because âNancy and Chuck are going to save us?â
As far as I can tell youâre the only one in this thread who has pooh-poohed the kinds of grassroots political activism that can bring about effective change.
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I have one adjustment to this. There are elections THIS YEAR, because local elections happen every year. In the states where Iâve lived (NJ and PA), there are openings for county positions, municipal positions, judicial positions, school board positions, etc. on a staggered cycle. Getting people thinking this is not an annual event is why they sometimes mess up and donât show up when it counts.
It needs to be treated like something as regular as death and taxes. Itâs an annual responsibility that never goes away. Since there is never a year when somebody is not getting elected to something, thereâs no way that eligible voters should just take a year off.
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True. I live in Virginia and our Governorâs race will be Nov 2, 2021. How VA goes is usually a good sign for the national midterms in the following year.
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Defeatist, ahistorical nonsense.
When I was born being gay was still widely considered either a form of mental illness or a criminal offense. Same-sex marriage was little more than a glimmer in the eye of the most idealistic activists.
When my parents were kids many states were still enforcing anti-miscegenation laws.
When my grandparents were young Japanese-American citizens were getting marched off into detention camps without legal process or even widespread public criticism.
When my great-grandparents were young women werenât allowed to vote.
None of those changes just happened on their own. They happened because progressives fought tooth and nail to change the system in all the ways you say are ineffective.
Thatâs gonna be a hard disagree from me.
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I think youâre entirely wrong. Things are better now for African Americans then they were in the 1940s and 1950s, for example. Is there still wide-scale oppression and major problems with racism in America? Fuck yes. No doubt there is much work left to be done. But Iâd wager that most Black Americans would not choose to live in the 1940s or 50s.
And just in a very recent example, Abrams and the thousands of Georgians working with her and her organizations flipped the states. Thatâs not nothing.
Youâre assuming that all Democrats are the leadership and vote in lockstep with the more conservative leadership. Thatâs simply not the case. The Democratic caucus in Congress is far more diverse and more willing to push for change, especially the newer members, than the old Clintonite guard. AOC is a Democrat. Stacey Abrams is a Democrat. Raphael Warnock is a Democrat. They can change the party from the bottom up, because change rarely comes from the top-down.
Go check out that podcast. We can let them bully us or not.
Again, in the civil rights movement, people were killed. Yet they persevered (and continue to do so). People came out despite the violence, murders, and attempted murders.
What makes you think that? The senate passed reconciliation, they are waiting on the house version, and Biden is going on the road to drum up support for the bill. It might pass with no GOP members voting for it, but it seems likely to pass.
Thatâs great!
I think that might be the case.
Me too. Iâm also not saying things are okay right now by any stretch of the imagination. Itâs pretty clear that the populist, hard right wing of the GOP is in ascendancy, and that is deeply concerning. But part of the reason they are so vocal and active is because the world is changing around them, and they donât like it. Iâm not saying ignore them or that theyâre not a threat. They are. Iâm saying that this means we should not let up, as tired as we might be.
I know you (and many others) feel exhausted, but there are people who literally canât turn away from this struggle because they have no choice being directly targeted by these fascists. if those of us with some degree of privilege turn away, because we think weâve lost, then we reallyâŚ
Then this is the struggle. Just the fact that people who ran for office are seriously discussing these issues and even more radical views such as addressing reparations for slavery shows that it is possible to address these issues.
Then we build it back.
I get it⌠itâs frustrating and infuriating, but how does giving up help?
There was an election, for one, that did change at least who is in charge. We got new members of congress who ran on social justice platforms. Since when does change come immediately after protests. It always takes time to get the changes through.
It is not. For a myriad of reasons. Plenty of people canât leave and where would anyone go in the midst of a pandemic, anyhow?
This is how change is made. Again, itâs ahistorical to say other wise.
And we can change that.
That is illegal and if you can prove that, you have a case. Reach out to a local civil rights legal organization for help.
Even my ânaziâ government did the right thing when it came to this election.
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