This entire comic is just a reiteration of the same divisive rhetoric that has long since kept us from consistently making positive change. The battle has always been the people vs the ruling class, and the best way to distract people from that has always been to focus one subset of the people against another subset of the people.
If you wanted an accurate comic, you’d need republicans and democrats together on a nearby megayacht shooting holes into the boat occupied by the entire American working class. Maybe republicans are shooting the majority of the holes, but the idea that the democrats are actually baling water is ridiculous.
At best democrats are like the cops that stand by while their coworker murders an innocent civilian, then stay quiet during the subsequent “internal investigation.” Sure, you should use your voting power to ensure they get in power over their gun-crazy friends, but don’t for a second believe real positive change will happen until we come together as an entire working class and force it to.
Democrats are doing plenty, it’s just not in our favor. Our government is far too far gone to allow anyone with any real good intentions to seize power. At this point our “democracy” is essentially picking which of the monarch’s 2 corrupt children we want as king next. One’s terrible, and the other is better by comparison, but we would’ve called him terrible 30 years ago for good reason. I’m voting for him, but I have no illusions that positive change will happen as a result.
Nobody’s baling any water on this sinking ship. Our only choice for real survival is to seize some of the hundreds of corporate overlords’ reinforced ships that are all around us. But I honestly think we’ll all just die lamenting that the tiny dingy we were allowed by the ruling class was too worn out, and blaming each other for not baling for just a little longer, for surely they’d have thrown us a lifeline soon… Any election now…
You bale water to prevent a ship from sinking. If your baling doesn’t overcome the amount of water coming into the ship, then you’re just spending your time buying more time with diminishing returns. Even that would be beneficial if there was something we were waiting for, but there’s not. Our politics keep getting worse even when we win elections. The longer we wait, the harder it becomes for us to do anything about it. What we need now isn’t time, it’s the courage to swim to one of the corporate overlords’ ships and take what’s ours. The only way we avoid drowning is to get a better ship, and the longer we spend baling, the more invested we get in the idea that it’s helping. As I’ve said, I’m still voting. I believe voting is good, but I don’t believe it’s the equivalent to baling water, and the more we think of it as being something akin to a real solution, the less we focus on real solutions that might actually save us.
What we need now isn’t time, it’s the courage to swim to one of the corporate overlords’ ships and take what’s ours.
To use a particularly apt phrase, that ship has sailed. There will be no revolution. I don’t know how anyone sane could look at the state of the world and think they a) there’s some revolution on the horizon, and b) it would result in a better world order if it happened.
It’s the leftist version of “it’s okay to poison the planet because the Rapture is coming soon so it doesn’t matter what we do now”. It’s an excuse for apathy and laziness.
There is no revolution coming to save you. We have to save ourselves the difficult way, through voting and incremental steps. Belief in a sudden revolution that will make everything better is childish.
There is no revolution coming to save you. We have to save ourselves the difficult way, through voting and incremental steps. Belief in a sudden revolution that will make everything better is childish.
Saving ourselves the difficult way you say pushing the quite dangerous status quo thinking that is leading us into the very catastrophe that you somehow don’t see coming. Both climate change and late stage capitalism are real problems and potentially apocalyptic in size.
That is going to cause revolution (with revolution being the fundamental change of culture and social relations) wether we are prepared for it or not. Not because of some vague march of history or whatever but because changes in environment impact our thinking and the viability and security of systems that are currently running the world, and because large changes in environment are coming for all of us.
Trying to just work within the structure to change the superstructure is similarly naive as just waiting idly for revolution. The neoliberal revolution for example was able to change the superstructure in a lasting way fairly recently and fairly quickly, because they were positioning themselves in anticipation of crisis, and not because they were playing only by the rules in the structure.
Yes voting for the “correct” candidates is important in some ways but it completely misses the importance and scale of problems to come and what is needed to protect ourselves as best as we can from their impact. Americans can trust the Democrats fully and be disappointed again and again, but they can also decide to build and change their political landscape in other ways while still voting dem as long as that’s the appropriate harm reduction vote.
Voting and incremental change are the “easy” parts, building and protecting for yourself and your community, so that you and your loved ones are able to “not let a good crisis go to waste” is the kind of revolutionary pre figuration that we need right now. There will be violence either way we might as well try to use it to change things for the better for more people afterwards and during.
I don’t know how anyone sane could look at the state of the world and think they a) there’s some revolution on the horizon, and b) it would result in a better world order if it happened.
To a.) giving myself the presumably 60+ years until my death there is certainly a (couple of) revolution(s) before the horizon
To b.) yes the worst people and institutions you can probably imagine will use everything in their power to make everything worse which is exactly why there needs to be real resistance which the Democrats aren’t because they are part of the structure and largely don’t have your interests at heart. They could be changed for the better until then, but while they are moving slowly something else needs to be built as well.
Voting and incremental change are the “easy” parts, building and protecting for yourself and your community, so that you and your loved ones are able to “not let a good crisis go to waste” is the kind of revolutionary pre figuration that we need right now. There will be violence either way we might as well try to use it to change things for the better for more people afterwards and during.
Well you’re still just as wrong and naive as the fundamentalists but at least in the mean time you’re doing the right thing. In 30 years when there’s still no revolution you’ll thank yourself for supporting incremental progress.
Poison the planet? Do you honestly believe that government corruption has progressed to the point that they’d use nuclear weapons on their own people if we rose against them? And if you do, do you honestly believe we’re not just waiting for the fall of humanity anyway? Do you honestly think that politics has gotten at all better in the last 30 years? The difficult way of making change isn’t to vote in a “lesser evil” and hope they do good by accident…
Revolution is the final resort of downtrodden people everywhere, and is exactly what our country was founded on. It’s not lazy or childish, it’s a major decision that takes hard work and planning just to have a shot, which is why people only try it when there’s literally no other way out. And if you think that we’d get nuked if we tried it, then damn, there really is no other way out.
I want people to vote! But ultimately I realize that voting is the amazing tool that it is when you’re presented with an objectively good choice to make. If you can steer a country either toward a cliff or toward greener pastures, voting is the best tool you’ve got, but when the only choice is between steering the country toward a cliff or a different cliff a little further away, it’s time to force out a third option, even if that means starting over. Vote for the further cliff in the meantime, yes, but realize that all you’re doing is buying time, and use it to drum up support for an actual solution. It’s better to start from scratch alive then to die whining that you weren’t handed any other choices.
Haha, that’s because I view getting people used to the idea of revolution as being a lot more akin to baling water than voting for another corrupt politician. We’re not there as a society yet, and I get that. People need to truly feel backed into a corner before they start to fight back, but I honestly believe that America won’t last the century at its current rate of decline, so I want people to be aware that there are other options than simply lying down and continuing to beg the system to please stop popping out corrupt leaders.
This entire comic is just a reiteration of the same divisive rhetoric that has long since kept us from consistently making positive change. The battle has always been the people vs the ruling class, and the best way to distract people from that has always been to focus one subset of the people against another subset of the people.
If you wanted an accurate comic, you’d need republicans and democrats together on a nearby megayacht shooting holes into the boat occupied by the entire American working class. Maybe republicans are shooting the majority of the holes, but the idea that the democrats are actually baling water is ridiculous.
At best democrats are like the cops that stand by while their coworker murders an innocent civilian, then stay quiet during the subsequent “internal investigation.” Sure, you should use your voting power to ensure they get in power over their gun-crazy friends, but don’t for a second believe real positive change will happen until we come together as an entire working class and force it to.
“Democrats aren’t doing enough” lol you’re proving the comic true right now.
Democrats are doing plenty, it’s just not in our favor. Our government is far too far gone to allow anyone with any real good intentions to seize power. At this point our “democracy” is essentially picking which of the monarch’s 2 corrupt children we want as king next. One’s terrible, and the other is better by comparison, but we would’ve called him terrible 30 years ago for good reason. I’m voting for him, but I have no illusions that positive change will happen as a result.
Nobody’s baling any water on this sinking ship. Our only choice for real survival is to seize some of the hundreds of corporate overlords’ reinforced ships that are all around us. But I honestly think we’ll all just die lamenting that the tiny dingy we were allowed by the ruling class was too worn out, and blaming each other for not baling for just a little longer, for surely they’d have thrown us a lifeline soon… Any election now…
Gee, I wonder why - -
Oh, it’s because in this analogy, you’re literally too stupid to survive.
You bale water to prevent a ship from sinking. If your baling doesn’t overcome the amount of water coming into the ship, then you’re just spending your time buying more time with diminishing returns. Even that would be beneficial if there was something we were waiting for, but there’s not. Our politics keep getting worse even when we win elections. The longer we wait, the harder it becomes for us to do anything about it. What we need now isn’t time, it’s the courage to swim to one of the corporate overlords’ ships and take what’s ours. The only way we avoid drowning is to get a better ship, and the longer we spend baling, the more invested we get in the idea that it’s helping. As I’ve said, I’m still voting. I believe voting is good, but I don’t believe it’s the equivalent to baling water, and the more we think of it as being something akin to a real solution, the less we focus on real solutions that might actually save us.
To use a particularly apt phrase, that ship has sailed. There will be no revolution. I don’t know how anyone sane could look at the state of the world and think they a) there’s some revolution on the horizon, and b) it would result in a better world order if it happened.
It’s the leftist version of “it’s okay to poison the planet because the Rapture is coming soon so it doesn’t matter what we do now”. It’s an excuse for apathy and laziness.
There is no revolution coming to save you. We have to save ourselves the difficult way, through voting and incremental steps. Belief in a sudden revolution that will make everything better is childish.
Saving ourselves the difficult way you say pushing the quite dangerous status quo thinking that is leading us into the very catastrophe that you somehow don’t see coming. Both climate change and late stage capitalism are real problems and potentially apocalyptic in size.
That is going to cause revolution (with revolution being the fundamental change of culture and social relations) wether we are prepared for it or not. Not because of some vague march of history or whatever but because changes in environment impact our thinking and the viability and security of systems that are currently running the world, and because large changes in environment are coming for all of us.
Trying to just work within the structure to change the superstructure is similarly naive as just waiting idly for revolution. The neoliberal revolution for example was able to change the superstructure in a lasting way fairly recently and fairly quickly, because they were positioning themselves in anticipation of crisis, and not because they were playing only by the rules in the structure.
Yes voting for the “correct” candidates is important in some ways but it completely misses the importance and scale of problems to come and what is needed to protect ourselves as best as we can from their impact. Americans can trust the Democrats fully and be disappointed again and again, but they can also decide to build and change their political landscape in other ways while still voting dem as long as that’s the appropriate harm reduction vote.
Voting and incremental change are the “easy” parts, building and protecting for yourself and your community, so that you and your loved ones are able to “not let a good crisis go to waste” is the kind of revolutionary pre figuration that we need right now. There will be violence either way we might as well try to use it to change things for the better for more people afterwards and during.
To a.) giving myself the presumably 60+ years until my death there is certainly a (couple of) revolution(s) before the horizon To b.) yes the worst people and institutions you can probably imagine will use everything in their power to make everything worse which is exactly why there needs to be real resistance which the Democrats aren’t because they are part of the structure and largely don’t have your interests at heart. They could be changed for the better until then, but while they are moving slowly something else needs to be built as well.
Well you’re still just as wrong and naive as the fundamentalists but at least in the mean time you’re doing the right thing. In 30 years when there’s still no revolution you’ll thank yourself for supporting incremental progress.
Poison the planet? Do you honestly believe that government corruption has progressed to the point that they’d use nuclear weapons on their own people if we rose against them? And if you do, do you honestly believe we’re not just waiting for the fall of humanity anyway? Do you honestly think that politics has gotten at all better in the last 30 years? The difficult way of making change isn’t to vote in a “lesser evil” and hope they do good by accident…
Revolution is the final resort of downtrodden people everywhere, and is exactly what our country was founded on. It’s not lazy or childish, it’s a major decision that takes hard work and planning just to have a shot, which is why people only try it when there’s literally no other way out. And if you think that we’d get nuked if we tried it, then damn, there really is no other way out.
Learn how to read.
If you don’t like divisive rhetoric then stop telling people not to vote against genocide.
I want people to vote! But ultimately I realize that voting is the amazing tool that it is when you’re presented with an objectively good choice to make. If you can steer a country either toward a cliff or toward greener pastures, voting is the best tool you’ve got, but when the only choice is between steering the country toward a cliff or a different cliff a little further away, it’s time to force out a third option, even if that means starting over. Vote for the further cliff in the meantime, yes, but realize that all you’re doing is buying time, and use it to drum up support for an actual solution. It’s better to start from scratch alive then to die whining that you weren’t handed any other choices.
Oh, then you and I are in complete agreement except for the fact you believe in objective reality. Not sure why you’re arguing in this thread then
Haha, that’s because I view getting people used to the idea of revolution as being a lot more akin to baling water than voting for another corrupt politician. We’re not there as a society yet, and I get that. People need to truly feel backed into a corner before they start to fight back, but I honestly believe that America won’t last the century at its current rate of decline, so I want people to be aware that there are other options than simply lying down and continuing to beg the system to please stop popping out corrupt leaders.