"..."
"To meet everyone's basic needs, right?"

/AnakinAndPadmeMeme.jpg

The way I see it, between left and far left the direction is roughly the same, that's the means and end point that differ (i.e. revolution or not and how far we go into sharing resources). This is an important difference and they should thus not be mixed.

In a naive attempt to "meet everyone’s basic needs" sure, but in practice it would almost certainly end up enriching and entrenching a new ruling class, or collapsing under external pressure even if there are some early wins.

Many things sound simple from the outset. But tearing down and rebuilding an entire society isn’t something you do without significant (and often lethal) force and with plenty of intended and unintended casualties along the way (and there’s still a very good chance we'd screw it up).

If it's not "the good guys" wielding overwhelming force, it’ll be "the bad guys" stepping in. Every political system ultimately rests on the realistic threat/application of force; the only question is who controls it and how accountable they are.

I'm not inclined to trust anyone waving guns in my face, nor encourage situations that make that more likely. So, things would have to get a lot worse for me (and I'd venture most people) to want violent overthrow of my current (far from perfect) political and social system. That said ... at some point, for many people in many countries, it may be too late. Apathy isn't appropriate either.

Except removing those rights is not required to meet everyone's basic needs

Yeah, this thread is full of people who have lived their lives under absolute capitalist doctrine and cannot see an alternative and have never considered the underlying philosophy and morality of that system and can't even imagine another, so they backfill the blanks and rationalize what they have so they don't have to deal with actually thinking about it deeper because that would require effort and discomfort.

Politicalmemes? Yep, another right wing breeding ground, it always is.

There’s a twisted sort of logic to this. Let’s put ourselves in the position of that worker with one cookie for a second.

Two things are true in America:

1. the rich don’t pay taxes
2. benefits cost money

If the worker feels caught between those two things, he has to ask which he can change more easily. And clearly, denying benefits to the poor is easier than taxing the rich. In today’s climate, there is a “deny benefits to the poor” party that is very well mobilized and has delivered numerous victories. And where is the “tax the rich” option? Nowhere.

If this had a next image it would be the old rich guy stealing that last cookie while the other two fight.

The funny bit is that sometimes José too is a conservative, which is how you see plenty of immigrants doing the whole "pull the ladder up once you're in" and voting rightwing.

But rich white men stealing their crumbs is fine because they don't realize it's happening

ftfy

Good bars man

I guess you missed the "He's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting" thing the other year.

They're not nice people. They will vote for the leopard and act surprised when it comes for them.