You may have noticed a distinct lack of return2ozma. This is due to their admitting, in a public comment, that their engagement here is in bad faith:
Iām sure there will be questions, let me see if I can address the most obvious ones:
- Can I still post negative stuff about Biden?
Absolutely! We have zero interest in running an echo chamber. However, if ALL youāre posting is negative, you may want to re-think your priorities. You get out of the world what you put into it and all that.
- Why now?
Presumption of innocence. It may be my own fault, but I do try to think the best of people, and even though they were posting negative articles, they werenāt necessarily WRONG. Bidenās poll numbers, particularly in minority demographics ARE in the shitter. They are starting to get better, but he still has a hell of a hill to climb.
- Why a 30 day temp ban and not a permanent ban?
The articles return2ozma shared werenāt bad, faked, or from some wing-nut bias site like ābeforeitsnews.comā, they were legitimate articles from established and respected news agencies, pointing out the valid problems Biden faces.
The problem was ONLY posting the negatives, over and over and then openly admitting that dishonest enagement is their purpose.
Had they all been bullshit articles? It would not have taken anywhere near this much time to lay the ban and it would have been permanent.
30 days seems enough time for them to re-think their strategery and come back to engage honestly.
Well I guess i appreciate the benefit of the doubt, even though I still take issue with the default seemingly being āshill, unless enough effort is shownā.
You and I, I think, have put in far more effort into arguing our cases than most people on here do. Most people who share my perspective have long since stopped trying to argue anything in good faith at all with centrists, because doing so almost always ends with an accusation. Therein lies the pitfall of the shill-unless-proven-otherwise attitude - it makes it easy to characterize most people as shills, enabling anyone to dismiss or accept a perspective at-will according to what they believe a ānormalā perspective to be.
I have no suspicion you are a troll - not because you put more effort into your comments than I think a bad actor would, but because itās not hard for me to imagine your perspective as valid. Itās also not hard for me to imagine someone who supports trump, or doesnāt believe in climate change, or believes gay marriage is a sin (my relationship with my father is almost defined by our vociferous disagreement on those subjects). Half the battle of political organizing is trying to genuinely understand other peopleās perspectives, and trying to persuade them on their terms, and writing those people off as bad-faith actors is a non-starter for organizing. I know people here value most of the same things I do, thatās why I harp on the things I do - those are the things we agree on, and those are the things I would like to organize pressure for. I have a lot of other perspectives I know for a fact are outside the norm for .world, and I donāt agitate for those on here because I know iād sour any chances of progress on other fronts if I did.
Ozma likely sees things the same way I do: there are a lot of well-meaning and left-of-center people in this community, with a lot of overlap in overall goals. A part of any strategy for normalizing and organizing around more left-leaning policy is pointing to that discrepancy between what we all agree on and what our electoral system fails to produce, and thatās uncomfortable and easily misinterpreted as voter suppression. āBiden at all costsā, while completely justified, stifles any discussion of progress outside of what has been provided, so the āblue no matter whoā rhetoric is a natural target for any agitation. There is nothing that enrages me more than a good discussion about āwe should do xā being derailed by āwell thatās not electorally realistic, not nationally popular, not gonna happenā, and those are the things that cause me to spend a week straight posting agitprop memes.
Iāll get off my soap box now. I think getting mad at the people agitating against complacency is counterproductive, even if itās completely understandable.
Hey so check it out: Thatās not at all what I said. My criteria I listed for suspecting you of something dishonest were:
Then I also mentioned that:
I have more to say, but I just wanna pause on this point for a second. Check this out:
I literally never said that, or anything close to it. I listed two criteria that would fit a shill, and one that would exonerate someone from being a shill, and it sounds like you just totally edited away the first two and started telling me that I think everyoneās a shill unless exonerated by the third.
Surely you can see how conducting the conversation like that would make someone conclude youāre not speaking in good faith?
Like I say, I have more to say, but this is such a critical point that I want to pause and focus on it for a second.
Ok, fair enough, I was a little hasty with my response. Let me elaborate on what I meant.
Regarding your 3 point list for determining reasonable suspicion"
I want to thoroughly address this one, because thereās a good reason why shill talking points are talking points to begin with.
Shills primary objective is to sow distrust/chaos in a group, and a prerequisite for doing that effectively is to not be suspected of being a malicious agent. To that end, the talking points they use will always bear a resemblance to legitimate stances of the target group. Frequently they highlight a deep division in ideology or an inconsistency in the logic of the coalition, and they pound on that in order to drive a wedge.
Thereās a very good reason why legitimate leftist agitation looks an awful lot like that - for the most part, leftist agitators also seek to drive a wedge within the coalition, but not to sow chaos. They do so in order weaken the centrist consensus and breed discontent with the status quo. Itās similar to what the civil rights leaders did: elevate the issue to such a volume that the people who consistently refuse to negotiate are forced to address it, and the medium through which that discontent is sown is the complacent moderate, who agrees in principle but has no reason to risk their own security to push for the change without disruption.
I get why this is one of three on your list, but you have to understand why this is too broad on its own: legitimate leftist agitation works and sounds much the same way as malicious agitation. What makes the difference between agitation that sows chaos and agitation that sows change is how moderates respond to the agitation. If agitation is effective for change, it will create just enough discomfort to spur action, but not so much that it breeds apathy, nihilism, and more complacency.
This is a very fair point, and Iāll acknowledge that iāve been short and quippy in this exchange and the thread broadly. However, as I pointed out to someone else, a part of persuasion is reframing your partners assertions in order to illuminate an inconsistency - any time Iām reframing something youāve said, Iām doing so in order to reveal a deeper issue. In this instance the issue (iāll touch more on this at the end), is that your three rules are too broad, and effectively can be applied to most people who disagree with you. A good example of this that I know youāre thinking of when youāre looking at my culpability of this is this meme. Iām well aware of how provocative this meme was, and that was the point. I was pointing to the comfortable rhetoric some centrists were using (your choice is binary at the ballot box) and reflecting back at them the rhetoric they were using as shelter from that discomfort. The point of the meme was to point out that what they were doing right then was rationalizing a choice they hadnāt been asked to make yet, and avoiding the choice they were making in that moment to convince people upset about the Isreali conflict that their concern was less important than the broader goal of defeating Trump (which is true, but that choice of rhetoric was also sheltering them from having to engage with their party). It was and is essential to make that distinction well known, because ātrump will be the end of us allā has the rhetorical potential to de-fang legitimate grievence within the base and relieves pressure on Biden and the democrats.
Iāll also address a skepticism youāve raised before about the pointlessness of agitating in this way on a small site like Lemme that will never be seen by Biden: by using that agitation to call out the comforting rhetoric being used, it makes the counter messaging of the democratic operation a lot less effective, and (ideally) prevents them from being able to hide behind convenience logic and actually address the issue. Thatās why James Carville got on his podcast and was cursing out pro-palestinian activists for raising the issue so loudly: he knows that itās a losing issue if itās elevated above other, less controversial issues, and thereās not an easy way to message out of it if it keeps getting pushed.
The reason for the explanation: I know you thought this meme was an intentional strawman, and to some degree it was an intentional re-framing of the issue. But it wasnāt a āmisrepresentationā of any real position (i wasnāt arguing they were anyone was āfine with a little genocideā), I was simply pointing out those people who were the subject of the meme, caught between a genocide they cannot themselves support but are desperate to fend off a trump presidency, needed to convince those undecided anti-genocide voters to vote for biden, and they could either convince them to vote by arguing that issue was less important, or by pushing the party platform to welcome those people back into coalition.
This is an important distinction, because provocative agitation only works by de-constructing those arguments that get in the way of directed action. Sometimes that looks or feels like an intentional misrepresentation, but it is importantly not a representation of a false stance but a rejection of the framing that the stance depends on.
This being the only qualifier that doesnāt apply to me specifically, itās not unreasonable to point out that itās the only one that really distinguishes a good-actor and a bad-actor in your eyes, even though there are absolutely leftist political agitators that fit those first two on your list and do not give long and drawn-out responses like me. Iād venture to say that those people are not really doing the educate or organize parts of educate-agitate-organize, but sometimes you just have to live with a bit of disagreement when youāre a leftist.
I was admittedly being reckless by using the āshill-unless-proven-otherwiseā shorthand, but the above is what I was essentially driving at: your method of determining good-will or bad-will seems to have no way of distinguishing between āshillsā and leftist political agitators, and that effectively has a āchilling-effectā on the entire community. Thatās why every criticism of Biden here is always couched in ābut iām voting for him anywayā; without signaling āI am not seeking to cause chaosā every critique is potentially suspect of being bad-faith. Itās a cancer for actual activism and itās another one of the convenient logics that can dismiss uncomfortable confrontation as unworthy of engagement.
I agree, and I appreciate the way in which you did and that you allowed me to address it.
So, I still donāt think that what I am saying is what you think I am saying.
I wasnāt saying that those three bullet points were the things that would indicate a shill user. The only reason I brought them up was to speak to you directly about how I saw your user ā they were all things that applied to you, as I saw it, in some way. But like I say, I donāt really try to get involved in saying āI think this particular user is fakeā unless itās pretty egregious. Just expressing leftist agitation isnāt it. Like I was recommending slrpnk to somebody recently, sort of like yeah they hate voting sometimes, IDK, but whatever, they are good people.
One of a much smaller set of behaviors thatāll imply to me that someone is fake is a glaring incongruity ā like beliefs or ways of speaking that very rarely go together. A good example is ozma talking about CNN as a trusted liberal news, sort of āour newsā since all of us are leftists togetherā¦ presumably if you are this far-left lemmy.ml person, you will see how ridiculous that is. Does it mean on its own heās a shill? Not completely, no. But itās super weird. That kind of thing is why I am suspicious of him, somewhat less suspicious of you even though you post stuff that to me seems wildly counterproductive to leftist progress in this country, and not at all suspicious of slrpnk. Does that way of looking at it make sense?
So your intent in posting memes against voting for Biden is to spur the reader to get involved in leftist action? What would they start doing, to improve the state of the country? Iām not trying to be dickish by asking that, Iām genuinely asking.
Yeah, 100%. This is one of the key reasons why I donāt like the shills. The country needs a whole lot of help definitely including replacing the Democrats with something substantially better, and by distorting the whole conversation away from āhow do we make some progressā and towards āis it a good idea or not to let Trump get elected and start imprisoning anyone to the left of Mitch McConnell and shooting anyone who tries to hold a protestā, itās eliminating a lot of the potential for forward progress that something like Lemmy could otherwise provide.
Iām sorry that I seem to keep misunderstanding. I still think encouraging that speculation at all is problematic but I wonāt push the issue more, I think iāve made my opinion clear.
I realize that this would appear to be counterproductive to a less black-pilled progressive, but I simply do not believe even democrats have any intent to address crucial issues in a way that challenges or threatens the overall capital and imperial structure on which the US has been built (this encompasses my critique of incrementalism, because incrementalist proposals always fall short of challenging those ingrained macro structures i believe are fundamental to truly addressing our active crises). I suspect our support of Israel is one of those issues, I also think climate change and campaign finance and election reform are as well (I already know you disagree with me about incremental climate change progress under Biden, we donāt need to get into it here). And I believe without a hint of doubt that none of them will ever be addressed without anything less than even the mildest of discomfort among comfortable liberal democrats.
To drive progress we must sow discontent against the status quo, that much has always been clear.
I just donāt think any of these things are happening. I think youāre mounting this grand challenge against an enemy that 99% doesnāt exist on Lemmy, and the people who actually are reading your messages are in a very different place than youāre describing here. When they say āyes Gaza sucks please can we get a better president in the future but in the meantime also Trump is 10 times worse for Gaza among many other things so letās not elect him, also letās go to the Palestine protest this Saturdayā and you scream in their face āGENOCIDE JOE, GENOCIDE JOE, DONāT TRY TO SILENCE MY DISSENTā youāre producing no benefit for leftism in this country.
If you wanted to go the DNC and start yelling at them about support for Israel and tepid marijuana reform, then sure. That sounds fine to me, that would sound productive (because I think there you would encounter some discouragement of any ādissentā like anti Israel sentiment).
Do you think that the Communists in 1932 who were fighting the SPD, instead of Hitler, accomplished progress by sowing discontent against the status quo? Certainly thatās what they were doing, just my assessment of their success level is pretty limited, since they almost all were killed.
Lmao, I meanā¦ Disagree? Look, itās right here even
Fuckinā¦ Look man, if you donāt see a problem in just that first sentence I donāt think youāre trying.
I think weāve run this line of argumentation through, weāve circled back to some of the stuff we started with and frankly your effort here is clearly declining. As fun as this was I really donāt feel like pulling references from earlier in the conversation. And holy hell, weāve had this argument before, donāt you remember?
Iām sorry lol, Iām just not interested in having this conversation again. Youāll say āthe SPD split the vote because they were too stubborn to join the KPDā and then iāll say āsure but the SPD was reacting to the same conditions that cultivated the NSDAP in the first placeā and then youāll say 'i agree but stopping the nazis was more important ā and then iāll say ābut they didnāt stop them, they let them in, and also even if they had if they didnāt address the conditions that lead to the NSDAP then they wouldnāt ever really stop them so the KPD should have joined the SPDā and then youāll say āyea I agree with that but they had the majority so they didnātā and iāll say āand they didnāt stop the nazis, I thought we were trying to learn from this example not rationalize what ended up happeningā
LMAO though at you claiming iām being overdramatic and then immediately turn around and compare my light agitation to helping the nazis rise to power. Holy shit did that conversation devolve quickly.
So to deal with the four bullet points one by one in more detail:
I get what youāre saying in breaking down that paragraph of mine, and I can respond to what youāre saying about it if you want me to, but I feel like I need to point out that in my eyes not a single one of those bullet points is in it, or anywhere near it.
You said earlier āMost people who share my perspective have long since stopped trying to argue anything in good faith at all with centrists.ā Iām gonna be honest, I have reached that same point with a lot of the lemmy.ml hivemind, and this is why. You are wildly mischaracterizing what I actually think, to the point where youāre saying things I strongly disagree with (e.g. voting is the only thing that matters, any dissent against Biden is forbidden) and then attributing them to me.
The conversation I would like to have with you is, we need better outcomes than Biden, how do we get there. It is frustrating and pointless to have to over and over again have that much more productive conversation be recast as, I am supporting Biden no matter what and squashing any dissent against him and actively hostile to anything better than him, and then for me to have to try to explain that thatās not accurate and be lectured about the contents of my own mind and my own opinions, and have an extended debate about it where Iām apparently not allowed to the be the authority on what I think and what my opinions are.
Surely that makes sense? Or no?
Look, Iāve written and shelved a few responses to this already, but I wasnāt being coy when I said I think weāve run this conversation bare. Iām having a hard time contending with what seems like willful rejection of my critique of your framing - which is fine, itās your political world-view and I canāt possibly expect to change it in a day. It just seems thereās an insurmountable disagreement that we canāt get past, and the longer we talk the more exaggerated weāre getting about the otherās perspective and weāre not getting any closer to an understanding than we already have.
Hereās a problematic exchange:
Me:
You:
The misconnect:
āI never suggested that voting was the only thing that matteredā. I know, thatās why I said āI donāt mean anyone has actually said thisā. My point is that all political activity within this frame of view is interpreted through that electoral lense, and Iām pointing to that framing as not just problematic but the actual target of pretty much all effective agitation. That the spectrum of political action must fit through this narrow opening of election day is necessarily a rejection of the use of dissent outside of it. Your objection to and suspicion of bad-actors is a reflection of this, too: even honest critique from reputable sources is suspect of over-the-line provocation simply because the intent may be to distort public opinion away from voting for Biden in november, even if the substance of that provocation is acknowleged as fair. It is that idea that is the subject of my critique, but instead of addressing that problem you fall back to shit like this:
You say you canāt see how this statement revolves/hinges around electoral essentialism, but I donāt think thatās true. I think (notice that I am stating an opinion and not a statement of fact) you do see it, but you believe it is the essential predicate to all agitative action that follows, which is a fair feeling (as iāve acknowledged). Having acknowleged that perspective, Iām offering a challenge to that framing: that electoralist lenses collapse political negotiation into a partisan binary (you are either working for this electoral outcome or that one), and it functionally rejects activity that falls on the wrong side (e.g. critiquing Biden is fine (good even), so long as the intent is still to help him defeat trump, or at least that the intent is not to hurt his chances).
I have repeatedly stated my opinion that effective protest is only that which implicitly threatens that electoral coalition. It seeks to sow discontent with the policies on-offer to put pressure on representation, and it isnāt just yelling at the representative, it is an act of cleaving some portion of that base off so that the candidate must choose between their own goal of winning or relenting on the position being protested for.
Protest is necessarily hostile toward the electoral political calculations, and by gatekeeping valid protest to activity that fits within that frame neuters its ability to push for change. Fostering tension is the goal. It seeks to be present in every political discussion about that candidate, lingering as an ominous and threatening presence that makes not just that candidate squirm and feel unwelcome, but all of the moderates who work to support them, too.
No, I fucking havenāt. I am not attributing words as coming straight from your mouth, I am presenting you with what I think your underlying assumptions are. You have not literally said āvoting is the only thing that matters, any dissent against Biden is forbiddenā. What you have done is rhetorically narrow the acceptable forms of dissent to that which fits into this electoral binary. Your method of identifying ābad-faithā argumentation revolves around how or if that dissent is intended to effect electoral outcomes. I have become a broken record, repeating the same words endlessly:
effective protest seeks to disrupt status quo coalitions, effective protest seeks to disrupt status quo coalitions, effective protest seeks to disrupt status quo coalitions
Iāve said this repeatedly, but sure, I will say it again. Political agitation involves being a relentless-fucking prick. It means dominating every political conversation with the shit you want changed, raise the issue until it cannot be ignored, and absolutely do not allow it to be dismissed as irrelevant noise or covert opposition. It involves being so relentless that their only reprieve is to forcibly remove you from the space you are occupying. That is what I am doing and what I think you should be doing too, and this is why MLK castigated white liberals as the single greatest hurtle toward black liberation. Their obstruction is defined by that line they simply will not cross, and it is the goal of agitation to drag those people up to the line and push their complacent asses over it.
When you say things like āwhy are you bothering people here with this, we agree with youāā¦ Emphatically, no you fucking donāt.
My god welcome to the club. I gave up after he did it something like 4 times in a row to me. Strangest style of argumentation Iāve ever seen, incessantly whacking at strawmen that donāt exist. Glad you can see it too, I thought I was starting to lose it.