Decentralized infrastructure can be physical as well, such as microgrids that enable peer-to-peer solar energy sharing.

And sidenote: software engineers are exploited workers like the rest of us, and it’s a respectable profession. The “tech bros” you have to worry about are the wealthy CEOs masquerading as inventors and engineers like Elon Musk.

You’re using an example right now.

I don’t need to present a perfect alternative for my critique of Western Democracy to be valid. Critique is the means by which we can improve upon what already exists. Some short-term solutions could be to overturn citizens united and end legalized corporate lobbying, introduce voting reforms such as abolishing the electoral college and switching from first past the post to ranked choice or star voting, or expanding direct democratic programs like ballot initiatives. All of these have the effect of minimizing the influence of capital and maximizing the influence of people on the political process.

Longer term solutions involve bottom-up organization of things like mutual aid, unions of various types, decentralized infrastructure, community-run libraries (and not just for books), community gardens, etc. These kinds of dual-power structures always start small but have outsized positive effects on the communities they form in. If they were allowed to grow unhindered they would eventually grow together and easily supercede the top-down power structures that pervade our lives today, which is why they end up being suppressed or co-opted by the same.

A good example of how this occurs is how despite the internet providing a way to collect and distribute all the knowledge on earth for free to everyone on earth (the greatest library in all of human history), powerful corporations - with the help of governments around the world - unnecessarily spend vast amounts of wealth and resources to restrict the free exchange of ideas along socioeconomic lines.

No

I believe there are a lot of government orgs that could be forces for good if they weren’t completely at the mercy of powerful corporations.

It points out the contradiction of being in a supposedly free Western Democracy but still being totally at the mercy of others. It isn’t necessarily that Western Democracy is the cause, but that it fails to address these problems.

My paychecks from the CCP must be getting lost in the mail.

That’s some pretty wild conspiratorial thinking, do you actually have proof or just some anecdotes about people disagreeing with you?

I wish for once I could just have a civil conversation about my views without people immediately jumping down my throat and accusing me of being a CCP or Russian shill, or a dirty liberal, or a filthy communist. This is what I’m talking about when I say I just end up getting shit on from all sides. Every unsavory label in the book gets stuck to me before I even get a chance to clarify my views.

The problem I see here is that you perceive this as being anti-democracy when it really isn’t. Criticism of western democracy isn’t equivalent to a total rejection of democracy in general. Capitalism renders democracies ineffectual, which is what I perceived this meme to be pointing out.

Care to elaborate on that?

As an anarchist this is me on a good day. I more often find myself in the middle getting shit on from both directions.

If you too want to get out of the liberal vs communist showdown and smoke weed on the side come to slrpnk.net where only our memes community has liberals and communists fighting in the comments.

I wholeheartedly agree, I’ve been going down the pipeline myself and this has been my approach. Recently I’ve been working with family and neighbors to get a community garden going.

The programmer to homesteader pipeline is real.

Let me approach this from a different angle. If a military defeat is necessary to create revolutionary conditions, is it not then in the best interest of the working class in each imperialist power for the other to win, and does that not then put the working class in each imperialist power at odds with one another?

Don’t you believe in internationalism? Solidarity?

How many hundreds of thousands of lives does it cost to create revolutionary conditions, and how can you be so arrogant as to cheer while they’re fed into the meatgrinder, believing with such certainty that it means you’ll get your chance at revolution?

Kindly point out where I expressed critical support for western imperialism.

So does “tankie” and “woke.” I used mine correctly, you are indeed a tankie. When a chud calls a left-wing political activist woke, at least they’re using it correctly, even if they don’t necessarily know that they are.

You called me a liberal for - let me check - opposing imperialism regardless of who’s doing it. Interesting, do you think that fits the definition?

I thought it would be obvious I was mocking you by repeating the viewpoint you expressed without the air of pretentiousness that you surround it with, but I guess I was the stupid one for thinking you were capable of recognizing sarcasm.

Also “critical support” for what, Russian imperialism? Why does Russian imperialism deserve “critical support” while western imperialism deserves direct opposition?

You’re right we should be running dogs for western imperialism instead.

Ah yes, because there are only two options, you’re either a running dog for western imperialism or a running dog for Russian imperialism. But being a running dog for Russian imperialism is actually cool because it will lead to communism somehow. Don’t ask what happens in between, that’s not important…

And yes it will improve revolutionary conditions as the contradictions become more aparent

Wow that’s incredible, why don’t we just skip waiting for the imperialists to do it and carry out the genocide ourselves. That’ll really make those contradictions more apparent, I can’t wait!