@fire with fire

But I stand firmly by the idea that you cannot gain power in our "democracy" by telling the people you want to vote your way that they are numbskulls. Or to lie about your contempt for their minds.

If you can't gain power in our "democracy," period, full stop, then anything you do or say is as good as anything else because you start, and stay, at square one regardless of what you do or say. We cannot claim to be at the end of what is in fact a process of trial and error when our success rate is zero.

I must add that our stupid fellow citizens have already pretty much rendered democracy extinct and my principal disagreement with your posts on this subject is your emphasis on a new "party." I believe that voting is futile in the age of hacking.

We need to change the capitalist culture we live in. Voting ain't getting us anywhere.

Here it must be said, first off, that neither of us is advocating calling our "stupid fellow citizens" (your words) stupid while trying to recruit them. Perhaps something can be gained from educating people, or from identifying the causes of mass stupidity, or from promoting the principle of "don't be stupid," but that's another issue.

Secondly, the "new party" tactic had both electoral and movement aims, whether it be the Green Party of old (I don't know what's happening with it now; I rather suspect that anything living has fragmented into movement-oriented candidacies such as Butch Ware's) or Workers Strike Back (which has as its principal aim at this time trying to get the unions to end their collective fealty to the Democratic Party).

Thirdly, the standard tactic against the movement/ electoral campaign combination is to criticize the futility of the latter while dismissing the former as nonexistent. This tactic generally falls into the category of self-fulfilling prophesy -- if there is no chance for the Green Party, this is, to a certain extent, because the arguer says so and not because it's objectively true. You mentioned hacking, but please do note that the Mexicans did not give up simply because their elections were in fact being hacked. Of course, the main difference between us and those who run Morena -- or for that matter the Zapatistas -- is that for the Mexicans in question, democracy became a matter of life and death. We are not there yet.

Lastly, this matter of stupidity comes up, at this time, and not at previous times, simply because the consequences of the Trump administration's stupidity on all fronts will be immediate and very bad. I have pointed this out several times.

People are exactly as stupid as the culture makes them.

Personally, I don't care how badly the masses get insulted by smarty pants "intellectuals" who know how to think critically. They certainly deserve the criticism.

But I stand firmly by the idea that you cannot gain power in our "democracy" by telling the people you want to vote your way that they are numbskulls. Or to lie about your contempt for their minds.

Try it on a bus ride some time if you don't believe me.

I must add that our stupid fellow citizens have already pretty much rendered democracy extinct and my principal disagreement with your posts on this subject is your emphasis on a new "party." I believe that voting is futile in the age of hacking.

We need to change the capitalist culture we live in. Voting ain't getting us anywhere.

@studentofearth

The easy path of disagreement is to simply label the opposing

ideology or person as stupid. End of discussion. No need to try and understand the reasoning of a position or conditions of unique situations. Therefor the objectives will never be resolved and continue to increase ideological divisions.

Indeed this is true. But I'm not using the word "stupid" in that way here. There is something to be said for identifying actual stupid and exposing it to the light of day while proclaiming that "here is actual stupid, and if I knew what to do about it, I would have done that, but I don't, so there it is."

ideology or person as stupid. End of discussion. No need to try and understand the reasoning of a position or conditions of unique situations. Therefor the objectives will never be resolved and continue to increase ideological divisions.

Free healthcare - This example of not wanting to adopt universal healthcare by unions is not a position I have seen at C99. From my interactions with the major politically active groups opposed to Universal Health Care one of the groups was unions, their members and retirees. Better healthcare benefits is a major negotiation point during collective negotiations with employers and would be lost with universal free healthcare. At the time low or nonexistent copays created an incentive to object to any change. Once I entered the healthcare professions in the 1980's I came across multiple individuals who were unable to switch jobs or professional tracks due to a family member dependent on a specific healthcare plan. It is an old subject - my father switched his employer in the 1960's to gain access to better healthcare options for the family.

As a side note, Prescription Benefit Funds (PBM) one of the evil players of our current healthcare environment were created to manage Union demands of low cost prescription drugs as a healthcare insurance benefit. Oregon Teachers Union members were the first participants of a PBM created in Oregon in the 1980's to service their contract changes. The original idea morphed into a new financial trap.

Free college - Are we discussing career path colleges or party colleges? Will Oral Roberts University meet the criteria for free college?

Fair work conditions - There are many definitions of fair. If under same conditions someone can complete the tasks of a job in two hours compared to another who requires 8 hours to achieve the same degree of quality is equal pay or chances of advancement fair?

Would like to add some more thoughts but am running out of time to continue a debate on stupidity of others.