did you know that iowa has a homeless population of 2,315
did you know that if he wanted to he could give every homeless person in iowa a free apartment at an average cost of 80k per apartment
did you know that obliterating homelessness in an entire state would probably make you win that entire state because you could just say 'lol i eradicated homelessness in iowa what did these other nerds do'
yeah sure but you gotta start somewhere, and doing some of your goals at least in part is a good way to show people youre serious
This exact discussion was had yesterday on Jacobin w Amber Frost:
https://youtu.be/mZLKYG2DgPM
Cue the "lol Jacobin socdems" people, Jen and Paul are most definitely not socdems. Mutual aid and charity (spoiler: they're the same thing) are band-aids, and they're absolutely good and should be done - but they do not and cannot solve systemic issues.
Mutual aid and charity (spoiler: they’re the same thing)
Have to disagree, check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_aid_(organization_theory)#Mutual_aid_vs._charity for some basic distinctions
Seconded. Mutual aid is the beginning of worker organization. Charity is tax write-offs and good feels for rich liberals.
Totally fair, I over-simplified. But either way check out the video if you're interested, they do make really good points. And it's not an indictment of mutual aid, more just discussing the strategic aspects required.
why exactly should i listen to a podcaster who gets paid like 200k to talk shit
Tru, that's why I also stay away from Marx or Engels or Mao because they were rich.
difference: they actually did things
did amber send like 80k in weapons to rebels or something like marx did lol
a podcaster who wants a return to lincoln era republicanism by the left
:centrist: being a racist that wanted to compromise with slavers was not just good but the best we could ever aspire to, actually.
Could he actually legally do that? Aren't there legal limits on what you can buy with campaign funds?
Get all the dummies who gave Bernie money to buy homes and guns for the homeless.
probably make you win that entire state
Hahaha you overestimate Democratic primary voters.
Sorry sir you can legally only give this ludicrous amount of wealth to advertising agencies
yeah he would win 1 state and lose every other one with no ground game or campaign employees lol. Not to mention the fact ppl who donated to the campaign would be mad they just gave their money to random ppl in Iowa
i'll take the possibility of helping 300 million people over a few thousand lol
ok so if i ran for president with a small chance to win (e.g. 0.00000001%) youd send me cash? lol
wow what a good hypothetical and totally not inane bs.
But I would rather have someone tackle the systemic reasons homelessness occurs nation wide rather than elevate 2000 people out of homelessness in a single state while hundreds of thousands remain homeless in the other 49.
yeah i feel like it is wishful thinking because it runs counter to the material interests of the press. Bernie is not the perfect socialist but he has done some good looking out for average americans already in his career and they still slandered him. There were plenty of things along those lines, him getting arrested at the civil rights, him speaking up for womens rights, some of the grassroots stuff he did in his state that helped working class people with rent and stuff like that. They would have spun it in some way to make people think he was doing something nefarious just like they always do.
either way the point is moot bc I can't imagine capital just sitting idly by while someone just goes outside and does something that materially beneficial to working class people, there's undoubtedly limits on what can be done with campaign money that leads to it being put in the hands of capitalists.
but you forget that if you lose, nothing happens. zero.
id take the greater chance of something happening vs absolutely nothing and a bunch of rich people getting richer with that dough you spent.
lol bernie wouldn’t have won and if he did nothing would have changed except the movement he built.
holy shit he raised 211 million dollars and all he's done with it was to continue to pay his employees and provide their healthcare for what would have been the duration of the election season and maybe a few months after that?
wtf literally nothing has convinced me more obtusely that Bernie was an op
30? employees vs impacting thousands of peoples lives?
like if psl or dsa raised that much and actually pushed it towards housing homeless people, they would be massively popular
they would be massively popular
I'm sure the people getting housed would love it, but I can see the libs hand wringing about lowering their neighborhoods' property values now.
100%
Lot of homeowners would hate it too. The American middle class's resentment and hatred of those "lesser" than them is all too common.
Not long ago, there was a stink in my town about just providing the unhoused folks with a place to throw stuff away near their camp.
:amerikkka:
theyll handwring about anything a socialist does, though. even if you copy them to a T like bernie did (minus the corporate donors obv)
I'm sure it had to be more than 30, but even if it were 300, it's absolutely ridiculous that he wouldn't use this money to directly improve peoples' lives!
I'm so upset I gave that fucker 100 dollars of my <20k/year salary and I'm even more upset that I felt guilty for not giving more.
Okay so according to https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race/bernie-sanders/candidate?id=N00000528 he spent about 205 million on the campaign. I'm still salty that my 100 dollars ended up in some advertisement exec's wallet instead of the local pantry.
I'm pretty sure even if they wanted to during the election season, it's illegal to use campaign donations like that. Like legally, campaigns can give to charity, but only if if it does not benefit the campaign.
Okay, but with how much corruption people get away with in embezzling campaign funds, I don't think it's unreasonable to set up a charity that provides benefits directly to people and have the campaign committee donate to that.
yep just get some socialist org like food not bombs or dsa or psl or your flavor of choice to set up a new org and just dump it all in there and you could just be like 'see! im not even touching that charity.'
I mean now that it's over they can dump it all into charity, which I think they have been doing along with distributing it to endorsed local campaigns. They had 16 million left in April 2020 they can do charity with.
Yo, with all due respect, what did you think you were donating to? It was a presidential campaign.
That's totally valid and this has been a valuable learning opportunity. I thought bernie had a real chance to amass enough power to directly improve my life and the lives of my loved ones.
Yeah, this sort of stuff makes leftists look naive. We lost, and when you lose your donated money is gone. No election has ever worked differently, and there was no promise that this one would work differently.
Want to give your hundred bucks to a mutual aid organization? Do that; that's a fine use of it. But you didn't, and you knew where your money was going when you cut the check.
yeeep. if i were running it i'd basically just make a charitable organization and get all the other (responsible with money) socialist orgs in on managing the homeless outreach for a state
Your last premise is based in fantasy. They would hand called him a Communist anti semite... even more than they already did.
But yes, he raised money for a political campaign, that does in deed happen. If you're mad because you donated money, why didn't you give it to a homeless person?
i actually didnt, i just think political campaigns as a concept are whack as fuck. so much waste and all it does is make ad companies richer. and yes i do donate money to socialist orgs to help homeless people sometimes i donate my labor 😇
before I start my half assed criticism, I wanna say I appreciate you volunteering your wages and labor to help the homeless! you've certainly done more than I ever have. but...
would leftism be better off without the two sanders campaigns? should he have suspended the campaign after Iowa and donated to vetted charities?
jacobin's youtube channel just had a decent episode featuring amber talking about how useless basic mutual aid is in terms of building a political power base. I've taken to their attitude of organizing mutual aid through organizations with legit political power. providing for people's material needs through marxist charities has an element of coercion within them; just like with christian charities, folks are smart enough to say their prayers in order to get their food/shelter. the lumpen are aware enough to form resentment towards that type of shit.
I and many others wouldn't be here without sanders. many of us are former chuds. unless you have a serious alternative, this line of thinking is nothing more than a meme(which is fine...i apreciate the content i guess).
what path does socialism have to any kind of triumph? I know things look bleak right now, but just because electoralism looks to be a losing game, doesn't mean there's a better alternative.
Would love to read a bit expanded struggle session / ask chapo post about that part:
I’ve taken to their attitude of organizing mutual aid through organizations with legit political power. providing for people’s material needs through marxist charities has an element of coercion within them; just like with christian charities, folks are smart enough to say their prayers in order to get their food/shelter. the lumpen are aware enough to form resentment towards that type of shit.
im not saying he shouldnt have campaigned, im saying his campaign would have been more useful if he actually helped people with it instead of just losing twice and getting nothing out of it
getting nothing out of it
A lot of people who are leftists today got started on that path through one of the Bernie campaigns. There are also elected officials who've ran and won using the Bernie campaign's blueprint.
Im about to paraphrase Michael Brooks' paraphrasing of Martin Luther King. mlk said something about the dynamism between love and power; "love without power is sentimental and meaningless, power without love is abusive and coercive..."
imo we need to be the middle ground in that dynamic.
helping people is simply not enough in the grand scheme of this struggle. liberals and conservatives 'help' people in their own ideological terms as well.
our vision for a better world ought to be the emancipation of all individuals from the coercive forces of tradition/capitalism. that includes everyone from the most downtrodden to the folks at the top of the labor aristocracy.
it's good to give back to those below you, but theres no path to victory without persuading those at the top end of the normal curve.
again, as Michael Brooks said, we cant cede individual ambition/exceptionalism to liberalism. we need to stand for something more than just egalitarianism. we should seek to be just as powerful as the scum to the right of us.
I'm for this really. I don't know how this money works but out of spite would have been nice to do this instead of giving any to the dnc. Imagine giving money to Bernie only for it go to the dnc. Some nerd gonna tell me where the money actual went but don't care. Helping with homes would lead to lifetime supporters.
plus its not just the homeless people that become lifetime supporters, its likely their families would be too
Youre getting it all wrong here. Americans like being cruel, they would feel bad if you eliminated homelessness. This would lose you the election.
This is a great case for public funding of elections instead of soliciting donations. Political spending is wasteful as shit.
There would've been a secret tribunal that expelled him from the party. You can't directly address people's needs. You need a market based Rube Goldburg machine that doesn't work.
http://berniewouldhavelost.com/
Vote counts were changed electronically. He would have lost no matter what he did.
