TheOubliette

That's true! I'm glad I didn't say anything like, "the system is corrupt because I'm in the minority".

PS, the ruling class is a minority.

It's very cute

I would recommend using this as an opportunity to build out and use a backups system. Whenever I get a new laptop, for example, I just make a(nother) backup on the old laptop and restore whatever I want to the new one. If there are any files I want that are normally excluded from backups, I either tweak my rules to include those files/put them in a different directory and repeat the process or just make a new manual external backup copy temporarily.

If you have good backups then your new drive can be populated from them after creating new partitions. Optionally, you can also take this opportunity to reinstall the OS, which I personally prefer to do because it tends to clean up cruft.

Also, if you go this route, your data on your old drive is 100% intact throughout the process. You can verify and re-verify that all the files you want are backed up + restored properly before finally formatting the old drive for use in the NAS.

This is a whole lot of conspiracy bs with no sources provided.

It's not a conspiracy, it's out in the open. I don't know what claims you would want sources for. Feel free to ask.

But it includes the usual keywords "the system", "design", and "ruling class" so you can get your upvotes from like-minded fellows in your bubble.

You might notice that this is a public community on a non-socialist instance. So, the opposite of what you are saying. Personally, I expected a mix of responses.

Have you considered that politics and economics is a little bit more complicated and a lot of gears make the machine?

Complexity vs. simplicity means nothing in this topic. What matters is identifying dominant powers and the mechanisms by which they function. Many of those mechanisms are somewhat complex, though not that complex that anyone can't read about them and understand them if they actually want to.

Have you read any socialist theory?

But "the elite pulling the strings" is much easier to understand and you conveniently get an enemy.

Class conflict is actually something that emerges from base social interactions that constitute the primary economic system: how and why we work. The dominant class does have more realized power, by definition, but it is still subordinate to the mechanisms of the economic system itself.

For example, you cannot simply choose to be a nice business owner that pays everyone as much as they deserve. You will, eventually, get outcompeted by the business owners that will keep pay lower and profits higher. While small businesses are still commonly owned by petty tyrants, their loss to big box stores is an example of how a larger mass of profits can be leveraged to destroy the competition (initial low prices), then using monopoly status to earn even more profit by cutting wages and increasing prices.

The political class is just the functionaries of the state that serves the dominant class's interests. You can call them elite because they personally get a bigger piece of the pie and have power on paper, but they are several rings lower on the hierarchy.

Learning media criticism, history, political economy, and how past groups have organized takes a decent amount of time. Namely, socialist theory. So does unlearning the ideological falsehoods that cloud our ability to think and investigate. And so does recognizing what builds power, what actions are effective, what cooption looks like and how to counter it, etc. So I don't recommend just doing one thing, but instead working from where you are to be closer to a stronger consciousness. I suppose the closest thing to a single recommendation I can give is humility and curiosity around all of the aforementioned topics and to give people grace IRL when you begin working with an organization.

If you are interested in reading recommendations and info about your thoughts on politics I'd be happy to think of something you might appreciate. Or if you feel like you're ready for action and are in the US I can recommend some orgs that are reasonably good to "start" with (many stay in them and that is also fine!).

Congress is an organ of the ruling class and always has been. When they (rarely) do something seemingly against ruling class interests, it is still a strategem to best keep the capitalism boat afloat (it tries to sink every 5-10 years).

Sure, Congress is corrupt, but it always has been. The system is working more or less as designed. And if you want to oppose this design, the system is also designed to fight you to the death. And funneling all of your capacity into sheepdog voting is how your masters tell you you should oppose them. So if you want to oppose this system, you must become informed as to how it functions and join up with like-minded individuals to develop actually effective means of resistance.

Getting stoked for the protests against washing your hands or wearing gloves

Israel just assassinated the person they were supposed to be negotiating with. In Iran. Now they issue a press release "warning" Iran not to respond.

This is just genocide supporters playing a PR game.

Bombs used to destroy civilian infrastructure and starve kids

White supremacy is not new in the United States. Why would someone like Trump arise now because racism merely exists and not, say, in 1952 or 1965 or 1980? What is different about Trump? Is he really all that different when it comes to racism or white supremacy? Trump's main defining features are that he is rude, sassy, and is a lazy liar that doesn't even try to be slick about it, something the political class usually focuses on pretty heavily.

Demonizing immigrants, having a monstrous policy towards them, catering to the interests of white people, killing any number of overseas brown people without consequence, dispossessing entire global south countries? These are bipartisan positions. Biden has just as harsh of treatment of undocumented immigrants and by many metrics us worse, but you rarely hear about it because (1) he isn't openly rhetorically hateful, just in action, and (2) the media apparatus does not focus on it any longer. In fact, the Democratic party is trying to outflank the GOP from the right on harsh border controls and deportation policies and use GOP votes against their bills as gotchas in their media strategies. A polite fascistic policy is not materially better than a rude one. In fact, it is more difficult to fight, as people who don't think of themselves as racist or xenophobic can fly under the radar while supporting it and never have to really contend with the white suoremacy they are internalizing, supporting, and spreading.

So, what is unique about Trump and why does it arise now? He is a TV personality huckster, he is dramatic and sassy, he comes up with silly names for his opponents, he lies lazily. These are superficial things that reflect a superficial electoralism itself. A political media apparatus that is already shallow and obsessed with aesthetics. A focus on a horse race where whatever grabs attention is more likely to build support and Trump has generally been great at grabbing attention. Trump was even boosted by Dems back during Hillary's run as part of a strategy to make the GOP look foolish, but we are at a point in media production and consumption where what they thought was foolish was actually a highly appealing rhetorical thumb in the eye of a pretentious political class. His rudeness and sass and lazy lying was a strength. These are the things that people care about in the electoral process of 2016, 2020, 2024. A political clown show of different flavors made of the same basic ingredients. It has just reached a level of absurdity that itself catches attention and is, in fact, what most people critical of Trump focus on rather than actual policy.

All that text essentially is summarised as "you arguing that Democrats are the lesser evil is defending them, and makes you a liberal."

No it cannot be honestly summarized as just that. If you are unwilling to engage further feel free to just disengage.

I will wait for you to reply to what I said and will ignore you arguing with yourself.

Im sure as someone who does it everyday you do think that

I don't do it every day. But I do it often enough to be reliable and have good capacity.

But it's not just me nor has it ever been. People from all nations have done this. People in far worse conditions. It is necessary and, historically, feasible so long as you can break false consciousness.

This is the largest point I'm trying to make the time and effort it will take cannot be completed before the election. I mean you even agreed

To begin building the necessary project you have to reject the political election myopia that our masters impose on us. Politics does not restart every 2-4 years. Only long-term engagement and the development and wielding of leverage will ever liberate us.

Do you think every American agrees and will just jump on board?

No, but why do they need to? Our task requires work and time. You keep acting like this makes it impossible. I suggest that this is a learned helplessness, of internalizing the false idea that there is no alternative. In fact, there has always been an alternative and others have blazed trails.

No defending it I hate it but stop acting like it can change before the election, it is not enough time which is my point, not a defense.

It is already a defense in that it is a form of apologetics for the genocidal status quo. It defends and entrenches the idea that your job, politically, is to decide who to cheerlead with a vote. It normalizes accepting and tolerating the genocide of Gaza, as even that us not enough for you to take sufficient pause. You are lost in propaganda, but you can free yourself through education.

Couple hours after work, 10 mins before work, and while shitting. Drive times alone wouldn't be meet with this time.

A common dedicated organizing commitment is 1-2 meetings per week (often online) and around one action per month. Though there are often opportunities to do what works around anyone's schedule.

Don't know what I took credit for but sure

There is a tendency in bourgeois electoralism to dramatically exaggerate the impact of a given activity. Usually, but not always, voting. The purpose is to make the target audience feel like what they were told to do matters, was worthwhile, and to keep them doing it. This is what I am referring to by credit - of an exaggerated assignment of value to the activity I was responding to.

Do you even live in America?

Why would that matter? My question to you does matter: if you don't live in a swing state your presidential vote is as worthless as it gets.

What would your point be if I were or were not American? Please don't be xenophobic.