Being asked to be a better human by treating your dog like it’s another living being instead of an object that has some reciprocal obligation to behave as you expect it to at all time just because you provide basic needs like shelter, food, and water isn’t asking that much. If you want to position yourself as a leftist voice, expect pushback when your personal actions don’t meet leftist standards. What’s dangerous is that any behavior that confronts him is immediately dismissed as “right wing attack”, “bad faith”, or “discrediting”. I’m not discrediting Piker’s entire platform, I’m calling him morally derelict on animal rights and humane human-pet relationships. Same goes for the people that want the behavior ignored short term because of the “bigger picture”. The big picture is the entirety of the people involved in it at every level. If you want leaders, activists, and allies that demand their personal behavior is beyond reproach as long as their message feels good, all you want is leftist populism.
Lemminary@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
And so you need to bring it up every time the dude is mentioned? Can you not refrain about this and bring it up when it’s not a distraction to cause a rift? Do you realize what you’re doing?
So what. Is that bad that we need to unite the left in one way or another? You’re keen on destroying a common cause in favor of some bullshit.
backalleycoyote@lemmy.today 21 hours ago
Yes. 1000x yes. Loyalism and populism are the wrong path because as we can see here, a popular celebrity has found a way to shield themselves from reproach and rebuke the request for even the simplest course correction in their daily life, and their followers will demand that others compromise their personal moral standard to fit that of their favorite podcaster.
Change left with right and that’s the same question conservatives debated when they sold out what little integrity, morality, and soul they might have personally had to support a populist that would assure victory.
I’m keen on holding people who put themselves in positions of influence and leadership being accountable to the people they claim to be uniting and take responsibility for their transgressions when their character is found lacking. That there’s people like you hoping a populist will be some sort of savior, I find that far more disturbing. That the question of animal rights is relegated to “unrelated shit” is repugnant. That’s the problem with morals, you either have them and hold fast or you’ve got none save whatever your populist leader told you was the current morality of the cause.
Lemminary@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
And yet he’s not doing that? Do you realize how destructive and needlessly defensive you are?
THE COUNTRY IS LITERALLY DYING. Get it through your thick head. There won’t be left and right when this administration is done fucking over everybody. I get you don’t care because you’re in the UK anyway, but Jesus F Christ, start seeing past your nose for once.
backalleycoyote@lemmy.today 20 hours ago
I know he’s not, you and others in the comments of this and countless other threads do it without having to be asked or directed to because that’s the benefit of being a populist. They make themselves synonymous with the cause and their base will treat a critique of their leader’s actions/character as an attack on the cause and themselves.
Destructive to what? What have I destroyed? Piker is a celebrity, he’s not running for office, his boots on the ground contributions to the cause are few, far between, and highly publicized. He’s not a leader, he’s not a political party, he’s not even a philosopher, just a podcaster. He’s free to discuss his opinions on leftism, his fans are free to listen and adopt them, but he is not the voice of the left nor is he taking steps to become a stakeholder in the power struggle of what’s left of our democracy. This isn’t a tear down of a milquetoast Democrat when their MAGA opponent is going to be 1000x worse if they win.
The country is dead. We’re just waiting to figure out how decayed it actually is come next election cycle, the one they’ve gerrymandered into guaranteed wins, are threatening to post up voter intimidation squads, and who knows how corrupted our machines and mail-in ballot system is. Even if MAGA loses majority in Congress, what do you actually expect to happen? They still have the courts, he’s embedding himself in a bunker. Congress can vote to impeach him all that want, he’s positioned to ignored that should he choose and ICE, the cops, and his zealots are going to make damn sure nobody forces him out.
Real leftist action isn’t listening to live streams or propping up populists on the notion it’ll create some counter-MAGA that will save our dying nation. It’s building coalitions in your community that are planning for when the last vestige of democracy is swept away and full-blown fascist tyranny replaces it. It’s mutual aid, food/medicine/hygiene/baby supply stock-piling, seed saving, identifying who has what skills (nurses, mechanics, child care) that can be relied upon when social order begins to breakdown. It’s making sure you’ve identified the most vulnerable in your community that will be targeted first and learning how to protect and defend them when ICE shows up.
Democrats, populists, and Piker aren’t the people running ICE and MAGAts out of their communities, that is achieved by the people who live there, sometimes at the expense of their own lives. Talk is cheap, even people with good opinions still have shortcomings, but no politician, podcaster, or populist is going to save us, we save ourselves.