• LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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    1 month ago

    I know it has that reputation but I really don’t think California is the most progressive state. Maybe Oregon? Vermont? Not sure to be honest.

    It’s pretty much just basic liberals here. And lots of fascists but they hide out away from everyone else most of the time.

    • Lemonparty@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      I also feel like people forget how fucking enormous California is. It’s really just a few big liberal areas separated by a giant wasteland of racist rednecks that spans nearly the entirety of the United States from north to South in between. It’s huge. If you start in San Diego and drive north for 12 hours you’ll be…almost to the top of California. If you do that on the East coast you can drive through nine states.

      • mean_bean279@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        It’s not even racist rednecks in most of those in-between areas. It’s a lot of Hispanics, and let me tell you… there’s a whoooolllleeeeee lot of racist Hispanics in this state and a lot that are happy they got in and fine with no one else coming in behind them.

        • Lemonparty@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          You don’t have to be white to be racist or a redneck. Go to places like Fresno or Victorville and you’ll meet plenty of both. A huge proportion of Hispanics regularly vote against their own interests in California

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      Voting for democrats more overwhelmingly doesn’t necessarily mean more progressive, just more acceptance for the Democrats in California, who are generally establishment neoliberals.

      • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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        1 month ago

        And yet in local races, primaries, ballot initiatives, progressive candidates and issues all lost. Almost every issue I voted on went the other way. So that has been my experience with California, that it is not very progressive. Admittedly this was a particularly bad election but similar things have happened before.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          1 month ago

          Yep. Cali is ideologically very neoliberal, from the SanFran techbros to the large presense of the Military Industrial Complex. People’s ideas are guided by their material conditions, which includes their class interests. I made an introductory reading list for Marxism if you are interested, the section on Dialectical and Historical Materialism as well as Scientific Socialism goes over said phenomena in further detail.

          • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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            1 month ago

            I realize I misunderstood what you were saying. Yes I agree.

            I don’t find Marxism very compelling personally but I agree that material conditions certainly do have their influence on many things, perhaps including this issue.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              1 month ago

              I understand if you don’t want to talk about it, whether it be here or in general, but what is it about Marxism you don’t find compelling? I can either offer clarification or contextualization, if you want. I’m a big Marxist theory nerd.

              • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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                1 month ago

                It’s such a broad body of work that it’s hard to list all of the issues I have it it. I guess the biggest issue is just that Marx’s writings were an early attempt at describing a more rigorous case for social reform before more scientific theories of social change and economics were developed. So while his ideas were groundbreaking and innovative at the time they were written, not all of them have held up or are relevant to today’s world. And yet I don’t see many Marxists who have been willing to seriously dissect his ideas and take the useful ideas while discarding the bad or irrelevant ones. And in fact, those few who are willing to take a more critical stance are often ostracized and deemed “revisionists” which strikes me as a frankly absurd accusation. If you are not revising your theories then they are no longer theories but mere dogma, and that seems to be the state of mainstream Marxism today.

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                  1 month ago

                  It’s pretty difficult to talk about anything if you don’t give specifics. What of Marxism hasn’t held up? What is better than it? Kinda hard to have a convo that way.

                  Secondly, taking a critical stance towards Marxism isn’t enough to be revisionist. Lenin added on Marxism and analyzed along his contemporary times, and isn’t considered a revisionist. Marxism is an ever-evolving ideology. Revisionism rejects pillars of Marxism like Scientific Socialism, the Law of Value, or Dialectical and Historical Materialism.

                  All that being said, it’s difficult to understand what you’re getting at if you don’t give an example.

    • taiyang@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I think it’s probably one of those two. California is a bit too diverse idiology when you look at the individual level because it’s a huge state, just like Texas (which might go purple under better circumstance). Drive through central valley to know what I mean. Plus we’re the state that gave the country Reagan!

      As for the slavery, dem voter turnout was fairly bad like in the other states, so that probably had some impact. Some red house seats got flipped though, although that is pretty specific to those communities (turn out lead by house members, believe it or not).

      • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml
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        1 month ago

        Doesn’t Massachusetts have a law where your security deposit is held by the municipality and your landlord has to prove they deserve it?

        One can only dream of such freedom where I live.

        • mm_maybe@sh.itjust.works
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          1 month ago

          Yes, actually it’s beyond that; the landlord has to put the security deposit in an interest-bearing account so that it makes money while they hold it for you!