enuja

My social media feeds are almost entirely about snow and about federal agents killing citizens. As are my own postings.

A fair number of the posts about agents of the state killing people have strong positions and whether "defund the police" or "abolish ICE" are the moral or strategic position. Some people feel very strongly about this, along the lines of "If you don't agree with me, we can't be in a colilition together." And that's the real mistake.

What's important to me is what makes real, concrete difference on the ground. I want there to be fewer deaths perpetrated by the state, more peace, more freedom, more joy, more health. If defund the police is the correct moral position, but reform the police is correct strategic position, and I'm all for reform the police as a political strategy. My own suspicion is that "defund the police" has failed over the past 5 years to materially decrease state violence, but that "abolished ICE" might be a winning strategy going forward.

I'm really bad at political strategy, and I don't understand the mass behavior of humans, so I gladly defer to the experts on these strategy decisions. But I am very strongly of the position that we're going to need a very large mass movement to defeat this immoral regime, which means this coalition is going to include a lot of people who strongly disagree with me on many issues. And that's an actively good thing, not just an unfortunate practical result of reality. The ideal future will include people who strongly disagree with each other on some issues working together on other issues, and to improve society at large.

It's not a bug, it's a feature. We can disagree on some things, and work together on other things.