Ulli Diemer — Radical Digressions

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Radical Digressions
Ulli Diemer’s Notebook #11

Time to Talk? — Other Voices, February 8, 2025

February 8, 2025 - #

The February 8, 2025 edition of Other Voices, the Connexions newsletter, which I edit, is now out. You can see it online here. I wrote an introduction to the issue; it appears below:

Time to Talk?

Things aren’t going well.

That is a sentiment that many people – probably most people – around the world would agree on. There are so many problems that even listing them threatens to become tedious: the economy, climate and the environment, war, including the risk on nuclear war, mass migration by millions of people unable to making a living, or even survive where they are, housing and homelessness, health care systems in crisis, genocide in Gaza. In the world’s most powerful nation, a lunatic is now in power, with consequences no one can foresee.

Many people are so pre-occupied with survival that they can’t summon the energy or the mental space to engage in politics. In any case, politics, as traditionally defined, offers few options for bringing about change. Political parties and politicians operating within the structures of so-called liberal democracy make vague promises about making things better, but, when elected, double down on the status quo, the system in which the rich get richer while most people are progressively worse off.

The political forces which have displayed the most energy, and mobilized the most support, are those on the political right. Their support comes, not only, or even mostly, from those who identify as right-wing, but from people who are frustrated and angry, often for perfectly understandable reasons. Encountering nothing but platitudes or contempt from liberals and self- defined progressives, they tune out the left and tune in to the messages of the populist right, which has been taking over the political terrain once occupied by the left.

So what role is there for those of us who still identify with what used to be called ‘the left?’ What do we have to say and who do we say it to?

While we surely need to think about what we have to say, perhaps who we say it to is the more important question.

There is a general answer to the question of who we need to talk to: we need to talk to people who disagree with us.

If we want to change the world, we need other people – millions, eventually hundreds of millions of others – to agree that the world needs changing and to join us in changing it. We need to persuade a majority of the population that a fundamental social and economic transformation is necessary and desirable.

Many of those people distrust anything that is labelled as being ‘left’ or ‘liberal’ or ‘socialist,’ understandably so, given that anti-left bias is one of the abiding characteristics of the media and other narrative control institutions. Yes people are not impervious to listening to dissenting political messages and changing their views. The success of right populist forces in engaging people who were formerly disengaged is proof of that.

So why is the left, by and large, failing to reach these people? The most obvious answer is that we aren’t even trying. With the best of intentions but questionable priorities, the standard practice of progressive groups is to reach out to the already converted to organize actions which bring together the same small groups of people to perform the same actions which proclaim their principled dissent from the status quo – and simultaneously proclaim their inability to mobilize significant numbers of people.

What is all too commonly missing is any serious attempt to reach out to the vast majority of the population: those who won’t come to, or ever even hear about, the protests of the left.

The most effective way of getting people to engage with new ideas is to talk to them. Actually, no – we need to talk with them. We need to have actual face-to-face conversations with actual flesh-and-blood human beings. This is the traditional wisdom of generations of organizers, still practised by labour union organizers, but not enough by others. Today, political messages are mostly communicated through social media and other electronic means (yes, like this newsletter!) That is fine for informing and mobilizing people who already broadly agree with us, but of little value in reaching people who aren’t interested, or don’t think they are interested, in what we have to say.

Of course, social media and email appear much more efficient for reaching large numbers of people, and in a sense they are. But we need to remember that ‘efficient’ and ‘effective‘ are different concepts. Our reliance on electronic media may be efficient, but surely it isn’t effective. We are constantly losing ground, while the right is constantly gaining. We are failing. We need to change our approach.

We need to talk.

Deutsche Artikel

March 1, 2025 - #

More of my articles and essays (about 40 in total) are now available in German. You can find them in the German-language index. Some articles are also available in French, Spanish, and other languages.

Challenges and Opportunities — Other Voices, March 9, 2025

March 9, 2025 - #

The March 9, 2025 edition of Other Voices, the Connexions newsletter, which I edit, is now out. You can see it online here. I wrote an introduction to the issue; it appears below:

Challenges and Opportunities

‘There is no alternative.’ That message, pronounced most succinctly and implacably by Margaret Thatcher more than 40 years ago, has been the motto of the neo-liberal capitalist order for decades. A slightly more cynical formulation might be: ‘This is the best of all possible worlds, and everything in it is a necessary evil.‘

As the ‘necessary evils’ have grown and multiplied, so have various forms of resistance. Resistance has sometimes come from what could be broadly described as the ‘left,’ but more frequently in recent years, it has taken ‘populist,’ right-wing, or religious forms. The political parties which managed and epitomized that status quo, a status quo in which they take turns in pursuing the same neo-liberal policies while cynically promising ‘change,’ have in many countries seen their support collapse. Nevertheless they have soldiered on, repeating the same talking points about the ‘rules-based international order,’ ‘free trade,’ and the essential role of the US-NATO empire in preserving safeguarding peace.

Until the second coming of Donald Trump. Donald Trump and his billionaire buddies don’t care about the old system. They feel that American power entitles them to grab a much bigger piece of the pie. They don’t want to share the spoils, not with other countries, and not with working people, in the U.S. or anywhere else.

Suddenly the leaders of other countries are panicking. Their slavish subordination to U.S. demands has undermined their own economies. The austerity they imposed on their own people so they could support the war in Ukraine (in large part by buying the products of the U.S. arms industry) has put them in a much worse position than they were a few years ago. And now the rug has been pulled out from under them.

We are faced with an uncertain future which will undoubtedly bring a whole array of challenges. But the upheavals that lie before us, internationally and in our own country, will also present us with new opportunities. It is no longer possible to claim that ‘there is no alternative.’ On the contrary, new alternatives are precisely what we have to create.

One of the hardest tasks, especially for people who identify as ‘progressive’ or ‘left,’ will be to work with people who are also unhappy with how things are going, but who view anything labelled as ‘liberal,’ let alone ‘left,’ as suspicious. We, of course, tend to feel the same way about them. We have to overcome that, learn to talk together, figure out what we share, and live with differences on some issues. To change the world, we also have to change ourselves.

Good Neighbours

April 11, 2025 - #

I feel lucky to have the neighbours I do. On the block I live on, in downtown Toronto, there are at least 10 houses where I know the neighbours well enough to have a chat if I encounter them on the sidewalk. Every so often we have little more-or-less impromptu gatherings, like recently when the City said that it was going to cut down an old silver maple because it was diseased and likely to crash down suddenly. We gathered around the tree and had a little farewell ceremony.

Last night, I came to like my neighbours even more. A canvasser for the Conservative Party came to my door. I told her, more or less politely, “Not a chance!”

She replied, a little plaintively, “You too? What is it about this street?”

I almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

Why Does Google Suck?

April 12, 2025 - #

I rarely use Google. Mostly I use DuckDuckGo for search. My main browser is set to always delete all history when it closes, and I also use Tor sometimes for extra privacy protection. And I don’t use Gmail for email. So I am insulated from many of the problems other people report when using Google.

However, when I heard people in the office complaining about Google’s AI inserting its Overview at the top of search results, I was intrigued, and decided I needed to check it out.

I have to say I was impressed. The question I asked Google was “Why does Google suck?” Here is how Google’s AI Overview responded:

Why does Google suck?

AI Overview

Some users feel Google search has declined in quality, with results now being filled with marketing content and spam, while credible sources are harder to find, and the search experience feels less efficient.

Here’s a breakdown of why some people feel Google search “sucks”:

Dilution of Search Results:
Marketing and Spam: Users report seeing more marketing content and spam in search results, making it harder to find reliable information.

SEO-Optimized Pages: Some feel that search results are dominated by pages optimized for search engine ranking (SEO) rather than providing helpful or authoritative content. Lack of Authority: Some users feel there are no longer clear, authoritative voices or brands at the top of search results.

Ads and User Experience:

Invasive Ads: Some users find ads to be intrusive and poorly placed, impacting the overall search experience.

Ad Fraud and Click Fraud: The paid search platform is seen as a hotbed for ad fraud and click fraud.

Algorithm Changes:

AI-Driven Changes: Some users believe that recent AI-driven changes have negatively impacted the search results, making them less relevant and useful.

Difficulty Finding Credible Sources:

Time Consumption: Users report that finding credible sources now takes longer and requires more effort.

Amateur Blogs: Some users express frustration with seeing more amateur blogs in search results instead of reliable sources.

Shift in Focus:

Advertising Revenue: Some believe that Google’s focus on advertising revenue has led to a degradation of the search experience.

More Ads: Users report seeing more ads in search results, which they perceive as a negative change.

YouTube Search Issues:

Recommendation Over Search: Some users find that YouTube search results are dominated by recommendations rather than relevant search results.

Other Voices, April 14, 2025

April 14, 2025 - #

The April 14, 2025 edition of Other Voices, the Connexions newsletter, which I edit, is now out. You can see it online here.

Judy Deutsch 1945 - 2025

April 15, 2025 - #

My friend Judy Deutsch died yesterday. You can read her obituary here.

The photo, of Judy, Jim, Nathan, and Jessica Deutsch, was taken on July 31, 2016, at the home of Miriam Garfinkle and Ulli Diemer.

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