It's completely rational, normal and healthy to want to be liked or admired. Most people have struggled with this very same topic for most of our lives.
As an embarrassing admission, this author will disclose that during their time in high school, I would progressively and deliberately narrow my circle of friends & acquaintances to a point where I foolishly assumed that my proximity to other people would make me seem smarter, more attractive, or, even funnier than I actually was.
This was nothing more than a feeble coping mechanism to make up for my shortcomings, such as not being as athletic as other kids, had enough money to spend on clothes I'd quickly grow out of, and, I enjoyed various things that the cooler, jaded kids categorized as "nerd shit" such as playing with graphing calculators, reading textbooks, and taking a leading role in group projects.
As the rigid and artificial social hierarchies of school have faded into distant memory, adulthood has taught many generations of self conscious would-be social strata climbers such as me that personalities are superior to the superficial appearances of perception.
Unfortunately for all of us, it seems as if the only sector of life that hasn't woke up to this essential life lesson is the childish, immature, and vapid world of politics.
In politics, perception is currency. There's even a whole sector of Capitalists whose job it is to manage the public's perception of politicians even when they do shitty and immoral things against decency and the public's interest. (as a small aside, the "field" of "public relations"/"communications"/"crisis management" has to be the primary reason why the so called "developed World" contains some of the most propagandized people in history. When the Revolution finally comes, the World Parliament's first mission will be to make March 9th, the day of the death of Edward Bernays a Global holiday).
And, as of right now, the Populist Left in the "developed World" is utterly asphyxiated by the vice grip of the perceptions they hold for their "Leaders"/Heroes across the board, acting in a fashion that is no different than how Liberals unable to exercise critical thinking skills are viewing a man who doesn't think insulin should be cheap or free, hates homeless people so much that he did a photo-op tearing down encampments for people who have nowhere else to go, and either thinks calling Donald Trump a "Socialist" plays well to a generation of voters who prefers Socialism to Capitalism, or actively doesn't want the vote of that sector of the electorate.
In France, despite the fact that the notoriously unpopular Neoliberal president Emmanuel Macron performed a legal coup in all but name against an explicitly Radical political coalition which won the nation's latest elections by appointing a Conservative Prime Minister from a losing party rather than allowing Jean-Luc Mélenchon to elevate to the spot and fulfill his promise of establishing the Sixth Republic, Mélenchon is allowing himself to get painted with the same type of smears from the Establishment Press that brought down Radicals such as Jeremy Corbyn. As for Corbyn, the British political martyr who has now been exiled from the political party that he has called his home for his entire life over blatantly weaponized antisemitism claims from opponents from within his own party is now, along with other Independent politicians and exiled former Labour members of Parliament, at the beginning stages of creating a new Radical Left, Radically Democratic political party that is already suffering from the issues of formlessness. And, even here in America, there seems to be another turn towards the Populist Left. The breathless reporting, both positive and negative, that has come out of New York City of all the moves that NY state assemblyman, NYC Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member, and duly elected New York City Democratic Mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani has been making (like his acceptance of Barack Obama and crafting policies similar to Democratic billionaire and former NYC Neoliberal Mayoral Michael Bloomberg) should make all Radicals do a fair bit of reflection as it appears that the jaded and directionless Democratic establishment is prepared to embrace an alternative direction to regain voters.
Yet, since the day-one editorial position of Black Label Detroit has been to be as endlessly contrarian and piss in as many people's Cheerios as possible, we'll put forward something regarding these developments that is bound to piss a bunch of Radicals off and seem nothing more than an "Ultra-Leftist" take, but, this desperately must be contemplated:
Believing in "Great Men" is gonna get all of us killed. No one is here to save us. We must use our collective Free Will to actually change the World into a better place.
Before we elaborate upon this position, no, this is not an editorial suggesting that these figures aren't genuine or don't actually believe in all of the shit that they're saying, what we actually mean is that the system will delivery those of us discontented with politics ready-made avenues of dissent, which will give us the false hope that change will come. Then, the system will either assimilate opposition to business as usual inside of itself so Radicals become "Reformers" & "Reformers" become members of the Establishment while the Radicals who refuse to bend the knee to the injustice of the system are politically annihilated because they pose genuine threat to the status quo, and their defeats are squarely blamed upon them by the media.
The current state of politics in the City of Detroit & Metro Detroit is an excellent example of what we mean to quantify this analysis:
Right now, the self-styled "Progressive" Mayoral primary winner Mary Sheffield recently started a "listening tour" of sorts to "hear community voices" while outlining the blueprint she proposes to follow for her first 100 days in office.
To your average Progressive voter, this seems like a great move and totally "in character" for a politician who has always portrayed herself as being close to the common people. But, for Radicals who have been following her campaign since the beginning, it's easy to rightly come to the conclusion that Sheffield is playing the part of a political chameleon.
As was previously reported by this publication, when Mary Sheffield appeared to get the jump on the potential Mayoral competition by declaring her candidacy first, she nakedly, vigorously, and repeatedly turned away from her previous Reformist positions and endorsed more business-friendly, pro-Establishment positions.
Yet, to the thin crowd that was present at the Jamison Temple where she initiated her listening tour, which was a direct reflection of the utterly terrible turnout that this historically significant primary received, Sheffield yet again put on the mask of an ambitious Reformer.
Much of what was said to the crowd at the church was not disclosed to the public when she first announced her candidacy, such as her call for the City of Detroit to implement rent control (which landlords hate, and landlord-dominated Lansing would have to allow for the city to implement such a policy, Sheffield conceded), other promises were blatantly stolen from defeated primary opponents such as Saunteel Jenkins' proposals for an Office of Gun Violence Prevention (which was morally reprehensible because Jenkins publicly stated that she was inspired to make the proposal to prevent gun deaths like what happen to her brother when she was just a teenager) as well as her initiative to bring city hall services to each of the seven council districts while proposing zoning changes for each to anchor development in a dispersed form of a "Master Plan".
Some of her proposed initiatives such as her confession that she didn't want "control" over Detroit's public school system, yet, paradoxically, Sheffield wanted to improve student absenteeism rates, test scores, and called for expanded after school programs.
On issues such as transit, she actively retreated from her initial proposal of championing an implementation of Atlanta's MARTA rail system in favor of advocating for a "regional working group" to find the "best fit" for regional transit (as is noted by Black Label Detroit's report on the inner workings of Transit Rider's United (TRU), during their public forum which sought to "educate the public" regarding the candidates' positions on regional transit before the Mayoral primary, Sheffield opted to skip the forum altogether while TRU failed to call her out for not showing up or even "empty-chairing" her despite Sheffield leading in the polls all throughout the primary, maybe local journalists should actually do their jobs and investigate both for taking money from the local Auto Industry).
Finally, Sheffield proposed a range of different bonds and funds for initiatives that she supports and new departments that she seeks to create despite the fact that, at numerous different points before the primary, she promised "fiscal discipline", which is well-known shorthand for Austerity. Seeing as the Citizen's Research Council of Michigan is predicting that the City of Detroit is currently collecting less tax revenue than before the Bankruptcy happened, and the Citizen's Research Council is also suggesting that Detroit's economy will be drastically affected even in the case of a "minor recession", all this is being compounded by the fact that Donald Trump is actively making government policy to deny that this country is in recession.
As for Metro Detroit, the picture is even more bleak. Despite the wider area holding the majority of the state of Michigan's population, which, voted for Donald Trump the political outsider, it seems like we're doomed to be represented by more establishment politicians such as Michigan's 11th congressional representative and possibly a doppelganger of Marge Simpson doing a Jesse Ventura impersonation, who leads the race for Michigan's open senate seated while former gubernatorial candidate, "Progressive" and endorser of notorious Detroit Neoliberal political boss Mike Duggan, Abdul El Sayed is trailing her in the polls.
Even established Radicals such as Rashida Tlaib seem to be failing to meet the moment, from her holding signs to silently dissent against Benjamin Netanyahu's and Donald Trump's fascist's babblings to proposing ineffective moves such as launching an audit of Trump's use of federal troops when asked what the congressional Democratic strategy to get the feds' units out of cities by a representative of Black Label Detroit.
Her organization, Metro Detroit DSA, is also too politically timid. Instead of proposing or pushing genuinely transformational policies such as putting Capitalist bloodsucking entities like DTE under public ownership, overturning Citizen's United at the state level, or, backing the movement for a Metropolitan Parliament (since, even the Neoliberals are coming around to advocating for Metropolitan Governments now), they're opting to lobby for half-measures like banning DTE from lobbying Lansing and approaching chapter-wide endorsements on a case-by-case basis.
Despite everything that has been said up until this point, there are very promising signs of hope for the future.
Black Label Detroit suggests this, because, at Sheffield's listening tour, a representative spoke to an individual who asked her a question about the contradiction behind Sheffield's promise to build 1,000 single family homes and improve property values while keeping rents low. Sheffield's answer was to transfer renters into homeowners, yet, as was disclosed to us, this member of the public admitted to being disappointed with this response even though they took the time out of their busy schedule to come and see Sheffield face to face.
The embers of change are ignited in dissatisfaction, just accepting the state of the world or uncritically following various "agents of change" will do us no good at the end of the day. Dissatisfaction and skepticism are crucial tools to use in order to survive in this world and to overcome the hidden agendas of the powerful. Within Radical circles, we must always make sure that our support or advocacy for any candidate, policy, or party is always critical, no one if above criticism, and it doesn't serve the long-term interests of Radicals to sweep shortcomings of campaigns under the rug.
This author has a personal interest in perpetually pushing dissatisfaction among Radicals and never accepting the "official positions" of the Establishment whether Capitacratic, "Progressive", or even Radical: I have gone through the horrors of the deeply broken and ruthlessly Capitalist "Mental Health Industry" because of a failed legal defense that my public defender used on my case when I got in trouble with the law because of a domestic dispute. There's been many times where I've been forcefully hospitalized against my will (which, I've been injected with "medical cocktails" that've left me with permanent side effects like my eyes rolling to the back of my head, beginning to shake uncontrollably, & me becoming non-verbal once in a while. The last instance I was illegally injected against my will, I learned that a "nurse" took me through the admissions process to Stonecrest hospital despite not being a Wayne County resident and the Oakland County police not having a transport order to bring me there, apparently in my fugue state, I told the "nurse" that I believed that "the government was after me" despite never expressing the same sentiments to family or friends and any criminal case would throw out that testimony out of hand because "truth serum"-based testimony is illegal in Michigan)
The main reason why I was roped into the "Mental Health Industry" against my will was because I started to realize that my lawyer had ulterior motives, over the course of my imprisonment I was asked numerous times about my political beliefs and my lawyer never disclosed to me that he was the former prosecutor for [redacted] County, yet, had many political ties to the City of Detroit and sent me to the state of Michigan's Center for Forensic Psychiatry because I rightly raised issues that I was receiving ineffective assistance of council and it put his career as a lawyer in jeopardy.
It was through this challenging period of my life that I learned to cultivate my skepticism of authority and relentless contempt for accepting answers from "authority figures", I learned that these types of people want to rob you of your humanity physically, mentally, and spiritually, the only thing that you have to hold on to in situations like what I've gone through is being a mental rebel, the cliche that certain things are a "mind over matter" struggle apply here.
My experience, and the experience of countless other innocent people has driven my politics more than any recession, job loss, personal tragedy, or news article ever could. If they can do what they have done to me, then there is nothing stopping the crooked yet strong arm of the state from doing the same to any of you readers/listeners if you piss off the wrong people.
Moving back to trusting our Radical "leaders" with our lives, it must be the duty of the average citizen to inform them of the misdeeds of the Establishment and steer them away from accepting the Establishment's false framing of individual and social issues such as what has happened with conversations surrounding mental health.
We cannot allow the most famous of Radicals among us to get complacent or comfortable within their positions, I started this platform with the intent of influencing the World around me and inspiring Radicals within Metro Detroit to take these ideas and implement them in our profoundly influential home. I've seen the successful spread of Radicalism here, yet, I've failed at actually building the future that I want to see. This is why I've begun getting involved with Radical organizing (I won't disclose who I organize with for opsec reasons), but if there is any lesson that is to be obtained from this report it's this:
Individual efforts to change the World are essential, now more than ever, but whatever you choose to do, you must be able to organize your actions within the contexts of your local communities in order to understand what needs to be fixed and how to fix those issues. Simply putting your faith into those you don't know and their facades of authenticity is a recipe for disappointment when they struggle against the multitude of mechanisms that the Establishment has to frustrate change.Yet, the establishment can frustrate the few in the halls of power, it cannot cope with the force of the many coming to undermine it's institutions.
In all, find out what you like, do it for free or have a small paywall to keep yourself going sustainably, organize with like-minded individuals, build dual power, and, put your life in your own hands so you can learn how to rebel relentlessly.
Links & Sources:
-https://crcmich.org/to-better-understand-detroits-post-bankruptcy-fiscal-health-adjust-for-inflation-and-population
