The BLM movement and the BLM organization are different. Much the same way that Americans will all claim to be democrats but less than half will claim to be Democrats.
Well, it seems this 'confusion' has tricked even the biggest companies to not only 'show support' for the movement with their now pointless banners, but also donate to the organisation which basically failed to be held accountable for the missing $60M that was spent on properties.
They supported both, including the 'Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation'.
Probably true when they donated money. Certainly not true when they put up posters or claimed to support things. Fraudsters cloaking themselves in the names of things is pretty common throughout hot button political issues, although sometimes it's fraud and sometimes it's unintentionally mismanaging money. I mean, the trucker thing in Canada raised millions of dollars, and while some of it has not been transferred because of the apparent fraud, only $1 million was only ever planned to be spent on the trucker thing and the other $7 million was destined for the organizer's bank account.
In general, there are no trademarks on social movements, and it's a tough problem.
> it's the money they reportedly had on hand at last account.
Exactly. Everyone knows that the 'missing' $60M didn't go to their own causes, but was spent on themselves (and everything else unrelated to BLM), just like what fraudsters would do. They were successful at manipulating the emotions of their supporters and executed a magnificent scam that even tricked the largest of companies.
> The BLM movement and the BLM organization are different. Much the same way that Americans will all claim to be democrats but less than half will claim to be Democrats.
It's more different than that between the BLM movement and the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation organization (which, despite the domain name, isn't the sole BLM organization); among the groups at odds with BLMGNF are either a substantial minority or perhaps even an actual majority of the former local chapters, BLMGNF has apparently been leaderless for most of a year after failing to reach a deal with the two people that were supposed to take over last May as coleads to replace the outgoing executive director.
OP phrased that weirdly (and apparently doesn’t know that no one calls themselves a small d democrat - just not a phrase normal people use).
The point though, is that most people who support ending police brutality know that BLM Global Network Foundation is mismanaged. There are many other groups doing work to fight against police brutality which have more support from people involved in that movement.
It requires people to be educated about what they are voting on. Having people spend time educating themselves wastes a lot of societal time. Voting doesn't scale well so people end up delegating their votes to someone else who usually doesn't have the same exact beliefs and may vote different than themselves. It turns into a popularity contest. The process of making decisions can be slow.
If we aren't a democracy, can we just ignore your opinion and do what we want?
> Voting doesn't scale well
It's scaled amazingly well, far beyond what the creators could have imagined. Billions vote around the world. In the US, without looking up the population in 1776, it's probably scaled 100x.
And it's been, by far, the most successful, free, prosperous, stable, functional form of government in human history. Name any that comes close - any country that has come close in history that isn't a democracy. Name a better form of government, or a country in any time and place that people would prefer to live in. Note the massive migration to democracies. It's like citing Apple Computer as a company that doesn't scale well (except there are other companies in Apple's league, and no other form of government competes with democracy).
The only question is, who is so anxious to tear it down and why?
You don't have to answer as we've definitely drifted off topic.
Is there a reasonable solution to these problems? I feel like without the popularity contest element, that's only more delegating to those who don't necessarily vote the way people would want. Without the delegating, there is stronger requirements on a citizen to educate themselves.
Representative democracy seems to be at the rough point of compromise between these downsides.
Purports to be about consent of the governed, will of the people, popular rule etc. In reality, you can't even prevent your own children from being taught as truth some pseudomoral garbage that maybe 5-10% of the population believes. Basically it transfers power to the most motivated actors, almost regardless of their popularity.
> you can't even prevent your own children from being taught as truth some pseudomoral garbage that maybe 5-10% of the population believes.
What are you referring to? Also, you can home-school your kids. Or just move someplace where nobody cares.
It's not perfect, but name something that gives you remotely as much freedom and power over your government.
Many millions have given their lives, physically or temporally, to making it better, to give you and I the historically unequalled freedom, security, and prosperity we were born into. If you see problems - and so do I - how about helping make it better rather than sitting around criticizing while others do the work?
Actual democracy may be fine, but democracy as practiced here on Earth is usually a theatrical version of the real thing.
As an example: M4A has strong bipartisan support among the public, but politicians discuss it using rhetoric and propaganda, demonstrating that it is fake.
Not answering your question, but making sure the clarification is made that we (in the USA) do not live in a Democracy. We live in a Constitutional Republic.
I know, I know... some people cringe when someone points this out, but it's true.
I don't know of any American who claims to be a democrat without also claiming to be a Democrat; the terms are synonymous with the political party in the US.
While the literal term isn't used the way the parent describes I believe that their comment is trying to communicate "While only half of Americans describe themselves as Democrats, most Americans would say they're "an advocate or supporter of democracy" (the definition of a democrat).
Right, but when arguing semantics, then semantics matters. "democrat" as in "someone who advocates democracy" simply isn't in common usage here.
Likewise, if I said I donated to BLM, odds are good I am talking about the fund by that name, not an abstract concept of a movement that random people ephemerally belong to.
They supported both, including the 'Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation'.
So they were supporting fraudsters all this time?