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Too soon was yesterday and earlier. The race is over - it's time to rub our own representatives noses in their bullshit and hope our country limps along well enough to give them a chance to apply the lesson. ...I'm not confident that opportunity will be on the table going forward.
If you're still putting your trust and faith in anyone to represent you and your interests within this system, you might have some lessons to learn yourself..
You can't keep playing their game over and over expecting a different result.
Direct action, mutual aid, dual power, horizontal governing. Those are the ways forward, not yet another cycle of electoral theatre.
I voted for the frying pan in hopes of avoiding the fire. I don't have faith in any of them, but there's a spectrum of awful they all fall on and I'd prefer to at least hang out on the less severe end of it.
But you're right, we absolutely cannot rely on this shit.
I’d prefer to at least hang out on the less severe end of it.
That end is an illusion, the "lesser evil" is there to manufacture consent for evil in general, and to help shift the Overton window to the right.
I'm not trying to have a go at you, I'm just frustrated and think people seriously need to be shaken out of this collective obedience to the rules of our oppressors. The existing system will never serve us, it is designed to do the opposite. If herr cheeto getting elected for a second term doesn't do it, what the fuck will?
Naw you're good. We're on the same page.
If herr cheeto getting elected for a second term doesn't do it, what the fuck will?
Not a damn thing. We don't have it in us. By the time the masses are uncomfortable enough to get up off the couch and do something about it, it'll be far too late. And I hate to say it, but self included.
We don’t have it in us. By the time the masses are uncomfortable enough to get up off the couch and do something about it, it’ll be far too late. And I hate to say it, but self included.
I guess I never had the privilege of such comfort to begin with.
Sadly I agree that many people will only act when personally affected, but I also think that A. more and more people are personally affected every day, and it's going to get rapidly worse but more importantly B. the less we insist on conforming to and working within the rules we've been told by our oppressors to follow, the more people we will reach. People think that resistance is about guerrilla fighting and pipe bombing and overnight worldwide revolution, but it's about building solidarity with your neighbours and co workers, unionising (at work, but also as renters for example), protecting the vulnerable people in your community, providing alternatives to the existing structures to ease the burden on ourselves and each other, all the things you need to make people feel safe enough to turn their backs on the status quo. There are ways for everyone to be included and participate to the best of their abilities, and while burnout and trauma and other difficulties and barriers are real, "not being personally affected yet" isn't a valid barrier.
You can't run away from making a choice, they are already coming for your neighbours, and eventually they will come for you.
I guess I never had the privilege of such comfort to begin with.
I may have overstated that unintentionally -- it's the fine line at making just enough to pay the bills, but the check-engine light still being terrifying. The comfort is that I've got a roof over my head (not my roof, my landlord's, in exchange for most of my paycheck), and food on the table (not healthy food, that shit's too expensive; but food).
If I get caught acting out of line, I'm a missed paycheck or two away from homeless, and that's a pretty powerful motivator. I'll still come here and bitch my landlord and such - that's not illegal yet. But actually taking to the streets? That's risky as fuck.
building solidarity with your neighbours and co workers
I've recently learned that most of those are Nazis. Unsure if solidarity is what I want.
You can’t run away from making a choice
The choice to do what? Guerrilla shit? Pretty sure that'd end really quickly with me either dead or in prison. Voting? Haven't missed an election big or small since 2016, and that hasn't accomplished shit. Supporting my community? That's why I went into health care (surgical tech currently, in school part time for nursing); and even once I become a nurse, I live in a state that legally mandates that I violate the nursing oath if I ever get a patient who needs reproductive or gender affirming care... pretty sure I can get in legal trouble just for telling them which states to visit where they actually can receive care. It's fucked. All of it.
they are already coming for your neighbours, and eventually they will come for you.
Yeah no shit - they even made a roadmap for how they're going to do it called Project 2025. My neighbors and I are fucked, and something like 80% of those neighbors are going to spend their last breath pointing at the other 20% and laughing from the other side of the toiled bowl as we all spiral down the drain together.
In that case I guess your only choice is to give up then.
That's the plan - RN is my ticket out of this shithole. I'm not aware of a political utopia, but there are at least a few options that aren't swan-diving into fascism. If I'm lucky, it'll be somewhere that dodges global instability long enough for me to die in a semi-natural way.