Pretending not to pick a side IS picking a side
Pretending not to pick a side IS picking a side
ID: photo of Martin Luther King Jr. waving at the crowd during the March on Washington, on it is his quote: "He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."
There are more than two sides.
The world is much larger than your struggle against evil.
"Always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented"
- Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize 1986
Quoted from his acceptance speech -
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1986/wiesel/acceptance-speech/Elie Wiesel was born in 1928 in the town of Sighet, now part of Romania. During World War II, he, with his family and other Jews from the area, were deported to the German concentration and extermination camps, where his parents and little sister perished. Wiesel and his two older sisters survived. Liberated from Buchenwald in 1945 by advancing Allied troops, he was taken to Paris where he studied at the Sorbonne and worked as a journalist.
They took a side, its just not a side you'll admit exists.
When everyone loses faith in the current and future DNC to the point that accelerationism toward complete disolution of the US government seems like the only viable choice, this is what it looks like.
The DNC being in favor of genocide steered muslim voters to want to burn this whole place down. Can you blame them? And its similar for the working poor who are one toothache or splean surgery from living under a bridge. I dont blame them either. But you seem to.
The very visible nationwide rage at the United Health care CEO and the dems being out to lunch on working class struggles-- coupled with the losses across every single demographic shows that this is a universal truth that exists whether you like it to or not. And this isnt about healthcare, its about the entire system of government.
The DNC being in favor of genocide steered muslim voters to want to burn this whole place down.
The muslim vote and Gaza protest votes combined isn't what caused democrats to lose and they didn't want to "burn this whole place down" as you put it, Democrats lost because of their shitty campaign, saying nothing about progressive politics or what people wanted to hear, ontop of all the Gaza stuff, and has the likes of Bill Clinton campaigning for them. Don't blame muslims for the Democrats shitty-ass campaign.
Complacency is complicity
"You shouldn't pay attention to politics it's unhealthy." - My "liberal" "centrist" family. "You should focus on yourself" they say, "It is what it is, can't do anything to change it, work on yourself" they say, as if the most enlightened and reasonable perspective is to put a blanket over your head and pretend that the monsters don't exist. They'd say "It's hard to take you seriously, maybe become a politician or economist" but when you give them reading material written by economists, politicians, as well as lauded minds like MLK Jr or Einstein, they roll their eyes and go "You shouldn't pay attention to politics it's unhealthy, focus on yourself."
I'm not American so I'm not in as desperate a situation as you might be. That said, I have had the same discussions with many people and I've learned a few things.
One, ignoring a problem and hoping that it goes away is a totally natural coping strategy that works more often than we care to admit. It's a perfectly appropriate coping strategy when you're waiting out winter, but it's maladapted to stopping fascists from knocking on your door.
Two, people only have so much bandwidth. Their jobs, kids, school work, and just existing takes up that bandwidth. When someone's bandwidth is maxed out the only time I've been able to reach them is when they're already thinking about something I have a very strong argument that aligns with their goals. Otherwise it's a waste of time, they're worried about getting their kids fed and in bed, they don't have the brain power to think about how they could help overthrow the oligarchy.
Three, when those opportunities arise patience is key. Listen way more than than I speak, always keep the conversation focused on what they're concerned about.
'Know when to hold em, know when to fold them. Know when to walk away, know when to run.'
Exactly.
You know, a lot of comments are bringing up voting like there was any chance of votes preventing this. A lifetime of gerrymandering, court stacking, propaganda, and general fuckery led to this, and the only question was when the religious right wing and oligarchs made their move
Voting? That's not shit.
What matters is real change brought by real people.
The people that didn't vote? That wasn't all protest non participation. Voter turnout has always been low because the average person just does not care.
Which means they won't care if the people that do care tear down the currently successful right wing revolution with a counter revolution. All you have to do is keep just enough comfort during transition, and nobody will lift a finger from that group. They will not give a flying fuck at all.
Frankly, even if they did care, they're also the segment least able to do a damn thing about any of it. They lack the will, the training, and the functional personal motivation to do anything but hunker down and wait, even if their comfort level does drop to the bottom.
I can't say that's good or bad, but it is what it is.
It's up to the people that care to make changes. Right now, the right seems to care a fuck ton more than anyone else, so they're pulling it off.
What do you mean votes couldn't prevent this? You really think if Kamala had won by the electoral college that Trump would have won anyways??
I'm saying that this is the end goal the right wing, particularly the general Republican party and the Christian right in particular have been working towards since Nixon. The southern strategy, combined with the oligarchs dominating the party.
Democrats have never had a good plan to oppose that, and still don't.
Even if Kamala had won, which was never likely, it would have been someone, at some point in the next fifty years because the first Trump term stacked the supreme court, and the party pushed hard to put decisive cases up.
There's no way the halfassed efforts that democrats have been using my entire lifetime would have prevented an eventual lock on Congress and the presidency.
Mind you, I'm fairly convinced that had kamala won, there was a plan in the works for an outright attack. Not a genuine right wing revolution scale attack, but a disruptive series of attacks on the power grid and infrastructure to sow chaos and strengthen the militarization of the police even more, get people used to marshal law, etc. But that's impossible to prove, and unsourceable.
In a roundabout way, any democrat winning would have had exactly as much effect on their long term plans. They've been working at this, laying multiple options down so that as soon as opportunity rose, they could strike in one way or another.
Voting can't fix that. Voting democrat can't fix that for sure. There is no viable alternative party to oppose it, and there's no time to build one, despite the feeble bullshit being tried to rebuild the democrat establishment. You can't take a party that gives lip service to the populace, but works to maintain the status quo of corporate interests on average, and turn it into a serious engine of change.
We're past the point of waiting four years and hoping. We were past that when Biden eked out a win. But nobody took that respite to even try and shift things.
I feel like it should be a normal thing to openly stand against fascism. If anyone has a problem with me because of that then they've proven themselves to be people I would never want to interact with in the first place
It’s still somewhat incredible to me that the label “Antifa” is used as a pejorative by some of these talking heads.
Uhh, last I checked we committed a whole bunch of boats and soldiers to literally blowing the brains out of nazi skulls on one particular Day…
Opposing fascism should be the default American stance, we’re just riddled with cancer/capitalism
Opposing fascism should be the default American stance, we’re just riddled with cancer/capitalism
And it's crazy, because, as someone who grew up in the 90s/00s, it always was. My public education did not shy away from shitting on Nazis and explaining the dangers of fascism. They started teaching that shit in elementary school.
The brain rot that has set-in over the past two decades or so has just been mind boggling and insane to watch.
somewhat incredible to me that the label “Antifa” is used as a pejorative by some of these talking heads
Incredible but not surprising. The talking heads use a word or a name as a pejorative for long enough, and the listeners internalize it.
Does this include not voting because one is a single issue voter?
Edit: lmao, yall will really say whatever to justify your decision to make things worse.
Absolutely. Non-voters and "protest" voters chose not to oppose a known fascist. Their refusal to strategically use their voice has led to increased suffering of minorities, LGBTQ+, and likely an end to any semblance of US democracy.
Not to mention that it led directly to a worsening of the genocide they were claiming to care about.
Yeah, well, they've done it, 95 million Americans didn't vote. Now what?
Are we gonna point the finger at them, lay the blame at their feet, and feel superior because WE VOTED, while the oligarchs and fascists loot our treasury and put our minority and LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters you seem to care so much about in camps? Or are we gonna go and fight the good fight like the people out in LA yesterday?
Voting (and in any other way participating) in an oppressive system (E: and for an oppressive party, either way) is literally the opposite of protesting it.
Welcome to the point lmao
Depends on the severity of the single issue @plastic_ramses. Was slavery a 'single issue'? is genocide? Are they just 'single issues' like school vouchers and saving the spotted owl?
No they are not. I dont understand why you cant see that. Its not complicated.
Your whole argument is designed to excuse yourself from any critical thought and allow your leaders to shackle you to any outcome they please. And maybe thats all you're good for, frankly.
My critical thinking led me to vote for the dems because i didn't want to make things for my sister, who is transfem.
My critical thinking led me to vote for the dems because i didn't want to make things worse for my immigrant coworkers in the service industry.
My critical thinking led to me knowing without a shadow of a doubt that the republicans would target people who aren't me, a cishet white male, and make things worse for them.
Im curious as to where your critical thinking led you, but we sort of already know that it.
It led you to make the world unequivocally worse.
In a similar vein, anyone eligible to vote and chooses not to implicitly supports whoever wins.
No, you bootlickers can repeat the same bullshit party lines and shove your heads up your ass as far as you please to maintain your personal comfort and shield yourself from reality (and from those actually responsible for and who benefit from fascism, which you miraculously never confront or even hold accountable, and are freely willing to
compromise withgive in to), but that doesn't change it - participating in an oppressive system, and voting for one of either oppressive parties designated to you by those benefiting from that system to placate you with an illusion of choice is literally the opposite of protesting said system (E: never even mind that the idea that you can vote fascism away is beyond ignorant and laughable in its own right, it's demonstrably wrong)TL;DR: your vote didn't protest shit, it was manufactured consent for the status quo, get off your fucking high horse
And yet you participate in society. Curious!
By the time you get to the general election in the US where it’s guaranteed to be one candidate or the other, that is not where individual efforts have an effect. Those efforts need to happen early in the process.
We are literally living through the drastic harm INCREASE that happens when people didn’t vote for harm reduction.
But I’m not totally disagreeing with you here. I don’t really consider myself an accelerationist, and definitely not a democrat/liberal/capitalist, and if they redid the election I would vote against Trump 10 out of 10 times against almost any real democrat or independent or 3rd party. But the accelerationist path may be the only way through this.
I’m genuinely curious what vote of mine didn’t protest shit, given that I’m not, nor ever have been, a Seppo.
The problem with having these arguments online is that you don't actually know what nonentity did besides vote. What did you do? I've gone to rallies, I've written my representatives, I helped out at my college's Gaza camp, I wrote and called my college's chancellor about the Gaza camp, I've distributed literature about Palestine. And I fucking voted, uncommitted and then Harris, because as public enemy #1b (trans) I don't have the privilege to let whoever wins win. Because people couldn't be bothered to do the bare minimum and take an hour or two to go vote for the lesser evil, the government is erasing me from existence.
lol no, I'm not going to get mad at my neighbors, I'm going to get mad at people who are actively trying to hurt them, not the ones accidentally doing it
The problem isn't that fascists were voted into the White House. The problem is that there are fascists in the White House. Anything that doesn't address that problem is equally implicit in supporting fascism. Arguing with your neighbors doesn't get fascists out of the White House. If history is anything to go by it has obviously done the opposite
I think they are linked. Democracy can only work and thrive with an educated and/or informed population who is willing and able to have public and civil discourse. The fact that the political climate is the way it is now, so divided and only engaging to act on petty revenges, allows for fascism to take root. We saw this in Germany prior to the second World War. When NSDAP began beating people up in the street who opposed their ideology, with little repercussions for such behavior, led to the beer hall putsch, and eventually the rise of Herr Hitler. I can see parallels with the modern day political climate of America. The issue is that we voted them into the white house; I think that might even be more jarring than them being in there itself. Democratically voting a fascist in power is a tell tale sign that our democracy is not working.
And anyone who votes for genocide without even bothering to vote uncomitted in the primary is a genocider themselves.
I need to do more protests . I always seem to hear about them after the event, or they’re always in London or something
Your state capitol building on Wednesday at noon. Every state.
Why are people still organizing outside building the oligarchs never go to? No wonder people don't show up, it doesn't work. Perhaps if we organized outside gated communities or billionaires mansions, occupy the oligarchs instead of some sidewalk.
I always go beans and potato salad.
Listen to holiday in Cambodia, maybe it will help you leftist tankies
better a "leftist tankie" (your words) than fascist trash or a useless centrist with no beliefs.