TheOubliette on neoliberal complacency, ego, and whataboutism
TheOubliette on neoliberal complacency, ego, and whataboutism
You're talking to people that want to continue rationalizing their tacit, frequently racist support for genocide, and their easiest out has always been to say, "but Trump is worse". They have never done the introspection required to look at their own personal role as a political being beyond what they're told to do by the Democratic Party and their donors: slacktivist vote shaming, always presuming the high ground for themselves (even while tolerating genocide!), and doing as little as possible on the ground outside of minor exercises in false catharsis like a cop-escorted, permitted march or an ignored letter writing campaign.
When challenged on this by people on the left that do read and do self-reflect, these are the folks that responded in bad faith, even when the context is genocide, because they have made politics into an extension of their egos rather than a project to which to subordinate yourself and devote real work to.
Whining about .ml is their way of pretending to be vindicated every time Trump does something bad, as they cannot actually argue against what the people in .ml say, they must rely on inventions and emotional implications.
In short, many on .ml vocally opposed supporting genociding Democrats. None that I'm aware of expected Trump to be better. At best, a roll of the dice.
Edit:
Sorry, folks. I failed to consider that this is the home instance of the people being target by this comment.
Just to be clear, I'm not a big .ml fan, I'm just an anarchist who's never seen this particular gripe of mine worded so nicely.
Whining about .ml is their way of pretending to be vindicated every time Trump does something bad, as they cannot actually argue against what the people in .ml say, they must rely on inventions and emotional implications.
Uh yeah, I can’t argue against what y’all say on .ml because anything beyond the prevailing opinion will just get scrubbed away
When challenged on this by people on the left that do read and do self-reflect
lol, this is some grade A fart sniffing. Guess I’m not reading the right books
Uh yeah, I can’t argue against what y’all say on .ml because anything beyond the prevailing opinion will just get scrubbed away
I think it's easy not to realize how profound an impact this has. I tried looking at the same comment threads, on Hexbear and then on some other instances, and it's really remarkable how distorted a picture you'll see of reality and consensus when it's being artificially manipulated to look some particular way. I was surprised by how compelling an alternate reality was created by banning everyone who disagrees.
I'm not surprised to hear someone say "you cannot actually argue against" it, because if you spend all your time in .ml spaces, you may never have heard the counterarguments or had a chance to see a sustained conversation about it. Or maybe a handful of times, with each one being met with ten angry counterpoints which meld into an overall picture of the first thing having no merit at all. I think a lot of times, they form their picture of the counterarguments based on what other .ml people say the counterarguments are. Which is usually pretty different.
When people talk about needing to "protect" their spaces against invasion from some kind of outside force which is going to comment them to death, which is tedious and "debatebro" and they don't need it, that's the outcome they are bending things towards. I have no idea if it's on purpose or just an accidental product of trying to make a friendly space for people with some particular belief. But that's the outcome. It's why they have so much trouble talking with people from "outside" and so little frame of reference as to what the people "outside" actually think and say and believe.
lol, this is some grade A fart sniffing
It's got some
tankieauthvanguard-elitism flair to it, but I felt it was really well written regardlessEdit: adjusted my language
"You're talking to people that want to continue rationalizing their tacit, frequently racist support for genocide"
this is not happening, and like every single other person who cries about Democrats, I'm sure you don't have a shred of evidence either.
"their easiest out has always been to say, "but Trump is worse"."
Trump is worse.
Trump supports the Palestinian genocide explicitly.
and "always"?
how old are you, eight?
That's how long Trump has been politically relevant.
"slacktivist vote shaming"
If you didn't vote, you should be ashamed.
If you didn't vote against Trump, you are the reason Ukraine is not receiving aid, you are the reason diversity is being ruled back, you are the reason women don't have bodily autonomy.
If you didn't vote against Trump, you should be ashamed of your selfish cowardice.
.ml supports the disrespectful and illegal authorian practices that have perpetuated the Palestinian genocide.
your post is trashy trash trash and you don't have a sprig of evidence or logic behind it.
This is not happening
The justification here is that voting for a genocider is an endorsement of the genocide
Trump is worse
Yeah duh. This goes without saying
Voting stuff
I'm queer and disabled- like second on the chopping block for Trump- and I put my own safety aside in defense of Palestinians by refusing to vote for anyone who intended to have them murdered (Both Harris and Trump)
.ml stuff
I'm not a .ml stan- I didn't post this here for that part
other rude nonsense
Your comment is rudey rude rude and you're pretty rude
The justification here is that voting for a genocider is an endorsement of the genocide
"I would never hurt a patient. This guy who's choking to death needs a tracheotomy, but what am I to do? Stab him in the throat? That'll be bad for him."
Walks away, humming proudly to himself about the purity of his ethics.
Edit: Typo
"The justification here is that voting for a genocider is an endorsement of the genocide"
nobody who voted against trump voted for a "genocider".
trump is worse.
"Yeah duh. This goes without saying"
you are looking down your nose at voting against Trump and have a wait and see mentality about the devastating effect his greed has already had, is having and will continue to have in the real world, so it needs to be said loudly and repeatedly that Trump is worse empty Harris was a better candidate, that Trump is killing people and ripping apart the US because of your inaction.
that Is a significant fact, since you and others who didn't vote against him clearly don't understand the consequences of your apathy.
"I put my own safety aside in defense of Palestinians by refusing to vote for anyone who intended to have them murdered"
Palestinians are now in a worse position because of your myopic, selfish posturing, and so are you and other vulnerable populations.
Roll of the dice?
Trump is worse. UNRWA is illegal, there’s no aid of any kind going in, and they’re invading the West Bank now. By the end of Trump’s term, Palestine may be no more.
This whole thing is a massive exercise in exactly what it claims to be criticizing.
OP was saying most people on .ml didn't expect Trump to be better and, if anything, maybe some folks felt he's unpredictable enough that an improvement was possible but unlikely. The point is that most people on .ml were criticizing dems, not saying trump would be better.
Obviously Trump is worse. It might be worth rereading.
I think this misunderstanding comes from the "trump is worse" part being unspoken between leftists, but liberals don't recognize that and assume rejection of their candidate means approval of their enemy
maybe some folks felt he’s unpredictable enough that an improvement was possible but unlikely.
Yes. Those people were being stupid. And their persistent pretense that saying "Trump is so CATASTROPHICALLY worse that it makes no difference if the Democrats are bad, which they are" meant "the Democrats are good and all we need to do is vote for them" is exactly the same type of bad faith, and failure to even bother to try to understand the slightest bit of nuance, that OOP is now accusing others of. Which makes it fair game, now that Trump is trying to burn everything in the world that isn't white and wealthy and making quite a bit of progress on it, to point out to the people who said he might be a "roll of the dice" how idiotic and divorced from reality that statement was (which was pointed out to them in advance which they met with condescension and refusal to listen) with some concrete present-day examples.
That was the point that I was making.
I actually have had people tell me that Trump is better, because of the "cease fire," but I don't even really care about that. There will always be random people saying dumb shit. I was dealing explicitly with the statements OOP was calling out and defending, in the terms in which OOP was defending them.
Edit: Typo and phrasing changes
Sorry, folks. I failed to consider that this is the home instance of the people being target by this comment.
"It's upsetting to me that, here, people are allowed to defend themselves or raise counterarguments. It's much more orderly in places where they can be banned for doing that, so we can talk shit about them unimpeded by anyone defending themselves against it."
Not at all what I meant to say with that. I barely participate in .ml spaces, and I think the censorship there is whack. I legitimately made a mistake posting this here, is all. It's like posting something offensive to queer people on blahaj, or posting a tankie-dunk on .ml. It's just not appropriate
Hm... I mean, I'm not sure I would say that. I think it's good to be able to talk about it. You raised a common perception, and I and some other people wanted to disagree with the perception because it's offensive to us yes, and we got to talk about it. In my book, that's a good thing. It's part of how people get to understand each other.
It might sound like I'm super-irritated at points during the conversation, but I'm really not heated about it. I'm just being vocal, in part because I'm being accused of being racist and supporting genocide and then lying about it. I do think this type of conversation is a good thing. The metaphor where disagreement is "violence" and certain spaces have to be "protected" against it, or against people being harsh when they disagree, because that's hostile and awful, doesn't make sense to me. I think disagreeing and being able to clash a little bit is a good thing. Like I said, it's part of how people get to understand each other. For my side I'm very glad we had this whole conversation about it.