I’m not talking about voting, I’m talking about building organised mass movements who eventually can excercise leverage to achieve goals.
So am I. An individual can probably find ways to survive the worst, even a nuclear holocaust. But we’re social creatures and the better of us have empathy and don’t want to enjoy life at the expense of others. That’s the root of this fight. We’re not in a survive or die world currently, we could work on creating a world where exploitation of our fellow humans is not the norm, but we haven’t and now we’re one foot beyond the hierarchy of capitalist exploitation and into eradication.
I still believe that the only way to achieve the radical change is by organised mass movements.
Same, but I’m leaning towards the idea that us having numbers alone isn’t enough in this situation if we don’t show why numbers matter. It’s why I’m critical of leaders. Our masses are upset, angry, reactive. We need leaders who can channel and guide the strength of numbers and turn it into something useful. Sometimes that’s a peaceful million person march, sometimes that’s an organized strike, sometimes that’s a fight. Our leaders have failed because they had power before all this came to a head and didn’t take action to prevent the ability of the opposition to get to where it is because doing so would have limited their own power. They have allowed the system to be manipulated because they enjoy the loopholes when it works in their favor, only now they’ve gotten outplayed at their own game.
Governors have the power to call up the National Guard and put the threat of reciprocal force between the Feds and the people who live in the territories they are elected to protect. They fail to do so and claim “if we did it would give the abuser the excuse to escalate”. That’s the same logic a victim makes when they’re in an abusive relationship, don’t make them angry or they’ll be justified in hurting you. An abuser doesn’t require justification and setting boundaries is not provocation, they were going to abuse you whether they had a “reason” or not.
And you can forget about that if you are not even willing to get into contact with people who are losing faith in their right wing leader, but who might not have abandoned all their right wing believes. That’s the perfect time to engage and further challenge their views, otherwise nothing will change and they will fall for the next right winger.
Losing faith in their leader is not the same as losing faith in the ideology. Massie and MTG are perfect examples of this. Both have turned on Trump himself, both remain ideologically conservative. They refuse to abandon their cause even if they abandon the person who has become the embodiment of that cause taken to its extreme. And they abandon him not because he’s a monster, but because the promise of what comes of their ideology doesn’t benefit them personally as much as it does him and his elites.
We should be accepting of whatever help we can get, even if it’s some an-cap that only sides with us 10% of the time. We should be constantly be working to use their disillusion of what happens when their ideology reaches its climax. But we should also not delude ourselves into thinking that the enemy of our enemy is our friend and that they won’t go right back to their old ways once the threat is removed.
it’s not even 1933 yet, although very close to it. And until then, you shouldn’t have a working class civil war, but organize…
Alligator Alcatraz and El Salvador are not Dachau or Auschwitz. I agree that we’re not at the level of industrialized genocide like the Nazis were, but we’re deeper than should be allowed.
I’m not sure what your point is or rather I think I’m misunderstanding.
My point is that the people who want to put themselves in positions of leadership need to use that power to exercise their office to the full extent of their authority to stand up to an increasingly lawless and violent federal executive. I hope that some are quietly planning for the possibility that there might come a day where they might have to say “that’s it, the Union is broken, we’re withdrawing and will do what we must to protect the people within our borders; if other want to join, join. If you are someone of similar values, this is your safe haven. If you’re not, this is not the place for you.” As for the rest of us, this potential path is why we stockpile resources, why we network with people of various skills like food production, medical expertise, logistics, the ability, capacity, and willingness to stand between those who aren’t able to/don’t want to/shouldn’t have to push back against victimizers in the worst way humans can do. Solitary survival is easy compared to community survival, that’s the difference between us and them. They’re running on selfishness united by greed, willing to trample others for the biggest slice of pie. They’re infighting because the people they empowered are getting way bigger slices while their constituents get crumbs, but instead of recognizing this is the inevitable outcome of their ideology they still will take the crumbs they can get and blame everyone else for stealing crumbs they think they’re entitled to.
Our leaders need to recognize what many of us have within our own communities. Our institutions are failing and not protecting us or providing us with the quality of life they should. We are not in a position to direct vast resources of wealth, power, and other humans, if we’re organizing (and I hope we are) we’re doing so at a local level, maybe a few dozen at a time. While what’s left of our democracy lasts, those aligned with our values get access to incredible power over society, but they keep failing to use that to protect the most vulnerable. If they keep that up then our various networks of community support will start making their own decisions about how best to protect themselves, and that’s sure fire way to start getting responses that you don’t want.
If you don’t want America to Balkanize you should acknowledge it’s already there but hasn’t boiled over and lead accordingly.
>Same, but I’m leaning towards the idea that us having numbers alone isn’t enough in this situation if we don’t show why numbers matter. It’s why I’m critical of leaders. Our masses are upset, angry, reactive. We need leaders who can channel and guide the strength of numbers and turn it into something useful
That’s what I mean when I say we need organisation. Leaders sure, but an overreliance on leaders is dangerous too. What we mainly need is organisation and discipline.
>Losing faith in their leader is not the same as losing faith in the ideology.
I completely agree, but it’s a potential opening. As long as they still have faith, it’s virtually impossible to reach anyone. When they are losing faith, it provides an opportunity to spread that doubt to not just a leader, but to other aspects of their worldview. It won’t work with everyone, it takes time and won’t work over night and it maybe won’t work in very aspect, but it’s a start.
>Massie and MTG are perfect examples of this.
We have to make a big distinction between leaders/politicans/progapandists and voters. Leaders/politicians/propagandists always have a political and/or financial incentive to hold their line. They might change leaders if it is beneficial to them, they might even switch sides when it is beneficial for them, but one has to assume it’s purely opportunistic.
With voters, it CAN be different. But again, getting people to change their ideology/philosophy/core worldview isn’t easy and doesn’t happen automatically, which is why the “Fuck them, it’s not my job to educate them, they have to change their mind by their own, else I won’t have any contact with them“ attitude is a big mistake in my view because that practically guarantees them voting.
>We should be accepting of whatever help we can get, even if it’s some an-cap that only sides with us 10% of the time.
I don’t even think we should just accept them in our rank or work with them necessarily, I’m saying we need to have some kind of exchange with them in order to oppose their view. I don’t think you disagree with me, but so many online leftists seem to have the opinion that we should simply ignore them or tell them to fuck of until they somehow become radical leftists by themselves. That’s pretty much my main point.
>Alligator Alcatraz and El Salvador are not Dachau or Auschwitz. I agree that we’re not at the level of industrialized genocide like the Nazis were, but we’re deeper than should be allowed.
While I do understand the Nazi Germany comparisons to some degree, I’m not sure how useful they are. Conentration Camps were not unique to Nazi Germany or invented by them. And while Trump and the Trump Regime has some things in common with Nazi Germany and fascism, there are important differences. After the nazis seized power, they had near absolute power very soon. Opposition parties and/or opposition groups were outlawed and members imprisoned on a large scale. Very soon, any effective resistence from within was virtually impossible.
That’s not the case in the US and Trump still has a long way to go until they get there. People’s rights and liberties are definitely under attack, but they do still exist in some form and that must be exploited as long as you still can. Trump has no absolute power, he cannot simply arrest every member of the DSA, etc. Again, there is definitely a tendency towards autocracy, but it’s not done in the same way as in Nazi Germany, so tactics are not the same.
So am I. An individual can probably find ways to survive the worst, even a nuclear holocaust. But we’re social creatures and the better of us have empathy and don’t want to enjoy life at the expense of others. That’s the root of this fight. We’re not in a survive or die world currently, we could work on creating a world where exploitation of our fellow humans is not the norm, but we haven’t and now we’re one foot beyond the hierarchy of capitalist exploitation and into eradication.
Same, but I’m leaning towards the idea that us having numbers alone isn’t enough in this situation if we don’t show why numbers matter. It’s why I’m critical of leaders. Our masses are upset, angry, reactive. We need leaders who can channel and guide the strength of numbers and turn it into something useful. Sometimes that’s a peaceful million person march, sometimes that’s an organized strike, sometimes that’s a fight. Our leaders have failed because they had power before all this came to a head and didn’t take action to prevent the ability of the opposition to get to where it is because doing so would have limited their own power. They have allowed the system to be manipulated because they enjoy the loopholes when it works in their favor, only now they’ve gotten outplayed at their own game.
Governors have the power to call up the National Guard and put the threat of reciprocal force between the Feds and the people who live in the territories they are elected to protect. They fail to do so and claim “if we did it would give the abuser the excuse to escalate”. That’s the same logic a victim makes when they’re in an abusive relationship, don’t make them angry or they’ll be justified in hurting you. An abuser doesn’t require justification and setting boundaries is not provocation, they were going to abuse you whether they had a “reason” or not.
Losing faith in their leader is not the same as losing faith in the ideology. Massie and MTG are perfect examples of this. Both have turned on Trump himself, both remain ideologically conservative. They refuse to abandon their cause even if they abandon the person who has become the embodiment of that cause taken to its extreme. And they abandon him not because he’s a monster, but because the promise of what comes of their ideology doesn’t benefit them personally as much as it does him and his elites.
We should be accepting of whatever help we can get, even if it’s some an-cap that only sides with us 10% of the time. We should be constantly be working to use their disillusion of what happens when their ideology reaches its climax. But we should also not delude ourselves into thinking that the enemy of our enemy is our friend and that they won’t go right back to their old ways once the threat is removed.
Alligator Alcatraz and El Salvador are not Dachau or Auschwitz. I agree that we’re not at the level of industrialized genocide like the Nazis were, but we’re deeper than should be allowed.
My point is that the people who want to put themselves in positions of leadership need to use that power to exercise their office to the full extent of their authority to stand up to an increasingly lawless and violent federal executive. I hope that some are quietly planning for the possibility that there might come a day where they might have to say “that’s it, the Union is broken, we’re withdrawing and will do what we must to protect the people within our borders; if other want to join, join. If you are someone of similar values, this is your safe haven. If you’re not, this is not the place for you.” As for the rest of us, this potential path is why we stockpile resources, why we network with people of various skills like food production, medical expertise, logistics, the ability, capacity, and willingness to stand between those who aren’t able to/don’t want to/shouldn’t have to push back against victimizers in the worst way humans can do. Solitary survival is easy compared to community survival, that’s the difference between us and them. They’re running on selfishness united by greed, willing to trample others for the biggest slice of pie. They’re infighting because the people they empowered are getting way bigger slices while their constituents get crumbs, but instead of recognizing this is the inevitable outcome of their ideology they still will take the crumbs they can get and blame everyone else for stealing crumbs they think they’re entitled to.
Our leaders need to recognize what many of us have within our own communities. Our institutions are failing and not protecting us or providing us with the quality of life they should. We are not in a position to direct vast resources of wealth, power, and other humans, if we’re organizing (and I hope we are) we’re doing so at a local level, maybe a few dozen at a time. While what’s left of our democracy lasts, those aligned with our values get access to incredible power over society, but they keep failing to use that to protect the most vulnerable. If they keep that up then our various networks of community support will start making their own decisions about how best to protect themselves, and that’s sure fire way to start getting responses that you don’t want.
If you don’t want America to Balkanize you should acknowledge it’s already there but hasn’t boiled over and lead accordingly.
>Same, but I’m leaning towards the idea that us having numbers alone isn’t enough in this situation if we don’t show why numbers matter. It’s why I’m critical of leaders. Our masses are upset, angry, reactive. We need leaders who can channel and guide the strength of numbers and turn it into something useful
That’s what I mean when I say we need organisation. Leaders sure, but an overreliance on leaders is dangerous too. What we mainly need is organisation and discipline.
>Losing faith in their leader is not the same as losing faith in the ideology.
I completely agree, but it’s a potential opening. As long as they still have faith, it’s virtually impossible to reach anyone. When they are losing faith, it provides an opportunity to spread that doubt to not just a leader, but to other aspects of their worldview. It won’t work with everyone, it takes time and won’t work over night and it maybe won’t work in very aspect, but it’s a start.
>Massie and MTG are perfect examples of this.
We have to make a big distinction between leaders/politicans/progapandists and voters. Leaders/politicians/propagandists always have a political and/or financial incentive to hold their line. They might change leaders if it is beneficial to them, they might even switch sides when it is beneficial for them, but one has to assume it’s purely opportunistic.
With voters, it CAN be different. But again, getting people to change their ideology/philosophy/core worldview isn’t easy and doesn’t happen automatically, which is why the “Fuck them, it’s not my job to educate them, they have to change their mind by their own, else I won’t have any contact with them“ attitude is a big mistake in my view because that practically guarantees them voting.
>We should be accepting of whatever help we can get, even if it’s some an-cap that only sides with us 10% of the time.
I don’t even think we should just accept them in our rank or work with them necessarily, I’m saying we need to have some kind of exchange with them in order to oppose their view. I don’t think you disagree with me, but so many online leftists seem to have the opinion that we should simply ignore them or tell them to fuck of until they somehow become radical leftists by themselves. That’s pretty much my main point.
>Alligator Alcatraz and El Salvador are not Dachau or Auschwitz. I agree that we’re not at the level of industrialized genocide like the Nazis were, but we’re deeper than should be allowed.
While I do understand the Nazi Germany comparisons to some degree, I’m not sure how useful they are. Conentration Camps were not unique to Nazi Germany or invented by them. And while Trump and the Trump Regime has some things in common with Nazi Germany and fascism, there are important differences. After the nazis seized power, they had near absolute power very soon. Opposition parties and/or opposition groups were outlawed and members imprisoned on a large scale. Very soon, any effective resistence from within was virtually impossible.
That’s not the case in the US and Trump still has a long way to go until they get there. People’s rights and liberties are definitely under attack, but they do still exist in some form and that must be exploited as long as you still can. Trump has no absolute power, he cannot simply arrest every member of the DSA, etc. Again, there is definitely a tendency towards autocracy, but it’s not done in the same way as in Nazi Germany, so tactics are not the same.