Remember, capitalists and fascists are united. The workers of the world can only defeat them through solidarity, you have nothing to loose but your chains.
Liberals are not saying the first line, or if they’re saying it then it’s not sincere. They keep lecturing us about how we need to tolerate fascism currently manifesting toward other marginalized groups because a hypothetical scenario would be worse. Liberals have shown repeatedly that they have a level of fascism they consider acceptable.
You think so? Because I’ve seen a ton of liberals all over Lemmy (and other social media) jumping to defend Biden for enabling genocide, and specifically blaming any critisizm of the Dems from the left on Russian propaganda. In communities that -by every right- ought to be leftist spaces too.
Liberalism is a right-wing ideology, so it’s no surprise there’s crossover between the Democrats and Republicans in the US. The liberal worldview upholds capitalism and imperialism, and it always eventually devolves into fascism, which is what we’re seeing now.
There’s a reason rule 4 exists in this community. There’s a place for communities where we can interact with liberals and hope to wake them up, but there’s also a place like this for leftists to talk to each other without the constant screaming of right-wingers. Liberals are arguably even more dangerous than straight-up fascists since they are far more enticing and deceptive, and they sugar-coat their hate in the cloak of politeness. (Unless they’re talking to anyone to the left of Reagan, in which case they start screaming at us in frustration and using dehumanizing terms like “Russian bot,” since they don’t like being exposed for what they are. I personally have DMs calling me a “bot,” “Nazi,” “troll,” “psyops,” “useful idiot,” “fascist,” and “tankie” – I’m an anarchist lol.)
Visit almost any default news or politics community on reddit or here in the fediverse on .world, and you’ll definitely see this happening.
I agree with you though that Democrats are basically just another GOP at this point. They’ve always been, but the mask has really come off since 2020.
I’ve commented somewhere else that the most key quality of a lib is that they strive to dismantle the things that hinder liberties. Nowadays it’s clear that the biggest authority is capitalism, thus logically any right winger can’t be a lib. Fascists have appropriated the term tho and try to disguise as neoliberalism (creating lots of convenient confusion), which seems to be the main agenda in the US.
To me voting is kind of irrelevant because the people in power are the capitalists and it doesn’t really matter who you choose as their representative. I do vote but I don’t hold any value to it. If I were in the US I’d vote 3rd party because my values just do not allow me to vote for someone who actively supports a genocide.
I find more value in creating a strong leftist community that includes mutual aid and political activism. Historically disruptive activism has achieved more than elections so I like to spend the limited energy I have to activism.
I see that a lot of people around me don’t feel any responsibility towards volunteering work and helping their own community, because the liberalist ideal we grow up with is that self growth implies community growth (???). So I try to give the people around me the opportunity to see the value in volunteering and creating a stronger community. Unions are honestly the best place for this because they actively improve the lives of the people who put in the effort and is therefore the most rewarding.
my values just do not allow me to vote for someone who actively supports a genocide
Mine neither. I just don’t know how I can. This is exactly why I’m grappling with this, though like you said voting is useless by design.
I feel like I’m very involved locally, but not in the right way, and living in a small town in South Dakota I don’t even know where to start to move toward the type of activism that we really need. It’s something that’s on my mind every single day – the feeling of uselessness and helplessness.
Thank you for commenting. You’ve given me a lot to think about.
You can always be surprised how many anarchists or people who hold the same views are in remote areas.
You can be the one that starts to build a community, gather people and with them you can start focusing on the more crucial activism. Not to mention you are not alone, you can reach out to their anarchist groups around you to ask for help or advice or anything.
As for your helplessness try to focus on the small things so you don’t burn yourself out by worrying about the things you cannot affect currently. You gotta have a good balance of being aware of all the shitty stuff and not have it crush you, thankfully community and hope is a perfect remedy for it.
Thank you. One of my anarchist discord friends sent me the book “Joyful Militancy” which is helping me feel less hopeless (and which actually inspired me to make this post), but the idea of outing myself as an anarchist is scary here. If I were younger, I’d feel like I could do something on college campuses, but I’m an old person now.
I used to know some allies when I was younger and part of a scene, but they all moved states because of the hostile environment here. We’ve considered moving back to Mexico. I don’t really know what I’m doing, but you’ve got my mind moving, so thanks.
As long as our voting system functions the way it does, I will always vote for the candidate that pays the most lip service to human decency. They get bonus points if their opponents are out and out nationalists.
I dont believe we will be voting our way out of this system, I don’t know that there is much I can do about it but I try to focus on helping the people in my community when I see the opportunity. I hope to find myself soon somewhere that enough like minded people can come together to carve out a safe existence.
I think the only way to end the current power structure is to take power from it, and I am not comfortable with the prospect in the current climate.
Thank you for sharing your perspective. I’m tending to agree. It seems pretty hopeless to convince people they’ve been had when the majority believe the state propaganda. I too have considered the idea of starting a community with others and trying to save as many people as we can, but I feel like we’d have to relocate, which would require resources I lack.
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