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checks notes Almost 4,500 children were shot in 2025 in the USA.
I don’t mean to be rude, but the US doesn’t even care about it is own children considering dying from a gunshot wound is the number one child killer in the US.
But you see they need the guns to defend against tyrannical governments….oh wait…
I’m getting damn tired of this style of post.
We get a rare drop, where circumstances suddenly allow a leftist position to become the mainstream position. Then inevitably, someone posts “America only cares about <leftist position> because it started impacting normies”.
And somehow the reaction is not “Hell yeah it did, brother, now is our time, let’s rolllllll!” but instead passing that tweet around while going “tsk-tsk”.
What the actual fuck are we doing? If we got a gift horse, we’d probably say “Hold up lemme enroll in equine dentistry school for next semester”. Like goddamn.
To get them to care of the war at all, especially the MAGAts, is a goddamn miracle really. We should be pushing them to want to end it and exposing them to leftist, not neo-liberal, actual leftist thinking.
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OP is a psyop.
A psyop to convince people not to vote for Kamala Harris in 2026?
The logic:
- everyone against genocide is a Russian bot
- they’re still saying genocide is bad
- therefore they’re a Russian bot
an op to convince people that both parties are the same, so it doesn’t matter if you vote. The bad faith argument that voting for harm reduction is the same as voting for harm. It’s disingenuous and only serves to break leftist coalition and cause infighting, which only really benefits one side… the right, and it’s a textbook tactic of right-wing bullshit.
So yes, a psyop, or duped by a psyop. Eitherway, a dipshit.
voting for harm reduction
To claim Joe Biden was a “harm reduction” candidate, you need to ignore how he extended much of Trump’s Term 1 policies and - by refusing to prosecute and imprison any of his first term cabinet - paved the way for even more egregious abuses in his second term.
The Biden Administration did nothing to curb the abuses of the Republican Party. And, in many cases, normalized and entrenched the fascist policies and powers accrued to the executive branch under prior terms of office. When the ink is dry on the history books, he will be remembered as an enabler of Trump’s fascist regime in much the same way he was an enabler of the Bush fascist regime from 2001 to 2009.
Eitherway, a dipshit.
Harris adviser says VP ran ‘flawless’ campaign
I have to wonder if you genuinely believe people who say this.
This is an anarchist community, so here’s an anarchist perspective. Voting is not and cannot be harm reduction.
The idea of a ballot being capable of reducing the harm in a system rooted in colonial domination and exploitation, white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, and capitalism is an extraordinary exaggeration. There is no person whose lives aren’t impacted everyday by these systems of oppression, but instead of coded reformism and coercive “get out the vote” campaigns towards a “safer” form of settler colonialism, we’re asking “what is the real and tragic harm and danger associated with perpetuating colonial power and what can be done to end it?”
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/voting-is-not-harm-reduction
Harm reduction is harmful
Voting as harm reduction does more harm than good. Accepting reforms through voting makes people settle for a partial goal; it is a concession. From this position of compromise, the state entrenches its position, and it becomes more difficult to push further, for voters fear losing their partial gains. Accepting harm reduction also divides the movement, because some will be satisfied with the crumbs, while others want it all (see the split at the ZAD). Harm reduction also assumes that the harm (the government) cannot be removed entirely, which is an argument that there can be no anarchy.
Voting is not harm reduction
For the vast majority of issues, there’s no difference between the political parties. They are all the parties of business, climate destruction, deportation, incarceration, police, surveillance, drone strikes, sacred site desecration, et cetera. By getting you to believe that there is a lesser of two evils, the state dampens your desire for abolishing it, because you are meant to believe that things will be worse if you don’t vote and support a political party. Look at the fact that the George Floyd Rebellion occurred under Trump, where liberals, and progressives, and leftists didn’t get what they want, where the harm was supposedly greater, than under Biden, where those same people lie dormant, accepting the lesser evil world as a blessed reprieve.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-why-you-shouldn-t-vote#toc1
This entire argument assumes no one does anything other than vote
A lot of internet anarchists are like any other internet leftist: their main “actions” are gatekeeping, purity tests, and virtue signaling that they’re real [whatever flavor of the left they claim]. They have zero pragmatism and no actionable plans – but they get pissed if anyone suggests something that doesn’t perfectly align with their professed ideals.
They don’t actually do anything for their cause in the real world: all they do is bitch on the internet and to their close circle of interchangeable friends. They’re the dead wood of progressiveness.
Which to be fair, is kind of the case for a majority of the population, which is perfectly fine for, and encouraged by, the people of power
Which to be fair, is kind of the case for a majority of the population
It’s clearly not. I don’t sit in a box until election day. I’ve got a household to tend to, friends to support, family to care for, and an economy to participate in. All of these actions have political implications and consequences.
People need to recognize that caring for an ailing parent, holding down a job at a convenience store, opening up your house to a roommate (or renting that unit for a profit), driving a car versus riding a bike, calling the cops, littering - these all carry political weight. How you spend the majority of your waking hours is still a consequence of your ideology even in constrained circumstances.
here’s an anarchist perspective
Both-sidesism isn’t anarchism. It’s nihilism. It’s the “nothing matters, so there are no rules” surface level “anarchism” take. You can’t hide behind hedonistic nihilism by calling it “anarchism”. You might as well just come out as the edgelord you want to be and tip your fedora.
no one is saying “both sides”, as though there are only two. we’re talking about what harm reduction is, and whether voting qualifies. it does not.
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Both-sidesism isn’t anarchism.
When neither side is an anarchist position? It’s not two sides. It’s one side with two faces.
hedonistic nihilism
Wtf are you talking about?
- Anarcho-nihilism is a thing. Personally I find it a little bleak, I think we should have a vision to move towards.
- So we can criticize voting itself, but not the parties that perpetuate it?
howabout this, rather than sit here and argue theory and bullshit… lets reframe what you’re doing here and see if that’s the person you idealize yourself to be.
You’re coming to the defense of a powertripping mod that abuses their position to push centrist bullshit and then bans anyone who disagrees with them.
Would you, as an anarchist, come to defend any other self-appointed hierarchical leader that pushes harmful misinformation and silences critics? Hmm? Is this your ideal anarchist community member?
it doesn’t matter if you vote
voting for harm reduction is the same as voting for harm
psyop, or duped by a psyop. Eitherway, a dipshit.
You might as well just come out as the edgelord you want to be and tip your fedora.
you don’t read and huff your own farts.
howabout this, rather than sit here and argue theory and bullshit
Engage with what is being said instead of trying to appeal to some reddit-tier fallacy argument.
And lets see… a “leftist” in “leftist spaces” making plays from the “alt-right handbook”, misrepresenting them as “leftist” opinions to fracture coalition… what would you call a person like that?
Maybe if you write it bigger then you win. Actual child
I’m done playing debatelord with you reddit rejects.
What is with the large text? I think you make a great point about supposed leftist that are not leftist at all. We see a lot of that here on Lemmy. I think it may be a horseshoe thing or they are just lying to themselves.
they’re all quotes from the banned user
Oh okay, I get it now. Thanks.
lol. Maybe if you write it bigger then you win. Actual child. I’m done playing debatelord with you reddit rejects.
it’s not too late to delete your comments and leave.
i’m not trying to win. i just wanted everyone to get a little amuse-bouche of the thread before they dive in.
They’re one of those 100 posts a day weirdos that seem hopped up on Adderall. Or they’re a bot.
Ai would like a word with you.
I’m getting damn tired of this style of liberal comment in an anarchist community.
We get a rare drop, where circumstances suddenly allow a leftist position to become the mainstream position.
No you haven’t. You’ve got people who are upset their wallets are hit, that is not a leftist position in the mainstream. Two people can reach the same conclusion for wildly different reasons.
This is why the left is doomed. You cant see the opportunity to bring more into the fold, you only see purity test fails and a chance ro grand stand
The left isn’t doomed thanks, we’re doing just fine.
Liberals and centrists are however doomed as people are moving to either extreme and abandoning a failed system that has only delivered abysmal results.
Go cry about purity tests some more, maybe that will convince a leftist to vote for murdering children if you do it a few more times.
Thanks for providing an example
When people’s wallets are hit it’s exactly the right time to convert people.
people’s wallets have been constantly hit for like 40+ fucking years now, this isn’t even remotely new.
We’ll talk about material conditions until we’re blue in the face, and then when material conditions change it becomes “well people are only receptive to this because it’s hitting their wallets!”
No shit! That’s the whole leftist argument! Material conditions drive politics more than ideology!
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You keep doing whatever you’re doing (mostly nothing). But don’t expect the rest of the world to not point out your bullshit while your pedophile president is raping the world.
You are again acting selfish by portraying yourself as victims, while your government is ruining the world. You are NOT the victims, you are the PERPETRATORS.
Fucking jokers, fix your shithole country if you want the world to stop making fun of you. Because no one else can, the only thing we can do to vent our frustrations is to call out your bullshit.
Oh just fix the country, why didn’t anyone tell us that sooner!
Oh, so you are expecting someone else to fix it for you, smh…
And in the meantime we should feel sorry for you, while you keep raping us. That sounds almost selfish…
you
You’re using this word very liberally.
Unfortunately this is partially because a large portion of the US populace doesn’t ever hear the truth. So much time and effort has been spent on overtaking media outlets that even -after- gas prices started rising there are people who don’t realize it’s because of the war. It’s disgusting, and I have no idea what the average person can do about it. It feels like I’m shouting into the void.
Ah yea, if only they would hear the truth, they would totally- Everyone and their mother knows about Epstein. The majority of humans are straight up unable to care one iota about people outside their most immediate tribe.
For Americans whose praxis has always been colonialism and slavery, you’re shouting at your enemies that you’re their opponent.
Otherwise, ICE and deportations would have never existed in the first place.Neolibs hate this graph precisely because it points out their lies.
…wtf is that graph? why is biden five years and trump 1 just two?
You don’t remember Biden being president in 2020? Gee, if this graph failed to point out that big neolib blunder year it’s almost like it would tell a completely different story with 2021-2024 being four of the lowest years on the graph. Don’t you see how the DNC is just as bad?
Tap for spoiler
/s
last time i was in the us the pilots let me look in the cockpit
Obama was still responsible for the killings during his last few days of 2017.
Biden is only responsible for killing folks after the end of January of 2021.
Tis why it’s a translucent shade of blue, and not opaque.
Very confusing visualization. There’s gotta be a better way.
I welcome comrades to fix it!
You need others to fix your errors?
Why not fix it yourself or (low effort) edit your post?
posts bad data
gets called out for bad data
“Fix my data”
Because you’re missing the point of intersecting?
Fair. I don’t have a better idea to be honest.
if 2017 is blue, so should 2025. the blue areas should be by month.
Agreed. pls🙏 reattempt a better graph.
I just edited the one from the post.
quick edits like that cost credibility.
to what?
Umm, source for the data?
When looking at 2025 I only count 24 deaths in the table. But the image shows more than 30.
Obama was president for 9 years, Trump’s first term was 2 years, Biden’s term was 5 years? I think everyone hates that graph.
intersect it!
if you believe it can be fixed, fix the change you want to see!No.
👌
Imma need someone to spell this one out for me
Yes, well, the raping children was what caused me to first question the current American political leadership but that’s just me apparently.
Some people draw a line at raping kids. While others draw their line at $5 gallon
News don’t report on the suffering of Iranians. However, high gas prices are impossible to conceal by the media because you experience it every day.
My MAGA relatives called for the extermination of all the Somalians in Minnesota at Easter. I don’t think benefit of the doubt that people just don’t KNOW about the suffering of the Iranians is really justified. If they don’t know, it’s because they don’t care or don’t want to care.
If they don’t know, it’s because they don’t care or don’t want to care.
If they don’t know, it’s because fox news doesn’t report on it.
If Fox News reported on it, they would switch news providers. And if there were no news providers castigating the Iranian people, then they would revert to their “liberal media lies to us” belief system. The ignorance is willful.
Americans are reaching very high levels of political disengagement. Most Americans know it doesn’t matter who they vote for. They haven’t seen real reforms out of either party, except to make the rich a lot richer. Combine that with the hassle it is to vote in many places and people have just stopped caring unless their personal life gets too bad.
It’s exhausting voting for promises that never materialize or seem to always monkey paw into a way for corporations to suck up all the benefits. People are tired.
And yeah, it’s on purpose. The more disengaged people get, the more the elite can legally rob them.
This is such a cop out. American people have been actively supporting the growth of the rich because they have always believed that as individuals they are just one step away from being there themselves and don’t want anything interfering. People have tried over the last 4-5 decades to change things but they get voted down continuously.
That way of putting it has always belied the sheer amount of propaganda the rich have poured into making people believe they can be the chosen one to get rich. From scam artists selling get rich quick schemes to syrupy news stories about the kid who dropped out and got rich. Financial news regularly runs stories meant to make people think they’re not budgeting hard enough if they can’t make ends meet. (spoiler alert there’s always a tertiary source of income involved, but it’s buried deep in the article.)
And when things are clearly enunciated, like plans to tax people over 400k, there’s suddenly tons of stories about how they’re just normal people who can barely make ends meet. They’re just like Mr. Fast food worker, they might even have to sell their house if you taxed their stocks! (Just never ask which vacation house that is or how many rooms it has)
Rather than “copping out” by pointing all this out, I want a counter narrative. Until we get a strong counter narrative people will continue to succumb to this propaganda.
I almost forgot, the numerous commercials where corporations swear they’re a good corporate citizen and you can trust them to have your best interests in mind. While they put all their wrong doing under legal secrecy so people can’t even see the problem we need to fix. For example did you know Walmart and Pepsi got caught in a massive price fixing scheme? One that likely extends across most Walmart grocery products and could be partially responsible for our high grocery prices? (Pepsi collaborated to make sure no other store could afford to sell Pepsi products for less than Wal-Mart by charging those stores more if they dropped their prices. This effectively let Wal-Mart set the price floor wherever they wanted.)
You don’t get this stuff on CNN. And it’s the stuff that actually impacts our daily lives.
it doesn’t matter who they vote for
I get the disengagement since I see it constantly online, but taking part in politics shouldn’t be only about who you vote for. It’s also about trying to affect what candidates you get, the boring groundwork that requires a lot of effort
I agree. And the Americans who need help the most do not have the time or energy to put into it. So it’s left to the people who do and very few of them actually care about the working poor.
War is a game to Americans because it’s a far away concept, since they always invade. What America needs is to have war come to their land, when it’s their homes on fire and their streets are battlegrounds, maybe they’ll stop being such war loving trash. This is the fault of every American, from MAGA dirtbags to leftists infighting while the fascists win. You and your garbage society led us to this.
I just hope America suffers, the way they’ve made everyone else suffer through the decades
The US locks up 20% of the world’s prison population but only has 5% of the World’s entire population.
The War on Drugs is a genocide for minorities with millions of families destroyed and millions of lives lost. Militarization of police and full on invasion of residential neighborhoods is normal. Every single overdose is preventable with harm reduction.
Every year we lose 40k-50k people to gun violence. We have lost more people in the last twenty years to gun violence than every single service member dead in every war we have ever had.
Being shot to death is our number one killer for children.
I can’t even believe how ignorant your statements are. We are suffering, I have lost multiple people in my life to gun violence and drug overdose. Just about everyone has.
The real enemy is our ruling class, but apparently you think the average person needs to suffer more because you have bought into the propaganda that the typical US citizen is responsible for this shit show rather than being oppressed wage slaves for capitalism.
the typical US citizen is responsible for this shit show
Can the typical murican vote? Then they’re responsible, yes.
Can the typical murican do something but chooses not to? Then they’re responsible, yes.Your comment just lists how muricans suffer from their own bad choices, but what you replied to was on how murican military brings suffering to others outside your country. You seem to have missed that,
You guys had 9/11 and still ask Why us? so yeah, you’d need an invasion with boots on your ground and even then i doubt you’d wake up.
Yeah, Americans decided to attack themselves for the War on Drugs instead of taking care of our fellow man. Sure 1 in 3 Americans deserve to be locked up and disenfranchised.
You are just exposing your profound ignorance.
What of all the Americans who didn’t vote for this administration, do they deserve to die as well?
Go satiate you bloodlust somewhere else and may you get what you wish on others. Disgusting.
You’re still missing the point and I’m certainly not the one with a bloodlust.
Bye
Yout point is you think American civilians deserve to die for decisions they didn’t make. It is a stupid point made by a bloodthirsty moron.
This is my theory, europe saw the devastation of ww2, they saw how it killed and maimed millions of people of all classes, and really by necessity they built a progressive society out of the ashes. They needed universal healthcare because everyone’s job got bombed, they needed workers rights to vacation because there weren’t enough regular jobs for people.
US never had that, we went from wild west to wealthiest country in the world with little transition and the same wild west economics of 150 years ago still runs the country today.
The shitty thing is we actually were on the path to being on par with European post war countries when it comes universal healthcare. It’s just that anytime FDR or Truman tried to implement it, universal healthcare got shot down by greedy and racist politicians. We also used to have a much more inclusive and well funded welfare state and banking/investing regulations, but Republicans over the last 50 years voted to get rid of them.
I’m not sure I care for you lumping all of us in the same boat. I am not my government and I’ve done my best to prevent this. In the end many of us are just cogs with little power. And some of us are indeed suffering.
And yet the french will riot in the streets when they try to raise the retirement age and we just bitch on the internet when trump kills people by the thousands on a whim. We have exactly the government we deserve.
Some of us are out and about trying to make waves. What the fuck else are we to do?
Yes we’re less than 10% of the population. The other 90% does not give a fuck if you die, they just want cheaper gas.
You are walking around holding signs. You dont strike, you dont burn government buildings down. You hold signs the fascist in power laughs at.
How the hell do you know what I do? You don’t know me.
i respect their opinion cause as a whole americans also need to account for their neighbors. At the same time it’s near impossible cause America is huge and not everyone travels. It took bernie’s fighting oligarchy tour an entire year to pass a foreign concept of democracy to some areas.
Add to that the constant American exceptionalism that is pushed to us Americans. We’re constantly told that our military is by far the best and can handle any adversary easily. When you think you have that much power, you want to use it. As Trump’s dementia continues to set in, he has less and less filter on using that power.
Americans were steeped in “we’re number 1!” At what exactly? I just saw a video of homeless children living in tents in American inner cities. So I don’t know what this “best country in the world” talk is all about.
American media is so corrupting, it teaches them to love war and violence and to always see themselves as the good guys no matter what conflict or war. Same with policing, where American tv and movie heroes are the cops who break the rules, abuse suspects and murder just to “get the job done”. So the whole culture is hammering you with this “Americans can do no wrong” mentality.
When you look at it from the outside it’s maddening, it’s like talking to a drug addict who insists he isn’t. But I can see why Americans living in America don’t see how messed up their views are, and this includes the American left which is very different than the left elsewhere. Nobody seems to be left enough to anyone and every other leftists is “fake”, nobody is good enough to be an ally. I honestly don’t get how America can survive with so much brain rot.
#1 most billionaires that’s what it all boils down to. High gdp per capita, highest gdp, and it’s all just corrolaries of catering the economy to billionaires.
It’s not even just the media. It’s everything. Even when I go to my local AHL team games they not only do the national anthem to enforce nationalism, but they’ve also started doing god bless America to enforce the Christo fascism. It’s really revolting.
I see your point, but it would have to be something massive and sustained long term. 9-11 was on home turf, and it didn’t exactly persuade Americans to chill out and do much internal reflection. Quite the opposite.
The British empire probably experienced the same sort of thing, everything happened somewhere else. When it turned up in France and the beaches of Normandy, shit gets a bit more real.
I’m an American and fuck it sure feels like actually getting bombed would help people see what war really fucking is. I don’t think it’d end well, but it might be a lesson we actually need.
One would think the corpses of veterans would be enough for that.
Copy pasting a comment I made on a similar meme
Not to give excuses for people but it’s also perfectly reasonable to express concern for something that directly affects one’s daily life, before an abstract system of domination.
Moral evaluation is overridden when one’s purchasing power and thus livelihood is threatened. The Yellow Vests in France started because of a gas price hike, and then transformed into a political movement. The Boston Tea Party into the American Revolution. Police Corruption in Tunisia into the Arab Spring… It always starts with concrete issues and then expands in critic of the system.
Thank you. People tend to look at individual and societal behaviors from the same point of view.
Access to quality information, presence of logical frameworks, proper moral frameworks over heuristics, biases, propaganda, etc. play much greater roles in influencing societal behavior rather than a simple explanation of “society is so selfish”.
Just a personal observation, but looking at stuff in this manner creates resentment against society and makes it seem irredeemable. This is bad, as it hinders any motivation to change it for the good.
I believe I read the fallout of this kind of thinking, precisely because France, American Slavers, and Hamas didn’t end in good solidifying endings for every one of these overridden purchasing powers and livelihood [finally] threatened.
France has Nazis, in a very far right government.
American never ceased its slave trade if the Epstein files were read correctly.
And Hamas doesn’t condemned slavery. It actively supports it.
I am not so sure anarchists should solidify with slavers, while 🇺🇲 promises to eradicate Iran from the maps.
I feel like some points you make are a bit unrelated?
- what fallout?
- yellow vests and the french government giving in to nazis have no relation to one another, but happy to expand on that specific part if you’d like, there a cool article on the subject that summarizes key elements to this movement, translate at your convenience
- what does hamas have to do in any of this?
I’m not sure I understand your point but explaining how movements start with material triggers doesn’t mean we have to align with governments
what fallout?
The 🧵 where you said your own paste, within context?
french government giving in to nazis
So you’re saying French people are more selfless after yellow vest and the state moving further Nazi?
hamas
The effects of the Arab Spring?
movements start with material triggers doesn’t mean we have to align with governments
And I am pointing out where the have ended: slavery. All these triggers lead to slavery. I am praying there are other tactics not to reend there.
Yeah I mean what about that other thread? I didn’t feel like there was that big of a fallout in the comments, it sounds a bit overdramatic, unless you meant something else.
About the yellow vests, no that is not what I’m saying, I’m not sure how or why you could reach to that conclusion. I’m giving an example of how a political movement started from concrete material issues that the working class experienced. In fact, the yellow vests managed to get slight concessions. There is no connection that would suggest that movement led to the authoritarian drift in France (those were already experimented in french suburbs, and extensively used to kill any protests moving forward, very good analysis of police brutality in France here https://shs.cairn.info/revue-mouvements-2017-4-page-38).
Are we sure we’re both talking about the 2010s Tunisia protests? I don’t see how this is linked in any way with Hamas. It started from the immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in protest to police corruption and the job crisis (among other things), experienced at that time. Those again started from concrete issues, and then evolved in criticism of the systems and powers in place. I’m hoping you’re not making a link between the Arab Spring and Hamas out of ignorance and essentialization, the former started in Maghreb, the latter in the Middle East.
I feel like you’re jumping to conclusions a bit too quickly, linking end-states of governmental action to the premises of various protests. I don’t know, there’s so many examples in history that contradict your premise:
- The Yellow Vests protesting gas price hikes didn’t lead to the french government adopting far right methodology (Macron has been in power two years before that, and already exhibited nazi-compatible behaviour, even Hollande showcased signs of authoritarianism as early as 2015).
- The Arab Spring did not lead to a branch of Hamas being a terrorist organization (it exists since 1987 and was being labelled as such as early as 1995).
- The Boston Tea Party protesting the Tea Act of 1773, the Haymarket riots protesting 8-hour workdays in 1886, the Seattle General Strike of 1919 over wage cuts… they didn’t lead to slavery in the U.S. The Atlantic slave trade started as early as the 15th century.
- The Catalan CNT rent strikes in 1931 over evictions didn’t lead to slavery, also they won rent controls before the Civil War and Franco’s takeover (1936).
- Slavery didn’t spawn in the UK out of the London Matchgirls’ strike of 1888 over fines.
So yeah we might have a misunderstanding because I don’t understand why you would want to argue that protests starting from concrete material conditions automatically leads to slavery. All the progress we made for workers rights, and human rights, were taken from the powers in place thanks to people organizing, very often thanks to anarchist organizations. My point is just that it all started from concrete issues, that the working class was able to transform into something bigger politically, which explains why some (let’s say, less politically educated-) U.S. citizen are starting to protest only once material issues (gas price hikes) are hitting them, rather than the abstract (to them) wars waged by their government in foreign countries.
It’s our job to turn this reaction into organized political action against their government, and no, it does not end automatically in slavery.
It’s our job to turn this reaction into organized political action against their government
I am asking how, when I’ve been telling them to demolish deathcamps for more than 22 years.
I’ve reminded to destroy their panoptics.How do you organize reactionaries into direct acts against their oppressors, when they let a generation pass them by?
Well I don’t know specifically what methods you’ve used so far, but in my circles, it would be something like this:
First we stop preaching to “them” as if they were a singular organised group, and instead talk to the individuals. We tie their concrete issues to direct political thought and action, and later we start widening their perspective on a criticism of the system to help them understand the powers at play. Also we drop the tribalist “reactionary” label and look at it from a class warfare perspective BUT we make the effort to deconstruct any misaligned/ignorant/bigoted/you-name-it views.
Organise, unionise!
🤝 sure, let’s try this approach.
Americans are isolated by a very carefully crafted coccoon of corporate media sources that generally downplay, spin or ignore real humanitarian stories when they make the US looks bad. This has been the norm since Bush Sr. And I say this as one, because I’ve completely eliminated all conventional media from my life because it’s fucking useless.
Snippets the media drop about a far off war do not register with the US public until it hits their pocket books, probably because said media has conditioned them to be numb to war being the default state.
Zionist supremacist media projects that USrael empire’s enemies are the theorcratic madmen that deserve to be back to the stone age. Peace negotiations with Iran are supposed to look past past resistance to Zionazi genocidal empire, to wipe the slate clean/outlook going forward. Mossad agents as US negotiators are there to guard a pretext for war and failure of peace.
Both gas prices, and $600B permanent + $200B (and counting) special military budget increases, is the disconnect that happens when Empire propaganda triples down in face of losing, and the reality they inflict on the world/Americans.
*humans
That is why its so important to teach the values of socialism in context of self identified selfishness.
If we can guarantee that everyone has the means to live healthy and comfortable…
Then you are guaranteed to live healthy and comfortable.
If everyone looks after their neighbours, then your neighbours will look after you.
We are a long way away from a world where human psychology does not contain an ego, first step to mediate that is to accept it and find a way to be at peace where it can no longer cause harm.
When Russia and China does it, its Russians and Chinese. Sanction them, starve them, embargoes.
When the west does it, it’s suddenly “humans”.
We know the drill.
Troll-gpt?
This might be shocking to you but the Russians and Chinese are in fact human too and live on the same one planet.
I don’t particularly care about nations in any kind of form, let alone “sanctions and embargoes”
I do care about people, and for them to not starve or be involved in any kind of military operation.
Foreigners when it’s convenient: “America is the most propagandized nation in the world”
Foreigners responding to American Propaganda: “Clearly the news is 100% right about everything they say about the American people”
Foreigners responding to American Propaganda: “Clearly the news is 100% right about everything they say about the American people”
Why would murican propaganda say crap about muricans? You’re not making sense.
I don’t think this is accurate. If your only interaction to Americans is the terminally online dipshits, I can see why you’d think that. Americans are just ignorant, especially now with how consolidated mainstream media has become. Fox News is never going to report on the real tragedies the American military creates when it bombs civilians, and for a lot of people Fox, CBS, CNN, etc are their only source of news. They’re very effective propagandists.
But try as they might, not even the most adept propagandist can hide the gas prices. It’s an inconvenient truth not even Trump can lie his way out of.
so when they finally notice the high gas prices, do they not even wonder why?
if they do, your excuse for them falls apart… if they don’t the claim is automatically proven
A lot of Westerners, especially Americans ofc, got very much used to third worlders suffering/dying for their comfort, or sometimes for no reason. Do you remember how much extreme media attention it took for Americans to realize that war in Ukraine was ‘serious’ and not just ‘another war where no civilization exists’? And it’s literally Europe. I have no idea what you’d need to do to get the average American to care about people from ‘rest of world’.
I was very fucking upset my government didn’t step in when Russia annexed Crimea, Ukraine disarmed with the agreement we’d fight Russia with them and we just wrote a letter. Not all of us are asleep, but our media is owned by demons.
Another betrayal by the US.
Russia attacking Ukraine was wrong on so many levels with the least being they signed treaties after giving up the third largest nuclear arsenal for protection from the US, UK, and Russia.
The reality that Ukraine is essentially brothers and sisters to Russia is the real heartbreaker. It was like murdering your own family, absolutely disgusting.
after giving up the third largest nuclear arsenal for protection from the US, UK, and Russia.
To be fair, Ukraine never had capabilities to actually utilize that arsenal and bare minimum maintenance was very costly. The deal was beneficial for both sides, even if Russia disregarded a part of it (which still should have never happened).
America is the most propagandized place in the history of humanity. The stranglehold that capitalists hold over American worldviews begins in public schools and is constantly reinforced through media.
I honestly don’t believe Americans can think about the rest of the world until either capitalism is dismantled and the propaganda machine destroyed, or they lose a world war and are made to change.
the most propagandized place in the history of humanity
Sorry, that’s pretty ridiculous. Even with all its flaws, Americans still mostly have freedom of speech, and they use it. They still have access to real news if they seek it out. Trump is becoming more like a North Korean style dictator, but North Korea already has one of those.
Americans can’t think about the rest of the world, meanwhile roughly 1/3 of all foreign aid comes from America.
Censorship is not the same thing as propaganda. They often go hand in hand, but the US prefers to drown dissenting voices in billions of dollars worth of media. No other country has a propaganda budget the size of Hollywood’s, for example.
They still have access to real news if they seek it out.
Which they don’t, 'cos they’re conditioned not to by the media, advertising industry, Big ___, schools, etc.
This administration has made me a straight up anarchist. Fuck this bullshit government system, fuck all government, laws don’t matter anymore, fuck money and fuck corporations.
I dont know where OOP got that idea from. Americans were never for this and polling data bears that out, especially relative to most wars which have had extremely high levels of approval at the outset, even for ones like Vietnam and Iraq that later became massively unpopular.
If you look at Trump’s approval rating, it only really starts to move when gas prices move. Also historically. I think it is quite obvious where OP got their idea from.
It moved from 33% to 29%, the Iraq war started at 93%
But its in meme form! It has to be true!
Americans were never for this and polling data bears that out
when thousands of lives are on the line, it takes more than polling to convince people you stand for something
Oh fuck off. You know full well that there is more happening here than poll numbers.
Maybe you fuck off… just yesterday Georgia elected a trump finger man to replace MTG
You idiots keep voting republitard no matter what happens to you or the world!
So, precisely what do you expect me, in a different state, alone, to do about this, that will effect widespread change in a timeframe that you would find acceptable?
There are rational options that are tragically slow and irrational ones that involve throwing one’s life away in order to achieve little to less than nothing.
If you’re just angry at the US and its population, that makes two of us, but lashing out at someone pointing out that the situation is not hopeless and work is being done to ensure that this does not continue does not help anyone.
Here we go again…
So you want a foreigner to give you a specific, actionable task (not a plan, that’s too many steps) to solve your home grown problems… and such task must be:
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100% effective
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Solve the issue you have slept on for decades, immediately
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Carry no cost, no risk and no effort
So anything small and easy, like stop using the terrible tech giant garbage like Meta or Xitter is no good because “tHAt woNT solVe ANythiNG”… something big like protesting won’t work because “caNT gO aGAInsT the MilLitarY” or even better, organize a general strike won’t work because “GoTTa wOrK or dIE” or “MuRIca toO big”
Am I angry? well, your country is currently, actively killing thousands around the world. And not the cutesy way you have always done but literally exploding whomever you want. On top of that, your child rapist president is also tanking the world economy which is sure to spread extra misery around and you people keep siding with him by voting his goons into office.
So sorry, but you are not the fucking victim here
No, that is not what I am saying, I’m saying that nothing I do at this second is going to stop the bombs dropping in the near future. As cathartic as it might be to go grab the AR and take a suicide run at the nearest representatives of the federal government, the result would just be a propaganda victory for our right wing.
I am not sitting here doing nothing, and yes, it is small comfort to people actively being bombed, but ultimately decades of right wing is not going to be undone in a day.
Also lol at calling for a general strike. Every time that has been done it has been preceded by massive organization by an actual labor movement that haven’t had since the 70’s to ensure that people are able to get their needs met in the meanwhile.
No, that is not what I am saying, I’m saying that nothing I do at this second is going to stop the bombs dropping in the near future.
So you run with that notion and justify perennial inaction… It’s what I said above. Unless someone else gives you an easy, yet 100% effective solution that costs nothing, you are not willing to do anything.
As cathartic as it might be to go grab the AR and take a suicide run at the nearest representatives of the federal government, the result would just be a propaganda victory for our right wing.
This is another typical strawman. There are an almost infinite number of options between “do nothing” or “suicide for the cause”. People like you skip them all to pretend there are only 2 and since it’s unreasonable to ask you kill yourself for the revolution, “do nothing” is your only choice… right?
I am not sitting here doing nothing
Then why are you defending that position… if you are doing something, my message is definitely not for you.
… it is small comfort to people actively being bombed, but ultimately decades of right wing is not going to be undone in a day.
You (and by you I mean Americans) have had decades… and your collective inaction has led us here, let’s not pretend you have been actually fighting this for years and simply got nothing for it
Also lol at calling for a general strike. Every time that has been done it has been preceded by massive organization by an actual labor movement that haven’t had since the 70’s to ensure that people are able to get their needs met in the meanwhile.
See what I mean? “it’s too hard, so back to doing nothing and pretending we are the victims here”
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Americans were never for this and polling data bears that out,
So did Americans already impeach their oppressor?
Are the deathcamps demolished?
Are the panoptics destroyed?You talk like any one of those things is easy. The Soviets citizenry pretty definitively hated Moscow in many places, didn’t mean they could just go and kill Stalin. The police state or army would simply crush them, or must I remind what happened to the Hungarians and Czechs? It’s the same principle, even if all of California came to the unanimous agreement to overthrow the feds it would at best weaken the feds temporarily.
The problem isnt just Trump, it isnt just Congress, it isn’t just the courts, it’s the whole damned system. Interstate commerce, national political organizations, the pathetic pan American culture, and the thrive damned Bible thumpers. For this shit to be dealt with in any meaningful way the US needs to lose 20 states minimum, ideally total dissolving of the Union so no revanchistic assholes can leverage history. For either of these to happen the economy needs to collapse in near totality and the feds need to lose all ligitimacy for the simple fact that even doing one of your proposed ideas would see civil war start, for success to be possible the military itself needs to be incapable of purchasing jack or shit for loyalty due to currency collapse.
Comrade, I am exactly pointing out that ⅔ of the 🇺🇲population actively comply with their oppressions.
Nowhere am I suggesting that direct action is easy. It’s just ⅔ directly comply with electoralists.
Electoralism is an important tool and youre a fool to dismiss it so callously. While the feds may be a failure long term it is still useful to vote if only to deny the worst aspects of this failing system, it is also imperative that the local and state governments are if not friendly then at least non-hostile to the various factions of the left.
As loathesome as the Bolsheviks were one of the reasons for their success was the capture and befriendment of various local officials. It allowed them to move freely and openly where the Tzarists were slowed or even stopped by locals. Same principle the capture of city councils and ideally the states would allow the raising of militia not bound to the feds.
The walls may be falling, the roof leaking, and the ground floor covered in sewage but the foundations are made of granite and concrete which will outlast the rest of the house. You’d be a fool to try to build in the swamp next door when a perfectly fine foundation sits ripe for the taking.
Oh no the college is right fucked. But everything else as I said state and local? Better to use it to strengthen our own power, but that just may be the Norman in me talking. How I wish to harrow the Mormons.
