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this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
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No offense DirtyOwl but you're an Aussie. Idk what it's like in Australia, but on the ground here things are pretty dismal. All the Libs are scratched, the DNC already seems to be formulating a right wing shift, there's no leftist infrastructure to take advantage of.
I've lived through like 4 moments in history that should have been a wake up call to Libs, they never work. There no working class party in the US because there no demand for one, even in marginalized communities. And it's not just propaganda, it's the will of the people, American hogs love being atomized, narcissistic, individualistic consumers and will lash out at anything that threatens that.
It is dismal here too, yeah, and I can't even begin to imagine how horrible it must be for my US comrades, but if we can protect some vulnerable people from those scratched liberals by directing them to leftist orgs that can help them, shouldn't we?
Like, what should we do? Nothing? Nah, doing nothing is for libs.
I know it probably isn't my place, sure, but I don't want you guys to give up hope.
Can we make this the site's official motto? I am completely serious.
There's really no orgs with the resources to do anything in the US. In most cities the left can barely pull off a crappy soup kitchen.
I mean yeah we should try and do something, but I'm not going to lie to people about their prospects. And honestly it may be better for peoples mental health to accept defeat than struggle on in futility, at least then you can
The Cuban Revolution started with 82 people in a boat.
Listen. I’ve been organizing, agitating, doing anything at all that I can for nearly two decades in this shitheap of a country. Do you know what I have to show for it? Piles of corpses and social murder galore. I got a world that is happy to tell me to get bent every time I have the displeasure of committing such a radical act as walking to the fucking grocery store. It’s not going to get better. @Diuretic_Materialism@hexbear.net is basically correct. After witnessing the general population’s COVID response, their response to ongoing genocide, the absolute bipartisan (universal!) public health collapse, and living in this atomized, individualistic hell for nearly four decades now, I have complete confidence in saying this. We should take advantage of this specific moment? Not a global fucking pandemic? Not an ongoing genocide? Not centuries of racism, slavery, poisoning of native lands, the earth we all share? None of this has been what makes us failures, apparently, but a Trump victory that everyone is replaying 2016 for is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, what really makes us dumbasses for failing to capitalize? We fail to capitalize because this population does not want it. Tell my immunocompromised, disabled ass to self-crit over this, whatever. I’ve done plenty. I’ll fight til there’s nothing left because I don’t know anything else, but you cannot make me have hope. I hate all of these people too.
I mean, you can wear a mask and organise.
And like, obviously I'm not going to judge people who are burnt out for bowing out.
Let me tell you how well that’s going, because I actually have done this!
They call me a wrecker. They call me a fed. They tell me COVID is over, it’s just a cold, and I am overreacting. Only sometimes do they say they will accommodate, and then they still don’t. I show up to demonstrations & events I was promised would be “fully masked”, “masking enforced”, and there are no masks on any faces; there is no enforcement of anything. At best, single digit numbers among 40, 50 people, on average for the kinds of things I try to attend. Anything larger? Hell the fuck no they won’t. And this is in one of the most “progressive” cities in the country!
This is a thought-terminating cliche at this point.
Gah, that sucks. I dunno what to say.
Fucking COVID denialism pisses me off.
I can't blame you at all. Know I'm not calling people like you stupid, at all.
I guess I'm just frustrated and wish we could do more? Like what else can we do? I guess online mutual aid stuff?
I’m sorry for coming so hard at you specifically, I like you a lot friend owl. You are funny and cheerful and I appreciate that, but I radicalized a lot younger than most people I know of and this is just the reality I have been experiencing for my whole life.
I am always looking for some light at the end of this tunnel, a hopeful answer to give, but I think what’s most likely to happen to empire now would be like what happened to Rome: the population dwindles — due to endless war & mass death, fleeing — until there is nothing left to churn through and things cease to function. Even that is optimistic. I do not put it above this country to blow the world up before that can happen, and regardless of anything else further pandemics are guaranteed as the global population’s immune systems get cumulatively destroyed by endless COVID and other unknown pathogens emerging due to increasing climate disasters altering the environment. Tuberculosis was thought to be, essentially, gone; it is now surging around the country in numbers not seen for something close to the last century. In all cases, the prognosis is still extremely dire to me. I don’t know how one can see what’s happening around them and deny it. We can and should build ad-hoc collectives and communities and extend that influence where we can, but I do not think that power extends beyond this small footprint until the complete and total collapse of empire, and I know that’s not a good answer, but until I find a better one (and I haven’t yet; I really, really am trying) then that is how I predict things playing out. This is the most optimistic thing I can say.
That doesn’t mean do nothing. Like I said, I still fight because I do not know how else to live. But god damn it am I sick of hearing this sentiment from “leftists” whose first taste of anything was Bernard fucking Sanders eight years ago. “Just organize”, “touch grass doomer”, “get involved with your community, lib” ad nauseum.
I’ve heard many people posit the idea that Americans do not have a culture, but I think it’s worse than that.
I fear this just is what American culture IS.
This is one obstacle to left organizing in the States I think gets ignored. Americans have no sense of community, because Americans hate each other. Including the leftist ones. You see it here, we call Amerikkkans Burgerbrained hogs, but now you want me to organize these hogs? I fucking hate them, and they hate me. My ultimate goal is to fuck off to a cabin in the woods away from these pathetic creeps, and you want me to put my life on the line trying to give them help they largely don't want?