Joined a few "antifascist" circles on my socials, and fuck, its...rough. Just spent 10 minutes going back and forth with a funny-clown-hammer defender who refused to google anything. Tons of anticommunism. Lots of "vote blue no matter who." Their idea seems to be that fascism begins and ends with Trump/Maga and is not the natural state of Amerikkka.

Every now and then I'll come across someone who has done the reading, learned the history, and is trying to teach - but 9/10 times its a meme page and not an individual person, which us...surprising for some reason.

Anyways ive hit the point where "social media has sent me a silly notification, i shall neither read nor respond to it." Fuck it is slept like shit and am grumpy so im napping.

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[–] LaughingLion@hexbear.net 50 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (5 children)

This is more or less why I walked away from any electoralism in the USA. So many people, even good people who do actually understand the core fascist nature of this country, are like "but we can fix it." I stopped believing it needed fixing and started realizing that it just needs to burn down. I truly believe that the greatest good that can possibly happen in the world today, the most beneficial thing, is the complete and utter demise of the USA. Whatever comes after it will be so fundamentally different it will be no question that it was destroyed and what is new is different. There will be nobody saying, "well it was reformed." It will be a clear demarcation of "the old was bad and is gone and has been replaced." Maybe that happened in whole but I suspect that some sort of Balkanization. I'm not interested in speeding it along but I'm certainly not going to do anything to slow it down.

EDIT: Let's turn this in seriousposting for a moment.

I have no problem with going to a protest to "keep hands of Iran/Cuba/Venezuela" and I've marched many times for Black Lives for all the good any of this has done. I'll do it again. I also have no problem voting on some ballot initiative to protect abortions or trans people or anything like that. Those things aren't going to help America as a whole but they will protect marginalized people and basic rights.

When someone is like "but we need a balanced budget" I roll my eyes. No we don't. We need the budget to burn and collapse. I want to see budgets "shut down the government." I laugh when I hear soldiers and cops aren't being paid. Oh no! Our government contracts to pay bomb makers that burn Palestinians to death and blow them to bits might not get their deposits from Uncle Sam? Good. I'm fucking glad. I hope they never get it.

"But we'll never get healthcare if everyone believed like you." I've had people tell me this with a straight face. We ain't getting healthcare. Everyone wants it and it will never happen and we don't deserve it anyways. We got no fight in us for it. Not the kind of fight we need and if we did get it it would be dismantled by the corporate state we live under anyways.

I don't even consider myself a doomer. I'm optimistic. I see a world without the USA and it's beautiful. We deserve that. It is a goal that's more than achievable.

[–] Johnny_Arson@hexbear.net 34 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Yep last time I voted in a federal election was 2008 for Obama and only because he promised to shut down guantanamo and prosecute Bush. Of course he lied but at least in my day they used to pretend.

[–] LaughingLion@hexbear.net 25 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Yeah, it's my main issue with so-called "leftist" people in government right now. People like AOC or Bernie, or Mamdani or even someone Omar. I respect Omar or Tlaib as people despite that they might not be perfect or may have said a bad thing here or there. My main issue is fundamentally their role in the US government has been to maintain it and "fix" it. Just stop. Let it end. It needs to end.

[–] Johnny_Arson@hexbear.net 22 points 2 weeks ago

It is the good cop dilemma. If you actually try to do good they fire you or kill you.

[–] GrouchyGrouse@hexbear.net 8 points 1 week ago

Right, because they don’t yet understand that anti-capitalist revolution is the only way to secure the promises of the liberalism

[–] GnomeGodsGnomeMasters@hexbear.net 8 points 1 week ago

Same, I last voted in ‘08 as well, and was one of the ≈160,000 people who voted McKinney/Clemente. The last (and only) election where I actually kind of sort of believed in a “major” candidate.

[–] Belly_Beanis@hexbear.net 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah I'm in the same boat. The greatest obstacle to any serious, revolutionary change are the liberals who think their reactionary friends, family, and coworkers aren't planning to have them all lined up against a wall and shot. Actual leftists recognize the danger we're in, have severed all contact with contact with conservatives, and are ready to throw down. But the liberal, especially the "white moderate" MLK warned us about, gets in the way.

They still think this country is salvageable because they believe in the Great Man and End of History. If we simply change the person in charge, we can go back to the way things were at the end of the '90s. Everyone else with object permanence knows the rot started decades before then.

[–] LaughingLion@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago

I also think the real ones can imagine a world without American capitalism in it. A future where the USA doesn't exist that isn't some apocalyptic wasteland. That's the hurdle. The moment you mention you want America to end people think you mean some kind of desecrated, scorched earth Mad Max future. Like, no motherfucker, I'm envisioning a world of peace and harmony and people living happy, fulfilling lives. If you can't see that then you've let the reactionaries rob you of your soul.

[–] BurgerPunk@hexbear.net 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

But we'll never get healthcare if everyone believed like you." I've had people tell me this with a straight face. We ain't getting healthcare

Nailed it with this one. Anyone at this point who thinks we can get M4A in this country if we just elect hard enough has not been paying attention. I've heard this deployed to defend the guy with the giant totenkopf on his chest. "Guys we have to support him even though he's not perfect because that's how we'll get M4A." Its pathetic

[–] LaughingLion@hexbear.net 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It may have been an achievable goal like 10 years ago but now? It's a carrot on a stick.

[–] BurgerPunk@hexbear.net 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don't if it actually was achievable, but it wasnt ridiculous to believe it was achievable 10 years ago. If that makes sense

[–] LaughingLion@hexbear.net 4 points 1 week ago

The system is designed to consume all movements like this. 10 years ago it had legs and the system didn't know what to do with it. Now, it's figured out ways to neutralize it.

[–] ChestRockwell@hexbear.net 9 points 1 week ago

National elections in the US are fundamentally scuffed. However, like you note - local referendums and protests are still valuable for actual harm reduction (versus Kamala vs. Trump style choices).

I think that most electoralism as change dies right now at the national level (i.e. house of rep/senate elections). Until either a proletarian party emerges or the dems do purges, no amount of left candidates can actually achieve anything since they'll just be rotating villain'd.

However, I do think that a succdem prez could potentially be interesting if they were willing to wield authority to punish ICE, etc. Doubtful, but who knows, maybe dems will put up a candidate worth voting for just for revenge against fascists.

[–] Castor_Troy@hexbear.net 8 points 1 week ago

waow-based

I truly believe that the greatest good that can possibly happen in the world today, the most beneficial thing, is the complete and utter demise of the USA.

lenin-pogger

[–] miz@hexbear.net 33 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

cw: doomer

when I saw how few people were moved by the livestreamed genocide and people being burned alive I gave up on the imperial core people around me. they just want to enjoy the fading dividends of whiteness without having to think about the growing pile of children's skulls they perch upon

[–] dat_math@hexbear.net 28 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

they just want to enjoy the fading dividends of whiteness without having to think about the growing pile of children's skulls they perch upon

boss-bar-1 boss-bar-2 boss-bar-3

[–] GnomeGodsGnomeMasters@hexbear.net 29 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

I recently met with some old friends I hadn’t seen for many, many months. After an hour or so of mostly idle chit-chat and vapid pleasantries, the subject of the present state of the amerikkkan hellscape finally was brought into the conversation. I’m paraphrasing here, but one person had this to say:

I know that like, a lot of the world was suffering, and that the system wasn’t perfect, but I really wish we could go back to 2015. You know, just to like, slow down and take stock, plan, and effect real change.

Everyone aside from myself agreed and TRULY BELIEVED that, yes, it is unfortunate that American comfort is built on a foundation of pain, suffering, and death of poor people, but, if Americans could just have had some time to rectify a few things, go back in time, and prevent Donald Trump from ascending to power, we SURELY would do the right thing.

I was gobsmacked, honestly. Like… yall really believe this shit? But now that oil is $100 and your material security is minimally compromised you can’t be bothered to even lift a finger because gosh darn it you purchased a second home in 2023 when interest rates were above 7% and, though you’ve managed to refinance, you HAD to buy a new volvo, you absolutely had to take that trip to Copenhagen last year and — I almost forgot — you HAD to go to your sisters wedding in Barcelona for two weeks and HOW COULD I HAVE NEGLECTED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE NECESSITY OF YOUR COLLECTION OF VINTAGE TUBE AMPS AND FENDER TELECASTERS AND YOUR OBSESSION WITH OBSCURE SCANDINAVIEN DESIGNERS AND YOUR WEIRD OBSESSION WITH NANOLOT LIGHT ROASTED THERMAL SHOCK PINEAPPLE COFERMENTED PANAMANIAN GESHA AND AAGGGHHHH

TLDR: these people know they’re complicit and they frankly DO NOT CARE.

[–] randomquery@hexbear.net 17 points 1 week ago

Liberals are today's conservatives in the literal sense of the word, they dream of maintaining a status quo of the early 2000s, and anything to the right of them is deeply reactionary. There are no (even marginally) mainstream progressive politics anywhere in the so-called West nowadays.

[–] Johnny_Arson@hexbear.net 14 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Escalate the argument until you can justify slapping one of them. Half joking. The only language these Neanderthals understand is violence.

[–] Belly_Beanis@hexbear.net 14 points 1 week ago

But now that oil is $100 and your material security is minimally compromised you can't be bothered to even lift a finger

I dunno who said it on here, but it stuck with me: Americans don't want freedom or equality, they want comfort.

[–] XxFemboy_Stalin_420_69xX@hexbear.net 24 points 2 weeks ago

social media

wtyp

[–] DogThatWentGorp@hexbear.net 24 points 1 week ago

It's easy to remain ignorant when there's not really any reason whatsoever at all to learn anything new.

I hate to be a memer but the metal gear solid 2 monologue about multiple truths online feels completely manifested at this point. You get these pockets of cosplay ideology that never once asked "hey cool how does everybody actually eat food though?". Just totally a-material and narrativized takes on Good vs Bad and touchy-feely nonsense that's just projecting emotions onto people while totally ignoring their well-being.

The radlibs will never take a position that implicates the system they can't think outside of and they'll moralize the shit out of the US/West because they can't conceive of watching an entire neighborhood get vaporized by a bomb for seemingly no reason at all.

Sorry I'm totally fucking ranting while half awake. I had an experience like this lately but over debunking insane North Korea takes with one of the most beligerant unhinged radlibs I've seen in a while and it nawed at me for a bit LMAO. (You're a brainwashed tanky if you point out that amnesty international shouldn't be laundering opinion pieces from yonhap news in front of the UN as facts, if you were curious.)