cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/62976508
Just 10 years ago the US was still seen as being progressive and racism was slowly becoming a thing of the past… and not even in 10 years all the major civil rights achievements of rhe past 70 years are being thrown out so fast it is making my head spin.
Tell people they’re being oppressed, they’ll become defensive, then frustrated opposition will retaliate against their fallacies, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Religion becomes more important than education, and the government gains more control over the people.
The harder non-religious people fight back, the more the government will be validated in its assertion of religious oppression.
Just stay calm and be empathetic. Use logic and love as your weapons. They say you hate them, prove to them you don’t. Your anger gives them power.
So does complacency.
I never said be complacent. Just be smart.
If you’re suggesting that even just pointing to existing oppression is going to lead to this ‘self-fulfilling prophesy’, then I think we have very different definitions of ‘complacency’ and ‘smart’.
The government will validate itself however it wants. This isn’t about religion, it’s about fear, and hatred. They have no goals other than power. They can only hold power as long as they can inspire fear and spread hatred, and so their supporters have been twisted to fear the helpless and hate the innocent.
They will not listen to your logic. If they would, we would not be here. They will not recognize your love. If they could, we would not be here.
This will not stop unless they are made to stop.
We need to move people. Millions of people will not march for love. I am all for non-violent resistance, but non-violent doesn’t mean calm.
Do you know how John Adams described the civilians who were shot and killed in the Boston Massacre?
The day that - in his words - “laid the foundation for American Independence”?
He called them a mob.
Don’t be calm. Get fucking angry.
Good luck with that. They’ll bastardize your intentions and use it for fuel for their fire. Any small act of retaliation will be blown out of proportion on Fox News. You’re exactly who they’re waiting for.
The real solution is getting somebody in office that’ll actually do shit instead of a career politician that dangles carrots for votes.
Any act at all with be turned into reactionary fodder.
You’re looking right at a huge symptom of the problem but not seeing how deep the crisis is.
Electoralism cannot save us from fascism.
I’m not saying it wasn’t a setup by people on his side, but the “assassination attempt” made this person a hero. Like I said, unless you’re gonna go all the way, everything else is fuel for the fire, and it can grow slowly leaving time to put it out, or it can blow up.
That is a hell of a conflation, between vocal opposition to fascism and a fucking assassination attempt.
No, I don’t think anyone here is advocating suicide by amateur assassin cosplay. Even just dispassionately calling this as it is will be held up as ‘dangerous’ - it’s not at all about the optics.
If all you’re doing is just waiting for your next opportunity to cast a ballot, you’ve already lost.
Go do stuff. Just don’t be dumb. That’s all I’m saying.
Just don’t do anything that’ll raise attention to your opposition to fascism, tho
Have you turned on fox news? They’re not waiting for shit. They’re bastardizing innocent people just living their lives.
They are constantly lying to their supporters, claiming that any and all logical and loving opposition to them is outright treason.
Peaceful protestors are terrorists, lawyers and judges are criminals, doctors are murderers.
They aren’t waiting for you to fight back. They are bringing the fight to you.
Fuel for the fire. Unless you’re gonna go full civil war, you’re doing a disservice by spreading anger and hate.
Let Trump let people down. Look at Brexit. UK voted liberal this past year. Don’t help radicalism spread.
I’m not spreading hate. They are. I am spreading anger. Anger is a valid and useful human emotion. It’s an appropriate response to injustice. Anger is what gets people off the fucking couch. Good luck with your flowers, but people won’t march for love, and we need people to march.
This isn’t Bexit. Brexit wasn’t caused by a mad authoritarian with control over the world’s largest military and the world’s most militarized police. This is the Fourth Reich.
It will not stop until it is made to stop.
Anger quickly gets out of control. Especially en masse. You do what you gotta do. All of your feelings are valid.
That’s the entire point lol. Cheers.
Let’s see if we are allowed to have midterms without Trump shutting them down first before we start banking on electoralism to save us.
Good point. We’ll have to see if the Supreme Court has any authority. Justice unfortunately takes a long time, especially at the executive level.
1000% agree.
Logic and love, people. Don’t let them have something to dig their heels into. You can change people with logic and love. Even the most curmudgeon people can change. Empathize and remain calm and understanding. Everyone is a human being with their faults and fallacies. I know it’s hard to see it that way, and the easy path is to argue and get angry. That will not work here Keep at it with logic and love and you will move mountains, I promise you.
The hard part for most is patience. Real change takes time, unless you want to be a fascist on the opposite side of the spectrum. Either way works, but at the end of the day a fascist is a fascist is a fascist.
To a certain extent, I agree with you. It is even in their own book— turning the other cheek. And despite everything, I think kindness always counts.
That said, there comes a point where I feel I need to see if I can drag the horse to the water rather than hoping it will follow me there. If it doesn’t, perhaps it is a lost cause and I should go find another horse. Know what I mean?
It’s just hard to find where that moment is, especially if it is family.
People who don’t want to change their minds won’t. People looking for evidence to support their bias will find it. I’m just saying don’t be that evidence.
But you’re operating from a state that, all people operate in good faith. These people will twist the narrative no matter what you do. They don’t wait for you to validate them. They twist reality and logic and manipulate events. There is no reasoning with these types. If you sit back and do nothing, they’ll twist that to their agenda just as much as if you do something. But sitting back guarantees a smooth path of no resistance, they get thier agenda easily. Resisting means they don’t get there as easily. Nobody in history made changes by sitting back and sending love vibes, my friend, I truly wish that were the case. Women lost their lives, just for the right to vote. How many rights have been removed or are under threat right now? I mean absolutely no disrespect, and I can see your logic, I just feel like maybe you aren’t personally familiar with these manipulative types. I get that you understand reactive abuse and you see they’re trying to use that, but it really doesn’t matter, they’ll do the same thing anyway, so maybe the path is somewhere in the middle, not giving them a reason, but not sitting back quietly and there’s no waiting for someone to oppose them, it’s now, right now.
I think you misunderstand me. I’m not suggesting complacency, just a focused approach that doesn’t exacerbate the issue. The more divided we are, the more power we lose, and that goes for all political parties. Both sides profit off of our hatred and fear towards each other.
We need action. 100%. I’m just saying be smart about it. If violence is the answer, so be it, but you have to go all in and you have to win.
A lot of the reason Trump fanatics exist is because it’s a reaction to the “woke movement”. People got some validation and ran with it, spreading hate for ignorance instead of teaching tolerance. People need to feel heard and just like Hitler, Trump is the leader of those who feel ignored.
No, it’s really, really not because of the “woke movement”. That’s just Republican propaganda. People - in general - were living their lives and moving along with society, the way they always do.
A lot of other people didn’t like that, the way they always do. The same type of people that didn’t like Lincoln so much they started a war. The same type of people that didn’t like Reconstruction, the same type of people that put up confederate statues in the 1960s and pretended it was “heritage”, the same type of people that claimed gay marriage would destroy society, the same time of people that are out there right now waving a confederate flag and screaming about “wokism”.
That hate has always been there, seething beneath societal progress as these people felt left behind. “Woke” didn’t inspire them to come out of the woodwork - Trump and his ilk did.
“Woke” didn’t turn people into bigots and haters. Some always were, others were persuaded by the very effective propaganda machine designed to (again!) inspire hatred, and fear.
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