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  • I think so.

    • It takes supreme effort to rise up from hollowing ourselves out to be a receptical for whatever authority figures want to fill us with. Why, we might have to watch a whole 5-minute video!? (Tbf, usually it takes a lot more than that, like at least 7-10:-P) It's easier to simply parrot the words given to us by people quite a bit dumber than we know ourselves to be. They are quite aware of that, and make great use of it.

      • It is as you say. Are you reading my mind, comrade?

        • The Truth is surprisingly difficult to find, buried amongst so much active disinformation, but once we do, we can never unlearn it (...I hope, though I probably should learn to pretend like I don't, to survive the fascist regime to come).

          • The fascists do NOT have this timeline on lock. Although they will probably make some noise one last time before disappearing into the sunset.

            • We shall see. I was very wrong, thinking that Hillary would win for sure. Perhaps I am wrong about this as well - fingers crossed 🤞.

              The thing is, on the Right they put in actual effort to get shit done, while on the Left we whine and complain why it isn't perfect already. Never mind actually reading a linked article, on Lemmy Reddit 2.0 here we don't listen, we wait to talk. Correct or no, the former attitude will win the day. At least in the short term. Maybe after that, leftism will win out overall, but somehow that ends up just as another form of fascism as well (don't ask me to explain that, I have no idea why, but I have both tremendous respect for e.g. the Lemmy devs offering their code for free while also not respect for administration of their instance to support repressive regimes doing e.g. genocide, which yeah the West is also doing genocide, but at least we the people don't support it, e.g. by banning people who speak out against it!?).

              I really wish that what you say will come to pass. But... (1) despite what happens in this next election, the overall trend is towards fascist policies, in the election after that, or the one after that, and too the entire government shutting down every single time it needs to pass a budget causes fatigue where people just lose all hope, like torture to break someone down by softening them up before the big ask; and (2) Monday's SCOTUS ruling has already happened. We cannot go back in time, the only way is forward. I feel like people are forgetting that it happened, bc it's just so shocking. But it did. It's like climate change: it's not only going to happen in the future, it's been happening for the last decade. Do you realize that the USA is already a fascist nation, even if it has been thus for less than a week? Yeah, Biden may refuse to use that power, or perhaps he will go ahead and use it after all (quietly?), in order to keep Trump out. But either way, democracy has already failed. Our choices now are what flavor of fascism we would most enjoy moving forwards.

              Edit: Sorry this is depressing. It was depressing every other time it happened to nations in the past as well. But those (nations) who refuse to learn from their history... are doomed to repeat it.:-(

              • The thing is, on the Right they put in actual effort to get shit done, while on the Left we whine and complain why it isn't perfect already.

                Because on the right they more fully accept a Darwinian reality that for some organisms to live some have to die.

                On the right much more than on the left a typical person approaches their world as an owner or at least as a rightfully belonging cocreator. On the left we view ourselves as the oppressed, as essentially guests or as interlopers in our own world, without the right to make heavy and consequential decisions, where we have to constantly consult with all our comrades before we dare to have an opinion, etc. The left thus is more pensive and as a result, smarter, but also paralyzed, unable to act without a broad movement or a leader telling them it's OK.

                Of course all these competing qualities exist within all the individuals and it's a question of where on the spectrum one lands.

                On the left we (wrongly) think morality is the bedrock of a just society, and thus nobody is willing to be militant and ruthless and confrontational. FDR who publicly and famously welcomed the hatred of the superrich was a unique jewel of a man, who frightened the bejesus out of the system so much they had to put in term limits.

                People aren't wise enough to understand why nobody ever was assassinated or jailed for preaching or exercising morality. Monarchs are the biggest fans of morality (and religion). See Constantine's action toward Christianity. The most humble and moral people live in Saudi Arabia and North Korea.

                genocide

                Islamofascism is even worse than Christofascim.

                In the USA I don't think of the servatives as "innocent civilians." In Palestine all the Islamofascists are also not innocent civilians. They are culpable civilians.

                In fact we all are culpable civilians.

                That said, are there genuinely acquittable civilians in Palestine? Yes, they exist, and I lament their suffering. And only theirs.

                When someone comes up with a realistic way to parsel out the redeemable individuals so as to avoid group punishment, I will support it.

                I am also totally against torture, using Palestinians for target practice, bragging on Tik Tok about killing and revelling in the gore, Netanyahu's corruption and fanatical hamfistedness, lack of discipline/professionalism and lack of accountability in the IDF, etc.

                But I will be blunt. We have one Jewish state and 20-some Islamic states. For me and my world the last thing I want is for the one Jewish state to disappear and for one more redundant Afghanistan clone to appear instead.

                Name me one other religion where its founder was a pedophile warlord? I dislike all religion but I will never pretend Islam is just like Christianity (which I dislike) or Buddhism.

                • I find it extremely interesting, and highly ironic, that Jesus Himself hated religion. With a passion. He preached love & forgiveness, except to those who would "lead little ones astray; better that a (heavy) millstone be tied around their neck and be cast into the sea" - the only negative words He said about people were to that sort, calling them "whitewashed tombs, fully of rot and decay". So I halfway get that religion sucks, b/c it is a system of control for the rich old men, and in the West it is usually white (and almost always cis+het, or at least present externally that way). As the famous atheist philosopher Daniel Dennett used to say, it is an evolutionarily "good trick", to convince people to go out and work HARD in the farms, while you kick back and shoot the shit drinking cool and warm drinks, having access to medical care and such while you actively prevent others from doing likewise.

                  Watching Hillary Clinton lose to Donald Trump in 2016 woke me up to the level of naïveté that liberalism in America has. Almost every educated person is liberal, as are most people in cities who are at least aware of the basic premise that "we are all in this together". When someone gets sick, they spread it on the public transit systems, and even a wealthy person may be impacted by e.g. their cleaning person not showing up due to an unexpected illness (or death). Don't let the whole red vs. blue state thing fool you - it is all rural vs. urban. And to be fair, at some point it was more honest that way - like a rural person would legitimately live and die by their belief system, so e.g. when they opposed ObamaCare, even though many did it without truly understanding what it even meant, others on the other hand did know what it meant, and still opposed it, even for themselves.

                  But that was then, when e.g. George Bush was a progressive, and then the Tea Party was coming in with so many changes, but before it could even finish taking over, the Alt Right swept it, and now we have... whatever the fuck this is, perhaps we should call it Trumpism (except they don't even listen to him - e.g. he "invented" the vaccine, and thus in his ego told people to take it, but this part they hushed up; so Trumpism has Trump as their figurehead, but even he is most definitely not in charge of it).

                  What truly messed me up though was watching CGP Grey's video Rules for Rulers, which isn't quite Machiavellian though it gives off similar tones in that it encourages people to open their eyes to some of those uncomfortable Truths: that "corruption" isn't so much a flaw - although it most definitely is that too, especially when taken to excess - as it is a necessary grease to keep the system working. We ignore this at our peril.

                  But now I see Biden doing the opposite sin: caring so much about the behind-the-scenes events that he forgot to explain things to the American people, who even if not during his 4-year reign as king, yet in-between that and his next anticipated 4-year further reign (of let's be honest his administration, though it seems increasingly doubtful that he will be much of a participant in it anymore) they are the ones who get to decide whether he continues or not. Therefore, right or wrong, the inflation situation, the events in Gaza, and somehow more important than either (WTF?!) his debate performance, was a mandatory key that he had to turn in order to win. But instead... he does nothing, and exactly like Hillary Clinton did in 2016, he just keeps repeating the mantra that "but everything is fine tho", in defiance of everything that people see and KNOW and truly FEEL in their daily lives. i.e., BuT tHe EcOnOmY tHo. Oopsie.

                  Trump will be a much worse President. But like someone playing a masterful game of chess and planning out in meticulous detail every single move forward for over a hundred, nay a thousand end-game scenarios, yet Biden forgot to handle the mid-game, and is about to lose, making all the rest become irrelevant.:-(

                  The fascists will win, because they deserve it, b/c they have opened their eyes to reality. And then we will all suffer under their harsh regime. Either that or Biden will exercise his newly-given powers, and perhaps become the very fascist that people hate, but nonetheless may offer people more comfortable lives than the alternative. Either way, fascism wins, b/c we are too dumb to take care of ourselves... maybe? At least that is my fear.

                  • What truly messed me up though was watching CGP Grey's video Rules for Rulers, which isn't quite Machiavellian though it gives off similar tones in that it encourages people to open their eyes to some of those uncomfortable Truths: that "corruption" isn't so much a flaw - although it most definitely is that too, especially when taken to excess - as it is a necessary grease to keep the system working. We ignore this at our peril.

                    Just finished watching! Great stuff, thank you for mentioning it.

                  • like a rural person would legitimately live and die by their belief system, so e.g. when they opposed ObamaCare, even though many did it without truly understanding what it even meant, others on the other hand did know what it meant, and still opposed it, even for themselves.

                    This is conduct of an ideal imperial subject: selfless to the bone. This self-effacement, self-denial, self-hatred never ever stays with just their own person.

                    The fascsists will never win. They didn't even win WW2, never mind today. But will they leave a mark? They already have via SCOTUS. That's not in doubt. Will they leave an even bigger mark before we clean them up? Almost certainly.

                    We are at war, and have been all this while. Cold war, asymmetric war, hot war, civil war, unconventional war, information war, etc. That's the reality of living in a world with not just competing interests, but living with grossly incompatible interests, incompatible worldviews, and incompatible value systems all vying for dominance.

                    What truly messed me up though was watching CGP Grey's video Rules for Rulers, which isn't quite Machiavellian though it gives off similar tones in that it encourages people to open their eyes to some of those uncomfortable Truths: that "corruption" isn't so much a flaw - although it most definitely is that too, especially when taken to excess - as it is a necessary grease to keep the system working. We ignore this at our peril.

                    In a democracy everyone is a ruler, just not exclusively.

                    But culturally we have been bred for generations to have the mindset of a subject. We are learning what it means for each to be responsible for their own world the way a monarch would be, but without the exclusivity of a monarch.

                    This is an evolutionary process. When monarchies fell, the mindset, the values, the sensibilities of subjecthood didn't just vanish overnight.

                    Democracy will prevail but there will be painful lessons.

                    • I don't deny that conservatives hate themseslves - it's somewhat the definition of the brand (they hate others, but ofc it's always someone else, NeVeR tHeM, who will get their faces eaten off), but there is also that pioneering spirit of "go west young man" that expanded America both before and especially after the 13 colony stage.

                      Think of fascism as a virus: sometimes it wins, other times not, either way it loses in the end b/c it kills the host, and yet... it just keeps spreading doesn't it.

                      It sounds like you are underestimating the effect of the SCOTUS ruling. Or perhaps news headlines have been over-estimating it, and I haven't researched it deep enough to refute that? Honestly I have no idea which.

                      I think some of the reason why democracy is not thought highly of in America is the electoral college, not its effect that is much more often talked about, but here I mean its mere existence, acting to reassure people that if they make a REALLY bad decision, then big daddy rich men will come in and clean it up for them. We should all be much more afraid than we are. We should study hard in school, if we want to earn the right to vote responsibly. We should also treat that right to vote much more seriously - e.g. have a requirement where you pass a test to be able to do it, perhaps the same test that immigrants must take in order to become a citizen. How can someone vote "responsibly" if they aren't even aware that the number of branches of government is three?

137 comments