Not sure if you noticed, but they won already, the nazis i mean, so unless you actually want to actively participate in a civil war, not the cold one we have been in for the last 40ish years, what suggestions do you have to “take our country back”?
What should we do? Should we engage in literal war in the streets? Because NOONE CARES IF WE DIE, no one cares if we starve, no one cares if we are house less, no one cares if we March in the streets, and apparently no one cares when literal nazis break into the capital building with weapons and loudly state why and what they are going to do for their dictater. So what is any solution to this?
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I’m tired of people telling me I have to do something, as if it’s MY fucking fault. I’ve had my life destroyed by these people.
Before he won, I spent weeks pounding pavement in the medium town I lived in, Greensburg, PA, against him campaigning for Bernie. I talked personally to tons of people trying to stop him before he won
I spent the last 4 years in the lions den, conservative PA machine shops, and I was run out of one because of my politics. I spent every day watching the news, keeping track of how he was shafting everything and everyone but himself, trying to engage when possible to convince his followers of the evil and wrong he has done, to no avail.
I marched in the protests of police shootings a couple blocks from my front door when I lived In East Pittsburgh. I stood for vigils, watched grown adults cry in rage.
I have a simple legal case wrapping up that involved me paying for anger management after spitting on a trumpanzee’s vehicle, right after I was laid off from a job full of them that threatened my life daily by not wearing masks, and walking right up to me.
Hell, I even pay rent to a family of people who I had to explain that vaccines work to.
I’ve personally seen the country you want me to save. Up close. I’m one of the ones who tried.
The bastards I saw don’t care about right and wrong anymore. They don’t care about justice or peace, law or order no matter how many times they scream that phrase, or how many special flags they fly. They were caught on camera acquitting a man who incited murder and riot as POTUS, immediately afterward admitting he was guilty- but that they STILL would not disqualify him from office.
Impeachment doesnt matter to them. Death doesnt matter to them. They traffic in lies and conspiracy and truth does not matter to them. Reality DOES NOT MATTER TO THEM. They are caught on tape admitting they wouldn’t convict because he’s on their side.
I’ve made a career out of fixing things, and making things. That I cannot have in the US because these people will continue to make my life hell in a way that I can’t avoid here.
Some things you cannot fix. These people cannot be fixed. All they can do is die off in time, and leave their poisonous reality to their children, who will continue it.
If people can pervert reality to this degree, no matter what I do in the face of it, and there are people who still think voting doesnt matter that don’t do a damn thing, then nothing I do will change a thing. I cannot fix these people. I’ve tried for years, logic and reason is beyond them. All you can do is out procreate them.
With that vote, and the salt McConnell rubbed in it to admit that he knew better and didn’t care- they forever legitimized violent armed revolt in America by the head of the land, and murder in his name. No future action can undo that forever. The statement is there.
I can’t have a child in this country and look them in the eye and tell them there is true justice, that even the president isn’t above the law, because they’ve absolved him of outright murder. I can’t look any child in the face and tell them anything about what is good and evil in America in the face of that, or when they grow up.
I refuse to piss away the rest of my life fighting monsters who will never change or die with basic justice forever perverted and lost.
I will go to another country and start a life where life still has meaning, because I will not survive in rage here. I’ll be dead in 5 years of a heart attack. A place not full of heaving assholes.
So stop insisting this heroic idea of changing what I don’t like. I actually tried, countless times daily, to change my country. What the hell have the rest of you done for it to even feel justified in asking me that?
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We could take the advice of someone like Stacey Abrams and organize to get out the vote. A few months ago, most people would laugh at the idea that GA would elected a democratic president or democratic senators. That didn’t just happen, it was MADE to happen.
As for dealing with violent extremists, here is a case where people organized to deal with it:
White supremacists literally ruled the streets in Portland back in the 80s. Now they don’t. That didn’t just happen, it was made to happen.
There also used to be laws which made Black Americans second class citizens. Those laws don’t exist any more. That didn’t just happen. That was made to happen.
You can either work with others to deal with this problem, or you can contribute to the problem by acting like it’s inevitable. The choice is yours of course. But assuming all is lost when some ground was actually gained in this past election misses the forest for the trees I think. Are we out of danger? No, but if we give into the terrorists, then we have lost.
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Go hide in your corner if you want. Just cut it out with the defeatist garbage against people who continue to work toward getting the fascists out of office.
We ABSOLUTELY need to keep voting. We need to keep organizing. We need to keep lobbying. We need to keep marching. Even when things seem like they aren’t going in the right direction. ESPECIALLY when things seem like they aren’t going in the right direction.
If you don’t like the government we got when people are putting in the effort to push back against the bastards I can guarantee you aren’t going to like the government we have if people stop.
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Fuckin A;
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We know it’s not easy, but nothing worth having ever is…
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Real talk.
Again:
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Coretta was a wise human being. She rarely gets the credit she deserves, being overshadowed by MLK. She put in her share of the world over and above being his wife and raising their children. Women were always the backbone of the movement and continue to be.
[ETA] It strikes me, also, that people keep expecting new and novel answers to these problems, but we have actual history to pull from to help us understand what works and what does not. We can certainly contribute new solutions if it makes sense, but if we’ve learned anything over the history of capitalism, it’s that the thing that works to make people freer and put humanity first over the markets is organizing broadly, in order to change the structures to be more to what we want and need in this world.
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That’s partly the reason that I quote her more than I do Dr King; another is that disingenuous people often try to ‘co-opt’ MLK’s message and use it against those who are actively fighting for true equality.
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I appreciate your optimistic outlook, I hope that I am as wrong as you think I am, but we have been doing outreach and voter registration for decades, things have not gotten better. The fundamental change that needs to happen is not going to, because the democrats don’t want it really, and the fascists are going to be doing everything they can to make sure that it never will, by killing people both directly and indirectly, and tell me how many people are going to vote for democrats in Georgia now that there is very little chance of the stimulus actually getting passed? I m not trying to get you or whatever, I have been saying and doing and helping people try and make change since the early 90s, maybe they have beat me down so much that I truly can’t see the change that is happening, Idk like I said hope I’m wrong and you are right.
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I have never hidden in a corner from any fascists, and an observation that saying “we can do it” isn’t anywhere near enough, is criticism that needs to be heard, flag waving is stupid no matter what flag you wave. I didn’t say stop what you are doing because it won’t matter, I want some answers as to what you think are good and important to do that might move things in the right direction, because what is happening now is not working, like even a little bit, so instead of calling me a coward, why don’t you actually use some of that energy and make some solutions
Really? I will whole-heartedly agree they have not gotten betterenough, but to say things are no better than 20, 50, 100 years ago is just disingenuous. There are reactionary forces working very hard to drag us back to that timeframe specifically because things have changed. Womens’ rights, LGBTQ rights, civil rights have made strides forward, of course generating pushback from the right. We are not anywhere near where we need to be, but stop with the “nothing has changed, nothing will change, nothing can change” moping. There are lots of us who are laboring to make sure those statements are wrong.
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Is it moping if it’s a observation? So you feel like the federal government has gotten better with lgbt+ rights have been getting better, but no federal protection for job or housing discrimination, we regularly still get killed in the streets, in lower numbers than the past but maybe thats just because of the people and not the government, redlineing is still a thing and thtas been illegal since the 70s(I think) but the thing that broke me was the first impeachment where they didn’t even call witnesses or introduce evidence, thats where democracy died in this country, and then they did it again, and sitting senate members are still saying that the election was stolen, so how do you fight with conviction and dignity while that happens?around 10m people don’t care enough to vote out a piece of shit nazi, how do you change their minds? Leaving the country is a valid answer, even when you are poor
So how many of these things happened after newt started the "anything they want is bad and must be voted down " strategy? Gay marriage, that’s it. We don’t have the luxury of putting politicians in danger because they are acting in their own interests above the people who they represent, or punishment for their actions, unless they are democrats. And democrats have shown that they are sliding down that path as well, and if you think it’s better then great, but I am going to stick with no one cares about you or me in the government, and that they will continue to act exactly the same as they have been for the foreseeable future. How many people got arrested and gassed and beaten this summer? What changes have been made? Are the police even slowing down killing unarmed people in the streets with 0 consequences?
Again, this is the difference between “We have not made enough progress” and “we have not and never will make progress.” The first is absolutely true. The second is just plain nonsense. Leaving the country? The rise of the hard right, fascist movement is a worldwide phenomenon. There is no place to hide where it cannot find you. Resist or be assimilated. Resistance is absolutely not futile.
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I’m not saying you, or me ,or the person who thinks I’m a coward, should stop, but it is not feasible to think that this will effect any changes, I hope that is misguided, but if you could go back in time and tell 1935 germans that no matter how hard they fought, no matter how much they marched, that millions of people were going to be executed by their government, would you tell them that going to the US was just as bad because they had nazis too? I know you don’t believe that we are in a shooting war, but the only reason we are quite now is that the left still is convinced that it’s all going to change if we can get a few more senators, I’m glad you feel this way, but I don’t see sunshine at the end of the tunnel, I see a train coming
I’m not going to give you a comprehensive list but yes, even the post-Gingrich era has seen several positive changes in American society. We had our first non-white and non-male people elected to the White House. We expanded all kinds of rights and protections (not just marriage rights) for LGBT people. We dramatically expanded the number of Americans who have health coverage.
It doesn’t take a genius to realize that there are many, many battles left to fight. But none of those battles will be won by defeatists who claim that fighting them is a pointless, performative exercise that is doomed to fail.
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No. Just plain no. Would you tell the Freedom Riders to stay home because nothing would ever change in the South and Blacks would never be able to vote? Would you tell the Stonewall rioters to go home, don’t bother, Gay rights will never be a thing? I could go on, but it is a pattern. No one thinks anything can change, then it does. I am not giving up. This is my home and I will not allow Nazi KKKpublicans to take it. Not now, and not ever.
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When you get right down to it there’s not that much difference between the people who claim all of today’s progressive movements are doomed to fail and the racist/sexist/anti-LGBT apologists who claim that we’ve already achieved full equality and everyone still fighting for progressive causes is trying to take things too far.
In both cases it’s effectively just an excuse to avoid challenging the status quo while positioning oneself as more intelligent and enlightened than those people who do.
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