I try not to let this shit get to me. It’s always darkest before the dawn and all that, but damn.
The general population is so fucking broken. They’re just absolutely mind fucked from being raised on a steady diet of right-wing propaganda from all major Western parties.
How do you even begin to fix all of this. I feel like I’m drowning and being pushed under by my own damn species. We are all so sick.
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We can’t “fix” anything. All we can do is keep ourselves safe and encourage the people who see that something is wrong. As the mask slips further and further more people will begin having doubts about where things are going. Tell them they are correct to question liberalism and fascism and that there is a 3rd way forward.
As we descend into the darkness it will be more and more risky to speak against the status quo but the rewards of doing it correctly will get greater. Now is a good time to practice.
Dont make the mistake of feeling responsible for this. Sure theres some things you can do to help but its 99.99999999999999% out of your control.
Fwiw youre helping by not being another lib whos just gonna run away to bluesky.
Fwiw youre helping by not being another lib whos just gonna run away to bluesky.
Or claim they are gonna run away to another western country on the brink of fascism…
That’s mostly what I’ve been seeing at least. Almost immediately my lib friends started talking about how places to move. One of them said southern France… fucking goofy as fuck.
As if Europe isn’t just going to play copycat
Right??? Really showing their ignorance to the world around them…
I heard a co-worker say they wanted to run away from Trump to Germany. Absolutely zero sense
Telling on themselves a little bit there.
Or when they talk about moving the global south it’s all about being a "digital nomad ’ and earning foreign currency (in Euros, US dollars or Pounds), while living in in the global south. Basically gentrification on an international scale, making housing and goods unaffordable for the people that were actually born there. Look at what is happening to Cape Town, and the Western Cape as a whole, in South Africa.
Yeah I heard someone mention Chile because they have vacationed there in the past and liked it lol. Absolutely deluded people…
I remember years ago when weed was legal in some select states, if you were in those states you only had to worry about federal agents showing up to arrest you.
Maybe we’re going back to that, except instead of weed it’s going to be select states defying new FDA bans on medicine (starting with birth control and abortion adjacent stuff, then next whatever the brainworm desires).
Then you’re having cops waiting at state borders, maybe even formal entry gates on major roads, local cops obstructing federal agents, people ignoring that cost of goods doubled, etc…
Starting with hormones and hormone blockers, most likely
Puberty blockers are already getting banned (at least for trans kids) in a lot of states.
I tried writing out a hopium reply, but then wandered away and kinda got into a doom spiral too about ecological destruction and shit and now I’m also
In any case, here’s my current take on anti-doomerism
spoiler
https://www.yicaiglobal.com/opinion/mark.kruger/why-are-the-chinese-people-so-optimistic-
I’m optimistic because my Chinese comrades are optimistic. Things are worsening in the imperial core but its grip on the rest of the world is loosening as it lashes out and becoming more erratic. Have you seen Naussica?
spoiler for the end of the film, if you haven't seen jt I encourage you to watch it.
Empire overextends. The Fire Beast destroys itself in its own rage. The insects cleanse the Wastes and the earth is hostile to humans, but humans learn to adapt. Nausicaa as a character reminds me if what Nakoichi said here that humans have an obligation to unfuck what we’ve wrought.
I’d like to think that we can restore the earth once capitalism falls. Though it won’t be us leading the charge.
Actually it’s kicked off another depressing thought that ao much of the post apocalyptic media here presents the post human world as idyllic ipso facto, like that Wild Robot movie. Like the apocalypse will be harsh on ‘deserving’ humanity but kind on animals like Chernobyl or the DMZ. Fuck shit fuck ecofash ideology is being mainstreamed.
It sucks living in a vassal state of a dying empire. Aaaaahhhh incoherent comment sorry :(:( can’t cheer myself or anyone else up :(:(:(
Sorry it’s my fault. I shouldn’t spread doomerism
Like you said, China is doing good things and there will always be people fighting to do the right thing
If it’s any consolation, our being upset shows that we are righteously frustrated with the gross injustice and depravity of the empire. Hold onto that, because if we lose our disgust of it, we become libs.
I would rather live a life feeling disgust, than to be comfortable in a disgusting empire.
To try to be more bloomer, there are still good things in the world. People organizing, commiserating, and Hexbear just by itself! We are not the majority, but we are still many. We enjoy things like gardening, theory, art, expression, shitposting, and so much more. I daily mourn the sins of the empire that I cannot stop. I hate being afraid to do anything out of self-preservation. But I do not have to mourn alone, and I do not have to act alone.
We can take the years where weeks happen, and use them to prepare for the week where years happen. Bit by bit, from each according to their ability, to each according to their need. There’s a lot of people in need, and like others here, I often have little ability. Still, trying with little effect is honorable over giving up. The same goes for resting, over giving up.
To paraphrase an attribution to Emma Goldman “If there won’t be shitposting at the revolution, I’m not coming”
Procedure, too. When the Challenger exploded, the crew were trying to salvage the situation to the very last.
A procedure for vengeance would be pretty great.
How do you even begin to fix all of this.
A gun chambered in a relatively-cheap enough caliber to make a routine of range time; and a raft of said relatively-cheap enough caliber to weather the storm.
What’s a cheap effective caliber available in all 50 states?
See, I like 22 long; but that’s only because I have multiple family members with .22lr weapons, so we more or less keep each other sitting pretty, and it’s a good enough round for both home defense against random yahoos and for subsistence hunting if absolutely necessary. My great grandfather in law is purported to have been able to bring down any game he went after up to like. Your average whitetail in two .22s at his worst marksmanship.
(He earned a plus in my books because he was one of what I consider the good hunters-- he didn’t go after anything if he didn’t intend on using every part of it.)
Mileage on this subject genuinely varies dependent on who’s selling around you and what kind of recoil you’re comfortable with.
A 9mm pistol
I’m with you here! It’s very disheartening to see that not only are we sliding towards fascism, but the general public is coping in the most dangerous and unhinged ways. Scapegoating minorities and marginalized groups for the failure of a system, meanwhile buying up all the treats they can before “orange bad man destroys the economy”. It’s a sick and twisted situation and my wife and I are spiraling a bit right now.
That all said, I really wish there was a tangible way to fix this, but I can’t get my head above water long enough to see it. My only thought would be to continue hammering home the point that democrats failed to do politics well and basically left the country out to dry as usual. Every time they do it, it gets easier to make people see it. Just have to hope the sentiment sticks this time around? Idk, it’s so fucked…
It’s not the Democrats fault it’s the left for not voting for Harris! It’s Muslims! It’s Latinos! It’s Gen Z! But especially, the left!
We were already appealing to them with a $25,000 credit for your first home and by not being Trump. What else do they need?
We fix it by being right. And insufferable about pointing this out.
Remember, always, fascism is unsustainable, it is capitalism eating its own seed corn until the amount of people it has to fuck over reaches a critical mass.
The KPD used to say “after Hitler, us.” And while it’s hard to call that strategy successful, it was correct.
After fascism. After collapse. After revolution. Us. We must be prepared for that.
We fix it by being right.
That has never worked before
It doesn’t until things get really bad, unfortunately. But it’s how Lenin won, by being right about everything and every other faction failing in turn.
It did for Mao
They weren’t correct enough. Every time they are more correct and it works better.
Wasn’t “after Hitler, us” a socdem slogan?
KPD
Nah when I look at history ,the 80’s ,90’s and ‘s were fucking bleak
Nowadays I have hope in China but back then there was no reason to have hope as a Palestinian nor as a communist
You don’t. We eventually balkanize. The question is how much of the rest of the world’s money do we burn though before we start making “strategic partnerships” with China. Like, it is a matter of time before the pacific states joins the belt and road program and China builds a military base in the Nevada desert to claim and scrap the remaining US nuclear stockpile. Our only real path forward is to build as nice a social network as we can so we can ride the wave of decline. Which means study like getting good at vegan cooking and gardening are some of the most important skills.
Unless we are on the cool timeline than just getting really good at running is the most important skill.
Either way our job in the core of the empire is to be stoic and help who we can. Which is a better deal than most my ancestors ever got.
Or I am just being a pessimist. Who could say.
If Newsom were smart, he’d already have a permanent personal ambassador to Xi
He is ambitious enough I am sure there have been smoke filled room conversations that occured.
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getting really good at running is the most important skill.
I would say rucking is more important
Valid critique comrade. That is indeed a more important long term skill than running if we enter the cool zone.
Also calves for days 😎
Its unfortunate that chuds are in on it too tho
I am having a much easier time reaching libs. People are now more receptive to organizing, even if I have to cloak it in disaster prep or grillpill
They’re just absolutely mind fucked from being raised on a steady diet of right-wing propaganda from all major Western parties.
They are comfortable, which allows them to have their views. That comfort is going to be rocked for many people over the next few years that will ripen them up for radicalization.
How do you even begin to fix all of this.
Read A Paradise Built In Hell by Rebecca Solnit. Here’s a decent overview, but I recommend the whole book. It is the complement of The Shock Doctrine, but critiques the ‘helplessness’ that Naomi Klein describes by showing that people aren’t nearly the doormat Shock Doctrine policy assumes. The central idea is we, as a species and as instinct, come together during times of catastrophe, both natural disasters as well as human-caused like war. The more intense or complete the disaster, the greater the phenomenon shows up. She also analyzes cases where this phenomenon doesn’t arise and why; the section on the Spanish Flu is prophetic of the COVID response a decade after publication. The whole section on Elite Panic is a necessary counter-propaganda against modern media, calling out the pervasive anti-humanism throughout Hollywood that assumes people will panic in the face of disaster. It is completely false and a mirror for how the Elite view the populace, driving so many regressive disaster responses by the State. If nothing else, this book will dispel a kind of Doomer Propaganda that is pervasive.
Not to co-opt this, but you bring up an interesting point on the population being cooked. Not necessarily in an “everyone’s an idiot except us” sense, but just from how prevalent right-wing propaganda is, and the fact the average imperial core member is aware of and on board with the state of things. As Comrade Sinclair once said “it is impossible to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding of it.”
This is especially true here in the great satan I believe, where education is dropping and we are materially one of the worst off working classes in the “developed” world. The imperial boomerang is a way of life here, and the average citizen wouldn’t have it any other way. I argued this before, but to me it feels like the US is becoming a colony for international bourgeoisie as well as a colonizing force. Europe and Canada can offset more and more of their exploitation to the US, who are happy to be exploited and controlled by a powerful military force and Europe can wipe its hands clean of any wrongdoing.
I am optimistic about people though. You tell the most far right asshole you know about any socialist policy and they will like it so long as they don’t know it is socialist. It is just petty tribalism for most people. Which is hard to defeat, but not that hard with time and energy.
its all fucked more fucked than you could ever think
just put one step infront of the other :) i’m actually not sure what the rules of this com is or comment etiquette responding to doomer posts, but i get it, like thinking about it is kinda of harsh.
but you know, just do your best i’m skimming some soviet officers handbook rn and organising books clubs and stuff irl - community is important irl
i like disco elysium quotes, they might cheer you up, they are made by communists living in the post soviet states, just the right mix of depression and unshakable belief in a better world
ie. In the dark times, should the stars also go out?
ONE DAY I WILL RETURN TO YOUR SIDE
And above all, you let life defeat you. All the gifts your parents gave you, all the love and patience of your friends, you drowned in a neurotoxin. You let misery win. And it will keep on winning till you die — or overcome it.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I think it’s important to keep in mind that we’re not in this alone - capitalism thrives when it keeps us thinking we’re isolated and powerless, and every day we have to fight that fight before we can move on to more important things. But we have each other, and we have the words and stories of the folks who came before us, ones who also lived in a fucked up world, confronted it, and left an example behind for us to follow. Not everyone made it and most didn’t get their happy ending, but they chipped away a little bit at our ignorance, and we have to find contentment inside our finitude as individuals and our bounded time on the planet.
