How did we overthrow Kings again? Something about us becoming ahem "Enlightened" during some sort of era or period? What can we learn from the successes and failures? How did Europeans get ideas of freedom, autonomy, equality, and question of authority from when all they knew about was Kings and Divine Right? Did they perhaps go to some kind of ahem New World with a matchcoat and musket to live and trade amongst the natives for 200 years?! Perhaps there was some sort of ahem Indiginous Critique on European Culture that sorta blew the minds of the French, English, and Dutch alike? Perhaps they wrote some plays about this! That they could disobey or :gasps: impeach their leaders? That pursuasion and reason might be more important? Perhaps over some coffee and pipe tobacco? Oh right, next thing you'd think i'd say is they didn't trade or so much as look at silver? How they MUST have had a "Market" how else could goods or heirlooms possibly trade hands? Certainly not gifts, quests, or gambling! Jeez, I wonder if we still have something to learn from these ideas that were just too darn complicated for Ben Franklin and Jean Jacque Rousseau!
in4apenny
good is the overwhelming majority.
Let the overwhelming centrist majority in 1930's Germany tell you otherwise. People who peacefully ignore evil, even if it's preserve their own safety, are not good at heart. People just don't want trouble or disturbance, that's why people are naturally kind from day to day. But ignoring the piles of bodies while saying "no politics at the dinner table" is literally how the holocaust happened - the majority failed to act.
1930's Germany at least had the excuse of limited information/education, all they had was radio from which only Hitler's voice was present. 100 years later with the worlds knowledge at our fingertips, ignorance to politics is a choice. Might I say an evil one, all things considered.
I used to go to protests, from USA to Australia to NZ and UK... I'm not going to another protest until we start occupying gated communities. I'm sick of standing around looking pathetic occupying some sidewalk and politely leaving when told to by police. And to think that's the best the so-called "leftists" can do, then I remember to back when things were bad - how the police and FBI would raid groups, murder them, drop bombs on them, and assassinate their leadership - and realize that leftism was defeated long ago. I want to keep it peaceful, and start picketing in places that matter like outside mansions and gated communities. Just stand outside the homes of billionaires to tell them we know where they live, we out number them, I think would be enough to shake things up a bit because they're cowards too. However, in my heartest of hearts, I believe anything short of an armed overthrow of one dozen billionaires will never be enough. Fuck tinkering and pushing the needle slightly. Loud and armed leftist groups are needed now more than ever and there's zero of them to be found.
You mean the one who has a half-naked tortured guy being executed by cross as their symbol?
Or "It was The Markets will" if you're a centrist or capitalist. Their belief system works pretty much exactly the same, just a different god. Centrist so-called atheist enablers are not excused from this equation.
"Capitalism created vaccines." - The Average "Enlightened" Centrist
In 2025 the average centrist sees rising oceans, climate disruption, and fascism taking over the globe.
"Don't worry, The Markets will save me."
WW3 won't be a nuclear war between States. WW3 will be a global class uprising, I just fear we'll have to go through 100+ years of 'Equilibrium' or 'V for Vendetta' type dystopia before that happens. Why does that have to be the sensible approach? Why not rip off the bandaids now while billionaires addresses are still public information?
Almost everyone has family members or friends that vote far-right and we need to talk to them
I try. My family calls themselves left of center and liberal, yet no books on Marx but certainly have books on Hitler. My brother who works in finance lauds great mathematicians in history, but he won't read about Einstein's politics because I smoke weed therefore my recommendation is "hard to take seriously." They think the rise of fascism is just media sensationalism, and things are better than ever because "the markets say so / GDP is higher than ever." I try to explain, through the words of economists, that GDP and markets aren't a good measure of wealth disparity, and they accuse me of being envious that I don't have as much money as them. I try to explain that money isn't everything, they roll their eyes like i'm on some hippy-revolutionary kool aid and no different from MAGA. They say I should stop worrying about "the news" and "focus on yourself," meanwhile i'm disabled from hyperthyroidism and they roll their eyes at my pain and immobility like i'm being lazy. They don't read anything, they'll be the first to admit they choose to stay away from politics, while simultaneously acting like they have the most informed and balanced perspective. Fuck "enlightened centrists" they walk and talk just like fascists do.
It's less about being ready to commit violence, and more like willing to die or lose all my freedoms for my beliefs. Tried doing things the peaceful, in-the-system way, working charities for blind people, deaf children, as well as various environmental causes. Got pretty high up in all of them, high up enough to learn that every roadblock to getting people medical aid, more blind people-friendly infastructure, cochlear implants for children, or utilizing cutting edge alternatives to oil and plastic using fruit waste and algae, every time it's the millionaire/billionaire investor class that can't see any profit incentive to helping people. I show up to pitifully occupy sidewalks regularly, I even take off work and take the financial hit if there are any demonstrations in my area. In August during the pogroms in the UK, I helped protect a mosque and got bricks thrown at me, hurt like a mofo but i'd take a million more. Helped nice young college girls get medical after getting bricks hurled at the heads and faces by fascists, meanwhile the cops did nothing but stand with their backs faced to the brick throwers, watching us get pelted with bricks and fireworks. None of this makes me even close to as radicalized as the fact that humans produce 3x the calories to feed every person on the planet yet we still charge money for food, and while there's all these problems that need resources there's $36 TRILLION sitting in offshore tax havens (as of 2016 according to the IMF).
I'm not willing to do violence, i'm willing to do anything even risk my life to stop them. I'd rather be smiling in front of a firing squad than peacefully obeying a soldier at gunpoint as he marches me to the camps. Perhaps you're just not that guy.
I've been lied to, gaslit, and blamed by my self-proclaimed "centrist" family my whole life, been called alarmist my whole life when i've been pointing at these very same things coming from a mile away. There are tons of others that did the same, at least alt-right MAGA freaks give you the time of day to argue. Centrists though? They're the first to say they "dont really care much about politics" yet hold their heads high with masturbatory egotism and confidently proclaim "both sides are wrong, I disagree with extremists of any kind." They're betting their childrens lives and future on their own malicious ignorance, like that joke with the priest who denies life saving medication because "Don't worry, God will take care of me," but replace God with the Markets and you have the modern day peasant that'll rat you out to soldiers for "heresy" and have you hung, disembowled, or burned at the stake. A person of self-interest is not a person of reason.