- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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I dunno, kinda feels to me that liberalism has lost so the polite thing to do would be to give them a dose of reality that could very well save their lives
If you think you can actually radicalise liberals you probably haven’t tried talking to them during an election year.
It’s much easier to de-extremify (or even radicalise) a fascist than a liberal, and the reason why is pretty clear to me now - liberals are far, far more invested in the maintenance of the status quo than the rank-and-file fascist is.
Every fascist is a fallen comrade the capitalists got to first with the wrong solution?
Horseshoe brainlessness aside, there are certainly quite a lot of the opposite, Marxist/anarchist scholars in America who ended up swerving hard right as they aged under Reaganism. It’s pretty weird to me.
Every fascist is a fallen comrade the capitalists got to first with the wrong solution?
Not every one… there are lots of utterly irredeemable people in the fascist rank-and-file. And there’s no point in trying to differentiate which is which when they are marching down the street.
There is one thing that we on the left needs to take cogniscance of. The (so-called) “liberal democracies” we exist under only allows for the existence of two distinct ideologies - liberalism and fascism. It is only logical that when the one fails, people will attempt the other.
“It’s much easier to de-extremify (or even radicalise) a fascist than a liberal, and the reason why is pretty clear to me now - liberals are far, far more invested in the maintenance of the status quo than the rank-and-file fascist is.”
This is super interesting to me, because it simultaneously challenges my assumptions while making intuitive sense. I don’t have any experience trying to de-extremify a fascist, but what you describe feels plausible
There’s a good reason why overtly fascist regimes rely on much, much more overt and direct forms of censorship than liberal ones - it is far easier to throw a spanner into the logic machinery.
The problem with liberals is that liberal propaganda starts making more and more sense the higher up in the working class’ class structure you go - a well-to-do lawyer from an upper-working-class family is going to be far more invested in the capitalist status quo than a hot-dog salesperson who is struggling to pay the rent. The more invested somebody is in the status quo, the more their logic will shield them from critiques of said status quo. Where you sit is where you stand… like the German quote goes.
There’s a distinct class thing going on here which we on the left has completely ignored - you can just hear it in the way liberals talk about people lower down the economic pecking order. Just see how upper-middle class folks talk about the “hillbillies” and “inbreds” that (supposedly) all voted for Trump.
This was on full display during the last election. Genocide is apparently okay now. Long as a black woman or senile old man enables it.
Idiotic comments like this continuing to be made will never make sense. How can you be this stupid but also on the left
I still won’t believe that leaving a black woman holding the bag the Dems took turns shitting in when it became obvious that they were utterly losing is some kind of coincidence.
Tl;dr: to all the genocidal apologists and enablers - you are the crazy fucking extremists.
That part is probably a coincidence. It was pretty clear last election democrats have entirely lost the thread to the point they’re basically just as dangerous as gwb was in the early 2000s.
A year of watching the entire party defend the actions, support a genocidal regime followed by the complete suppression of Palestinian members from the platform, suppression of student activists. Followed by completely ignoring the economic issues of the middle class was basically their version of taking the mask off and hollowed out what little remaining support they had from people like myself. Nothing made me happier than watching them lose an election the thought they could phone in because trump was running again. Not particularly happy with the result but happy they face planted.
No point in wasting time on them anymore.
Tl;dr:
I’m not disagreeing with you.
No point in wasting time on them anymore.
I’m afraid it goes a lot deeper than that. I don’t think the left really grasps the true nature of the relationship between liberalism and fascism. Biden had to lose to allow the other lot in… if liberals are seen to wield the stick (as opposed to the carrot), liberalism becomes useless to the ruling elites. And that’s really the way our (so-called) “liberal democracies” have always worked - the liberals do the lying, the fascists do… the other stuff. The only difference now is that the Oct 7th attack has shone a spotlight on a lib regime and caught them with their hands stuck inside the genocide cookie jar.
This is something all antifascists will have to grapple with - it doesn’t matter how good you become at beating up fascists… if you are only beating up fascists you are only hurting the part of the weed that’s growing above ground. If we can’t find effective ways of problematising and confronting liberals and liberalism itself, we are simply playing wack-a-mole… until the liberals hand the mole the keys to all the tanks, of course.
For me it’s both, I guess?
Before the bullshit threshold I’m calmly reading what the liberal says, and calmly explaining stuff like:
- why capitalism won’t fix itself
- why it’s a bad idea to give the Nazi a voice, Weimar Republic style
- why all this “my country” thing is inane, and why we should be identifying ourselves first and foremost as human beings
- why and how gender and sex are different things
But as the liberal keeps babbling, and enters the bullshit threshold, my attitude suddenly flips to something like “aaaah, cut off the crap! I already explained this, dammit. Do you need to be spoonfed basic [reading comprehension | reasoning]???”
I don’t typically use the word “bootlicker” in English, but in Portuguese I do use “pelego” (kind of the same thing) a fair bit.
Ooh, I like that image. I have a friend who would love that graph — do you know who I should credit if I share it?
I did it on the spot, no credit needed. If I knew people wanted it I would’ve saved the .svg.
In that case, I will compliment your skill in making a drawing look messy and care-free whilst still being legible, resulting in an assertive style that I appreciate
Thank you! This sort of graph is actually easy to do in Inkscape:
- Use the “calligraphy” tool for lines; default configs, quick strokes. If the stroke gets slightly off it’s OK, but if it’s really off simply redraw it (easier than trying to fix it). The dashed lines are simply sequences of lines using the same tool.
- For the text plenty cursive fonts work fine; I used First-Grader, but Lehn183, Berenice, and even Comic Sans would be good options.
- Red background: I found easier to start with a larger-than-necessary rectangle, and then shave it off by subtracting copies of other elements.
- If any object is a bit too detailed, or has rough edges, a few hits of the “simplify” tool (Ctrl+L) fixes it.
Covering my edge with some off color comedy a la Robert Evans to get people on my side.
