Not us Chapos specifically, but I see on reddit and fb a shit ton of actual vitriol spewn back and forth between MLs, ancoms, anarchists and others. To the point where they're banning and attacking others they deem too tankie or not woke enough. On here it's pretty dang inclusive. I haven't seen too much infighting, and who doesn't love the sarcastic jab every once in awhile?

The stuff that happened in Kenosha has me pretty dang shook, and it's not over. I have a friend who lives with his brother out in Kenosha, and this was minutes from his house. I live four hours away from Kenosha and I easily can see this going down in any city closeby me.

Right now it feels like the fascists outnumber us. Not only the out-and-out fascists, but there is a LOT of wishy-washy support for civility and police. When it gets down to physical violence and shooting from both sides, people won't distinguish the leftists from the nazis, they'll condemn both and want to go back to normal as quickly as possible.

So the only common struggle that we have is with each other. Socialists and anarchists both want to dismantle the capitalist system and achieve egality. We all want to keep this earth going for awhile, (well, except maybe for you posadists), and we all want to defend ourselves and defeat the fascists. We can only have the numbers high enough to do this if we can reach out, not only intersectionally and inter-ideologically, but in real life and in other social media spaces.

I could see this site getting large enough to have the strength to spread propaganda, infiltrate, and reach out. We should organize and develop strategies here (maybe have a separate community for it?) and try to get our ideals out into the world better. Because right now, it doesn't feel like too many people in the middle are ready to fight with us.

Idk, I just smoked for the first time in a week and this has been on my mind today.

  • Awoo [she/her]
    1·
    4 years ago

    The fascists don't outnumber you. They can't mobilise numbers at all.

    There are a tiny minority of fascists willing to just murder you. They are terrifying. And they are everywhere. But they absolutely don't outnumber the left. They don't mobilise, have no infrastructure and 99% sit at home, scared.

    They SUPPORT the fascists willing to go out and kill, but they're almost non-factors. The majority will sit out any conflict. There is a false perception of size and numbers brought about by those that add their vocal weight support.

    I really think this is very important to understand. The largest mobilisation of these fascists to ever occur was charlottesville and it took them months and months to achieve. Don't be fooled by average people vocalising support that will sit out of the real conflict. They're not their "numbers". The left mobilises in incredible numbers with ease and consistency by comparison. The people willing to actually engage in a conflict, in my opinion, are roughly even on both sides. Excluding the state from this of course.

    • ComradeMikey [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      God I wish I had your optimism about getting people engaged. Not saying your wrong just cynical is all

      • Awoo [she/her]
        1·
        4 years ago

        I see nothing but growth occurring. The left's ability to mobilise and its infrastructure simply continues to grow.

        They are resorting to these actions because they are scared. This is an individual actor among a small group of 10 that showed up.

        Their mobilisation is terrible and they are forced into these lone-attacker events because they have no other options. They can't get opposition numbers in the streets with clubs to clash with the left because everyone is content to sit at home and do nothing. They are loud online and incapable of mobilising. From last night's videos we saw clearly that they can't be viewed as a monolith either, the militia wasn't down with the police "pushing protesters towards the militia to deal with them" and that militia guy was content to say that on video to leftists effectively snitching on the police. I don't think we can even consider these chud militias to be up for a war. Some might be horrendous but... That shows more nuance to me.

        We over-simplify the different groups into one cohesive monolith that seems insurmountable when in reality these factions are diverse and complicated. If we put the numbers down on a piece of paper and really assess things week to week month to month... I think the picture looks very different to the fear-posting we do here constantly. Yes, these attackers are terrifying, but this kind of attack is a result of their lack of ability to do anything else at all due to low numbers.

        • ComradeMikey [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          while I 100% agree that fascists are super minor chunk of people what im worried about is the leftist numbers are equally small and we will all become eaten by capitalist BS. Thanks fam for allowing me to suspend those anxieties for at least a bit

          • Awoo [she/her]
            ·
            4 years ago

            We're all in a permanent state of being eaten by capitalist BS but the reality of the strength of the fascists shouldn't be confused with that of the state or neoliberals.

            What we SHOULD be concerned about is a real, actual, competent fascist in power. Trump is not that though.

            Too often the left is conflating the forces of the state, the idea that Trump is an actual real fascist of the palingenetic ultranationalist variety, the neoliberals, and the actual fascists in the country as all the same thing. They're not. They're separate things and should be regarded as such. Sometimes they're aligned against the left, but, they are also aligned against one another in many ways.

            We are doing ourselves a disservice by speaking of these various forces as one monolithic enemy. They are all enemies, but they are not the same force and the dangerous-fascists are actually far smaller than we are in mobilised numbers. I strongly believe that we need pushback against this view of all our opponents as one entity.

            • lvysaur [he/him]
              ·
              4 years ago

              This

              Just as one example, Trump still loves Israel

    • Ezze [hy/hym,they/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Just a thought about the overestimation of fascists here and elsewhere online;

      For the amount of control the fascists fantasize about taking would simply require more amount of food/calories than are currently available to them. If they ever got together in serious numbers they would collapse within weeks if not days from not having the competency to feed and shelter themselves. They truly are pathetic wretches.

      Murdering a few people at a time will never be a model for achieving sustainable victory for them, it can only come about through domination of political systems which is where the power of the People truly comes from. Our power.