Trump's election really rattled me and pushed me left hard, while also cracking my egg. As I transitioned my political ideology also moved further and further left through all the phases NeoLib->ProgressiveLib->SocDem->DemSoc->Anarchist*->ML. Even through all that though I guess I hadnt given up hope that some part of this thing that is "America" or "The USA," whatever I conceived of it as, had some "goodness" or was "salvageable" as a social construct.
The real moment I completely internalized exactly how evil the USA is was back in 2020 when the ruling class all got behind killing or maiming 2-3 million people with COVID in America alone. Like all the other stuff, the Iraq War, the droning, the coups, I could come up with some rationalization of how some part of this might not be completely evil. I think the democrats purposefully sending their voters out to vote in a primary during a massive pandemic just to stop a milktoast socdem was also really brutally eyeopening. But just blatantly saying "yes we need to murder 2-3 million of the most vulnerable to keep the stock market going" was really a breaking moment for me, I cried off and on for like a week just trying to come to terms with how many people are going to die.
Yeah I might be a bit dense and slow, but I am getting there. It's really really hard to fully shed some ideology that you have been force fed since birth, especially when your life is relatively comfortable.
*Not implying that Anarchists arent as committed as ML's here. Just that I really got into and agreed with Marxism and felt that a centralized party was a more effective strategy. This is entirely my subjective opinion and respect the hell out of principled anarchists of all stripes.
Trump's election really rattled me and pushed me left hard, while also cracking my egg. As I transitioned my political ideology also moved further and further left through all the phases NeoLib->ProgressiveLib->SocDem->DemSoc->Anarchist*->ML. Even through all that though I guess I hadnt given up hope that some part of this thing that is "America" or "The USA," whatever I conceived of it as, had some "goodness" or was "salvageable" as a social construct.
The real moment I completely internalized exactly how evil the USA is was back in 2020 when the ruling class all got behind killing or maiming 2-3 million people with COVID in America alone. Like all the other stuff, the Iraq War, the droning, the coups, I could come up with some rationalization of how some part of this might not be completely evil. I think the democrats purposefully sending their voters out to vote in a primary during a massive pandemic just to stop a milktoast socdem was also really brutally eyeopening. But just blatantly saying "yes we need to murder 2-3 million of the most vulnerable to keep the stock market going" was really a breaking moment for me, I cried off and on for like a week just trying to come to terms with how many people are going to die.
Yeah I might be a bit dense and slow, but I am getting there. It's really really hard to fully shed some ideology that you have been force fed since birth, especially when your life is relatively comfortable.
*Not implying that Anarchists arent as committed as ML's here. Just that I really got into and agreed with Marxism and felt that a centralized party was a more effective strategy. This is entirely my subjective opinion and respect the hell out of principled anarchists of all stripes.