i've been having some convos with for lack of better words, normies more recently again and i've had a string of people just have NO IDEA how many countries the US has either overthrown, attempted to overthrow or have influenced in some way. Usually it all starts from explaining how the US is inherently a very right wing country and always has been. i've talked to a lot of different people about shit kinda like this for years and it's kinda wearing me down how little anyone knows anything about so much shit the evil empire has done. like i actually feel like the Charlie Day always sunny conspiracy board meme sometimes just carrying on a conversation, referencing some events or whatever. idk if anyone else feels this way sometimes, i just felt like venting a bit cause it made me feel actually bad in a way that i especially didn't like and felt like, i guess, alone??
Yeah talking about well documented things that this country did will get you called a conspiracy theorist. It's like, look, they admitted it. Definitely know what you mean, it's impossible
the worst type of response is when they're acknowledging really bad things happened and being open to the idea that there is truly a lot of evil shit the US has done is then believing we're somehow different. like all of these people lived through the Iraq and Afganistan wars, but cannot detach the idea that historical evil the US has done is somehow not related to the current US???? it's extremely annoying I can hardly form coherent responses to this type of mentality cause it legit hurts my brain trying to figure out how to just say that's not true without being so blunt about it which is very dismissive in conversations like this
It's incredible propaganda tbh. I think it also meshes with how people want to feel. It's easy to look at people who you don't support, you don't vote for, or whatever, in the past and say "those people were bad" but it's harder to really say "We are bad". People don't want to admit it to themselves, because then they'll have to do something about it or at the least, will feel bad about the US.
But that's why the propaganda works so incredibly well. Also, it's clear as day that this kind of propaganda couldn't be disseminated in such an efficient way without the media - having an "unbiased" media tell you that actually all the state enemies are completely and unreedemably evil and America is wholesome #1 anti authoritarian pro democracy country will affect how people view the country.
Deep in their head, they are going to have this base of information that they may not even know where it came from, that is screaming America good, [enemy] bad. The process of getting rid of that propaganda is a long one, and usually the person has to want to learn.
All to say, I don't know what the answer is, but I know it's gonna be slow going.
It’s incredible propaganda tbh. I think it also meshes with how people want to feel.
:100-com: exactly. maybe im bad for feeling this way but some people who are really old, it is just not worth trying to flip their entire world view over, really, if they aren't actively rich and or donating or contributing to politics in anyway there is little reason to grill them on their archaic idea of what the US actually is. I can completely see how much more comfortable it is for so many people to just believe what they want to believe and never be challenged on it. Ironically, at the same time, i feel like this is exactly part of the reason why this country continues to decline in so many ways. there has to be a massive generation shift in order to even attempt to legitimately change how this country thinks, feels and acts. that's a fuckin massive concept lol
there has to be a massive generation shift
I do believe sadly time and old people dying is what will be necessary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle basically. And that's SCIENTISTS.
like all of these people lived through the Iraq and Afganistan wars, but cannot detach the idea that historical evil the US has done is somehow not related to the current US???
Might help to point out the continuity in key government officials. John Bolton was in the Trump administration, the federal judges who signed off on torture during the mid-2000s are still there, Fauci was in his current role when the feds let AIDS become an epidemic, etc.
To be correct is to be outcast, for they hated him because he told the truth
Yeah, the classic formulation (paraphrased) is that people will call you a conspiracy theorist for accusing the CIA of things that the CIA literally admitted to (like COINTELPRO). It's fucking tiring and I think the only way to get by is to start with like one or two people who you can really thoroughly bring up to speed just so that you then have someone who you can talk to normally rather than extremely didactically.
Where I currently am, I don't really have one who is also my friend (though I know some trots). When the semester starts I'll find a person or two who can actually hold a serious conversation and take my own advice.
Where I currently am, I don’t really have one who is also my friend (though I know some trots).
this is so accurate to me lmao, i'm in a very similar situation myself. i do know a few non trots that are cool and good but i always feel like im still way further left than them on almost everything and it's annoying. but at the same time those are the people i feel most comfortable with cause even if you say something they truly cannot or haven't believed they're much more open to the ideas. and even then there is a line, i don't want to scare people with suggesting things that might be radical in their mind but are actually a reasonable path to potentially rectifying this disgusting system we live in
I know that feeling comrade. It’s a lonely road but you’re doing good work honoring the lives of those murdered by the USA in the name of capitalist hegemony. Never stop.
“As revolutionaries, we don't have the right to say we are tired of explaining. We must never stop explaining. We know that when the people understand, they cannot help but follow us.”
:sankara-salute:
The hogs in America can understand perfectly well but their material conditions make it so changing anything is not in their best interest.
This is activist’s fallacy about just educating everyone. Doesn’t do shit if the material conditions aren’t right.
If you talk to normal people and describe your beliefs without using the word communism, the majority are like yeah, that sounds great. The word itself instantly triggers the dormant propaganda brainworms
Had this happen just the other day. Was talking to a coworker who's right in step with me on a lot of things, and probably to the left of me on prison abolition specifically. We get talking about Mao somehow and I say he was pretty cool. The response is along the lines of "I can't get past millions killed and the Uyghurs."
I think it really is about emphasis :citations-needed: . Unless you purposefully seek it out or stumble upon someone who will serve it up for you, most people just hear nothing else about Bad Countries other than lines like that. I brought up a few things to push back and he seemed decently receptive to them -- it was just the first time hearing that and he'll go on to hear "bazillions dead" a hundred more times.
I've found that this mask has made me very good at all of those social deduction games that my lib friends love to play.
i know im not really but it really does feel that way a lot of the time. i really don't have that many good lefty friends irl and it sucks, and i dont like pushing away people who just don't get it or just really haven't figured it out yet. :solidarity:
my grandma was actually just asking me about the "fact check app" that shows up on her facebook now and it took an immense amount of conversation to explain why she sees this now and explaining how it shouldn't be trusted but also can be right sometimes. it's actually chaotic as fuck, i can hardly put into conscience words about this entire thing lol. i think it's all working accordingly to plan tbh :/
My friends sometimes try to oversimplify my politics to "America Bad."
But when it comes to foreign relations, maybe that's not that far off?
Anytime someone does the "America Bad is not an ideology" thing, all I can think is "Well it's a damn good start".
Totally agree. America Bad is much more sound and coherent than liberalism has ever been
A Marxist understanding of capitalism leads to anti-imperialism. Anti-imperialism is understood by detractors as a simple rhetorical dressing over simplistic heuristics like “reflexive anti-americanism,” “history repeats itself,” and “the military-industrial complex needs contracts,” but all of these are reductive. Marxists understand that human political leadership in the imperial periphery, whether enlightened or tyrannical, will only be antagonized by empire for one single possible reason: it is getting in the way of market penetration. This is phrased succinctly by Kevin Dooley when criticizing Noam Chomsky’s support for a military alliance between the Kurds and the USA in Syria: “The difference between [Chomsky’s] position and a hard-line anti-imperialist position isn’t tactical. What he’s arguing is simply a violation of anti-imperialist principles based on a fundamentally different understanding of what can drive the empire to act in the world.” [16]
from https://redsails.org/why-marxism/
It's much closer to reality than "America Good," which is what you get from most media.
If they acknowledge that U.S. media generally portrays America as good but will occasionally criticize it, say that's what you're doing from the other end. That could at least get you past that sticking point.
Even when it comes to domestic issues, America Bad works
i try to talk to my parents about this shit sometimes and it's like i'm talking to a brick wall
i've been there before, i gave up after around 10years. it wasn't worth the useless circle reasoning that kept happening, there was practically zero benfits from doing it. if they are closed minded enough, all it does is create friction. you can give them your perspective but then just leave it at that unless they genuinlly want to hear why you believe that. i got other family that were much more respetive to hearing about theory or doing like a meta analysis of culture war bullshit. however aside from that, if you have to interact with these people a lot and likely will continue to interact with the, there is an arbitrary threshold i feel like where you just have to lean off and forget about it. a lot of opinions and beliefs just don't matter in this world when you're just talking to a few people, you cannot teach an old dog new tricks (as they say.)
Media criticism is the key to this. :parenti-hands:
You can't win on facts, because they get to choose what facts they accept. You can't win on repetition, because you'll never be able to out-repeat everything they see in mass media. You can't win on emotion, because most people want to believe their country is at least trying to be good.
The only way to get people to see through this stuff themselves is media criticism. It's far enough removed from specific hot-button issues that you can get someone on board in the abstract first. You can get them to agree with stuff like "people who start a media career trying to challenge the company line either change their tune or get drummed out" without triggering deep anti-communist brainstorms. Then if they take to media criticism, they see it everywhere and you get them working towards the truth on their own.
Of course, getting someone to read a book/listen to a podcast/have a conversation about media criticism is itself a challenge. But it's a far smaller challenge than trying to win 100 simultaneous debates about U.S. history where the other party can simply reject whatever they don't want to hear.
Gotta disagree because one of my friends (who barely talks to me anymore) is a chomsky lib. He admits that America is bad and capitalism is bad but thinks socialism = concentration camps for all. He also comes from a wealthy white family and has said positive things about Jordan Peterson.
it's a lot of work in a way i never really asked for but also feel like it's important to do with people i think are open enough to listen. like i don't wanna talk anyone's ear off but this type of shit happens randomly just by trying to crack a joke about some shit or just comparing a different event to another. it's rough, this country just feels so deeply ignorant. not that i don't think ignorance is bliss either, cause i do, but if i respect someone it feels weird not telling them things they might not know, if that makes sense?
It's no better in the UK FWIW - I've been compared to Alex Jones for pointing out that consent manufacturing exists :doomer:
If it wasn't for this place and the leftists I know IRL I'd have completely lost my mind by now, I'm sure.
Yeah, I have similar concerns, there really aren't any other places on the internet like it
Masses, Elites, and Rebels is helpful because it reframes this from ignorance to the social purpose of the beliefs
I half disagree because a lot of people are genuinely just ignorant, but I think it is good for explaining people who are especially self-consciously stubborn in their beliefs.
