Why I would never trust anyone who talks about "reaching across the isle" or being bipartisan. :good-morning: :biden-rember:
If you are reaching across to shake hands with Hitler, fuck you
These people blow my mind because the only thing in my life time that an undivided America has done is murder brown people and fuck workers.
This is true, but I think there is an important addendum that people organizing in the States should keep in mind: Belief alone does not make you into something. You have to act on it.*
Americans are great at belief. We believe in all sorts of things, and we pick up and discard new beliefs on a whim. A lot of those are contradictory. Doesn't matter, we believe them all the same. Even harder, if anyone points out the hypocrisy. But we seldom act on belief. Don't mistake someone who merely believes something heinous for someone who acts on heinous belief. For one thing, they're not worth worrying about. Their belief changes with the wind of public sentiment, though it is anchored by their material conditions. The aim isn't to change that individual's mind. Change the conditions, and you make it easier to believe in a better world. Change the wind, and they will follow. Justification comes after, not before.
*
This is true for communism as well. Believing in the left does not make you a leftist. You have to act on that belief.
This is true, but there has to be room for reconciliation. Not with Nazis, republicans, alt-right, etc. but with people who have recognised their beliefs were shit and that they needed to change. People's beliefs are far more often a result of circumstance, than innate character - having once believed something shit, or even downright evil, should not condemn you forever if you then come to realise the truth about those beliefs.
I agree, though I strongly believe that anyone who acted on those beliefs need to face justice before there can be reconciliation.
That means you, US military veteran reading this who had a change of heart after leaving the war crime factory.
I had a liberal ex who was convinced her MAGA friend was a good person who was just fiscally conservative. She took him to a dinner party where he got drunk and called her black best friend, the homeowner, the n-word. She hated my :shocked-pikachu: response because it was intolerant toward people with different beliefs.
Bigotry is like cancer. Sometimes it presents as a horrific external presence. Other times it just turns your blood to slime and strangles you from within.
I've known plenty of bigots in my life, both as friends and family members. A lot of them really are just poisoned in the head. You don't even realize what they're thinking until some off-handed remark or off-putting reaction rings your bell. And by then... its not easy to just cut ties with someone to whom you've built an emotional bond. You want to rationalize it, tolerate it, or rectify it. You don't want to turn your back on someone you like or love, because they're suddenly spitting bile, any more than you'd want to just toss a friend in a casket the day after they tell you they've got leukemia.
Dealing with this shit is painful in a way that's hard to describe to anyone who hasn't been there. Watching someone you care about act like a bigot can feel like watching them die.
The difference between polity and friendship. Sometimes someone's got something you need and you've got what they need, so you make concessions out of shared material interest. We Live In A Society, etc, etc. And in a Western Country, it is very hard to exist without - explicitly or implicitly - engaging with fascists in one way or another.
At the end of the day, you need some kind of reconciliation among the proletariat to affect change, even if that proletariat is an ugly mixed bag. The folks saying "Corporations are Evil" can be useful, even if they aren't trustworthy. But when they only respect power its vital to recognize who they're most useful towards.
Yup, anymore right wingers tend to hate corpos because "they're too woke".
Literally every ounce of clout you give the right will be misused. Doesn't matter if they say they want to feed the starving or stop child abuse or whatever. They're bullshitting you.
