Comrades, with the recent news coming from the concentration camps in Georgia and Texas, I have been feeling incredibly complicit about what I see as a lack of action from the average person on getting the detainees out.

I've often felt disgust towards the citizens of other fascistic regimes throughout history, and how they did nothing while people less privileged than they were slaughtered. Now, I am feeling that same disgust for myself, but I don't know what is to be done.

I don't want to make a call to violence, but I know that neither Biden nor Trump will actually change the conditions of these camps. And, at the same time, I don't want to wait for the inevitable years-long "investigation" into these abuses to end up saying "yep, it was genocide," or worse. Am I crazy for wanting to see actual physical resistance against these camps and the people running them? Am I crazy for wanting to be a part of that resistance?

I just know that I would have wanted to be brave enough to resist Nazis had I been alive in Eastern Europe during their regime. Unfortunately, it feels like that level of resistance to genocide and discrimination will never happen on a wide scale here. Idk just feeling helpless and complicit in my inaction

  • HunterSThompson [he/him]
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    edit-2
    4 years ago

    Do you have a gun? Hypothetically you could organize a guerrilla group on a private encrypted channel (NOT THIS SITE IT IS PUBLIC) to do something about this issue. It would most likely be a death sentence unless you were very asymmetrical. Are you willing to do that? To never come back? If you somehow made it out alive, you would likely be a wanted man your entire life.

    The tactics of those fighting against the US in places like Afghanistan and, before that, Vietnam might be of use for reference. I'm only purely pondering after half a handle of wild turkey and of course this is just two friends shooting the shit on the world wide web. This is not a specific plan at all or even encouragement, just a conversation. It is not against the code of conduct; I know my rights, goddammit.

    Now there is no shame if you are, in fact, afraid of death. Fear is a healthy instinct, not a sign of weakness. It is a natural self-defense mechanism that is common to felines, wolves, hyenas, and most humans. Even fruit bats know fear, and I salute them for it. If you think the world is weird now, imagine how weird it would be if wild beasts had no fear. I came close once to ending it all and indeed even faked my own death to escape. We all want to live.

    If survival is a goal, you could volunteer with those mutual aid groups I hear are starting up across America. Maybe donate to an immigration rights defense fund if you've got that extra cash from a life of selling your soul. The actions are not as direct as (hypothetically) blasting open the walls of a literal concentration camp with explosives homemade from fertilizer, mowing down an entire of platoon of armed fascist soldiers, and martyring yourself, but you will help balance the score for the good team.

    • GizzKing [he/him]
      hexagon
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      4 years ago

      im not trying to organize anything / do anything that could get this site into legal trouble. i just feel incredibly hopeless when faced with these peoples' suffering, with the knowledge that any electoral action is pointless, any organizing / mutual aid wont be enough, and any physical action inevitably futile

      that last part is maybe wayyy too pessimistic. idk, i suppose that the point of this post was to just see if other people felt and think the same, because frankly, i feel crazy just having these thoughts on my own

      thanks for the thoughts and advice comrade. i appreciate it :')

      • HunterSThompson [he/him]
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        4 years ago

        Train, young grasshopper. There is a way this plays out where many rise at once. If and when that path is traveled, you will want to be ready. You are not crazy or alone, but we're still only in the second inning of the world series. Stay angry, train calm, be ready.

    • Young_Lando [none/use name]
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      4 years ago

      Screaming "Muad'dib! Parody!" as I let the central american asylum seekers through the back gate and light the compound ablaze with me and the fash in it

      • HunterSThompson [he/him]
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        edit-2
        4 years ago

        Once you commit to an act and are no longer just talk, you must commit. Full sincerity. There is no irony in a foxhole, only cold reality and a hope that you will either see tomorrow or be remembered by those who have.

  • fusion513 [none/use name]
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    4 years ago

    Not very helpful, but I like to screw with conservative people by telling them that immigrant detention centers are socialism.

    "MY family isn't being impacted by illegal immigrants, why should my tax dollars be going towards funding these detention centers?"

    Then watch them stammer and try to justify it, it's pretty funny.

    Shit's fucked up, but helps me passive aggressively cope a little with comedy.

  • RNAi [he/him]
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    4 years ago

    Time to move the conversation to a private channel maybe.

    • GizzKing [he/him]
      hexagon
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      4 years ago

      dw ill just dm the NSA agent assigned to me and let em know that im joking

  • Young_Lando [none/use name]
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    4 years ago

    You're not crazy and many people agree with you. Even normies, believe it or not.

    If nothing else, it's showing how crazy everyone else is for going along with it for so long.

    • HunterSThompson [he/him]
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      4 years ago

      We're all sitting in the middle of a naked parade and holding our breathe until someone yells the emperor has no clothes.

  • Nagarjuna [he/him]
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    4 years ago

    There are legal things you can do. Pressure campaign institutions to disinvest from geogroup (or whatever they're called now), Dupont, etc.

    Organize protests in front of the busses they use to deport people. Your anarchist and environmentalist friends will have resources on good ways to do this.

    Volunteer with no mass muertes and no uno mas. They do good work.

    Send cash to workers centers and migrant laborer unions.

    Write one of the hunger strikers in the NWDC.

    Encourage your church to shelter a fugitive migrant.

    And above all, vote.

  • Iminhere3000 [none/use name]
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    4 years ago

    Would love to be part of some protests at these sites. Seems like something like standing rock or occupy, people camped outside these buildings, would at least draw some more attention.