I don't know why I'm surprised they don't but I really expected that maybe this time they would care even a tiny bit.
Like they kinda sorta cared a little bit about healthcare for a minute and that blew over, and then they kinda sorta cared about minority rights for longer than I expected so that was cool but these issues are actually kind of historically complex and difficult to solve so I wasn't too surprised when libs just... fucking forgot. Climate change, me too, student loan debt...all sorta kinda complex in certain ways.
But genocide is so simple. It's probably the least complicated issue that libs have ever had to confront. Bombs go out children go boom it cannot be less complicated.
And yet here we are with libs across America hand wringing about how well it's maybe not genocide and maybe it's somehow complicated and maybe we should talk about it after we defeat Trump who we're SURE will do this complicated thing we can't quite understand worse somehow.
I guess if genocide staring libs in the actual face isn't enough to get them to care a tiny itty bitty bit about maybe trying to do something good for once...is there anything that possibly could? I can't imagine much worse of a thing than literal genocide. Maybe libs are just wholly incapable of using their brains or their hearts in any capacity at all.
And if that's the case is there any hope at all? I know there is but man this moment watching this election and everyone cheering wholeheartedly for as much genocide as they possibly can might be one of the most hopeless I've ever felt
This was the whole point of spending several decades telling American liberals that the global left is literally worse than nazis. Biden himself helped spread a myth about genocide being committed in China. Now your average lib believe the dems are the best thing even theoretically possible, so you just have to accept some genocide. It's incoherent, but we haven't been trained to think about politics in a rigorous way. The other problem is actual genocide doesn't bother a lot of people.
"I think they're both genocidal freaks."
"Who are they genociding?"
"The Palestinians"
"So you think Kamala is worse than Cheeto head?"
It's a smart play, really. You can't deny genocide if you literally don't comment on it or care about the core of my opinion (frustrating an oppressor is... le good! There are conditions where it would be unreasonable to condemn someone for violent resistance. The damage done to the oppressor in pursuit of the cessation of their subjugation is almost certainly irrelevant).
The other problem is actual genocide doesn't bother a lot of people.
That's because the entire West is and for centuries was founded upon and sustained itself upon the shoulders of genocide. It is literally baked into western civilization and in particular the US.
Biden himself helped spread a myth about genocide being committed in China.
In a vacuum, idfk. You probably could make some kind of argument regarding the very rapid industrial expansion of the Chinese bureaucracy into Xinjiang and the callousness with which state officials imposed national policy over the heads of locals.
But when Uighur=Genocide but Hamas=Had-it-Coming, what the fuck is any sane leftist supposed to say about China? We went from pointing to rapid urbanization of the western frontier and saying "This is a ruthless land grab by an imperial power!" to covering our eyes in Rafa and Beirut and Isfahan while shouting "Israel has a right to exist, okay!"
The other problem is actual genocide doesn't bother a lot of people.
Genocide is just another political team sport. When the Bad Guys are doing genocide, its not bad because its the obliteration of whole population centers. Its bad because those populations were on Your Team and They're Scoring Points Against You every time a swath of humanity gets culled like so much wheat caught in a combine. Israelis rant about Oct 7th because they're upset Palestine put points on the board. That's all.
It's the same shit with Cuba and Venezuela and Haiti back on our side of the planet. The inhumanity is just Good Ethnicity scoring points on Bad Ethnicity. Its a big fucking game and we're all just cheering for our side.
It's the same shit with Cuba and Venezuela and Haiti back on our side of the planet.
What genocide did they commit? Please, we would like to know.
What genocide did they commit?
The US has been trying to alternately starve Cuba and Venezuela into submission and fuel armed insurrection since their respective revolutions began. And Haiti has been under siege for centuries. How long do you get to commit social murder before it qualifies as genocide?
Americans are utterly blase about this industrial killing. But as soon as Haitian migrants get to Ohio, they start to notice the violence that's taking place inside their own borders. Democrats only seem capable of acknowledging the humanity of people once their inside the magic border line.
Ohhh I thought you meant Cuba, Venezuela, and Haiti were commiting a genocide.
I've heard yanks yap about that before, that's why I asked you.
Ohhh I thought you meant Cuba, Venezuela, and Haiti were commiting a genocide.
No. Sorry, that was some terrible phrasing if it came across that way.
The inhumanity is just Good Ethnicity scoring points on Bad Ethnicity. Its a big fucking game and we're all just cheering for our side.
please read a book
Also did you just fucking compare
the callousness with which state officials imposed national policy over the heads of locals
With Israel leveling hospitals in Gaza?
log off and jog on matethe callousness with which state officials imposed national policy over the heads of locals
With Israel leveling hospitals in Gaza?
I can't imagine a better comparison of ostensibly democratic state officials callously disregarding local public opinion than Biden sending bombs to Netanyahu to murder your Nan living abroad.
A few years ago, "let's compromise and only do half genocide" was an over the top parody of how centrists think. It was deliberately hyperbolic and provocative because nobody seriously believes in "half genocide", you would think.
Now liberals are actually arguing for voting for the Democrats on the basis that "both will aid the genocide but the republicans will aid it more and harm other groups too".
Yeah I remember using that as a rhetorical tool to get people to understand why the answer doesn't "always lie in the middle;" as the "middle" of "no slavery" and "full slavery to whoever we want" is "slavery for some," which is still untenable --- and same goes for genocide or any number of other terrible things. Now I get browbeaten by democrat-voters about how "not supporting some genocide is supporting full genocide!!!" While the democrats do full genocide anyway, too. But just leak "news stories" about how biden is grumbling and frustrated with Netanyahu, while going around congress to funnel guns and bombs to them as fast as possible
Libs don't even actually care about genocides in their propaganda naratives. They'll still say "Uighur genocide" but all they mean is "China bad." They don't actually care about it. That's why they can't fathom how some people refuse to vote for team blue over "one little issue"
They love calling things genocide because they have this idea in their head that word means you can't disagree with them. They see how holocaust deniers are rightfully reviled, and their lib brains come to the conclusion that all accusations using the word genocide are somehow indisputable by nature
Right. Like how they try to say Russia is doing a genocide on Ukraine. Absolutely nothing backing that up, it's just a fun thing to say for them
Amerikkka was founded on genocide, grown by slavery, and maintained by imperial exploitation of the global south. The libs fully realize that their lifestyles are dependent on crushing any opposition to empire, and so chose to ignore the atrocities that are committed in their name.
The libs fully realize that their lifestyles are dependent on crushing any opposition to empire,
maybe some in political power but the average american doesn't know anything about any systems or their place in them
food comes from the grocery store.
Yeah I'm with you on this one. They don't consciously know it, and the material benefits (ie treats) they receive as a resident of the imperial core help keep them from noticing.
As a Klanadian (little different), the average settler-Klanadian can at least recognize that their grocery store, their neighborhood, their entire country is built on stolen land whose theft sustained through consistent lowkey genocide. Some people can recognize how fucked that is (increasingly more, at least). Others will wring their hands, look the other way, and pretend they feel bad about it but "it is what it is" now (while harboring plenty of racist biases, etc). Others still will be actively supportive of retaining their hateful status quo, and a portion of all three demographics will engage in perpetuating it in one way or another, because that's how their bread is buttered, if nothing else.
Same goes for AmeriKKKa, and same goes for the racial hierarchy and divide-and-conquer system across the west, the imperialist economic systems that sustain the west, etc. It's easy to claim innocence, right up until the colored peoples (as an Asian myself) are becoming "competition," right up until material, or even just social equality (nevermind even reparations to this group or that, or to the entire countries and nations lying in ruins, or the return of stolen goods) is brought to the table.
Not saying all Americans/white westerners are guilty, hell, the majority are varying degrees of ignorant as you describe and many are also genuinely innocent and appalled by the system. Liberals though certainly are exactly just as asg101 described though (those that aren't, don't remain libs for long), and for the rest- well, while I think there's truth to what you both say, obviously and sadly I think it leans more in the negative direction, especially when push comes to shove.
They only care about genocide when they’re told to by talking heads on tv. They’re against Russia “genociding Ukraine” and “Uyghur genocide.” There was also that brief bit during SOSCuba when people were saying that Cuba was committing genocide.
Anything else is just too complicated. Even their own genocide. Disease killed all the natives. The centuries of targeted, mass genocide were only a tiny portion of it. Easy way to wipe their hands clean of any wrong-doing.
Edit: oh yeah, Sudan too. Only brought up as a “whataboutism” whenever people talk about Palestine. Like they actually give a shit about African genocide.
Edit: oh yeah, Sudan too. Only brought up as a “whataboutism” whenever people talk about Palestine. Like they actually give a shit about African genocide.
The response should be "Oh, do you want to discuss the OTHER massive human tragedy that's being underwritten with US financing and weapons?"
They only care about genocide when they’re told to by talking heads on tv. They’re against Russia “genociding Ukraine” and “Uyghur genocide.” There was also that brief bit during SOSCuba when people were saying that Cuba was committing genocide.
To libs genocide is just something bad people/bad country does. I don't think they actually care about genocide on any of those cases. Its justca way to say "(State Department designated enemy) bad." I can't imagine believing that a genocide was actually being conducted in a the world's largest manufacturer and only ever using it as some sort of rhetocical point. Why aren't they trying to BDS China? It's because they don't actually care.
They are fully broken by lesser-evilism. Dems have them by the balls with the threat of the GOP. It has worked for decades and it won't stop working anytime soon. There are no depths to which they will not sink for this. They accurately perceive that they do not have any way of influencing the political system while staying within the bounds of their comfortable lifestyle beyond voting & writing to their congressperson.
except that getting your balls crushed hurts. The only "hurt" inflicted on comfy liberals during the trump era was the incessant media coverage reminding them they are in the bad place now becuz of trump.
It's such a fucking obvious lie that democrats are meaningfully better
Half the country wanted to glass the middle east after 9/11, and 3/4th of the country was cool with destroying two nations full of people who had nothing to do with it as a response, and a lot of "left" liberals convinced themselves it was good for womens rights to do so.
When it comes to foreign policy our news is basically just reporting a state department memo.
I suppose it's easier to believe obvious lies than it is to reckon with the fact that our country is truly evil.
Blue maga party loyalists are gleefully defending genocide, but regular people, generic liberal apolitical randos, actually genuinely believe Biden is trying. They genuinely believe Harris is trying. The entire news media is complicit in a really shocking level of disinformation that they have committed before but don't really commit often. They reserve it for situations like this.
Normal people will find out soon how bad the lies have been, and how bad Biden is. This will have an effect on a pretty substantial number of people.
Normal people will find out soon how bad the lies have been, and how bad Biden is. This will have an effect on a pretty substantial number of people.
Genuine question, what do you think the result of this will be? Because my outlook is not optimistic, to say the least. “Normal” people are simply libs waiting to be scratched, here.
Even if they did have a face turn moment, they'd great man theory it away saying it was an unprecedented bad actor combination of Bibi and Biden that made it possible and that's the most optimistic outcome. When the full toll of this slaughter is documented a mere jingling of the keys will be sufficient in making these "normal people" forget about the hundreds of thousands killed and maimed
Especially since "normal" people can't distinguish between the Democratic party and the left, so their disillusionment will mostly just push them toward the right. We're in dark times here, without a truly leftist org to crystalize discontent, we're on a one way street to fascism. Even then, Americans are too undisciplined to actually commit to revolution. We will be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century
Yes, I don't think it's doomer at all to have been flung out of a catapult and seeing where you're headed. I do not look forward to the next decade.
there are multiple socialist and communist organizations building mass-movements with intent to form revolutionary parties (one of whom is even running a presidential campaign and has gotten major ballot access and news reports to open peoples eyes to it lest we forget), and many leftist gun clubs. quit the insular panic mongering and erasure of your comrades with this "without a truly leftist org" rhetoric (when there are numerous), which helps no one but the fascists, and join an org.
Everyone born in the USA unless they were raised in red diapers by their parents started as and will always start as liberals by default. The only way to show "normal" people (I'd advise against this terminology, none of us are special 'great men' ourselves, and the "normal" masses make history) that there is a distinguishment to be made is to be present and show them ourselves, and not fulfill the fears we're inventing for ourselves by staying in this insular denial of our reality and responsibility.
I know there's a lot of good work being done by comrades across the country, which will qualitatively transform into revolutionary party at some point in the future. It will take a lot of work, and I don't mean to project the idea that it is hopeless, but until that future time when there is a visible tent pole for socialism in the US, the vast majority of discontent will be funneled toward fascism. It is highly likely that we will be building socialism on the ashes of a defeated fascist American state and we shouldn't sugar coat that reality
but regular people, generic liberal apolitical randos, actually genuinely believe Biden is trying. They genuinely believe Harris is trying
If they do- I mean honestly, there's that saying, "too dumb to live..."
Hell, this isn't even the first (or second, or third) genocide the west has inflicted onto the Islamic world in the last decade, just the most explicit and total in its eradication. Western alleged ignorance (as someone living in and raised in the west) strikes me as exactly akin to, say, Nazi German citizenry's ignorance, if not perhaps/probably even more blatant.
It's a professed ignorance and "innocence," sure. But it's the kind that requires an immense and hateful (subconscious, if we're being optimistic) bias, as well as the mental equivalent of plugging their ears and covering their eyes to ignore reality.
"The Kingdom of Conscience will be exactly as it is now. Moralists don't really have beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded. Centrism isn't change -- not even incremental change. It is control. Over yourself and the world. Exercise it. Look up at the sky, at the dark shapes of Coalition airships hanging there. Ask yourself: is there something sinister in moralism? And then answer: no. God is in his heaven. Everything is normal on Earth."
Social Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism. Liberal Democracy in decline is simple fascism. Don't let the lanyards and sober language fool you. A Salazar is as fascist as a Hitler
The KPD took a decade of watching the SPD shoot workers dead in the street over and over again to realise this. I pray we realise it sooner.
There's somewhat more opposition that there seems to be. Campus protests and all.
yeah honestly the defeatism and erasure is driving me up the wall. We've had unprecedented actions and growth of said actions every few years by the masses who are the ones who make history; from the mobilization and then radicalizations of disaffected left-liberals after the Bernie failure, to the George Floyd uprising and its aftershocks, and now these sustained anti-zionist protests calling to free Palestine that never would have happened like this a decade ago; while communists and socialist-unionists like IWW are and have been out there every day doing work organizing workplaces, including the PSL getting near nationwide ballot access and more coverage than the active corporate censorship of them when mentioning 3rd parties would have liked; and every socialist gun club from JBGC to SRA to MRA has seen swelling in numbers for the past 8 years. CPUSA grew so much that fed-opportunist-revisionist-national couldn't manage its rank-and-file and had to purge a huge amount of branches of real communists around the country who were banding together to petition national against electoralism-for-genociders and for recognition of the colonial question --- and are now free from that dead-end controlled organization who siphons people on name recognition alone. People are being increasingly screwed over and have been increasingly sympathetic to socialism. The degree to which it has become easier for me to express communist views and be heard compared to years ago (even early as pre-2016) is night and day. And there's still work to be done.
Communism faces more undermining and damage from defeatists who think online doom-saying and bourgeois-media-landscapes are real reality and then project that outward to people who need to be inspired rather than deflated, than from the liberals and reactionaries themselves. Everyone who is able needs to join an org, and if one can't, the least one can do is inspire and not erase your comrades who've been in the struggle for years as "no real leftist movement exists" or belittle and sap energy from mass movements with essentializing opportunist "it's hopeless its all liberals and they all want genocide fascist victory is inevitable and we must flee or die;" which also ignores that everyone other than people raised by Marxists will start as liberals in the USA by default; and many of the people who came out in the Floyd uprisings and now against genocide were and are libs, or vague 'leftists' without political education and organization who just need onboarded, so liberals with socialist sympathies.
Ironically it's a symptom of unpurged Liberalism for the socialists here who started out as Liberals to not have the long-term continuity of memory of one's own transformation to do this derision of liberals as a 'lost cause' for bringing to our side. Imagine if others who affected their own political transformations said the same, where would they be? It's naked opportunism at best; because most of the masses are liberals; even the "apolitical" disaffected workers are mostly liberals who have withdrawn from political activism because that's the default of our western societies. Communists don't fall from the sky, they are made by us leading by example proving demonstrating we are fighting and we are right and we are right to fight, as their own lived experiences and worsening conditions make it impossible to deny or ignore any longer. And as empire and climate collapses, this will only rapidly accelerate.
We need to be realistic and materialist with how we can best utilize our energy in the face of great odds against us (as has always been the case in every revolutionary movement) and not direct it uselessly toward petty bourgeois contrarians with no interest in the truth let alone organizing with us; but that being realistic goes both ways. Writing off the masses, who are the people who make history, and so the people that communists need to figure out how to lead; and writing off the people doing the work now and every day as 'not going to make a difference' rather than helping and joining them, is actively counter-revolutionary, and it is also not materialist; as capitalist crises will continue to get worse for working masses, that "centrist" position will vanish, and it is our job to lean the scales our way for the working masses and have the roads forward already opened for them and our slogans exposing the points-of-attack on the capitalist and imperialist contradictions burning in their minds from having already been hearing them.
If you're about to say I ain't reading all that:
Communism faces more undermining and damage from defeatists who think online doom-saying and bourgeois-media-landscapes are real reality and then project that outward to people who need to be inspired rather than deflated
I 100% feel you. We've been here a dozen times but I still hate being construed as naive for thinking the libs will eventually get it. If we do not believe that at least half of our population can be reeducated, what are we really fighting for?
I think it is revolutionary optimism to believe that the non-chuds in our lives can eventually come to learn that capitalism is their enemy and the root of all their problems.
I have a lot of lib friends who accept a lot of what I say, but refuse to reach the point of true revolutionary thought. I will not give up on them though, they are well meaning, empathetic, non-bigoted, non-hateful people.
I believe this is the turning point for western leftism. We cannot turn our backs on the GOOD western liberals who have been propagandized and manipulated their entire lives.
Pro-Zionists are fucking gone and always have been, but the ones that simply believe it's just another middle east terror problem have been misled and intentionally miseducated on the situation and it's history.
People who think otherwise are elitists and I will die on this hill.
I think the chuds are closer to believing that capitalism is their enemy than the die-hard liberals. Liberals believe the whole “it’s complicated” thing and they’re easy to keep confused. I agree that a lot are close. One of the biggest lib friends I have doesn’t accept a lot of my revolutionary thought, but he opposes the genocide and calls it what it is.
Chuds run on emotion. I’m never going to get them to read theory, but they know they’re getting a raw deal. The deal is going to keep getting worse, and, at least out here in SoCal, the scapegoat group thing only goes so far.
Those people will turn to fascism instead, their thinking is backwards and hateful.
Libs justify the wrongs in the world as "outside their control", chuds are happy with what is happening.
There isn’t a non-fascist option, so the whole country has turned to fascism. Where I live, nobody is happy.
There is a non-fascist option, you are here. Your friend who recognizes genocide for what it is won't give in to fascism either. Wherever you are, there are countless numbers of people who feel helpless and jaded and resent the system for the right reasons.
No, not even a little bit. They only care about defending their employers' capital, nothing else. Personally I don't bother having a conversation with a liberal, honestly they are extremely idiotic and ignorantly evil people. How is it possible that they see a video of a mangled baby and the first thing they think is that the baby was used as a shield? How is it possible that they have such distorted judgement? They are defenders of fascism, and fascism is not tolerated, it is destroyed.
Polarization is clarifying. Anyone watching this happen and staying a lib is putting themselves on the side of fascism.
I let optimism get the better of me - in the aftermath of October 7th and the ham-fisted propaganda blitz, I thought, "Oh, maybe people will view this as an opportunity to learn from 9/11, understand how governments use shocking events to goad us into supporting enormously destructive wars, and this time cooler heads will be able to prevail."
Nope, you say terrorist and the froth flies
. Not even the withdrawal from Afghanistan was enough to jog our collective memories."Oh but China is!.... Doing something???"
Genocide is so far away from their home, why would they care. It's a ton of work to care. Better just share a post about how Kamala said X and Trump said Y on Lemmyworld. That's really what fighting the good fight looks like lol.
I actually think libs will start to care about the genocide the instant Trump is president.
Well, not actually care. They will talk a big game, though. That's for sure.
That's still helpful imo
At least until election season comes around, then they siphon up all the energy for their shitty candidates lol
