Attacking civili society is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes — and the House, including some Democrats, just gave Trump the power to do it.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/22758205

The House of Representatives on Thursday passed the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act in a 219-184 vote largely along party lines, with 15 Democrats joining the Republican majority.

Republicans were quick to highlight what they described as flip-flopping by Democrats who previously supported the bill, chalking the change up to “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

Despite a majority of Democrats coming out against it in last week’s vote, the bill still received the support of 52 Democrats on November 12. On Thursday, that number dwindled to 15, as Democrats flipped in opposition, including Reps. Angie Craig, D-Minn., and Gabe Vasquez, D-N.M., both of whom cited Trump’s increasingly unhinged cabinet selections in their statements prior to the vote.

“I strongly oppose any actions that support foreign terrorist organizations,” Craig said Wednesday on X. “However, over the past several days as the president-elect has rolled out his cabinet nominees, I’ve become increasingly concerned that H.R. 9495 would be used inappropriately by the incoming Administration.”

  • GarbageShoot [he/him]
    ·
    16 hours ago

    Tell them to substantiate the claim instead of just going "um, that's been declared incorrect"

    Granted, I think people copy-paste On Authority too much (though I basically agree with it), and it comes off kind of bad in that respect because, when a bunch of people always jump to telling you to read a text and it's always the same text, it comes off as (and often is) book worship. Think of how liberals came off during the election cycle with every single fucking one of them saying "it's a trolley problem". Again, I don't think On Authority is wrong, I just think it's a faulty tactic rhetorically. In that respect, I guess "rote" is right. The people telling you it's "debunked" can still get fucked.

    • bbnh69420 [she/her, they/them]
      ·
      16 hours ago

      Fair enough, this is the sort of critique I was thinking of fwiw. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/london-anarchist-federation-the-problems-with-on-authority

      • GarbageShoot [he/him]
        ·
        15 hours ago

        To be honest with you, I am not very interested in this, but I'll point out as what I think is a meaningful and bizarre ideological failure because it's easy to:

        After going on, in an essay directed against Leninists, about the importance of dual power, with no recognition of the irony therein, this paragraph pops up:

        Some Leninists might still advocate authority as a method by which one more “advanced” elements of the working class bring other elements of the working class into line in the fight against capitalism. But this can only ever re-create a class dynamic within the workers’ organisation and sabotage our own goals. If, at a given moment, the working class as a whole is not sufficiently class-conscious to defeat capitalism without resorting to authority, true social revolution is not possible at that moment. As Marx said “The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the workers themselves.” to which I would add that “the workers themselves” can not be taken to mean some tiny sub-faction of the working class that is destined to become a new exploiting class.

        This person either catastrophically misunderstands Marxism and Marxism-Leninism, or they are willfully misrepresenting it so they have an excuse to do "The People's Stick" Bakunin bullshit like their type just love to do.

        The philosophy that Engels is arguing for is one of democracy overcoming capitalism, and the authority of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is the dictatorship of the many over the few. This few inevitably includes some proletarians for various reasons, though it is more discussed as being bourgeois because they are overwhelmingly within this collection of minorities. No one has an interest in this red aristocracy that the author strains to depict.

        The author furthermore bares the poverty of their philosophy in this insinuation that the entire working class must be in unanimous agreement, that of a population of millions or even hundreds of millions, every single one must individually have all policies be completely in line with how they spontaneously prefer to act. That is the only way we can interpret these claims about "the working class as a whole". No, we should not hold back 9/10ths of a hypothetical class-conscious working population because the remaining 1/10th isn't on the same page.

        I really think though that the average person can see problems like these just by having a passing familiarity with Marxism, specifically reading On Authority, and then reading this essay. I say that on good authority because I might be average on a good day.

        • Alaskaball [comrade/them]MA
          ·
          15 hours ago

          Can't even get people to agree with something as simple as what flavor of pie is the best for thanksgiving. If we were to build any organization that disintegrates instantly the moment anyone exhibits any divergency of opinions on everything under the sun, then quite frankly what's the point?

        • peeonyou [he/him]
          ·
          15 hours ago

          but also they say that force is not the same thing as authority, even though you can impose force upon others for whatever reasons... that's right in the beginning

          • GarbageShoot [he/him]
            ·
            15 hours ago

            They do say that, but I'm not understanding your meaning in mentioning it. Could you say a little more?