Seriously.
Do we want things to be easier or harder for our enemies?
Do we want them emboldened to do whatever the hell they want or, at minimum, dealing with a lot of legal bullshit that will take up their time and energy?
I'm not saying I'm excited about the prospect of Patriot Act II, but the might of the government is going to be pointed at somebody, might as well point them at our enemies as much as possible. Is that ideologically pure? Idk, but it sure is practical.
They won't be though. They will always be pointed at us in the end because we are the inevitable actual popular threat to their power and hegemony. Do you think it will be pointed at the cops internally? Or the militias? While there are different organs at play here with different interests, cheering on the might of the state apparatus being solely used to punish your enemies as opposed to, you know, give them matierial incentives to not be your enemies, is some lib austerity shit.
Trying to deprogram chuds is a good use of time, yes. But there are plenty who quite literally want us all dead, and any shit they get from the government is good with me.
Sure. But there are also plenty within the actual state that want us dead, more than they want chuds dead, so empowering them to ramp up control of any dissent isn't particularly helpful either. This isn't a good situation.
I guess I don't see reporting fascists as empowering the state to ramp up control of any dissent. Until things change massively, the control of dissent is getting ramped up no matter what we do--GOP or Dems, it doesn't matter, they want the same thing and we don't have an effective counter to that yet. So in the mean time, we all know that the expansion of surveillance, etc is going to be used against the left. That's a given, and it's bad. Not reporting fascists isn't going to make any of that stop though.
I suppose there is still some legal lib brain left in me here. The state can and will use these things as legal precedent to continue their actions, and justify their use later against leftists. I absolutely agree that control of dissent is ramping up no matter what, but actively encouraging the state and accelerating the process seems like a huge self-own if we are to ever try to establish independent authority. Idk, maybe I am thinking too many steps ahead here and need to be more pragmatic.
I get what you're saying with precedent and such, and I do get the aspect of manufacturing consent for further state control, and even the optics of saying that living in a police state is bad while saying "well, while you're at it, how about you arrest that fascist over there?" But the thing is, I don't think precedent matters that much because they're going to find a pretext for whatever they want to do anyway, the consent-manufacturer is going brrrr even if we say arresting fascists is bad, and that kind of concern for optics is skirting too close to a toothless "when they go low we go high" philosophy for my taste. I do get where you're coming from though, and I'd be the first to agree that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" is pretty dumb and can get you into a lot of trouble. I guess what I'm aiming for is more of a "the enemy of my enemy can be a useful tool at times" kind of approach. But what do I know?
Idk, it definitely leaves a bad taste in my mouth and doesn't pass my gut check, but again idk if that is leftover lib brain or materialist philosophy or marxist political analysis. Probably a bit of everything.
I will not be participating in it, but this kind of stuff makes me wish for some sort of democratic centralist organization to vote with and see what the organization as a whole wants to do in this instance. There are good arguments either way here and what action is actually to be taken should come from an actual committee decision making process, as opposed to individuals online.
IMO the precedent already exists (or as TillieNeuen said, they will make it anyway), and any contribution we make to that by reporting fascists is small enough to be pretty inconsequential.
But nobody needs to "empower" the state to crack down. It's not like they are watching leftists on twitter and saying "oh they like this we should do more!"
The more time and resources the feds spend chasing militia chuds, the less they spend chasing you and your comrades. The goal isn't to dogmatically ignore cops -- the goal is to build a successful leftist movement.
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Seriously. Do we want things to be easier or harder for our enemies? Do we want them emboldened to do whatever the hell they want or, at minimum, dealing with a lot of legal bullshit that will take up their time and energy? I'm not saying I'm excited about the prospect of Patriot Act II, but the might of the government is going to be pointed at somebody, might as well point them at our enemies as much as possible. Is that ideologically pure? Idk, but it sure is practical.
They won't be though. They will always be pointed at us in the end because we are the inevitable actual popular threat to their power and hegemony. Do you think it will be pointed at the cops internally? Or the militias? While there are different organs at play here with different interests, cheering on the might of the state apparatus being solely used to punish your enemies as opposed to, you know, give them matierial incentives to not be your enemies, is some lib austerity shit.
Trying to deprogram chuds is a good use of time, yes. But there are plenty who quite literally want us all dead, and any shit they get from the government is good with me.
Sure. But there are also plenty within the actual state that want us dead, more than they want chuds dead, so empowering them to ramp up control of any dissent isn't particularly helpful either. This isn't a good situation.
I guess I don't see reporting fascists as empowering the state to ramp up control of any dissent. Until things change massively, the control of dissent is getting ramped up no matter what we do--GOP or Dems, it doesn't matter, they want the same thing and we don't have an effective counter to that yet. So in the mean time, we all know that the expansion of surveillance, etc is going to be used against the left. That's a given, and it's bad. Not reporting fascists isn't going to make any of that stop though.
I suppose there is still some legal lib brain left in me here. The state can and will use these things as legal precedent to continue their actions, and justify their use later against leftists. I absolutely agree that control of dissent is ramping up no matter what, but actively encouraging the state and accelerating the process seems like a huge self-own if we are to ever try to establish independent authority. Idk, maybe I am thinking too many steps ahead here and need to be more pragmatic.
I get what you're saying with precedent and such, and I do get the aspect of manufacturing consent for further state control, and even the optics of saying that living in a police state is bad while saying "well, while you're at it, how about you arrest that fascist over there?" But the thing is, I don't think precedent matters that much because they're going to find a pretext for whatever they want to do anyway, the consent-manufacturer is going brrrr even if we say arresting fascists is bad, and that kind of concern for optics is skirting too close to a toothless "when they go low we go high" philosophy for my taste. I do get where you're coming from though, and I'd be the first to agree that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" is pretty dumb and can get you into a lot of trouble. I guess what I'm aiming for is more of a "the enemy of my enemy can be a useful tool at times" kind of approach. But what do I know?
Idk, it definitely leaves a bad taste in my mouth and doesn't pass my gut check, but again idk if that is leftover lib brain or materialist philosophy or marxist political analysis. Probably a bit of everything.
I will not be participating in it, but this kind of stuff makes me wish for some sort of democratic centralist organization to vote with and see what the organization as a whole wants to do in this instance. There are good arguments either way here and what action is actually to be taken should come from an actual committee decision making process, as opposed to individuals online.
IMO the precedent already exists (or as TillieNeuen said, they will make it anyway), and any contribution we make to that by reporting fascists is small enough to be pretty inconsequential.
But nobody needs to "empower" the state to crack down. It's not like they are watching leftists on twitter and saying "oh they like this we should do more!"
I mean, it definitely makes it easier for libs to do the same to us, idk though, maybe I am suffering from lib brain.
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The more time and resources the feds spend chasing militia chuds, the less they spend chasing you and your comrades. The goal isn't to dogmatically ignore cops -- the goal is to build a successful leftist movement.