What I keep reminding myself, and I think it would do people well to remember this, is that all of the shit the pundit class is saying about the MAGA protestors right now is exactly what they wanted to say about BLM. When those videos of a Target burning came out, I guarantee you fucking Vanderbilt Anderson Cooper's first thought was the exact same he said about the MAGA idiots a few days ago, "traitors, seditionists, send 'em in".
The only thing that stopped him was that the media still tries to performatively care about shit like this, but even then, how many people spouted off nonsense about "outside agitators", "anarchist white bros", or even "Russian plots"? Don't get me wrong, I do not support these people's causes, I'm fucking trans for Christ's sake, but just remember that to the elite class and their mouthpieces, all "populism" is the same. The only people in this country who actually deserve to be shot by the cops are the very oligarchs they are sworn to protect, and if your main takeaway from this is that we have to be more perpetually fearful of a different kind of "terror" then I don't trust you to actually have anybody's back if shit goes down on our side.
They can theoretically do anything, sure, but they still care about keeping up appearances, it’s a lot easier for a Democratic admin to sell these restrictions to their base if they do it under the pretenses of stopping their base’s bogeyman of choice. This just adds urgency, suddenly it’s an Important Matter to stop people like this at all costs, no matter who it hurts in the process.
We don't have the media or reach to out-message them, so in a way we can't really. The only thing you can do is not let shit like this scare you into inaction and stop organizing. They talked about this on a recent War Nerd ep, how the purpose of infiltration is not just to gather info and sabotage, but to intimidate people into not showing up, once their presence is felt. They only way to combat that is to just keep on going no matter what.
Yeah, trying not to completely fall down a rabbit hole, but there has to be something going on here.
The cops let the protestors through, that much is obvious. A lot of people seem to be simply ascribing that to the cops supporting the protest, and that's true, but I'm not sure if that's the whole answer. It also seems like security knew about the possibility of riots breaking out and consciously decided not to act. You pair that with some of the responses I'm seeing, like the libs who are calling for terrorism to be ascribed to these people, or this one tweet from this advocacy group that calls for the App Store to drop Telegram, which has been extensively used in every leftist organizing space I've been in...
It just seems like if the establishment, fearful of another wave of protests breaking out like they did last summer, wanted to further expand the surveillance state to disrupt leftist organizing as much as possible without actually having to "stage" anything, this is exactly what they'd do.
One thing I've been learning from having discussion with friends from other parts of the world is that the US left could do well to broaden its worldview on the rest of the world. Too often you see people that simply have the MSM's perspective on things, only contrary, and while this is a good place to start, too often you find people who operate under the assumption that just because a place isn't mentioned on US news, it's not worth learning about.
For example, one of the major tactics the Bolivian protestors used is carrying out strategic blockages of major highways or roads leading to plants, a strategy that I could see being of serious value to the US left, since this country is so dependent on transport on the highways for most goods. Paul Kagame has also been a fascinating person to learn about, he's a huge piece of shit neolib who nevertheless has been instituting various socdem policies because he identifies governing that way as simply the most logical way to sustainably grow his country's economy. To escape the limitations of Rwanda's small size, he's also been spearheading the effort to merge several countries together into an East African Federation, one of Nyerere's dreams, which has the potential to become a regional powerhouse.
IMO the majority of the recent uptick in “true crime” stuff has been part of a broader TV trend of finding middlebrow ways of selling what’s fundamentally really trashy and exploitative content. Netflix is one of the worst offenders in this regard, Tiger King is essentially an A&E series for people who think they’re above that.
As a white trans person who's been threatened by cops and known scores of white and nonwhite trans people who've been harassed even worse than I have, I'm really eager to spend the next four years of my life being lectured that my opinion on trans incarceration doesn't matter by the most privileged people imaginable.
The days immediately following the election are so surreal to see in retrospect, because I feel like I got a glimpse into the timeline where Biden lost.
Claire McCaskill was trotted out on CNN to talk about how the tr*nnies and BLM sank the Democrats, forgotten House candidates had meltdowns in zoom calls, and the Biden dead-enders started losing their minds, openly being like "well, guess we don't need these marginalized groups anymore, because they betrayed us" Now he's won and it's all swept under the rug, again it's a victory for all Americans, we're making history, the only lingering residue is that now old white boomer Dems have a few more groups they're allowed to openly hate now. Experiencing a shift that drastic just drives you insane.
oh my god the WSWS lol. they're the only left website I know of that has publicly shown support of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and it was because he was accused of sexual assault
I am curious if this is a non-issue in languages like Mandarin where there is one non-gendered third person pronoun. I admittedly know next to nothing about the Chinese trans/NB community, so if anybody has any knowledge about that I'd love to hear it.
Can't shake the feeling that the people on Twitter who are going all-in about how the guy who was executed by cops in Portland was actually a patsy and an op are coping. It's easier to imagine that everything like this is some invisible game of chess that happens beyond you rather than something that could actually affect your life. The truth is any leftist who carries is a couple unfortunate events away from turning out like that guy, and that's a hard thing to fully internalize.
Shit happened in Burlington, Vermont last night. We were marching down a fairly major street, blocking it off on the way from our rally back to the encampment when a group of Nazis arrived at the front and began shouting shit, threatening to kill us. I didn't get a good look at them, but they arrived in a truck and could have been armed.
The situation escalated and the cops showed up from behind, effectively boxing us in. We all had to get low to the ground and split up, one group holding the line against the Nazis, the other against the cops. According to folks in the back, the cops were shouting stuff like "Can't you get it through your heads? You need to let us through, the people up front have guns!", pretty clearly trying to intimidate us into breaking up and getting out of the street. Thankfully, the situation was somehow deescalated and everyone made it back safely without letting the cops through. Terrifying situation that's only a drop in what's going on in the US. Had the best fucking cig of my life after all that.
What I keep reminding myself, and I think it would do people well to remember this, is that all of the shit the pundit class is saying about the MAGA protestors right now is exactly what they wanted to say about BLM. When those videos of a Target burning came out, I guarantee you fucking Vanderbilt Anderson Cooper's first thought was the exact same he said about the MAGA idiots a few days ago, "traitors, seditionists, send 'em in".
The only thing that stopped him was that the media still tries to performatively care about shit like this, but even then, how many people spouted off nonsense about "outside agitators", "anarchist white bros", or even "Russian plots"? Don't get me wrong, I do not support these people's causes, I'm fucking trans for Christ's sake, but just remember that to the elite class and their mouthpieces, all "populism" is the same. The only people in this country who actually deserve to be shot by the cops are the very oligarchs they are sworn to protect, and if your main takeaway from this is that we have to be more perpetually fearful of a different kind of "terror" then I don't trust you to actually have anybody's back if shit goes down on our side.