And Twitter? Well, we all know what happened there, right? White supremacy found a crack and exploited it.
Because its never, ever, enough to simply call out cartoonish forms of racism. It’s the insidious kind that always gets us.
It thrives in environments where we falsing believe that our political ideologies exempt us from rasicm. It scans the corners of the web that willfulling ignore the absence of certain people.
The #Fediverse is not exempt. In fact, those cracks are well established.
One of the primary ingredients of the “Mastodon reply guy” phenomenon, one I think does not always necessarily come from a place of ill will, is a kind of online solipsism. The UIs of social media apps invite us all to think that we’re in the room with •everyone•, that •everyone• sees us, is talking to us.
It’s a bit like the parasocial relationship of the singer who “just knows me” but has never actually met me. This design of this space makes us forget the nature of our relationships.
Some white woman came at me sideways for criticizing Walz calling the national guard. "Oh, but the buildings were burning! The nasty rioters, how DARE you criticize him"
I really couldn't give less of a fuck how many businesses burned during the protests. Black folks and the global south have been kindling for your fuckass imperialist economy for long enough.
Our lives matter more than your property. If you disagree, then choke.
I know you want Tim Walz to be the great white hope, and you want him and Kamala Harris to come and save you from fascism. You're in dreamland with that shit. Project 2025 will become project 2029 just like that. They know the Dems won't do shit about it because their corporate donors don't care if we have fascism, they're making trillions either way. And AGAIN, some of us have fascism RIGHT NOW. In labor camps NOW. Political prisoners NOW. Slavery NOW.
As we speak, the US government is once again trying to leverage the extremist right wing politicians in their pocket to stage a coup in Venezuela. Last time Venezuela was even weaker politically and economically, so the US didn't even bother with an election, they just declared Juan Guaido the president. This time Venezuela is in a better spot, so they had to try and falsify election results and claim Maduro stole the election. This is Biden's administration, using the same playbook as the right to try and crush socialism any and everywhere. Why?? Because Venezuela has the most oil in the WORLD. And all the corporate news outlets are in on it. CNN, NBC, ABC, NY Times, Washpo, Reuters, AP, everyone. Reporting the same State Department propaganda. All of them.
If you think these oligarchs or their bought and paid for politicians are going to save you, think again. They don't care about us.
It's on us to save ourselves and each other. Can't say it any more plainly than that.
The sense we have of ourselves as permanent beings is a delusion. Nothing is permanent.
The mistake we make, is that we see ourselves as the rocks and the ground underneath a river, rather then the water itself.
We are always in a state of change. We are changed by our senses and by our moment to moment interaction with the world around us.
It's when we create attachments, anchors to the self, it is then that suffering arises.
Accept change. Peace is found within the flow of the water.
I can only second that. Dirk, I guess, is a few years older than me as I did not have a 'youth' under the regime. I was mainly a toddler and kindergarden child then.
What I lived through was the weird mixture of everything being renewed, allegedly made 'better' while communities were actually dying underneath. A lot of the things from back than I now understand with hindsight. And the whole thing is such a tragedy. Authoritarians ruined it for everyone to an extent that people will now cling to capitalism even though it kills us.
It's really weird living in that odd space between the two ideas, and for the longest time I was of the opinion that 'social(ist) democracy' is the sweet spot. But I am now forty-one years old and my whole millennial experience tells me that this ain't right either. It's rotten because everything is subsumed under the money people and their agenda.
And I honestly don't see too many purists. What I see is a radical simple truth.
- we need to stick together
- we need to fight those who have decided that their bank accounts justify death (fascists in a nutshell)
- we need to deeply distrust any one who seeks power (not leaders....distrust the ones that WANT to be leaders)
That's how it is actually really easy to be "leftist" but still despise 'tankies' (authoritarian left).
And sidenote: I wish I was a better writer. There is something my heart wants to tell about those years after the fall of the wall but it doesn't come out right. Ever
We're not done, you guys. There's more!! However, if you feel like you just got a strong whiff of Apple's poison gases & you need a moment to catch your breath; I'll just leave this right here as a reminder of how important it is that we look out for each other and feel a sense of duty to the community around us.
It's a tale as old as time that industry will poison communities as much as it can, as long as it can, until every day people come together to demand to not be slowly murdered.
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