Paul Cantrell
My TL is now filling with the moderate and radical left blaming each other for the current SCOTUS. It’s so depressing. Same mistakes over and over. It’s like Groundhog Day.
Solidarity among anti-fascists is the only way to defeat fascism.
I don’t care who you are or where you stand: if you're punching anti-fascists harder than you’re punching fascists, that’s a problem.
Paul Cantrell
Is the problem anti-fascists who gave even the time of day to “oh no ‘abolish the police’ is too radical”? YES.
Is the problem anti-fascists who refused to vote for HRC in the general? YES.
Is the problem institutionalists who assumed institutions would protect us? YES.
Is the problem hard-core leftists who said “they’re all the same” and “they’ll never overturn Roe?” YES.
Am I the problem? YES.
Are you the problem too? Probably!
Do we anti-fascists need to get our shit together? YES.
Paul Cantrell
@seachanger
The one point of my post is that it’s just about everyone’s fault, and I’m sick of people doing apologia for their own choices and instead blaming others — including those blaming a hypothetical “radical left” — when the place they need to be looking is the mirror.
wet forest moon folklorist
@inthehands I like the sentiment paul but I think we sometimes want to blame a hypothetical “radical left” for things like trump’s victory, but people who’ve looked at the electoral data district by district let us know that the unlikely voters who cost us narrow electoral college losses are not the internet ideologues centrists love to hate. unlikely voters in fact statistically skew toward groups that society is failing: young people, low wage workers, and/or voters of color.
Jim Flanagan
Paul Cantrell
@jimfl This is a Pogo fan account
Paul Cantrell
@seachanger
I •love• this kind of approaches — good old community organizing! make it new! make it even better! — and am totally on board with this line of thinking.
I dislike “far left” as a category — for many reasons, but large among them because it lumps together people actually doing the kind of work you’re describing with Jill Stein Reply Guys. Those two groups are (1) both real and (2) almost completely non-overlapping AFAICT.
wet forest moon folklorist
@inthehands I get your point, and just adding a little nuance. copy and pasted from another reply: here's where I think we need to go:
- grassroots political projects organizing at the neighborhood level year round that double as mutual aid networks & that organize and educate on policy goals commensurate with the problems we face
And i think this is actually what many on the "far left" side are saying, but we often aren't heard due to the vote shaming
Paul Cantrell
@seachanger
So much nodding on my end.
1st paragraph: agreed!
2nd paragraph: agreed! and IMO squaring that circle is something we need to get way, way better at. Ilhan Omar (my rep) is a model to study; her GOTV operation is formidable, and it seems to me it’s addressing exactly the kind of thing you’re talking about.
wet forest moon folklorist
@inthehands yeah, the truth is that some twitter brocialists don't do shit in their own neighborhoods and instead find fame in posts that may even borrow from systems of oppression they claim to fight. imo twitter actually manufactured a lot of these people to all of our detriment.
in practice, the people who GOTV irl come from across the spectrum BUT are also stymied by candidates who don't actually want a bottom up campaign, cuz the needs of people conflict with the needs of donors
Paul Cantrell
@seachanger
Yeah, well said. I do think posting has value, but like protest, it’s only works if it’s a conduit for power instead of an endpoint. Teaching, learning, marching, demonstrating power — yes to all that, be where do we apply that learning? Where do we use that power? It seems to me you’re providing one excellent answer: we start and end with helping each other, in concrete ways, in our everyday lives.
wet forest moon folklorist
@inthehands ah i'm jealous you get have Ilhan represent you! in the spirit of your first post, im convinced that many of us have wasted precious life energy on hypothetical blame games, and in fact probably agree on most of the tactics we actually need to use to win. one of the larger obstacles we face is twitter and facebook training people that posting = politics. A lot of us have unflexed irl organizing muscles that need a little training...
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