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1. Embed this notice
   Keith D Johnson (keithdjohnson@sfba.social)'s status on Monday, 27-Jan-2025 09:17:45 JST Keith D Johnson

   in reply to

   3/ "Our fight is against abusive power, not people. Our battle is against the billionairists who are devouring us. Never take the side of the powerful over the powerless, never blame the people who suffer the effects of decisions rather than the people who made the decisions.

   The enemy is a spirit of billionairism, which holds that the purpose of all human activity is to generate value for as few people as possible, & that those who fail to do so deserve punishment and death.

   This means recognizing that all violence is caused by abusive power, no matter who enacts it.

   Politeness & calm and legality are not the same as goodness; in fact, politeness & calm &legality are the privileges abusers afford themselves to lend themselves a sense of goodness, because the actual markers of goodness sit with the very humanity they are rejecting."

   • Bill repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Keith D Johnson (keithdjohnson@sfba.social)'s status on Monday, 27-Jan-2025 09:17:45 JST Keith D Johnson

     in reply to

     4/ "The fascist offer is an offer of false peace. It's an offer to look the other way for now, & receive the advantage of not getting the boot yourself. But it's a lie; the boot is coming for us all.

     As long as there exists some group that billionairists can convince you doesn't deserve help, they'll be able to prevent all help, focusing all efforts not on helping people in need but on the far more expensive task of making sure that no money is "wasted" on people who don't deserve it.

     The billionaire scam believes in the lie of scarcity; that there's not enough for everyone—not enough food or water or money or jobs, but also not enough freedom to go around, not enough humanity that humanity can be extended to all humans. It's a lie.

     We know that fascists can be sly at pretending to be allied with goodness, gesturing toward whatever virtue they are demolishing: suppression in the name of free speech, segregation in the name of fairness, imprisonment in the name of freedom, violence in the name of peace."

   • Embed this notice
     Keith D Johnson (keithdjohnson@sfba.social)'s status on Monday, 27-Jan-2025 09:17:46 JST Keith D Johnson

     1/ "Narratives facilitating the rejection of the evidence of one's eyes & ears remain popular for millions of presently comfortable Americans who prefer comfort to truth.

     If somebody gives a Nazi salute at a rally for a Nazi politician, & everyone cheers, then they're Nazis, & their party is a Nazi party, as anyone who is willing to observe observable things can observe.

     When a fascist politician responds to a call for mercy from a citizen with a demand that the bishop delivering it should be deported, it exposes what fascists meant by deportation, & the way it has nothing to do with questions of legality or immigration

     Exercise moral clarity. It all begins here. Without the moral clarity to understand what is good & what is bad, & the determination to witness to it & confess to it, we will lose our compass & wander lost."

     https://www.the-reframe.com/the-bishop-and-the-billionaire/

     Bill repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Keith D Johnson (keithdjohnson@sfba.social)'s status on Monday, 27-Jan-2025 09:17:46 JST Keith D Johnson

     in reply to

     2/ "Convincing everyone isn't the goal; noticing direction is, & noticing who aligns with & against simple declarations of truth & decency. Practiced indifference delivers the message that truth & decency are things that will be pursued without first receiving permission from liars.

     Try this one:

     "That is fucked up. I'm not doing it, & you should be ashamed for asking."

     Celebrate aggressively. Getting clear on what is good & bad doesn't just free you to oppose what is bad; it allows you to celebrate what is good. Fascists simply cannot celebrate the joys & the beauty of our diverse human experience, because they abhor it & seek to destroy it.

     The more you celebrate all that is good in humanity, the more people opposed to all that is good in humanity will show themselves for what they are. Aggressive celebration is art, is music, is food, is a party, & is also quiet, contemplation, time spent alone recharging your batteries."

     Bill repeated this.