![[CW: the most embarrassing liberalism that might actually give you a concussion] People are dying and they still think they can solve this with civil protest](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/80da2324-d2e4-406c-a62e-ea0158ea43fc.jpeg){kind=link}
Hoping to hell that’s an AI or a bot because this might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard
Before you get depressed, know that there are people who actually are calling this shit out and there are people who are suggesting actual helpful techniques in that sub. But damn, that particular post was wow.
Anyway, I’m not going back to the reddit mines for a while.
I think the issue here really is that most Amerikkkans, libs especially, white libs especially frfr, are unwilling to die for anything. Truly, I believe very few of them would lay down their lives for their own family, either biological or chosen.
Nonviolent protest is very low risk, and thus very low reward. Any other form of protest is too high risk for these people. Most of them have likely never been confronted with their own mortality, and very few have likely been subject to true state violence. Moreover, they, up until very recently, almost refuse to believe state violence exists.
I’ve mentioned before around here that I spent a lot of time in various juvenile institutions. As a young 18/19-somethin’ and off paper for the first time in my life, I got a job in a very white, liberal community and eventually moved there. When I would explain to people there what I experienced as a child and teen they literally COULD NOT BELIEVE my experience, and several accused me of lying or exaggerating. Specifically it was a lot of the older, 40+ crowd that accused me of lying.
I truly believe shit has to get REAL BAD for almost EVERYONE before any real change can happen. And I mean it needs to get life threateningly bad for the majority of the working class. As long as they can go home to relative comfort, we’re all fucked.
there’s been a long and concerted effort to make us think Gandhi and King just did that and leaving out the actual violence from other liberatory factions or the violence implied by the alternative.
nobody ever made peace without war or the threat of one.
Even a lot of the peaceful protests they did were illegal or dangerous. Sit-ins in places they weren’t allowed to enter, voting in places they’d kill or arrest you for voting, boycotting, etc.
Boycotting seems like the only one liberals are okay with (unless it’s Israel apparently). No one even wants to get arrested, but it’s probably because it could cause you to get fired or hurt getting a future job when it’s notoriously difficult right now, so I get it.
What I went through was bad but not as bad as what you must have.
I remember telling friends in college who asked “hey we talk about our childhoods and you don’t, why’s that?” and then having them look absolutely shellshocked while I calmly gave a synopsis.
So yes, privileged white people, and sadly not just the boomers and gen xers
Probably haven’t had to go through shit nearly as awful as you, but I know that feeling of some people (especially older people) just thinking you are lying about your trauma.
Thanks, homie. I don’t really enjoy comparing traumas, and see little utility in comparative analysis of trauma, but it sure wasn’t great. My heart hurts hearing that you or anyone else has had their trauma and experience denied — especially when people then take the line of, “well, surely, you must have done something to have deserved such treatment.” Actually, the only thing I did was be born to a poor teenage woman who I’ve never known, who couldn’t afford to care for me, and, well, one thing led to another and there you have it.
Anyways, no person, child or adult, deserves the experiences endured by myself or my cohort in those institutions. It’s really telling that so many people believe there are people — children — deserving of such treatment. Of my cohort, I’m one of the lucky few that are still alive, not in prison, housed, reasonably healthy, and whose material needs are mostly met.
Yeah, exactly, it isn’t some kind of “suffering olympics” or whatever, it’s about making the world a better place so this sort of stuff doesn’t happen to anyone, children especially.
this is what it really comes down to. they don’t care if it sounds stupid or if it’s realistic or not. they need to rationalize their inaction or their self-conception will collapse inward on itself. anyway this whole comment was just an excuse to plug my favorite article, Masses, Elites, and Rebels
Thanks! I just started reading it, and I’m looking forward to reading it throughout my morning.
Incredibly pertinent and depressing analysis. Good (bad) news is the climate crisis is more or less guaranteed to bring about those conditions in the coming decades.