You Can’t Post Your Way Out of Fascism
On this server we are often victim of this stuff, i hope we can all improve
https://www.404media.co/you-cant-post-your-way-out-of-fascism/Open linkView original on slrpnk.net391
Comments72https://www.404media.co/you-cant-post-your-way-out-of-fascism/Open linkView original on slrpnk.net
I think a big issue is that the people educated enough to understand how desperate things may be are not naturally inclined to lead simply because we are more often than not deeply aware of our limitations and spend time telling ourselves we are not the right person to be leading.
But everything has to start somewhere. Someone had to throw the first brick at Stonewall. Being a leader can be scary because you don't know if anyone else will actually follow. It is a massive personal risk, especially to someone already aware of their own limitations and need for others.
I struggle with it because I would rather join an already existing Mutual Aid group instead of doing the work of organizing it myself. I am inherently disorganized. I do not see myself as a leader. I see myself as good at following processes, reading, following directions. I am moderately good at writing but I say enough stupid stuff that others don't agree with that I could accidentally alienate groups whose input and involvement are desperately needed. I fear leadership because of how often I put my foot in my mouth. I fear it because of how important it is and how many people come to rely on leadership. I think a great leader is one who teaches people how to lead themselves. Finally, if there is anything I have learned in life is that it is very easy to be thinking you're teaching the right lesson but you actually taught people something completely different and disturbing to you. I fear accidentally teaching the wrong lessons.
But the question is this: Are all those fears, all those questions, all that awareness of our own limitations... Could that be perhaps what actually creates a good leader whose goals align with those they represent? A question we should all be asking ourselves.
That being said, I still have no idea where to start. Especially in a conservative, regressive area. Hunter Thompson was right that we need to learn to speak their language, which is why he wrote in sports metaphors. Problem is, I am not like him, I don't know how to speak to them. I feel that may be my biggest limitation in making headway. Not just because I don't know how but because the simplistic way they communicate eats at my soul, I don't like it and struggle to think I could speak that language.
I think a lot of places that prohibit talking about violence are supporting the horrors. Like, it'd be swell if we could vote ourselves out of this mess but that seems like a long shot, and a lot of damage would be done before that even started to take effect.
I get most of us don't actually want to risk our lives. We don't want to be the one guy who throws a molotov and gets shot by the police.
But shit is really bad, and at the end of all things might makes right. Principles and philosophy don't matter if you're dead.
I think everyone's thought about like "what if i went back in time and shot Hitler before things got really bad?" Well, that's now. You've arrived at the time travel destination.
I don't really want to live in a world where republicans are shot dead, where the prosecutors putting people in jail for protesting are murdered in their sleep, or where the owners of a factory that pollutes the air we breathe are beaten so badly they'll never walk again. But I also don't want to live in the world those forces will create if left unchecked.
Besides, the right has been using stochastic terrorism for years.
Not necessarily. There have been some successful non-violent revolutions in history, and there's a strong case to be made that not exhausting those options could be a huge mistake.
We still have, right now, completely un-used tools at our disposal, such as unionizing en masse and deploying a general strike, which is insanely powerful (capable of bringing a nation to its knees if done widely enough), while being far less dangerous and more appealing to the general populace than any other means.
To be clear, I support other options like a general strike and unionizing (though I think forming a union is only a bandaid on top of the evils of capitalism, it's better than nothing).
I don't think "just vote for the democrats in 4 years" is a viable strategy on its own.
But even so, these have to be backed by might. If you do a strike and they send police to do violence to you, you have to be ready to fight back.
I see the workplace benefits of a global union (specifically the IWW) as a bonus, with the real meat being that it teaches people how to organize, and how much power they truly can wield collectively, as many people still feel quite powerless despite the potential they hold, they need only be taught how to use it.
When the Spanish Civil War kicked off, it was the Syndicalist unions (CNT-FAI) that were able to organize their communities effectively to resist Franco and transform Catalonia when the existing government crumbled. That type of organization doesn't necessarily have to be from a union, but I feel the ability to engage in a general strike would be far more encouraged if people were in a union and became used to flexing that muscle (and build up a strike fund to be able to sustain it) and would drastically help in effectively resisting.
This is a good point. I hadn't thought much about how some of the skills and such from unionizing might transfer to other things. Thanks
It's also important to remember that there is no magic bullet. Nothing is a viable strategy on it's own.
It's my own personal conspiracy theory that our natural hesitance to throw resources at unknown variables is being amplified by the ruling class and fed back to us in the form of the all-or-nothing perfectionism I've seen a lot this past election cycle.
We need to be building with the blocks we have, and Theil et al are using the fear of failure to encourage us to fight each other about whether we should use square blocks or rectangle blocks.
Well said. From my outsider perspective a general strike is ideal for the situation in the US rn. The benefits of a general strike are
you can force politicians to pass things they wpuldn't have the initiative to pass themselves (like universal healthcare), as long as you have a manifesto that's surgically precise (eg. with pre-prepared drafts of laws) and you refuse to cease until that manifesto has been passed as law verbatim.
it's still fully constitutional. On paper, the politicians came up with these ideas and passed them out of their own volition.
the unity & platform created by a general strike would create very good conditions for a 3rd party to have an actual chance of winning seats.
All you need is some philanthropist who will create a massive strike fund.Relying on a philanthropist is risky, and possibly unviable if the scale is large enough. Most strike funds are created and maintained using union dues, which would scale up to any size. The unfortunate part is that it generally takes time to fill them, and we're a bit short on that.
True, relying on a single donor would make the strike too vulnerable to their influence, much like political parties
Just remember that violence is so often counterproductive to the point where governments intentionally bait or false flag it as a core part of their strategy to take down activist groups. This article focuses on ways people can organize to help each other, rather than assassinations:
I've been reading a (confusingly named) book, The Anarchist Cookbook, which I think has some strong arguments about this stuff, here is an excerpt:
Why is it counter productive? I guess because uninvolved people clutch their pearls and then support the police/capitalists?
The huge support for Luigi makes me think there may be a change in the air. But also that was precisely targeted, not just randomly murdering. If he had set off a bomb and killed 30 people in midtown New York, even if one was a hated CEO, I don't think people would support him.
Here is another excerpt which is more relevant to more extreme acts of political violence, which is referencing this essay:
::: spoiler text
So there's a lot of reasons, only one of which is "uninvolved people clutch their pearls" ie. fear is generated and authoritarians get fed political capital to make things worse. There's also direct relevance to the point being made in the OP article: its actual impact focuses on media spectacle, in which most participants are reduced to unconnected spectators. This leads to the narrative ::: spoiler writing itself into a corner:
After all, that CEO was replaced immediately, they're still doing the same things, just now a lot of people are having fun posting memes about it, which is cathartic and enjoyable without being difficult or risky or meaningfully improving the situation. It doesn't put them in a position where they have habits and social relationships that would enable them to actually do anything to help each other or exercise direct political involvement. From the OP article:
That was an interesting read. Thank you. I'll have to do some thinking on it, and read more carefully when I'm not befogged by a head cold.
I still want, like, emotionally, the horrible people to face justice (or at least vengeance), but i can see how that can have myriad unwanted consequences.
Getting people to actually organize is hard. One of the consequences of what Luigi (allegedly) did was people at work started to actually talk about politics, where before it had been a little more gauche (pun intended). Will anything come of it? Probably not.
At that job, I feel like I was planting seeds of radicalization just by talking to people about US history. Several of them hadn't grown up here, and had a very glossy marketing understanding. Just telling them about how like Jim Crow is a thing from living memory, not centuries ago, was eye opening.
The Troubles 2.0 are indeed here.
EDIT: Sorry, replied to the wrong person.
I didn't mean to imply I support violence as a first strategy.
I actually wholeheartedly agree with your assessment. Partially because the violence against us is coming anyway. It is clearly planned. They are telegraphing what they intend to do, which is criminalize half the country so they can put us to death under the guise of "why couldn't they just follow the law."
That being said, just because the violence is coming doesn't mean inviting it right away is the best solution. The best solutions are the kind you suggest but also using Mutual Aid to develop Parallel Systems.
Parallel systems are simply systems outside of the capitalist mode of production and integration. Providing water, food, medical care, housing, support, and so on. The efforts of the Black Panthers were an exercise in developing parallel systems. The Black Panthers also knew violence was coming which is why a contingent of them were armed. Having such systems in place makes it easier for individuals to survive a long-term General Strike.
The testimony and cross examination of undercover officers by Afeni Shakur stands the test of time when she showed that the people pushing violence in the Panthers were undercover police officers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afeni_Shakur#The_Panther_21
We must be prepared to resist the violence that is coming, but to do so without organizing and planning is a fools errand.
i don't know a lot about the history of the black panther movement (not surprising nothing about it was taught to me in school). Infiltration by the government/antagonists is a real concern. As is being murdered like fred hampton. I don't really know how to guard against that. The "They pull a knife you pull a gun. They put one of us in the hospital, you put them in the morque" attitude has bravado, but isn't really safe or sustainable. But on the same time, just being casually murdered isn't either.
Apologies, I accidentally replied to your comment when I'd meant to respond to the commenter you had also responded to. Though I'm somewhat glad I did, as your response here was also excellent :)
No problem, you still raised important points either way.
It’s not that we can’t beat fascism, it’s that the amount of people that want fascism is way too high, and might soon to be the majority.
How do you save a country from something most of them want?
Are you sure that the majority wants it? Do they want actual fascism or they want what fascism promises? :)
If they refuse to be educated, does it matter?
You don’t need to educate anyone… I too would not trust someone who comes to me thinking of “educating” me :P
Think about what to do and plan and organize accordingly. Trying to be aligned more and more is just deleterious
What is your plan, exactly? I don't understand how we can rebel against fascism if there aren't enough people on the same page that it's bad.
Oh yeah, don’t get me wrong, we should do what we can.
My point was more about that sometimes it’s a numbers game, so you get stuck between a rock and a violent place (as in violence or civil war might end up being the only options).
By taking on the media and social media companies that create the environment and sentiment that has produced the current political climate.
Perhaps in the Midwest, but I believe there are areas of the US that this doesn't represent such as the west coast.
I see a split amongst US inevitable and it was basically written in stone the day the Democrats supported genocide and again each time they choose billionaires over their constituents. In my opinion we need to start moving these states in that direction.
With a World War, apparently.
You manipulate them into losing elections until they get over it.
The only alternative history provides is going to war with them and winning. And that has been made significantlly harder by the dumb electorate of the world's largest superpower deciding that they were too good to show up for a democratic administration twice because they weren't leftist enough or eggs were too expensive or whatever entitled nonsense left of center Americans are dejected about this week on the Internet.
I got several comments removed and a ban from the Beehaw community for reminding Americans of their first few amendments.
Apparently, Americans won’t even listen to their own country’s constitution. Especially the part that talks about amendments made and rights to be exercised in the event of government tyranny.
Fix your shit because the moment your country crosses the border and starts shit with Canada, it will be open season on every single America.
Buddy i understand your rage but i'm not sure how it relates to the post...
p.s. Try sticking to the rules of the server please ^ - ^
It’s directly related to the topic of the post. Americans trying to post their way out of their own cultural endpoint and then over-moderating when they don’t like hearing that they may have to get off social media and start taking real action.
Please do inform me of any server rules that this broke. I’m always eager to learn.
Oh i see. I did the post not focussing on americans tbf, i'm not one. The ''i know too much stuff everything is broken'' paralysis given by the social is real in the whole world where social media is present
ohhh ok
To me it looked like a non constructive rant born by a recent ban from other places and also ended up with a killing threat on an entire population (open season on every single american)
Yes this is exactly what American threats against Canada’s sovereignty is. They are actively waging economic and information warfare on Canada with the intent on annexation. If you classify Canadians defending their own lives and sovereignty as a “killing threat” then that’s where we fundamentally disagree as I believe people should defend themselves when attacked, not sit there and take it as you suggest.
Bro you are posting on an online forum, you are just ranting and coping. If you wanna take a gun and shoot someone go and do it but don’t write it here
Sure, I was suggesting exactly that. Not like I was asking you to not wish death on 340mln people
No, but posting can create a community of like-minded individuals who love to punch Nazis. It can also tell you where and when the punching is taking place, and which lawyers to call after the punching has occurred.
It's a call to action, not the action itself, but most action doesn't act unless called upon.
I kinda disagree. Social media, even this very harmless version of it, is great for building opinions. But it's not great at making stuff happen in the real world. I will never meet anyone from Lemmy. It might be comforting to write about guillotines here, posting angry articles, but we in general and especially you Americans need to leave this save zone and actually do something. Fast. With your bodies. In the real world. Show up! Being online is a trap, it makes you feel like you're participating while it eats you time and kills your energy. Greta Thunberg stopped going to school, wrote a sign and sat down.
Get Signal, gather some local people and do stuff.
Edit:
I agree it can be a challenge. Showing up and meeting a handful of people in the rain can be frustrating and disappointing. But there is no other way and these are real life experiences you will talk and bond about. Sorry for the pep talk. :)
Edit:
I'm not saying you should leave. I love Lemmy! Use it as a tool, not a solution. And a messenger is much more helpful to organize you locally.
Let me put it this way - would you go protest if you weren't sure anyone else were going?
The likely answer is no, especially if it's a protest that would get you arrested.
Social media isn't great, but with the full oligarchical takeover of mass media outlets (Sinclair, Fox), it's become one of the few avenues left for the public to voice (and subsequently act on) dissent.
This is the overall point I'm trying to make - yes, posting won't get the job done, but it can help if you do it right. And without people constantly standing up and speaking out about what's happening, no change is possible.
Because no one wants to be the only person at a protest, and unless other people know its happening, it'll be a party of one.
https://slrpnk.net/post/19479757/14397956
The 50501 protests have mostly been organized through Social media. As was the Arab Spring.
At some point mainstream media and corporate social media can silence that movement if they wish, which would damage its ability to organize.
Federated social media would not be so easily silenced, and would be able to continue to operate and act as a place e I'd organization regardless.
That's a powerful ability to make things happen in real life.
Are they working?
is any protest or rally or general strike working? to me looks like they became just another thing
in the past they probably worked because the threat of violence was real, now it's just walking together mostly. If you don't undermine their comforts or their money you can have as many people in the street you want but that's not gonna do anything if it's just showing up once and bye
I can't predict what the outcome will be. It might fizzle out, or it might gather momentum and produce a result.
We've already seen that it seems to be effecting Tesla's stock price. I think either way it's important for people to see others openly defying all this, if only to prevent the chilling effect that Germany seemed to go through by the lack of visible resistance to the Nazis.
imho, you are too deep down into the path to fascism right now. Stock prices won't change the plan of becoming Russia 2.0. Don't need capial market value when you have de facto slaves, oligarch power and isolationist economy.
btw i was talking about "protest or rally or general strike" in general, not only US. In italy they have not much value anymore. Indefinite strikes (i mean "we strike until you give us what you want") and focussed strikes (as in one single company) are the ones that work. + all the little stuff that won't make headlines or virality on social media because ''person convinced their whole department that that thing was bad and they fixed it'' is not cool enough
I'm not trying to suggest that we'll fix anything by lowering the stock price of Tesla, I'm just pointing out that it does seem to be having some measurable effect despite how low the turnouts have been for these protests in comparison to Trump's first term.
Ehh, I can't say I agree with that. If the economy plummets, it would likely help to turn his base against Trump, which as much as I hate having to exist within this economic framework at all, would be a useful thing to happen. Even in Russia, the oligarch's grasp on their power is largely determined by their ability to continue their economic prosperity. If they can't pay the army/police, their tools to control the people are weakened tremendously.
Obviously the U.S. is nowhere near not being able to make those payments currently, but putting the hurt on the US economically, especially if a general strike were to happen as the rest of the world Tariffed us for a sustained period of time, would either force the government to capitulate or violently end the strike, which I can't imagine would end well for the government.
I’m not that sure anymore :/
Oh np, didn’t even notice it because I hide downvotes on my main client
Saying sharing info is "at best" a coping mechanism seems a bit silly. With how algorithms keep people locked in their own bubbles, I'd say it's super important to share information you don't think everyone sees.
My mom had no idea about that student that got arrested, for example. I know for a fact most of my friends and family wouldn't know.
Truth. Treating it as nothing is doing the abusers jobs for them.
Reading, writing, and helping others read and write is liberation. Knowledge is power.
Why else would they be gutting educational institutions?
Who knew that changing your profile pictures, sharing hashtags, and finding like minded people in your bubble to doompost with to tell eachother youre right doesn't actually address any real problems. Another way this was described is called the Information–action ratio... Which essentially means "meant to indicate the relationship between a piece of information and what action, if any, a consumer of that information might reasonably be expected to take once learning it"
Back in the day, most news was local which meant that the information you were given could lead to actionable results directly. Now because you have the entire world beamed at you instantly, everyone is bombarded with information where no real action can be taken. This leads to a feeling of helplessness, which in turn causes this cycle of denial and inaction to accelerate. It's all very much an intended effect of the modern news cycle. Over time it leads to a certain collective numbness towards very real issues and in a way kind of normalizes things by making you forget the past. Just think about the major stories over the past few months and how many of those are largely gone out of the current narrative. This is all by design and based on years of psychological studies and social engineering.
I don't entirely disagree with your assessment, but at the same time I think you may be overlooking some benefits of at least federated social media.
Federated Social Media by its nature cannot be controlled for the sake of corporate interests, which is unfortunately a rare trait at this point in time. What this can effectively become is a new Citizen Controlled Media, as described by Noam Chomsky. This will become essential to spreading news of real events and ideas on how to resist while bypassing the corporate filter.
Posting is an outlet for me, it helps me reorganize my thoughts and not do something rash.
I agree that simply posting isn't enough. But acting egregiously without strategy is potentially a problem too.
Perhaps it's time to engage in rash behavior.
Have you tried acting egregiously WITH strategy? Or is this a case of "I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas"?
You can't vote your way out, or peacefully protest your way out either. We are fucking cooked.
You can organize your way out. We are only cooked if we give up.
You could ABSOLUTELY have voted your way out. Others have.
You just didn't.
And now you have to dig your way out through other means. The article does contain some interesting examples of how the fascist right seized power in accessible, local platforms. Granted, those will be much harder under the fascist regime you all enabled, but at least it's more practical than "we are cooked".
https://electiontruthalliance.org/
I firmly believe that no one voted for the "they're eating the dogs" guy, except for the die hards, and this was forced upon us by our adversaries and Elon Musk.
This is very likely not true.
But even if it was, it is remarkable to see how the reaction of the fascists to a similar narrative was to immediately gather to go storm the Capitol, got arrested, put in jail and still their political arm defended them, doubled down on their actions and rallied around them until they won again, then pardoned them all. Meanwhile the US left went "ah, nevertheless" yet again and went home to angrily post about how unfair it all is and how it's definitely, DEFINITELY the Dem's fault and they bear no responsibility or capacity to change anything.
I really really really wished that all of the internet were forced to read this entire article or be banned from using it permanently. This shit is written very well and right on the nose.
It's very apparent everyone wants to complain and have someone else do the work for them; everywhere I read across the internet it's lazy as fuck people calling other people to action, including egging any mentally ill people that happen to read their comment to go out and commit crimes for them.
Case-in-point, go to any reddit post and find any of the top voted comment where a leftist is saying "someone needs to stop XYZ politician! " often implying violence when you contextually consider what they are saying.
Go to any post that is summoning Conservatives to answer what they think of the next dogshit Trump decision and why they aren't using Second Amendment rights to eliminate tyrants, forgetting that they, the Democrat poster themselves could also go out and buy a gun and do it themselves.
Evidence to support your view:
I have cancer, I have often been open about it here on Lemmy. Several times post-Luigi I was told I should "do some good" and "Luigi myself" since I'm already at risk of dying under this oppressive regime.
Lazy able bodied fucks asking the people who are actually suffering to do their dirty work for them. I remember distinctly saying at one point "Maybe for the first time in history it's time for the able bodied to stand up for the ill, weak, and disabled instead of expecting us to off ourselves since in their eyes we have 'nothing left to lose.'" It's a cruel joke.
I'm sorry that happened to you. Whomever said that will not see the light of Heaven.
This has been a tactic of the right for decades, earning the moinker of "stochastic terrorism", but it has been very rare on the left.
After Luigi (who isn't a leftist btw.) there has been a bit of an uptick, but it doesn't really work as there isn't an leftist audience that would seriously consider this and has sufficient experience with weapons (so far I guess).
Yep, I kept it in the read it later for long and didn’t regret it.
I can already read some comments in this post from people who probably haven’t read the whole article but just the title. To be fair the title is a bit misleading because it should be more “rageposting or smartassing online won’t make our way out of fascism”
@ex_06 Loving that half the responses are "yes I can" from people who clearly read only the article's headline. God bless the internet, may we never learn 🥂
Thank you, really appreciated. I was starting to think I was imagining that almost no one read the article understanding it lol
You cant post your way out of trying to tell people not to try and post their way out of fascism.
When money-hungry people imitate each other's successful tactics to get more money, it can look like a massive conspiracy to do some other thing. But oligarchs really don't cooperate on that scale. They see each other as competitors, not allies. If one of them proposed locking the populace into an eternal doomscroll to keep them from fighting capitalism, the rest would think, "What's in it for him? How is he trying to take market share away from me?" The vast majority of peasants don't even want to fight capitalism, so it's a non-problem. Some oligarchs might go along hoping to individually get something out of it, but they would think it was just alarmist bullshit that might benefit them.
I didn't get to choose that preview, idk if it's a my bad thing or a lemmy thing
but still i didn't write that little sum up and it doesn't really represent the article
It's not just the little sum up. Let's look more...
"Thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre and Hannah Arendt warned us that the point of this deluge is not to persuade, but to overwhelm and paralyze our capacity to act." Wrong - persuasion is the exact purpose. Persuading people to donate money, buy more shit, stay brand-loyal... That's why oligarchs spend money on social media. Their alliances with each other are temporary, and meticulously defined to maximize their individual gain. Everything about their behavior says they aren't allies.
“Everything on social media is designed to make you think [you're the main protagonist in a sea of NPCs, from previous paragraph],” said Cross. “It’s all about you—your feed, your network, your friends.” Ahh, okay, so the reason so many people on social media think they're the main character isn't because they already thought that way and the anonymity lets them express themselves more freely. No no, it's because social media is "designed" to make them feel that way. Well alrighty then, more conspiracy. Social media didn't evolve like everything else, somebody had a grand design for it.
Gimme a break. What I feel is that I've spent enough time and effort on this.
you are kinda criticizing the finger that points at the moon (and to be clear, i too disagree with some of the rethorical stuff of the article) but doesn't really make sense to discuss with this:
Well, you said the little sum-up wasn't the main point of the article, so I took the trouble to bring out a couple parts from the article that I felt say the same thing as the sum-up. Now all you can add is some lyrical bit about a finger pointing at the moon? Alright, have a nice day.