Extremist messaging now woven into music and YouTube videos, with one expert saying: ‘You can be radicalised sitting on your couch’
The two men chop peppers, slice aubergines and giggle into the camera as they delve into the art of vegan cooking. Both are wearing ski masks and T-shirts bearing Nazi symbols.
The German videos – titled Balaclava Kitchen – started in 2014 and ran for months before YouTube took down the channel for violating its guidelines.
But it offered a glimpse of how far-right groups have seized on cultural production – from clothing brands to top 40 music – to normalise their ideas, in a process that researchers say has hit new heights in the age of social media.
I left reddit because of how the comment scoring worked. Neutral stances addressing extremes are down voted and being a single issue voter is encouraged.
I’m very concerned about how the far-right has subtly infiltrated popular culture in ways most people don’t even think of, namely Mr. Beast.
A classic example of a billionaire putting on a weak performative liberal mask (having a trans friend, advocating for government funding in healthcare exactly once), while putting the real meaning behind their work firmly in the far right.
Constantly promoting other billionaires (like Elon Musk)
Constantly promoting the businesses of the far right and far right collaborators (Tesla, Apple, slaver chocolate harvesters, etc)
Opening businesses with far-right governments (like the Saudi dynasty)
All in a channel dedicating to maximizing the dopamine addiction of impressionable children.
That’s become a trend with influencers. They have their content, but the backbone of it is a cult. Ex: mormon light
Hollywood’s Hays Code suppressed any liberal concepts, and steered ALL Hollywood productions toward promoting standard conservative beliefs and living as the only “normal” lifestyle - for DECADES.
In the 19th century, the most popular music, besides church hymns, was minstrel shows and it’s music, which reinforced racist ideals that form the core of conservative thought to this day.
This isn’t new. American conservatives have been hijacking popular culture for their own propaganda use for at least two centuries.
If the US becomes a socialist/communist country during the Great Depression, the Hays Code would’ve been abolished completely. One of my favorite alternate history timelines happens to be “Reds! A Revolutionary Timeline” which explains what would happen if William McKinley survives and socialism becomes mainstream in the US and such
Spoiler alert: the Hays Code gets abolished ITTL (in the “Reds!” timeline) after the Red May Revolution, and gets replaced with the Eisenstein Code (which is a bit more liberal). Seriously!
“In Hungary we have some examples of extreme right bands becoming mainstream because they’re on the top 40 chart. I mean, what’s more normal than being on the top 40?”
But which songs/bands? Are you saying its like a whole studio/record company pushing this?
“I have a stepson who sometimes sends videos and then I go down the rabbit hole to see who created them and it turns out it’s a far-right influencer.”
But which creators/influencers do we need to be on watch for?
“They’ve also started their own food delivery,” she said. “It’s just wild that you can be ordering food from the far right and not know.”
Do you mean the whole service is far-right? Can I get the names of services to avoid?
This article feels like it lacks substance. It seems to be saying “There’s bad guys out there. I’m not going to tell you who or where, but they’re there. Just trust me bro”. (In all fairness, they do point to tradwife influencers, but I assumed that was known).
That’s not to say that they haven’t actually found sources of right wing influence in each of these areas, but I was really hoping they’d bring the receipts on it.
I don’t suppose anyone here can point to examples of what they’re talking about with any of these? (Again, I’m aware of the tradwife stuff, so I’m good skipping that point).
They probably don’t want to drive traffic to them. I’m sure you can find names if you look up the cited researchers’ works.
What I find interesting is that there’s a lot of conflation these days between the far right and conservatism — especially religious conservatism.
This misses the point that every progressive society needs some number of conservatives (even dogmatic ones) to be asking “but is this a good idea? Does progress here actually benefit people?”
These people are NOT fascist and NOT far right. They’re more likely to share a drink with someone who is, knowingly or unknowingly, than someone with progressive views though, and can be more easily influenced.
These are the sort of people who need to be aware of this kind of article. Unfortunately, most articles of this type don’t tend to differentiate between right and far right, and so are often ignored by the very people who need to hear the message.
This misses the point that every progressive society needs some number of conservatives (even dogmatic ones) to be asking “but is this a good idea? Does progress here actually benefit people?”
No it doesn’t and that’s not what conservatives are. That’s a right wing talking point myth like “You’ll get more right as you grow up”
Conservatives are reactionaries who want no change. They blindly rage against anything different or new to them, they don’t care about the wider social landscape as is evident by how often they’ll support a leftist ideal once their child is a victim of their rhetoric.
“Progressive” people want change, and they ask themselves is this good all the time. You cannot progress if you don’t review and analysise.
really should be calling these people regressives at this point…not sure how stripping access to basic medical care is “conserving” anything but profits.
Yeah, this article is just fear mongering. Feels like a way to play both left and right sides against each other. Generalized anxiety on the left will create an echo chamber.
When critical details are missing the information can be dismissed.
Even their shitty AI Aryan woman has to dye her hair blonde lol
No, that’s normal Straßenköterblond.
They can still F off though.
Don’t know if it’s just me doing crappy human pattern matching or when I was studying art history, I noticed that “peak” art periods were often “late” republic/kingdom/empire eras where the political structure was breaking apart and inequality was growing while the last generation raised on previous generations wealth focused on art/entertainment/self-care. That’s how I feel right now today. Leftists have been mostly trying to live their best lives for the last like 40 years with entertainment while conservatives have been chipping away more and more power. Leftist art doesn’t direct action. Mostly just commentates and serves as mental exercise. Very opaque in purpose and audience. Conservative art is comparatively simple but suggests simple solutions, actions, identity. Art made for targeted audiences
So what should we do as socialists to fix this problem?
Violence
— apologies for wall of text. A bit rambly. —
Hard to say. What I believe is that in more desperate times, civil rights leaders were average people. They weren’t people working in academia. They weren’t working for political parties. They were laborers, they were people that met and organized at church, people that met at work. Filmmakers, musicians, painters, fashion designers - they were all in their own bubbles making art about people that actually did the work of organizing and were desperate in their situation to feel the need to do so.
The art and career politics world is filled with people that can move neighborhoods, cities, states, countries. That automatically alleviates pressure to succeed in changing politics. The people at the auto shop conceivably can’t buy citizenship elsewhere, don’t have connections to get a “refugee” visa, education to apply for a workers visa for a field the counter considers in high need like tech. You don’t see landscaper visas for successful landscapers like you see governments do for people deemed successful artists.
These people are more successful in organizing people, inspiring people, relating to people than any career (even aspiring artist) artist can. Art as a hobby but no hopes as a career are relatable. The ones selling their postcards at the local farmers market, sorry guys not so relatable compared to the grocery store cashier that after work goes home and watches YouTube shorts
So effective leadership will not come from universities or the art world. Not from documentarians. Not from journalists. It will come from places like the restaurant kitchen, the auto shop, the factory, gig economy workers. No their language is not polished. They may say something crass here and there. But it takes practice to be a public speaker and the well off middle to upper class drown out the lower middle to poor people. Mistakes of crassness are judged to harshly and permanently. I do not think civil rights leaders of the 80s and back would make it today because of how judgmental we are today on the left. Like there’s little avenue to have the wrong/bad/evil opinion one decade of your life and try to join up and be embraced doing good things the next decade. The average adult person unsurprisingly knows how to talk to the average adult person better than university students and professors and politicians. Better than artists.
Anyone that doesn’t vote or skipped a vote get treated like trash by the left. Shouldn’t be the case. Disenfranchisement whether by political machinations or mental exhaustion should not be shamed. They need to be find belonging with us
Conservatives do that. They speak with patience and respect to those that don’t vote. They do that to those that don’t study high brow media. They do that for the non aesthetic. A leftist will own a fence sitter by making fun of visibly poor diet and hygiene if that’s the case and a conservative will step in and say that’s fine as long as you’re good people. Come hang out with us. Play video games with us. Fish with us.
And I call out artists and university students and professors because they’re so deep in their bubbles that they are deeply unaware just how unlikable they are when heard. Like the revulsion they have for the poor and less educated is not well hidden at all. Conservatives hide it very well in comparison
———————————————-
So for us, stop being obtuse with our communications and be direct. Simple to understand. Also no dunking. Stop the diabetes, small penis, uneducated, trailer park, lol you can’t afford to travel type shaming. Nothing wrong with liking Marvel movies or liking McDonalds.
Too many times I’ve had to console good people to at work 7 days a week because people in the community think it’s funny someone doesn’t know much outside the city they live in. Too many times playing damage control over people making diabetes, small penis, poor people jokes for why conservatives are as they are. All of those have a ton of people that lean left or people that barely follow politics at all. 7 8+ hour work days a week doesn’t let people follow politics much so the dunking on poor people for being dumb and voting against their interest is insanely stupid
It’s not a good thing anytime I see leftist taking joy that the left is more educated and wealthier in comparison to conservatives. That’s an inevitable loss with growing income inequality. Leftism shouldn’t shame others for not reading the right books, not going to university for a humanities degree, not understanding how artists of whatever movement use color gradients for meaning. Most people watch blockbuster movies and play games like fortnite. That doesn’t make them any less of a person than someone who watches Andrew Tarkovsky movies.
When a person who likes average things feels attacked by leftist art/entertainment, that’s avenue for conservatives. Leftist have to step in to and make average interests identifiable as leftist just as much as conservative. Same with stuff like not living in a big city or not caring for travel or living by a beach or not caring about journaling. Leftism these days are expressly too much about self expression. It derails organizational meetings when everyone wants/needs to express how such and such has made them feel and affected them especially when it’s from people that can comfortably afford therapy and to spend so much time of the thought of, am I happy
Look towards poor/working class people as voices that need to be at the forefront rather than university students, professor, celebrities. I don’t think we need 100k people marches where everyone is having a fun time with their protest boards and posters. What’s needed is professionalism. People that have settled into a life of compromise and may not live that beautiful life of travel and creative expression but are good people. They’re normal people. The average person. We care way too much about people that live outspoken lives. They don’t spend so much time of metaphor and meta thought exercises. They’re completely concerned about achieving what were once normal life goals and therefore don’t practice wordplay. Wordplay is annoying for people with limited time out of work and need people to get to the point. Metaphor is annoying. Symbolism is annoying.
It was a problem when Stephen Bannon was talking about how he’d recruit by reaching out to people playing World of Warcraft. Nothing about being a gamer should be conservative but because I suspect gamers not being aesthetic in appearance or lifestyle, we don’t want to associate our images with them. That is foolish. Same with kitchen staff. Same with warehouse workers. Same with farmers and fisherman. Vegans are largely leftist but their food comes from mostly conservative farmers. There is common interest here for common working class action rather than culture war splits. That Bannon recruiting 20 years ago on WoW wasn’t call to action on the left to do the same is insanely dumb.
That nuclear average family influencers are a conservative thing shouldn’t be the case. It should be politically neutral. The same with much of the cultural examples of conservatives taking over. A countries flag shouldn’t be synonymous with the countries conservatives/racist. Basic black and white idiosyncratic Tolkien medieval fantasy wouldn’t be so dominated by conservative fandom if on the left we weren’t so obsessed with doing real world inserts and prefacing that medieval such and such was evil and racist and the getting back to to story until the next time to remind people that such and such is racist and evil. Let fantasy be fantasy. It’s a stupid low yield battle that we on the left for some reason always have to force ourselves to fight
Escapism doesn’t have to bad. High brow art is itself high brow escapism/surrogate activism at best, poverty tourism at worst. We need to stop spending so much time and energy fighting battles that we imagine. Holy hell every time I listen to a conversation derail for what feels like eternity because someone reads a fictional book and they feel it’s problematic because it’s a period piece that is too realistic for the time. It should adopt modern demographics and language because it’s fantasy so it shouldn’t be a problem to modernize the content
Average people don’t care about modernizing their fantasy media and the conversation exhausts them. And it’s such a waste of energy compared to convincing people to join a union and pay union dues. To attend city council town halls and badger them for local problems they should address
Stop wanting local politicians to be national politicians. If there are any politicians that have potential to be locally in touch and conversationally persuasive, it’s the local ones. But we want national politics remakes from everyone and vote on that, that local politics is unknown to locals the average person doesn’t feel like they have anyone speaking to issues like local safety, bad roads, rent price, childcare costs, etc. Your city treasurer will be campaigning on on opposing fascism and justice for Palestine. It’s asinine. It’s asinine for most mayors to be campaigning on national politics but thats where we’re at now. Not even local politicians feel the need to campaign on local issues anymore
How long you’ve been typing that for? I assume around a half-hour. Is it okay you can boil this down to simple terms?
Only part I read was how no body likes professors/educated people cause they are all snobs.
What?!?
Dude. Half of grad students are first gen college students.
We aren’t snobs. We don’t look down at the poor. Hell I’m still poor.
People who are insecure get upset when people who are doing better than them exist. They see it as a personal insult that someone with a higher degree than them, is in the same checkout line. How dare they make you feel stupid!?!
That’s a personal issue. If you don’t trust experts because , to you, they only got a degree and education to be a snob to you and make you feel bad about yourself, then who do you trust?
Leadership won’t come from the low level, unskilled. Uneducated people.
The stoner kid that washes dishes. ?
Yeah no.
It will come from educated and intelligent people with both life experiences and an education on how things work.
I’m sorry you have so little trust in education and knowledge.
But that’s the true path to growth. Not this “I know everything cause I had a shitty job”.
Yeah I had a lot of shit jobs. Taught me about the flaws in labor laws.
But didn’t teach me how to change the laws.
Only law school and political science education is gonna do that.
I’m actually non-binary, and I prefer gender-neutral and feminine terms. That said, I DIDN’T call you a snob. Seriously!
I spent a good amount of time typing that while doing other things as well. Too much. My bad. Unreasonable for anyone to read it. Gist
We look to people that are too out of touch for leadership. Politicians, artists, university professors and students
We need to look at those with urgent needs for leadership. Impoverished, medical problems they can’t afford, people with limited class and career mobility like tradespeople, gig workers, retail/restaurant workers, factory/warehouse, farmers, etc
The clear majority of people are not in the university, art - living their best life world or ones that follow politic at all. The majority are working hard and too exhausted to follow politics with their limited free time. We need laborers to feel like they’re not walking on eggshells among us
These people are not polished speakers because they’re not practiced. They can’t practice because mistakes are too harshly judged. They can’t practice because the out of touch people dominate the leftist scene
We need these people front and center on stage because they’re the ones people can relate to. They know how to talk normal. Like i am not good at that. I’m too bookish with my speech. I can be unrelatable like my previous post
On our end it’s support poorer less educated people in less glamorous jobs to be our leaders. Don’t be so judgmental on those that say problematic things on occasion. That’s like everyone that isn’t always surrounded by leftist
And in the past like 80s and back, it looks to me that the major activist leaders that got results were normal people on the edge and working at it full time without a backup plan for failure. Wealthier people can leave the country. Go and live a quiet comfortable life barely participating in politics. We need people leading that dont feel like they can have a comfortable life without major change
How do you think we should do that?
That’s the hard part. People with advanced degrees or deep in the arts are used to regular praise. Don’t respond well when you don’t get excited for the things they say. One thing is to focus criticism onto how the upper social classes of leftist movements speaks they get used to taking non-academic criticism again from political colleagues.
Right now it’s the lower class that gets scolded for language and behavior that doesn’t fit with upper class language. The opposite should be it. The upper class either needs to step aside, adapt their speech like they’ve demanded everyone else for decades, or get ignored or scolded. The getting ignored part is already happening. The scolding seems to be increasing to me as the lessening of respect that academia seems to get now (not that academia should be disrespected but that the default to following academics seems to be in decline)
I’ve gotten used to calling out peers for being out of touch and for getting in fights with their imagination rather than just asking people at like a town hall in the poorer parts of town or a food bank what their concerns are or cashiers. It’s great. 10 years ago they were certain they were doing things well. Now today I’m finally seeing my academia friends thinking saying BIPOC and Latinx (two terms lifted from academic papers) isn’t resonating with minority communities or most white people outside of small university groups. The majority outside of universities have way more basic needs concerns compared to university students.
Telling people to go to therapy and travel more and go to music festivals isn’t working. Yoga, meditation, etc are not solutions that display urgency. Wellness rhetoric is weak. People that suggest these need to be shoo’ed away. The first time I heard bipoc said was at a fundraising event. I have never heard it said outside of political events that has significant speakers in attendance like local politicians, university professors, leaders of major nonprofits. I never hear it said out in the minority majority neighborhood I live in. Pressure the leftist upper class to speak the language of the common person by pulling them down into the lower class communities or push them aside by ignoring them and encouraging others to do so as well. If they want a career in politics either directly in government or in community organization groups, they better learn the culture and speech of the community
It’d be good if after speaking, like at those 50501 marches, canvassing the crowd for response. Do you remember anything people on the stage said? What are your pressing concerns locally? Did the speakers today address those? After today do you know where you can continue involvement in days between marches? Do you know when local town halls with local politicians occur and where? Are you active in any boycotts? Are you a part of a group in these boycotts? Did anything today bring you into membership of a grassroots political organization that you weren’t before?
If we aren’t being affective, we need to know as soon as possible.
Every bit of communication we do is an opportunity to also hear whether we’re even communicating well rather than relying on if the crowd clapped or cheered. The crowd almost always does once some starts to do so. We should constantly be optimizing our speech for how people respond in understanding and action
Also telling the higher class leftist who make fun of conservatives for being poorer on average to stop being a dick. Plenty of poor people are leftist. Or for being born in a non-destination state. Nothing wrong being born in South Dakota or wanting to live in South Dakota. Same idea for other countries. Plenty of conservatives are conservative because that’s what they were born into and are surrounded by. Either provide an avenue to be a leftist or an ally in benefit, not fully in ideology, or shut up and keep the elitism to themselves.
Sure it offends upper class leftists to be called out of touch and be ignored. Doesn’t matter, they’re a very small portion of the movement that by and large just vote and socialize among other champagne socialist. Their contribution is small. Better to alienate the well off upper class leftist than alienate the poorer leftists and middle swing voters that barely follow politics for whatever reason. There’s way more that aren’t upper class leftists
Local politics over national. Local town halls with city council members have plenty of unpolished but passionate speakers that are desperate in their situation. These are the people that should be getting positive reinforcement and encouragement. Someone that gets potholes filled because of their pestering city council members has displayed more political willpower and ingenuity than someone who got a bunch of college people to hold a moment of silence for all the people who’s voices that aren’t being heard
Should have accomplishable goals short dated and long. Short ones can be simple community work like cleaning up litter and volunteering at local community centers. Organizing fundraisers for random children activities that kids do. Associating regularly with counseling centers. Food drives. Clothing drives that deliver to people directly rather than pass on to the mostly faceless very large established non-profits. People should see the results of their efforts.
Like a friend of mine has been working as a councilor for ~18-20 year olds in a poor neighborhood. Often broken and/or impoverished homes. Got a friend that coaches sports. Others that work I restaurants and enjoy showing people how to break down whole chickens, fish, beef, etc which people love to learn especially the budget conscious. I don’t get why there’s such a strong separation between social workers and political organizations. Political organizations should be doing community volunteer type work on the regular to constantly be in touch with community member and potentially find people that would be great in helping plan, organize, and communicate with the public and that should be a part of their whole mission. On their website. In their brochure. In their marketing. Fundraising and paying for lobbyist is not a very engaging organization to keep people active
Don’t discourage anger from poorer people. In the art/politics/academia world, everyone is too sedated and decorum too required. That sort of attitude does not make poorer people feel like there’s urgency for them.
Shits hard but got to keep trying. Right now my attempts are focused on supporting local needs and trying to get the university/art people to stop trying to culture police people who aren’t even doing anything bad really and stop making people feel like they’re greedy for being more concerned about their finances rather than whatever the current social cause academia is hot these days
My thoughts are based around about 25 years of being the guy that grew up in an abusive poor household but managed to make it to college and into middle to upper-middle class social and political groups and being repeatedly frustrated with how much of a class divide there is on the left and how the upper portion dominates over the lower and it being really ineffective including the Obama years. We’ve been losing more and more of the non-college educated voter for decades and keep acting like the solution is to get more and more people a college degree. Now less people want to go to college and 2024 college students didn’t vote as lopsided left like they did in the past. Hoping demographics will save us is too passive
Is it okay you can boil this down in simple terms for me?
I’m bewildered locally trying to get leftist to care about local issues. They see something online and get way more worked up and spend way more time thinking of that then the example of a homeless kid with destructive tendencies in pseudo-adoption by someone I know. Or all the people I bring up that are struggling to find work and pay rent. Everyone’s focused on what makes them angry online or what they imagine could be happening or could happen to them rather than what they can effect around them so local communities get no attention. No building. No camaraderie. The people that are in need now have very little concern from them in local or national politics. Not from highly verbal political types. Well actually if a conservative comes across them, they’ll try to speak with them and move them towards to right
Back to artists and why they aren’t good leaders
Artists inevitably make art for other artists. Go to a film festival with a filmmaker Q&A about a movie of some poorer background. It is time and time again very little interest on the films subject matter and when the filmmaker speaks of them, time and time again it sounds to me as someone very out of touch with the people they’re making art about. Even when based on real people, I always get annoyed at artistic liberty they profess to have made to make a more effective art or make it more appealing. Lots of talk about awards and career. Hearing stuff like they added something to add more drama and intrigue. Like people working at fast food restaurants have all sorts of stories of funny/wild nonsense they or patrons have done in the restaurant. Have great conversations with coworkers after some time when there’s time to talk. But that’s seemingly too boring and depressingly small ambition for many high brow art consumers
The difference between an artist saying, “I spoke to people and heard stuff like this and that and I was inspired to make this movie” compared to, “this is what happened to me. This is how I live. This is what I think of in bed, at the grocery store, at a mall, at work.” The first hand account is unsurprising far more visceral and inspiring than the filmmakers however many degrees of separation telling. A university professors interpretation of data/info collected.
Somehow we talk about the importance of lived experience and then put the ones with the lived experiences, the poorer people, at the back of the line in favor of the lefts most comfortable people - the gainfully employed and highly praised people of marketable careers
Gee, would’ve been a shame if socialist groups would seize on cultural production, and do that a lot better than far-right groups. Seriously!
Folks are just now noticing and that’s why it’s gotten a bad as it has.
YouTube began to promote “subtle” and not so subtle far right influencers under the tenor of Susan Wojcicki.
It was under her leadership that the Adpocalypse occurred and she immediately surrendered to the bourgeoisie sponsors to slam a colossal hammer down on the monetization of virtually all independent creators, which vastly affected poor lefty creators far more than the rich fascist ones (which was intentional)
Not to mention the CONSTANT bending over backwards to protect fascists like the Paul Brothers, Alex Jones, Steven Crowder, etc, through CONSTANT AND UNCEASING ToS VIOLATIONS
Only banning or demonitizing any of them when public backlash reached critical levels. I don’t believe she ever allowed the Paul Brothers to be demonitized or punished in any way whatsoever. Even the Suicide Forrest video was #1 trending for an entire day before someone at YT finally took it down.
She truly was the cancer that infected the mainstream internet with the far-right. May she rot in hell.
People have been noticing for a long time, but almost everyone’s attitude has been “I’m really busy and this is someone else’s responsibility.”
Even this article… the press is sounding an alarm, but to whom, exactly?
The time to stop this was a decade ago, but now the cancer has wound itself into every corner of our societies to the point where it can’t be easily excised. There is no authority to appeal to to say “Hey! This is fascist!” because acting now means acting against half your voters.
This is not even closing the barn door after the cows have left - this is closing the barn door while the barn burns down.
When I was a kid, everybody brushed it off as satire, if they acknowledged it at all.
I consume media. I doom scroll. If they are trying to use subliminal messaging or some other bs it isn’t working. I still think everything about the current establishments is bs
It’s not about subliminal messaging, it’s more the Illusory Truth effect, where a lie or misinformation is repeated enough that it is believed. Some people are more resistant to this thanks to critical thinking skills, but none of us are immune to it.
The affect isn’t going to be on you or anyone with thinking power above that of an amoeba.
The affect they have is on the young impressionable children who spend all day online, and on the general populace to keep them in line and gaslight them into thinking the works isn’t as bad as it is.
Why aren’t people rioting over the Lake Michigan incident described in the Epstein files? Because the fascist controlled and infiltrated media is refusing to even acknowledge it. The only people talking about it whatsoever are leftists who never penetrate mainstream media in the USA.
Out come the Zionists. Cover your eyes in gold then, this is how you get president Trump.
What
Remember the Tide pod eating fad? A significant portion of the human population is self culling itself yet again. This will be the final step for many of them.
Nazis are not historically SELF-culling, they start from others.
It’s frightening because there’s too many Lefties that are complete pacifist wimps that only wave signs and waggle fingers on Saturday afternoons.
You either completely do not tolerate any of it and use their same aggressive rhetoric back at them (including violence) or expect normalcy of right-wing extremism to stay in the zeitgeist forever.
pacifism ≠ tolerance
And if you want more than waving and waggles, you’re going to have to sway them into joining your mission with a comprehensive plan to fix things. They’d be on board with a general strike, jailing fascists in power, efforts to deprogram, and offering enticing alternatives to the followers, so we can end their beliefs and actions for this and future generations.
Most of the work against fascism will need to be done in our personal relationships in everyday life. Even the most massive violent movements have not rid the world of fascism. Critical mass of public opinion is the most effective weapon. Unfortunately, the necessary educational opportunities and social supports were not sufficiently protected, leaving us where we are today. We need to tend the garden of ideas.
We need to tend the garden of ideas.
In a decade, that might bear fruition. In the meantime, we need to make it too costly and dangerous for them to hold power. Until they’re driven out, sweet reason isn’t going to be enough.
Wow your current governments are doing so great enjoy your 50 year mortgage and renting a virtual computer from Nvidia.
Well they do try to force lefties into acting like crazed Karens before anything. As long as the Nazis are being polite and not inconveniencing them, they tolerate it.
“They” being business, government, and anyone who has real power to do something besides scream and yell and create a scene until power is annoyed into taking action.
I’m not sure the anti-chaos economic elite theory holds anymore. This has been the most chaotic year in recent history, spurred by far right racism, with pretty direct impacts on the shut up and shop economy of the United States, and the elite pushback has been tepid to non-existent. A few of them have been lighting money and their customer base on fire to support it.
It might be time to start entertaining the idea that the robber barons aren’t just bad people because they want to maximize profits through hyper-capitalism. At some point money alone isn’t the core pursuit and they’re more desirous of unfettered power. A weaker economy, but one where the government is powerless to regulate their activities and a normalized culture of corruption may yield less profit, but it gives them freedom and control to be untouchable lords.
I think a lot about my old coworkers that were like “yeah it sucks but like I’m just going to play Dota”. They don’t care. It’s not affecting them so it’s not important. Even though they claim to be left wing or at least anti-trump
And honestly if it did affect them I kind of expect them to either quietly go along into the gas chamber, or be utterly shocked that no one is risking their comfort for them.
Or you face the fact that society isn’t working for people. Desperate people sometimes do dumb shit. You don’t get to eat a steak unless you kill a cow.
