Journal of Other Forum Analysis (Volume II, Issue 1)

[Boredfrom]

Was El Bombastico deported? He has been MIA for months.

[Besticus Maximus]

Retail therapy is therapy too  

[HaughtyFrank]

We've even seen this shit targeted at characters like Lara who historically was made to appeal to women but has historically but has made more of an effort to appeal to women (wlw and lesbians especially in my experience love her).

[benji]

Anyway here's some old Nepenthe shit I found while I was looking for something else, in the second thread she explains rather at length why voting is wrong:

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

White conservatives largely have no sense of cultural innoculation against the contradictions that occur when real-world systems betray fanciful moral ideals like literally every minority on the planet has had to build up. Instead of going "Oh, maybe the lessons and myths I was forcefed as a kid by my parents and teachers was wrong/watered down, and the world is a lot more complicated than "working hard means you'll be successful," they literally just never grew the fuck up.

After all, the systems at play by and large have worked out in their favor when compared to other groups, giving them nice social capital to cash in and lorde over others such as easier access and networking to wealth, overrepresentation in all sectors of society, and ridiculous leniency in the courtroom, hospitals, and banks. They never had an opportunity to learn and be better, and that was by design. Well, now capitalism is starting to break down even for the common white man, and they're being given a taste of the the shit deals the rest of us have been eating for centuries.

And instead of applying the most infinitesimal amount of critical thinking and being like "Oh, maybe the system is the problem if I'm working as hard as I am and yet getting poorer," (mainly because that would show how much of a judgemental asshole they've been to Black people, Brown people, and the poor and homeless in general, and self-reflection is anathema to the white conservative), they instead get defensive because the systems that gave them actual internal meaning are no longer working out for them, and they never developed any healthy replacements separate from that.

We know from science already that when your personally-held beliefs are directly attacked, it can physiologically feel like you're facing an external threat. Base your entire fucking personality on upholding stupid crap like capitalism, colonialism, and bigotry, and the very act of a society trying to move forward towards a better life for all probably does psychologically and emotionally feel like you're two steps away from being rounded up in a concentration camp.

So yeah, of course these morons want to kill any slightly left-leaning American they can point their guns at. Didn't need an Atlantic article for that. What these people need is a fucking detox from rightwing nonsense and an overall reeducation on what it means to be a decently-functioning human being.

Amazing comment, this is also not an American only problem. Europe is facing the exact same issues and I just don't understand the endgame of these right wingers. Once they become a dictatorship and have eliminated all undesirables, what then? Kill each other?

That is literally the sociologically-predicted outcome of fully fascist regimes. These people can't actually exist in a state of harmony with other human beings, or even just a neutral stasis. They would immediately start dividing up the single class that was left among smaller and smaller points of contention (hint: very easy to do when you realize whiteness isn't actually an ethnic class, but a political one).

People with brown eyes instead of blue? People who are too short? People with physical or mental disabilities? People with the wrong skill set? People who in the previous life had contentious political and community relations? Hell, people with the wrong dog breed- all liable for the gas chambers.

Fascists will eventually come for white people too. But to get to that step they'd literally have to kill the rest of us. So take it easy straight cis white folks, our inevitable survival is the buffer from the nonsense you insist on entertaining.

....

You're welcome, by the way.

It's almost as if it has nothing to do with whiteness and is solely just capitalism eating everything and everyone.

Whiteness has long since been a bulwark against organized labor and anti-capitalist projects since literally, like, the 1700s when Irish indentured servants decided to abandon solidarity with African slaves because of laws giving them better treatment at Africans' expense.

Pretty much half the reason we don't have cool shit like universal healthcare in this country is because white people can't figure out legal ways to bar minorities from the benefits anymore, so they dogwhistle about not wanting a socialist Marxist welfare state propping up lazy folks who don't want to work.

Aka, it always comes back "fuck Black people." Like, get over yourselves.

Very true, though I would made the even bleaker statement that even the cultural inoculation you mention is not as universal as one would hope, and sadly we can see the results today as Trump is polling better with some minorities compared to 2016 :/

Of course it's not universal. We're all indoctrinated under large social, political, and media systems regardless of their measurable outcomes, and thus any given individual regardless of their demographic is liable to have some degree of bias towards these systems, even if by and large the different cultures that individuals belong to develop different general responses to said systems.

In other words, just because most Black people tend to be more left-leaning than white people doesn't mean that there can't ever be Black individuals who sincerely believe in white supremacist and colonial ideals, and by the same token just because white people are more prone to upholding systems of white supremacy doesn't mean you can't possibly get a John Brown every now and again, a radical abolitionist who literally died for the cause.

Again, people are individuals, and individuals can rest anywhere along the spectrum of power consolidation. It is simply a statistical inevitability that you will have minorities that trend towards fascistic thinking versus more democratic thinking, just like you have white people who actually- genuinely- want things like white supremacy and colonialism to end.

Granted, if you want people to be less prone to turning to fascism, you need to actually fix their social and economic problems, and to consistently stand by progressive principles. And considering the only defense we have right now are the Democrats..... Yeah, strap in for decades of this nonsense.

My growing fear over the past 7 years as this insanity has persisted is that most of them may be too far gone now. A horrifying prospect. Ironically, Trump voters accuse the left of Trump Derangement Syndrome, but they are the ones that have been deranged by Trump. The question then becomes how do you minimize the damage they do in their delusion?

Your growing fear has been my general conclusion since 2016. Until we dismantle harmful systems like racism, there is always going to be a collective subset of white conservatives who will literally just never actually be able to be convinced to become politically literate and empathetic people.

For one, forced reeducation camps are super-dee-duper illegal. And two, there is not and never has been enough cultural momentum on part of white people to at least shame these Nazis back into irrelevance. Literally every time there's been a historical fork in the road to get rid of white supremacy, white people at large just never took it. It's too hard/too dangerous/too inconvenient/too uncomfortable at the dinner table/not a big deal.

So yeah. Hate to break it to you, but these people are legitimately lost and there's nothing you can actually do to change their minds. Thus, it's better to spend time on shoring up our political systems and stopping them from doing damage, than it is trying to individually convince them to actually stop being assholes. Fuck 'em; let them die stupid and angry. 🤷🏿‍♀️

Hell even on Era, I remember when several ERA users were VERY happy to throw trans people under the bas, happy to allow US Senator Joe Manchin to include anti-trans amendments to the Covid-Relief bill because they deemed it "more/actually important"; Our lives were a-okay to throw away because of "compromise".

Question, why is it always on POC, LGBTQ+ people and other minority groups expected to compromise with White Straight cis people despite those compromises hurting them? Why is it never ever those white straight cis people ever the ones willing to compromise with minorities, will to stand up and say no? It's even to say tut tut and complain about voter apathy when you're not the one constantly expected to compromise to vote in people who likely will betray you.

Because if you're trying to "coalition build" with white independents and center-leaning conservatives, which is really the group that national elections hinge on because it's a bigger group and more politically enfranchised, then the easiest thing to compromise on just to shore up enough of that voting block to secure victory is minority well-being. And they're smart enough to know- although never openly admit- that minorities have "no choice" but to vote for them anyway, so there is no amount of sacrifice that can be had with these groups that would ever really serve to threaten the allegience of these overall voting blocks. Easiest calculation to make.

This is why I don't take dyed-in-the-wool centrists and Democrat spearheaders wholly at their word when they say they care about minorities as a general principle. Yes, when a minority dies in a hate crime, or there's some culture war squabble around representation, or some holiday or celebratory month rolls around, we get support, so yes they care on that front. But as a political principle they will not renege on at any cost? Absolutely not. The moment our issues become too politically inconvenient for the realpolitik needed at the time to shore up a voting block that doesn't care about us but is needed to win, we'll be thrown to the wolves. It wasn't just Joe Manchin's bullshit with trans people. The sentiment with cop-ass Bloomberg was "You fucking Negroes better vote for him if he wins the primary." And this is all if you're "lucky" to be a group in the limelight, so to speak. If you're an Indigenous person, especially an Indigenous person on a reservation, Democrats have nothing for you.

It's also not something I believe in at face value because they insist on refusing to tangle with the contradictions that occur with liking capitalism as much as the opposition does while also somehow trying to solve problems that are fundamentally and inextricably based on capitalism's colonial origins and continued existence. So from my point of view, Democrats' plans for solving the overall condition of Black peoples is, what, to try and get us access to universal healthcare and unionized jobs while bolstering the same police forces running roughshod over us in our communities. But the moment you try to start talking about things like reparations, repatriation of land, dismantling police for a different system, then these suggestions are off the table, even though the stolen wealth, the stolen land, and the overpolicing and extreme surveillance are literally fundamental locks on our collective freedom.

They want Black people to exist in the fold of American life up to the point that it doesn't threaten American hegemony or stability, which means by default that Black people cannot actually attain full economical and political autonomy to the extent that white people have under Democratic rule, since the country's wealth it needs to function the way it does now is literally ours. It can't be given back, ergo our oppression is literally critical to the state of the US functioning. So at that point, what are we doing here? What coalition is there to actually build at this juncture???

Rather than actually try to work toward a real solution, or even seriously consider the proposed premise, it's just more dismissive, high-pitched whining and stamping of feet with a high degree of exaggeration and hilariously broad and vague accusations. Who, exactly, are you even talking about? Real "everyone else is wrong!" immaturity which is a huge contributing factor to why we're so helplessly fucked.

This applies moreso to centrist liberals every single time they lose an election that was in the bag or are asked to explain why we are always on the precipice of fascism. Why moreso? It's because they're not just the ruling party; centrist neoliberal capitalism is literally the status quo of the Western world order.

Liberals are not really victims of anything concerning political infighting. It's rarely their hard principles being axed on the chopping block of "bipartisanship." It's not their politicians and coalitions being successfully couped in other countries. And indeed, polling numbers show time and time again that there's more Democratic voters than Republican ones, and a large part of the reason Republicans are even competitive boil down to systemic issues with representing what people want.

They're not some small little grassroots organization doing mutual aid in the suburbs. They're the Big Boy in the room, but they always want to abdicate responsibility when the time comes for explanations for why shit is the way it is.

The answer to always seems to be "it's leftists and minorities' fault; we did absolutely nothing wrong," which I'd be more willing to believe if at the same time we didn't get this smug browbeating that leftists have no political power to speak of because we're too disorganized. Even the article starts with how Biden won without the DSA. So then that significantly calls into question our ability to sway elections. Like, do you need us or not?

So like, at what point are liberals going to take responsibility for where we are right now? Or are you always the only enlightened ones in the room, and everyone else is just a "shrieking" moron who doesn't know better?

I didn't accuse you specifically of blaming anyone for anything. Your charge that leftists need more self-reflection was a springboard into my own grievances with modern liberalism.

Also, that poster wasn't arguing in bad faith; they legitimately feel as if a significant portion of contention liberals have with leftists is based upon negative social media interactions, which I can't say is all that out of line. I would wager the vast majority of all of our political discourse we conduct now, especially with people we disagree with, is on volatile social media platforms, not in real life where you actually are more apt to respect another human being or avoid the conversation altogether because you fear physical retaliation. You may disagree with that specific claim, but instead of doing that you said they were shrieking, specifically at a high-pitch, and lacked the self awareness to understand that they were somehow doing the thing on the article. These kinds of insults are not really the way to build coalition and bridge gaps, now are they?

I also know that the article isn't saying that Biden can't win without the DSA. It literally says the opposite; Party socialists weren't actually necessary for Biden's victory. If that is the case, then it must be argued that leftists have very little power, or at least far less power than liberals do, and yet it is leftists who liberals constantly charge as being at fault for subpar political outcomes rather than their own party platform, campaigning, and messaging.

In general, I don't disagree that self reflection is good. If anything, the constant in-fighting that is tantamount to this! I'm just wondering why it seems like only far-leftists are the ones who need to practice self-reflection, when it wasn't a far-leftist who lost to a rapist troglodyte, and it's not a far-leftist who has a non-zero chance of blowing it this year to that same rapist troglodyte now mired in court cases. Again, what responsibility does liberalism have to play in people's continued disenfranchisement in the United States and abroad? If you answer some level of "none" or "shit is bad but it's not our fault whatsoever," then you might be part of the problem.

My point was rather than address the article, it felt as if the poster was blaming other things and therefore was being dismissive and disruptive toward productive conversation.

I mean, imma be real with you Chief. I read the article. I don't see much there that basically isn't just the usual "leftists are trash and need to compromise on their beliefs more" shtick and a significant ignoring of the material reality that being a leftist means in a country hostile to leftism to the point of routine assassination. If I wanted that, I could get just by reading Era. I don't think it, in itself, is worth truly serious analysis, especially if, again, we're serious about trying to "build coalitions and unity." What about any of what was in the article is supposed to make my Black leftist ass more amenable to liberalism?

I didn't read it as making anyone more amenable to liberalism. I'm not any more amenable to it now than before I read it. I think it's arguing from the perspective of "what can our country learn from leftists in other countries" which I find valuable and productive. You may or may not agree with what other countries have done, but I still think it's a reasonable perspective to try and learn from. For me, anyway.

The issue with trying to learn wholesale from leftists in other countries in the way the article frames it is that A) We don't exist in parliamentary or proportional electoral systems wherein leftism can actually make it on the bench in a way that has not been significantly curtailed from its radical origins to the point of not really being leftist anymore, and B) I significantly question the historical and political veracity of claiming countries like France and Japan have really successful leftist coalitions if you just take a look at their current political realities and outcomes.

I do indeed agree though that there is a lot to learn from leftists in other countries. "Compromise your principles to get elected," isn't really one of them I feel we should aspire to. I would instead take more inspiration from the real world organizational aspects of leftists in places like Africa and South America, where people are engaged in doing physical work to establish lifelines and hubs where people can thrive and take these lessons forward in the political and civic process. But also, I feel that the US is unique in terms of our specific roadblocks which in turn will require unique solutions to work through on our own. Just our size alone is an impediment to organization that other countries may not have to deal with.

Again, I value progress, however incremental, over holding out for the perfect. If the opportunity is there to lock in improvements to the lives of people in areas other than wealth distribution right now today than wait for some not-guaranteed future where capitalism is demolished in a way that does not raze society to the ground I'll lock those gains in now. Every time. 100%.

I also value any progress we can get and understand that work must be done over significant lengths of time to achieve a better society.

My contention is that I don't feel liberals and leftists actually have as many fundamental base agreements as is claimed, and that we are not actually squabbling over minute differences but instead huge political differences that have yet to be settled into long-term goals that we all acknowledge we need to work towards without going astray, whether we're centrist or full blown anarchist.

Indeed, I would wager my vision of a utopia is far different from many liberals' here because we fundamentally disagree on the morality of the base political and economic systems at play and their subsequent effects on folks' oppression and life outcomes, even if on a more immediate timeline we can all agree on things like "corporate corruption is bad." But I mean damn, I've talked to Trumpers in real life and got them to admit to even that! It's not special or hard to do when you realize we're all suffering under the same political conditions.

As I asked in my original post, how do I start coalition building with people who fundamentally do not even recognize my oppression for what I believe it is? It makes no sense to me. Like, I'm certainly not going to ever say that "okay guys, we can keep the capitalism" for the sake of trying to get capitalists on my side when "the capitalism" is literally the core reason for why Black people are fucked. Because even if I do that and get the votes today, well tomorrow the contradiction remains and we're still gonna be fighting about this.

Now, I'm not saying I know everything. I can admit maybe I'm wrong on this belief. But for me to compromise on that belief, you would have to objectively demonstrate that capitalism had absolutely nothing to do with the slave trade or the continued economic disenfranchisement of Africa and Black diasporas happening literally right now, to say nothing of how it exacerbates social issues like lack of access to quality amenities, redlining, food deserts, etc.. And unfortunately I don't think the evidence really squares with you on that.

So if that's the case that I'm right that capitalism is why Black people are suffering right now, and have historically suffered under the world order of American and European hegemony, but liberals actually like the capitalism and American/European hegemony, then...what the fuck is it that we are all actually working towards together????

Mutual aid is nice but it does nothing to combat the tsunami of money that's coming to big city elections everywhere. A lot of Leftists in SF have done the retreat you have done and it's not going to make things any better for a lot of the underserved in society.

Voting Democrat doesn't actually do that either because Black people have been doing that for decades and we're still in the gutter because this country isn't actually interested in solving the base problems that maintain our oppression. Now, if your specific issue is money in politics, then there is significant work that needs to be done not just legally at the federal level, but also socially on discentivizing the wealthy from wanting to control political outcomes. Good luck with that when Democrats are also largely capitalists.

Capitalism absolutely is the core reason, yes.

For one, the idea that capitalism encapsulates some innate, universal human desire just doesn't have much actual physical evidence backing it up, as much as is true for any other economic system we've had before. Even feudalism wasn't practiced the same exact way in the same exact times across countries like Egypt, Japan, and England back when these systems were in place. Why? Because the physical environment of these countries was different, which in turn meant that the resulting conditions people had to deal with were different, which inevitably leads to different cultural evolutions. Human development is inevitable, but the outcome of the development is not; subsequently, the establishment of capitalism is loaded with such a shitload of chance that you get wildly different historical outcomes if certain events go a different way.

Seriously, tweak a few numbers and events here and there and you might get a timeline where Europeans aren't literally kidnapping so many Africans that the population didn't actually grow for centuries. However, we live in the timeline where Europe was able to establish significant military dominance, particularly at sea, in the run up to the Transatlantic Slave Trade, but what is important to note here is not only did capitalism lead directly to a slave trade on an unprecedented scale, but, like with feudalism, cultural conditions follow the economic conditions.

So it is with capitalism that you start seeing the establishment of not just white supremacy- all of the social, religious, and pseudo-scientific justifications for the economic reality of Africans being capital in and of themselves- but first the establishment of "whiteness" as a political class all on its own in the first place, mainly to help confused and sympathetic European indentured servants figure out which side they were supposed to be on. Literally, without capitalism, you don't even reach the concept of some unified "white people" in the first place.

Now, I don't think necessarily socialism would be immune from the racial ills we see today from a legacy of colonialism, because I don't think socialism on its own inherently fixes the fact that Africans are currently dealing with the outcome of a massive wealth, labor, and body transfer across centuries that amounts to trillions of dollars stolen, millions of lives and an immeasurable amount of culture lost forever, and the psychological trappings of the cultural conditioning that needed to be established for that to work for as long as it did. I feel for that to happen, you need actual violent revolution, and for Africans to take back what is rightfully theirs. You would also need conscious efforts at establishing African soft power and dismantling whatever white supremacist infrastructure existed in order to counteract centuries' old notions of our supposed inferiority.

However, ultimately the aim of socialism is inherently to disperse power over the material conditions of our economic systems- the ownership of land, factories, companies, etc.- across a generalized mass of workers. So, at the very least, it simply moves in the direction of fixing the condition of all Africans by stripping power away from the class of capitalists who ultimately owe all of their power specifically to African oppression. Socialism is more communal, cooperative, and less hierarchical in nature than capitalism is, meaning it is going to trend towards more egalitarian outcomes by default. That doesn't mean socialists can't be racist, of course, and it certainly doesn't mean capitalist racists wouldn't be able to try to infiltrate socialist movements specifically to sabotage them. They did it all throughout the civil rights movement of the 50s and they're still doing it today.

But ultimately if you're asking me whether or not I think capitalism or socialism would be better for Africans, it is socialism, no question. It's not just that capitalism inherently incentivizes greed, although it does do that. It's that the historical reality is that America and Western Europe are the wealthy power players they are specifically because they fucked over Africans and Indigenous groups for centuries. "Reforming" capitalism is not going to solve that problem, no more than an abusive partner is salvageable after the 30th time they've slammed your head into the wall.

I'm unsure of why we always hold the hard left responsible for conservative wins when, again, we're simultaneously charged with being so disorganized and so radical that we literally don't have the numbers to make meaningful change in Democratic victories. Our votes are not statistically relevant, so acting like we are the ones swaying national outcomes is laughable. If we had that much power America would legitimately be a better place.

I will continuously remind people that it was white independents and center-right folks in the Midwest, people who have no real strong political views one way or another and thus are the ones who are willing and able to comfortably break for either party, who got Trump in office off the back of his so-called "charisma." Subsequently, they will simultaneously be the ones to get him back in if they think Biden isn't good enough. That is your fight. Turning your anger and fear onto far-leftists, many of them the same queer and ethnic minorities you claim you care about, the majority of them largely still always breaking for Democrats in the end anyway, and saying they're accelerationists is not good "coalition building." Indeed, it's indicative of the same in-fighting you claim you're tired of engaging in.

And in general, if you want to bridge gaps with people of different views, you first need to actually recognize and at least sympathize with people's hang-ups and differences in some way. You need to talk to people as if they aren't evil (unless they're brandishing Nazi insignia at which point punch away). Liberals have this problem where they always believe they're the smartest person in the room and thus shouldn't have to meet people where they are, because they don't believe where people are is even a valid place to be. Everyone else is either just a lost sheep or an idiot; the idea that neoliberalism is failing entire populations just isn't a possibility to contend with, in ironically a very similar way that conservatives tell on themselves by charging people with even basic amounts of empathy with "virtue signalling," because they themselves cannot fathom caring about an out-group without having something to materially or socially gain for it, so it must be that everyone else is doing it too (although, ironically, there's a degree of truth to that when talking about realpolitik liberals).

They do this smug act with conservatives by default not just because conservatives are largely, well, wrong about base political and historical history and fact, but because they feel these people are just such an embarrassment that they get second-hand cringe. It reminds the white liberals of the annoying shit they have to put up with their family members. But without the shield of familial blood and with the excesses of social media, they treat conservatives as basically idiotic non-persons. But this attitude is consistently turned onto leftists too because ultimately part of the issue is that we don't just agree with fundamental moral issues, and when you don't agree with the smartest person in the room then you're, again, either a lost sheep or an idiot.

But this smugness is never really going to ensure you're going to be able to convince people to your cause, which is especially important if every election is "the most important election of a lifetime."

How wonderfully condescending.

You can't complain about condescension when you assumed:

- We don't recognize and act within the conditions of the real world.
- All we do is complain online
- Acting as if we don't already make concessions on what we want
- Dismissing admittedly flattened ideological tenants of ours ("If I had a nickel...")
- Handwaving rightful concern with oppression under Democratic rule

You come in here guns blazing with the same tired arguments pegging us as the problem and finger wagging about pragmatism and how, once again, you're the adult in the room because you operate in the real world. You have no room to complain about condescension.

Like, get some new material. xP

I have literally been told by other left folks, innumerable times, both on ERA and in real life, that there is no meaningful difference between Democrats and Republicans in power.

That is true under a leftist framework that poses that capitalism is the base problem with many a groups' oppression. Both parties are capitalist, therefore both are inevitably going to be responsible for the same oppression even if it's to different degrees.

Of course, most people are not going to say that there aren't notable differences in the party in terms of some social issues. We're not stupid. Yes, Republicans are not going to renege on trans rights at all. But as we've seen, trans rights can be strategically sacrificed under Democratic rule as well, meaning it cannot be argued that trans rights are an immutable line in the sand.

That's the downside of a "broad coalition" from a liberal lens; if you let everyone in, at some point you're gonna fuck someone over when there's a disagreement you have to hash out. This can be mitigated instead by a principle-based framework where entry into the coalition is based upon actual political tenets we all agree to abide by. This is more pejoratively known as "purity testing."

And note that we're only talking about trans rights now because far leftists did the work in actually taking LGBT rights seriously. Very few, if any, Democrats would be trying to gun for protections in the 80s and 90s while we were fighting in the streets.

I don't view myself as "the adult in the room." I view myself as someone lost in today's discourse because my left-wing/DemSoc views are dunked on by the wonks, moderates, and center-lefties, but my utilitarian philosophical framework and procedural way of processing things leads to left-wing people calling me a "lib" or a "centrist" over and over and over again.

Welcome to being a leftist, where you are fundamentally trying to change the world along with millions of others, all of whom are working with different philosophical parameters and life experiences. Part of the fight is not just in understanding where you personally stand on a general praxis level, but in being open to really hammering down and critiquing your biases and blind spots. You might have liberal biases that you need to hammer out if you're interested in not being characterized as such.

This shit is hard. And it only gets harder the more you learn.

Did I complain? I quoted it to note the irony of a post about how left-wing folks are quick to label anyone they don't like as "lib" or "centrist" immediately getting a response doubting that I believe in DemSoc and calling me a lib and a centrist. What a way to win hearts and minds.

Democratic socialism is definitely not a centrist position in American politics, but it's still ultimately just capitalism. If you're talking to anti-capitalists, then countering with dismissals of your committal to leftism with the fact that you're a Dem Soc is not gonna convince that sector of leftists.

But also at the same time, one should always be aware of the context of discussions they're participating in. Sometimes a conversation is not about an attempt to get you to change your mind. Sometimes people need to be told what's what, or to just shut the fuck up already. Not saying that you need to do the latter in this context; just saying that not every conversation is inherently a learning opportunity.

Personally speaking, I'm always questioning myself and trying to read more and more, and subsequently being called a lib is something I don't have a real issue with in this space, because I try my hardest to be ideologically consistent and not leave any room for (good faith) misinterpretation. Someone recently called me the most consistent poster regarding anti-colonialism and anti-capitalism here. That's because I stand ten toes down on that shit and won't settle for less no matter how much it pisses off more liberal and centrist Democrats here. Call that engaging in a purity test if you will, but you also cannot say that I don't mean what I say when I say it.

I said don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and then I specifically noted that that was not an excuse for throwing minorities or vulnerable populations under the bus. I have never supported that. FFS I am a minority.

Well there's never any excuse for throwing minorities under the bus. That we agree with. But it still happens regardless. As you said, we're stuck with the world we have, and we have to deal with the systems that are, and the systems that we live in regularly sacrifice minority well-being for any given political agenda because the systems we live in are built specifically on things like disenfranchisement and genocide.

Some people are not going to be okay with that and are going to do everything in their power to not want to be directly complicit in that. Other people are going to argue in one way or another that it's necessary for the greater long-term goal to let the Joe Manchins of the world have their way if their stubbornness is becoming an impediment to progress, because this is how the system works and you have to do whatever it is you can within that system to reduce harm. So what if a few bills for trans protections die? It's either that or full-throated trans genocide after all. You don't have to like it. But you do have to let Joe Manchin fuck over those trans kids in West Viriginia. Again, it all goes back to my belief that there are large scale philosophical differences between leftists on one end and liberals/centrists/pragmatists on the other. Leftists are so fundamentally opposed to these systems that they consider colonial and genocidal that they are simply more likely to disengage and agitate than liberals/centrists/pragmatists are.

I don't doubt that you are sincere when you say you hate the systems we live under, because a shitload of people do. Even Trumpers do. But that isn't really the issue; the issue is to how much moral legitimacy do you give these systems? To me, voting for someone you hate is just saying that you agree with giving a person that you hate power. Subsequently, you do not get the luxury of telling people who are under the bootheel of that person's reign that you're not responsible for their suffering because you only voted for the Medicare and the infrastructure bills. Our electoral system does not allow for fine-tuned support of individual agenda items; a vote for a candidate is a vote for the entire agenda. If you're okay with that, vote away. Others are simply not.

One problem of liberalism within capitalist frameworks is that it shapes a society that both generates the framework and contains society within it--concepts like reason, wants, needs, selfhood, freedom, democracy, etc., both result from it and nourish it. You may want a better future, but it must be generated within and contained by these frameworks. You may want to do a certain kind of work in your life, but you can only if it is available and allowable. You don't get to decide whether it can be and are required to choose from what is there. The mechanisms of generation/containment form a society that cares enough for wants and needs to make the violence palatable. As it generates and contains, it makes anything outside of it to be ridiculous, irrational, and dangerous. It leads to viewpoints such as the author's, which is that coalitions must function within that framework or else they are phony radicals. But I think it would be cooler to build coalitions that function without the frameworks that would contain them.

You.

I like you.

 

But really this is the best thing that turned up:

Rodney would tell you that the basic answer is that resource-rich countries in general, not just Russia, are underdeveloped due to exploitation, colonialism, and control of trade by the West along with internalized corruption as a result of the former.

   

[HaughtyFrank]

But really this is the best thing that turned up:

Rodney would tell you that the basic answer is that resource-rich countries in general, not just Russia, are underdeveloped due to exploitation, colonialism, and control of trade by the West along with internalized corruption as a result of the former.

   

Seriously wondering if Nepenthe could find Russia on a map

[Boredfrom]

White conservatives largely have no sense of cultural innoculation against the contradictions that occur when real-world systems betray fanciful moral ideals like literally every minority on the planet has had to build up. Instead of going "Oh, maybe the lessons and myths I was forcefed as a kid by my parents and teachers was wrong/watered down, and the world is a lot more complicated than "working hard means you'll be successful," they literally just never grew the fuck up

Real talk, from a humanities/art school dropout, YOU CHOOSE BEING A CARTOONIST!

[Potato]

Jack Zhang (📹🦝 Raccoon)
@JackRacc@furry.engineer
Time for a new thread.

I've been thinking about death for the past week because my last local friend got a worse beater car to replace the one that broke down, and it's not able to help me move in case of a new eviction.

The uncertainty surrounding my lemon phone is at peak. I literally don't know what I could do to speed up the process or guarantee anything anymore.

The thing that broke me: my last friend's introverted close circle on Vancouver Island offered to help them, but that circle denies me any help unless I am a full time working neurotypical. If they accept that help I will have no help remaining.

All this has made me seriously consider medical assistance in dying because I don't see anyway I can progress to function anymore.

No donation links this time. I'm at the end of my rope and I personally believe you all have shattered trust in me to offer help. If you do feel genuine, you'll use search to look up the links on my account.

L
O
L

Not yet

[Boredfrom]

We've even seen this shit targeted at characters like Lara who historically was made to appeal to women but has historically but has made more of an effort to appeal to women (wlw and lesbians especially in my experience love her).

I think Crystal Dynamics genuinely regrets that the first game of the reboot gives the impression that Lara was a lesbian. The cynic on me thinks they realized that is much easier to market Lara Croft without the baggage of what sexuality she is. “She needs to be pretty but tough. Not if she likes women or men.”

[benji]

The irony, and to provide support to the benji is Nep theorists, is that when she finally actually gets to the explanation it's not too different from my own position except she's so arrogant and conceited about it and lectures people as if they have a duty to agree with her. All while never actually considering what it might take to convince someone of her position or why she should even want to do this in the first place. This is aside from the fact that her position is incoherent and contradictory because she wants mass violence done but finds voting to be a restriction on that which is actually why she's against it not her claim that she finds the violence to be immoral.

She also doesn't follow the logic correctly. If you do not want to be complicit in the system then you can't vote. Period. Nepenthe ignores this and says that voting for the correct parties somehow avoids your complicity in endorsing the system of violence. But like the above, you can't have it both ways, if you find the system to be immoral then you have to opt out from it not selectively endorse it if the violence might be used in ways you desire. She's saying that it's fine for her to endorse the system she finds immoral because she's trying to change it for the better by voting in every single general election for irrelevant socialist parties. But this is literally the same position as the Democratic voters she spends all her time attacking, they're just willing to compromise slightly more to actually access power.

The most obvious rejoinder to the don't vote position is the self-defense argument. I can take this down because I'm willing to withdraw the moral support entirely and suffer the consequences of that. Nepenthe can't do this because she wants to provide herself a chance to opt into the system if it feels like she'll get her way. Hence, why her participating in the system is somehow leftist praxis, but B-Dubs voting not to die is complicity in genocide. She's fine with the system, she just doesn't care for the results when people other than her get a say.

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

Not to talk too much about myself but this distinction is also important in our comparative acceptances of that last part. I don't expect everyone else to agree with me, so my withdrawal from the system creates no great upset when people vote in ways I don't want them to. I expect this because they endorse the system in the first place. Nepenthe doesn't see this distinction because the entire focus of her moral argument is on the results the system produces, not the system itself. A problem that greatly affects much of her analysis of political questions, most notably in her inability to identify what capitalism is or is not.

[Daffy Duck]

Of course neither VICE nor any other outlet, let alone ResetERA.com, would give a shit if someone started tweeting at them with what Valens "community" wrote about Jesse Signal for not understanding the "joke" about breeding women. Valens wasn't sending their "following" after him because he dared criticize Valens. That was just The People holding Jesse accountable for his genocidal bloodlust.

I guess we don't even need to look at his "community" do we:

"I don't want to use a website that allows Jesse Singal on it."
*posts all day on both Bluesky and Twitter despite both allowing Jesse Singal*

I’ve no real idea who these people are but I’m mildly familiar with this Jesse Gender character, and aren’t they trans? Which makes this person calling him “him” I’m assuming MtF here, so if that’s the case why are Era going to bat for this person? Surely they’re absolute scum.

[Daffy Duck]

It's been a lot and even therapy has felt no helpful.

They must have the worst fucking therapist in the world

Sometimes the person having therapy is just a fuck up

[Boredfrom]

Whiteness has long since been a bulwark against organized labor and anti-capitalist projects since literally, like, the 1700s when Irish indentured servants decided to abandon solidarity with African slaves because of laws giving them better treatment at Africans' expense

How can anyone can read that and don’t think “she is a crazy ass racist bigot.”

[Boredfrom]

Of course neither VICE nor any other outlet, let alone ResetERA.com, would give a shit if someone started tweeting at them with what Valens "community" wrote about Jesse Signal for not understanding the "joke" about breeding women. Valens wasn't sending their "following" after him because he dared criticize Valens. That was just The People holding Jesse accountable for his genocidal bloodlust.

I guess we don't even need to look at his "community" do we:

"I don't want to use a website that allows Jesse Singal on it."
*posts all day on both Bluesky and Twitter despite both allowing Jesse Singal*

I’ve no real idea who these people are but I’m mildly familiar with this Jesse Gender character, and aren’t they trans? Which makes this person calling him “him” I’m assuming MtF here, so if that’s the case why are Era going to bat for this person? Surely they’re absolute scum.

I think you are confusing two very different people.

Jessie Singal =/= Jessie Gender

[Potato]

Not a real woman? You have a penis and XY chromosomes. ✅

Non-female desires? You want to put your penis in a woman's vagina to create a baby. ✅

Rapey or creepy vibes? You want to do this without consent in a systemic rapist manner. ✅

[Besticus Maximus]

Of course neither VICE nor any other outlet, let alone ResetERA.com, would give a shit if someone started tweeting at them with what Valens "community" wrote about Jesse Signal for not understanding the "joke" about breeding women. Valens wasn't sending their "following" after him because he dared criticize Valens. That was just The People holding Jesse accountable for his genocidal bloodlust.

I guess we don't even need to look at his "community" do we:

"I don't want to use a website that allows Jesse Singal on it."
*posts all day on both Bluesky and Twitter despite both allowing Jesse Singal*

I’ve no real idea who these people are but I’m mildly familiar with this Jesse Gender character, and aren’t they trans? Which makes this person calling him “him” I’m assuming MtF here, so if that’s the case why are Era going to bat for this person? Surely they’re absolute scum.

You're getting your jessies mixed up. The Jessie in question is a man, who is a journalist. You're thinking of Jessie, who is a man, and is a journalist.

[benji]

But really this is the best thing that turned up:

Rodney would tell you that the basic answer is that resource-rich countries in general, not just Russia, are underdeveloped due to exploitation, colonialism, and control of trade by the West along with internalized corruption as a result of the former.

   

Seriously wondering if Nepenthe could find Russia on a map

Are you suggesting that the Mongol Empire might not have been from the West?

[benji]

Whiteness has long since been a bulwark against organized labor and anti-capitalist projects since literally, like, the 1700s when Irish indentured servants decided to abandon solidarity with African slaves because of laws giving them better treatment at Africans' expense

How can anyone can read that and don’t think “she is a crazy ass racist bigot.”

I think we talked about this back when she posted it at the time but I don't think this is a thing that actually ever remotely happened anywhere. She's imagining the 18th Century as if it were the globalized 21st. 

[Boredfrom]

Whiteness has long since been a bulwark against organized labor and anti-capitalist projects since literally, like, the 1700s when Irish indentured servants decided to abandon solidarity with African slaves because of laws giving them better treatment at Africans' expense

How can anyone can read that and don’t think “she is a crazy ass racist bigot.”

I think we talked about this back when she posted it at the time but I don't think this is a thing that actually ever remotely happened anywhere.

We totally did, I remember for how stupid and nonsensical it was. I may have wrote the same comment about “how anyone…?”.

[Hap Shaughnessy]

Was El Bombastico deported? He has been MIA for months.

https://www.resetera.com/search/32174433/?q=%2A&c[users]=El+Bombastico&o=date

Copy and paste the whole thing.

[benji]

It might also be something she's said multiple times.

This was actually maybe my favorite post from those I spoilered, our more European focused Bire members might enjoy one part of it:

The issue with trying to learn wholesale from leftists in other countries in the way the article frames it is that A) We don't exist in parliamentary or proportional electoral systems wherein leftism can actually make it on the bench in a way that has not been significantly curtailed from its radical origins to the point of not really being leftist anymore, and B) I significantly question the historical and political veracity of claiming countries like France and Japan have really successful leftist coalitions if you just take a look at their current political realities and outcomes.

I do indeed agree though that there is a lot to learn from leftists in other countries. "Compromise your principles to get elected," isn't really one of them I feel we should aspire to. I would instead take more inspiration from the real world organizational aspects of leftists in places like Africa and South America, where people are engaged in doing physical work to establish lifelines and hubs where people can thrive and take these lessons forward in the political and civic process.

I also would love to know what this last sentence is even supposed to mean. The only interpretation I can come up with that makes sense is guerilla warfare against the state. You know, like these leftists who were engaged in doing physical work in South America rather than compromising to get elected: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shining_Path

[StandingOvation]

It's been a lot and even therapy has felt no helpful.

They must have the worst fucking therapist in the world

Is probably a gender therapist.

It’s a fucking cat.

[Boredfrom]

Was El Bombastico deported? He has been MIA for months.

https://www.resetera.com/search/32174433/?q=%2A&c[users]=El+Bombastico&o=date

Copy and paste the whole thing.

Man, I feel he used to post more.

[Potato]

It's been a lot and even therapy has felt no helpful.

They must have the worst fucking therapist in the world

Sometimes the person having therapy is just a fuck up

Sometimes the person providing the therapy *cough* Messofanego *cough* is just a fuck up.

[killamajig]

Was El Bombastico deported? He has been MIA for months.

https://www.resetera.com/search/32174433/?q=%2A&c[users]=El+Bombastico&o=date

Copy and paste the whole thing.

His posting style.....

Is annoying....


I just noticed he loves his one liners......

[Gameboy Nostalgia]

Biden? Hates Arabs!
Trump? Loves em!



Inshallah, Trump will bring peace to the middle east! Biden BLUEMAGA Era in shambles!

[Gameboy Nostalgia]

Add it to the front page. 

[benji]

:

Democrats:

: ZIONIST CAPITALISTS? FUCK OFFFFFOOOOFFFFFFF

[Jansen]

[Boredfrom]

Astolfo ruined a whole generation. Just like Saber ruined King Arthur.

[Gameboy Nostalgia]

Fate was a mistake. Type-Moon will never recover and will continue making Fate slop!