@ErikJonker@mastodon.socialCapitalism / market economy in the US.... "In a highly unusual arrangement with President Trump, the companies are expected to kick 15 percent of what they make in China to the U.S. government."
https://www.
@hex@kolektiva.socialWhat are you going to do when the regime falls? After calling all your friends, after the great memes, after the parties, what are you going to do to make sure it never happens again? What world should we create?
Taxing billionaires is great and all, but we could build systems where billionaires are impossible. Is hoarding wealth and using it to control people even something we should consider part of a functional and humane system? Any system where one group of people doesn't have rights means that anyone can be stripped of their rights, like has happened with all the US citizens who've been illegally detained and deported by ICE. Does the concept of "rights" that must be defended with violence, that can be stripped away by people who can exercise more violence, even make sense? Or should the bedrock of a functional system be the obligations that we have to each other and to society, that cannot be severed or taken from us, that tell us we *must* defend regardless of whether systemic oppression will impact us or not?
Americans have been so restricted by the limitations of the two party system, only able to choose between options acceptable to different sections of the capitalist class. Would we even be able to imagine what we could do if those restrictions went away?
The fall of the Berlin wall was a surprise. The fall of Assad was faster than anyone expected. One day the government of Nepal was an unrepentant oligarchy, the next it was on fire. Everything can change in an instant, faster than anyone expects. No one can predict revolutionary change. Will you be ready if the opportunity presents itself?
The US cannot be fixed. The economic system is a ponzi scheme that has been patched again and again, but has finally run out of options. Racism, sexism, and Christian nationalism are baked into the system at every level. Trump gutted the system of soft power that held the US economy together, now there is only a slow decline. Even after he's gone, the damage is done. Once we let go of how to fix something that cannot be fixed, we can start to imagine something that cannot be achieved within the current system.
This is a time of opportunity. Do not burrow so deep in terror that you miss your chance to dream.
#USPol
@hex@kolektiva.socialI think I need to clarify some shit for (white) liberals.
How many times have you wondered if someone you're talking to in an informant sent to entrap you? How many times have you or a friend of yours been hit by a car, intentionally? How many friends have been hit, or almost hit? Ever been stabbed? Know anyone who has? Has the FBI ever knocked on a friend's door? Have police ever kicked down your door? Have you ever been arrested? Pepper sprayed? Does the sound or smell or blast balls give you flashbacks? Do you ever wonder what all the CS exposure is doing to your body? How many times have you been shot or shot at? Do you wonder every day if this is the day they'll come to kill you? Would anyone in your social circle answer these questions differently?
When you vote, you risk nothing (big asterisk, but if I'm talking to you then it doesn't apply to you). What you get out of voting is exactly what you put into it. Direct action is the same.
If you aren't worried about someone murdering you, then you probably aren't actually threatening the system. That's the difference between voting, and doing something useful. If they had to murder all the liberals in order to keep going, fascism would end. If they're only murdering radicals and marginalized people, then you're just like all the "good Germans" who hated Hitler but did essentially nothing.
It's already that bad for some people. How much are you willing to risk? How many people are you willing to sacrifice for your comfort? These are the questions we're all thinking about every time you tell us to vote.
(I'm tagging this #USPol so it's easy for folks to filter out if they're already well acquaintaned with the horror. I'm not CW, because USPol is just expected to be triggering.)
