chapotraphouse

Maybe they are on Hexbear now?

Someone asked before and I swear someone said that they've since reformed somewhat which is good.

I remember reading they did th video ironically and after it blew up they did the sensible thing and disappeared from the surface of the earth. Just a hazy memory but kind of unsettling to consider

It's as over the top as we make is seem.

So much so I am not convinced it's not a bit.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/REFsYsMa31g

It's cringe HOF.

I feel this lol. I'm an elder millennial with a bunch of zoomer friends and don't know what they are saying half the time.

thank you for being careful to capitalize Dick there

talks about it later

"OH MY GOD, WHATABOUTISM!"

It's the embodiment of though

I think it's not too bad to keep the emote but nobody should go around trying to find out their name or repeating it if they do know it

Edit: thanks for the good question. I'm firing at the hip here and not editing this a lot because I'm a little drunk, but the following may explain it a bit I hope.

The act of voting itself is by almost any measure inconsequential. We don't really care if you as an individual do or don't vote in presidential elections. What we take issue with is the presentation that voting is the primary, only, or most important form of political participation. You're not going to stop our descent into fascism by voting for neo-libs because they're going to keep fanning the flames of material conditions and contradictions that drive people to adopt fascist ideology. Every single election is presented as the ultimate struggle against fascism and we just HAVE to put up with the center-right corporate shill one more time to prevent the fascists from gaining power - but please ignore the fact that they keep winning and growing in influence anyway. Definitely don't get any ideas about doing anything besides voting, that would hurt the bottom line. Show up and crank the lever legitimizing your own oppression and be happy for the opportunity.

Our derision about all this comes from the kafkaesque absurdity of that cycle and inability of people obsessed from seeing the futility in it all. Stopping fascism is going to require more, and the emphasis on voting as the only option intentionally obscures those other solutions. It gives the false impression of doing something, which arguably is maybe worse than doing nothing at all. All the energy and time that could go into more effective political action is instead poured into ineffectual voting campaigns that only serve to reinforce the status quo (which, again, is a steady slide towards reactionary positions.) The atomic unit of propaganda is emphasis, thus SO much attention is given to voting and that crowds out real solutions that actually work from public consideration.

Plus, it doesn't even make sense, truly. If Donald Trump is an actual fascist that is seeking to enact genocide, war crimes, and general human rights abuses beyond imagination... Shouldn't we be handling this a little more ahem permanently? If the liberals in power were serious about their own rhetoric, they should be doing a hell of a lot more to "protect democracy" than riling up the base with scary language every four years. Truth is they don't believe their own story, they think they can keep getting away with trotting out war-criminals and debt hounds and forcing us to accept it because the opposition is somehow worse. They're not wrong about the opposition being immediately worse, they're just wrong about being able to get away with it forever. Their own ghoulish policies feed the forces of greater fascism, and this grift only works until the fascists actually DO seize power, and then they'll kill the liberals and communists alike. We shouldn't wait around for that to happen, so part of that means getting over our religious devotion to voting as our primary understanding of political participation.

i voted biden, but to act like voting protects us from fascism is silly. it certainly isnt stopping my trans sibs from getting genocided in florida. if i were president id declare them a secessionist for flagrant violations of federal law and crimes against humanity, disband their legislature, roll in the tanks, and finish the reconstruction the radical republicans wanted after the civil war. this hasnt happened with biden.

what does protect us against violence, and really the only way to guarantee your safety as an individual, is inclusive union power. plenty of unions have stopped work to prevent deportations and racist violence in the past, and frankly these inclusive unions were pivotal in passing any civil rights in america whatsoever.

I don't consider it dumb, we don't universally dunk on voting, but I think most of us would say it's borderline meaningless. The end result of Biden's time in office vs. Trump's time in office thus far are almost indistinguishable. They both happily support the pursuit to bomb other countries, actively fuel and support overseas wars, attempt coups on foreign governments, blockade Cuba against the wishes of the entire UN, torture innocents in black bag sites, lock up children, imprison people en masse, watch millions suffer without actually reasonably helping, etc. Biden's term in office has overseen a horrific reversal in abortion law and has directly made active efforts to limit the actions of unions, and so forth - that sounds not very distinct from fascism to me.

Main point of the post is "We'll talk about it later" has been the general attitude from liberals to leftists since the beginning of time. We're ALWAYS just averting a crisis right now and it turns out that right now is never the time to actually make constructive change.

We don't dunk on good faith questions! None of us were born principled communists, we had to learn. It was through patient study, but much more importantly, patient teaching that we gained clearer perspectives on those kinds of questions. Thank you for asking!