misery cones

It's all well and good to ridicule elitists and striving "hustle and grind" entrepeneur artists. But on the flip side, I don't think that passive consumers are an oppressed minority that need defending. It's possible to rank pastimes on a scale of active vs. passive engagement.* Modding a game is more active than playing a game. Painting a paint by numbers painting with the wrong colors is more active than following the directions. Modifying clothes is more active than mixing and matching clothes which is more active than choosing a fit from a list of premade fits which is more active than wearing a school uniform. I agree that having a professional artist class is bad. I want a world where everyone's needs are met, people have day jobs that keep society running, and everyone has enough free time and energy to pursue their hobbies. But in that ideal society, I'm still going to admire people with active hobbies more than people with passive hobbies. We don't need a society where everyone gets an equal amount of admiration.

About individual self defense with a gun its most likely simply never going to come up for you and unless you concealed carry it everywhere you probably wont have it on you when someone actually is trying to hate crime you out in the street though it has to be someone at a population level. In a hypothetical situation where you're getting dragged off to a concentration camp as a single person your odds of winning a firefight against the neogestapo are bad simply due to numbers if nothing else. If you do kill your would be kidnappers now you're a fugitive if you don't you're a corpse though arguably both are preferable options to starving in a cage. But the situation isnt like that yet it may be someday soon but we arent there yet. Right now its immigrants being targeted and disappeared that means they can do it to anyone including citizens yes but the deportations arent about white lgbt people it's about silencing dissent against a genocide and protecting "racial purity". Obviously large scale manufacturing of firearms in preparation for working class collective self defense on a massive scale is infinitely superior to indivudual firearm ownership but its pretty clear thats not going to materialize anytime soon so individual firearm ownership is desirable in that its absolutely better than nothing at all but reliance on it only demonstrates how totally unprepared for civil war everyone actually is. Theres a lot of ways to get that ship in order far more pressing than being a gun hobbyist though guns ultimately cant be neglected unless you want slaughtered like the Indonesians and Chileans.

"your odds of winning a firefight against the neogestapo are bad simply due to numbers if nothing else" dying in a firefight is infinitely better than dying in a camp and if it's a widespread trend it will make the neogestapo at least a little less smug and a little more nervous about doing their jobs. It's an unfortunate reality that the FBI/CIA/US Military are actually really good at stopping organized uprisings. Unless Trump does so much damage to government agencies that this is no longer the case and also charasmatic leaders step up to fill the current vacuum of leftist leadership, there's not going to be a revolution or civil war or anything of the sort. But individuals can prepare to go out on a strong note rather than a weak one.

You cannot "Assassinate CEOs" your way into dismantling capitalism you need to do other shit too. If you hate the health care system what you hate is the institutional enshrinement of private property. You hate the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. There is but one solution to this and it is not "spontaneous direct action" nor is it affording random adventurists folk-sainthood. it is the organized wresting of control of the state from the bourgeoisie to the proletariat at gunpoint. It is the dictatorship of the proletariat.

People on Tumblr will really be like "You believe in lone wolf attacks on CEOs? That pales in effectiveness to my strategy, organizing and training an civilian army cabable of defeating the US military" and then not organize and train a civilian army

I hope that if trump wins then democrat voters do their own jan 6

if u don't then like. wow, didn't really care that much about fascism :/

The democrats would be dumb as hell to imitate the thing that didn't work. But luckily the US leftist strategy of being smug online and doing nothing else will usher in communism any day now

ultimately communists aren't even telling you not to vote, the point is that it is completely ineffective action. when you ask 'why shouldn't we vote? we can vote and do other stuff' it is as if you had been proposing prayer as a solution to fascism and scolding anyone who said otherwise - even if your argument is 'there's no reason not to try', it implies an incredible and grave misunderstanding of what is and is not an effective means of political action. like... sure. go ahead and pray, to god or to Democracy, and buy fair-trade while you're at it, but if we're being honest, here, I think the defensiveness over it shows not genuine faith, but a desperation to engage with a system that clearly does not work, but whose alternative appears scary and unclear to you.

communists be like “aren’t you glad you didn’t vote (it’s an allegory of prayer to the status quo)” while they shuffle us all into a death camp

if I were being marched into a death camp I would simply Vote my way out. remember when the red army liberated auschwitz with incremental reforms

no but i remember that hitler was put into power because enough people voted for him soooooo

It's difficult to buy the "voting does nothing" argument when we've watched the far right in America gain power largely by voting for the farthest right candidate in every primary. Meanwhile right wing wannabe militias have accomplished very little. The MAGA takeover is doing a good job of demonstrating what works and what doesn't and I suggest we learn from their example. Voting in primaries? Effective. Meme propaganda? Effective. Storming the Capitol? Ineffective. Stochastic terrorism? Effective.

"got it, so I should be engaging in stochastic terrorism, on it boss 🫡" Why would you infer such a thing that of course I could not have possibly intended? What a wacky misunderstanding. I'm pro gun. My point is that the right: 1. Has been stockpiling guns which may benefit them eventually 2. Has been voting in republican primaries which has been actively benefiting them in the present They're doing both and the left should also do both.

ultimately communists aren't even telling you not to vote, the point is that it is completely ineffective action. when you ask 'why shouldn't we vote? we can vote and do other stuff' it is as if you had been proposing prayer as a solution to fascism and scolding anyone who said otherwise - even if your argument is 'there's no reason not to try', it implies an incredible and grave misunderstanding of what is and is not an effective means of political action. like... sure. go ahead and pray, to god or to Democracy, and buy fair-trade while you're at it, but if we're being honest, here, I think the defensiveness over it shows not genuine faith, but a desperation to engage with a system that clearly does not work, but whose alternative appears scary and unclear to you.

communists be like “aren’t you glad you didn’t vote (it’s an allegory of prayer to the status quo)” while they shuffle us all into a death camp

if I were being marched into a death camp I would simply Vote my way out. remember when the red army liberated auschwitz with incremental reforms

no but i remember that hitler was put into power because enough people voted for him soooooo

It's difficult to buy the "voting does nothing" argument when we've watched the far right in America gain power largely by voting for the farthest right candidate in every primary. Meanwhile right wing wannabe militias have accomplished very little. The MAGA takeover is doing a good job of demonstrating what works and what doesn't and I suggest we learn from their example. Voting in primaries? Effective. Meme propaganda? Effective. Storming the Capitol? Ineffective. Stochastic terrorism? Effective.

That door being a little bit open does so much to enhance the otherworldly vibe of this photo

I only know of evidence of a single genocide that occurred prior to European arrival is of one group of Ancestral Puebloans of another at Sacred Ridge from 800 CE. I do think that it’s an important distinction that 1. Genocide was rare prior to European arrival and 2. The extent of the European genocide was exponentially greater than any violent conflict that happened prior to their arrival. And the extent of the genocide is very much tied to the violation of treaties, since many Native American groups signed treaties specifically because those treaties would have preserved their society and land ownership if honored. To my mind, the treaty violations are a big part of what makes America “stolen” rather than “conquered.” If England were invaded by the Mayans they would certainly WANT their land back. But unlike the vast majority of Native American groups, they wouldn’t deserve to get it back because of their history of violent colonialism.

What I should have said was: if the UK was conquered by the Mayans, Ireland should go back to the Irish, Scotland should go back to the Scottish, etc. I also think that the land that the Aztecs conquered should go back to the people they conquered it from rather than the Aztecs, the land that the Navajo took from the Hopi should go back to the Hopi, etc.

Oh, but also: I guess my point about the English is that if a nation commits enough international crimes, they shouldn’t get to be a nation anymore. So in this hypothetical scenario, the English working class should get their land but the monarchy should not be reinstated.

I only know of evidence of a single genocide that occurred prior to European arrival is of one group of Ancestral Puebloans of another at Sacred Ridge from 800 CE. I do think that it’s an important distinction that 1. Genocide was rare prior to European arrival and 2. The extent of the European genocide was exponentially greater than any violent conflict that happened prior to their arrival. And the extent of the genocide is very much tied to the violation of treaties, since many Native American groups signed treaties specifically because those treaties would have preserved their society and land ownership if honored. To my mind, the treaty violations are a big part of what makes America “stolen” rather than “conquered.” If England were invaded by the Mayans they would certainly WANT their land back. But unlike the vast majority of Native American groups, they wouldn’t deserve to get it back because of their history of violent colonialism.

What I should have said was: if the UK was conquered by the Mayans, Ireland should go back to the Irish, Scotland should go back to the Scottish, etc. I also think that the land that the Aztecs conquered should go back to the people they conquered it from rather than the Aztecs, the land that the Navajo took from the Hopi should go back to the Hopi, etc.

He’s literally me

I only know of evidence of a single genocide that occurred prior to European arrival is of one group of Ancestral Puebloans of another at Sacred Ridge from 800 CE. I do think that it’s an important distinction that 1. Genocide was rare prior to European arrival and 2. The extent of the European genocide was exponentially greater than any violent conflict that happened prior to their arrival. And the extent of the genocide is very much tied to the violation of treaties, since many Native American groups signed treaties specifically because those treaties would have preserved their society and land ownership if honored. To my mind, the treaty violations are a big part of what makes America “stolen” rather than “conquered.” If England were invaded by the Mayans they would certainly WANT their land back. But unlike the vast majority of Native American groups, they wouldn’t deserve to get it back because of their history of violent colonialism.

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