No I’m not catastrophising.
The world is slowly lurching towards a fully fascist led America, India, Hungary, Russia, Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Argentina.
Instead people are either ignorant or blaming “wokeism”* for their problems.
I have no clue what to do and this is literally a car crash in slow motion.
I’m despondent because I’m going to be crushed under the boot when the time comes and my morals get in the way of my survival instinct.
Humans are repeating the mistakes of the past. It’s just so anxiety inducing.
*Woke is a useless term promulgated by fascists to dog whistle the things they really want to hate - feminism, socialism, LGBTQIA+, immigration, brown/black people, equality and diversity.
I hate to say this but I’ve honestly just gotten used to the idea at this point. I’ve been watching the people around me howling in support of fascism since about 2015 now and the more egregious these politicians crimes become the louder these idiots seem to howl for them. It’s been going so long that it’s just part of the background noise of day to day life now, and I’m tired of caring anymore. It’s fucking depressing.
How can we convince people now is the time to act? What more information do we need? I think most people are clinging to the idea everything is business as usual. As long as they can keep the lights on they wouldn’t want to upset the stability they’ve managed to make for themselves.
As a Russian who’s been thinking about what could’ve been done about Putin’s many moves towards authoritarianism, I say this: I don’t know. I dint think anyone knows either.
indsight is 20/20, so good luck trying to convince people to act now, before the far and distant future is here; it’s probably part of our nature to not be that much concerned with the long-term, as it’s the short- to mid-term that keeps us alive, i.e. fed, sheltered, hopefully healthy etc.
At this point, it feels like history is indeed very cyclical, at least society is, and now anyone left of outright fascism seems to be in minority, with many others either failing or refusing to recognise what’s likely coming. I don’t think it’s new, either - I’m sure people of our ages had things to compare their situation to during the Nazis’ rise to power and subsequent events, just like we look back to their times and wonder how in the world could we possibly let that happen.
It’s probably best to vote and to protest and to be politically active and all that, before the right-wing or some other authoritarian group manages to manipulate its way into your government, local or higher, and start doing all it can to make you not even think of voting or protesting or being politically active. The caveat is you just don’t have any guarantees that any of that is going to work.
What’s even more important to remember is the fact that we cannot come up with some universal solution that’s going to always work the best way possible in every political and economical and social circumstance. This is what makes recording history and experience so important - it will allow us and those that will be after us to analyse the multitudes of factors and tendencies that lead to things and hopefully figure out reliable and effective and predictable mechanisms for society to function and prosper in mutual respect, egalitarianism, support, etc.
My last take is probably a little controversial: I think we shouldn’t ostracise people we see as fascist or right-wing or authoritarian, etc., but rather be welcoming and supporting, giving them respect, community and opportunity to speak and be listened to with kindness and understanding; many turn to violent and inhumane ideologies because, well, they don’t value themselves, feel threatened, humiliated, afraid, or something along these lines. It doesn’t have to be true, because it’s about how people feel, and we must work with how people feel and influence that on emotional level so they feel like they being in a group that’s based on being “anti-woke” or just “anti-” something - that’s a dead end; they should feel like they belong to groups that envision future and prosperity, where people know they can be trusted and can trust, where they can respect and be respected. You may not like it, but you have to understand that the human psyche can be very flexible and eventually turn a person you could easily turn into a human-loving ally into a bloodthirsty fascist just because they couldn’t find their place anywhere else, so instead they’re easily picked up by a group that manipulates confused and lost people into a sense of community and belonging.
Fascism has to be the unappealing option for them, and that requires a mind healthy from trauma and loneliness, the lack of that feeling like you’ve been played and robbed of something you own - like some great historical period the mouthpieces promise to get you back into if you yell at teenage girls for wearing bright-colored hair and rainbow pins.
I agree with your controversial take, however it’s important to note that a lot of this fascist rhetoric relies on misinformation which is spread far quicker and further than the truth. And the neofascism that has taken hold is very in-group oriented (i.e. the concepts that the in group is by definition morally virtuous and thus can do no real harm, whereas the out-group is the opposite) which is difficult to break down with logic and rhetoric. That’s not to say it can’t be done, but in terms of conversion (purely as a metric, i don’t mean to be oberly reductionist) it will always be one step forward three back. And if they people don’t approach a conversation in good faith it can be downright impossible to get them to even fathom a differing perspective. What I’m saying is that the new breed of fascists rely solely on dogma and groupthink, and have been trained to reject any rebuttal or outside perspective. They took what the old fascists did well and optimized it and trained people in it for the past 70+ years.
I understand how you might feel this way. But a key difference to the early 1930s is that there are many large-scale protests against far right extremism in Germany. The elections in the Netherlands did produce a right wing tendency, but there is no government as of yet and the PVV is still pretty far away from fascism. The other three large winners of the election are not even that right wing. At least no more than the party that ruled for the last 15 years.
That said, I do kinda hope that this phase passes quickly and that people will start to finally get along and care about our fellow humans. Even though we never have.
The protests in germany give me hope that the german public finally resists against fascism instead of just letting it happen and then saying “there’s nothing that could have been done” afterwards
I expect the US will hold out for at least the next 4.5 years. After that, no promises.
4.5 years is optimistic with an election pending
I expect that the US will last five years, what’s the bet?
Well, at least that will take your mind off global warming. Which is good since we have already hit 1.5°C of warming.
1.5 and we’re just getting started! Let’s goooooo! It’s incredible what humans can do when we work together 🔥👏🏻🔥👏🏻🔥
You are a horrible person to make me laugh so hard at our folly
I’m only 18 and I’m already so fucking tired of existing in this world, seems like everything is going downhill and I’m just gonna be forced to live in an authoritarian dictatorship world where all the air is full of toxins and the water is full of plastic
I hate thinking so negatively about the future but the more the world seems to crumble around me the more I feel like we might be one of the last generations of humans that got to experience civilisation for a long time.
The planet is dying, fascism is spreading, the tensions are rising, and everyone has nukes! woo! future!
You forgot to mention end stage capitalism to further enrich the 1% and corporations.
that’s part of the “planet is dying” bit, since nobody who can do something about it is doing anything
On the positive side a world ravaged by nuclear war could solve both problems!
Yay.
*cough* Posadism *cough*
TIL. The Federation already exists. We just aren’t communist enough to get the immortality beam and reality bomb engine.
TIL. The Federation already exists.
Weelll except for the nuclear first-use policy.
Although all in all that’d sort of track, too
Look on the bright side: it’s not as if this will continue forever. If our infrastructure is failing as deeply as it seems, society will reach a breaking point. The real question is where that point is and making sure you reach it. If it truly gets bad enough we’ll see the return of the guillotine, maybe even literally if we’re feeling spicy
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I don’t think that’s what he meant. As far as I understood his comment he meant using the guillotine in the French way.
However you’re right. It will get very bad before it gets good again.
If our infrastructure is failing as deeply as it seems, society will reach a breaking point.
My sector. It is worse than you think and I am scared of quitting.
The French Revolution wasn’t what pop-history suggests. It was a genocidal civil war that killed far more commoners than nobles. There was a point where they were killing so many people, the only way they could keep up was to drown them en masse by chaining them to a barge and sinking it.
Just do what you can. Don’t join the army and minimize your contribution to fascist government. Put your efforts locally where you can :)
Woke is a hijacked term by the facists it literally means to be socially aware of the problems faced by different people in a society
Just to give you a bit of a morale boost: every generation thinks they’re the last ans that everything is about to go to shit. In the end that never really happens.
Yes, a lot of right wing politicians have beek elected, also all previous ones have failed and got kicked out. For the Netherlands I predict the government will fall within a year as it typically tends to do when the leaders fuck up and this guy will likely fuck up soon enough.
Basically, this too shall pass.
Climate change is indeed a big cloud mainly because it will take centuries to fix even if we’re going to fully dedicate ourselves to fixing it, which right now we are not. On the other end I finally hear about actual progress with fusion which, if true, may be the key to solving climate change within a century, solving it to acceptable levels within decades, if the will is there.
Point is: things look bleak, but they always do. Back during the cold war it literally was same shit, different day. Yet, the world moved forward and things slowly improved.
Things will be fine, you will be fine.
Your take on climate change makes me more worried. Sure, I will probably be fine, but how many innocent people around the world will die until we’ve done enough to see the climate improving?
How horrible is the world going to be to inhabit if the Gulf Stream collapses? Or other major climate disruptions occur?
I don’t doubt the human race will survive, but why do we have to experience the pain before committing to fixing the problem?
For your last comment, I think it’s because pain is one of the only things that motivates us
The wealthiest live right next to the beach.
While I’d like to think the wealthiest would do something that would benefit everyone, they can just build walls, or move to higher ground.
The poor tropics are especially screwed. Also all the cities on the coast
And there’s optimism in climate change, zeroing our carbon burn is straight forward. It wouldn’t take a decade if we could agree on the sane path
But we have pushed so much CO2 into the air, and so much heat into the sea we need to do better than zero. I’m pretty pessimistic
Thanks, I guess part of being an adult is just being more and more indifferent to the gradual decline of the world so that the crippling dread does not consume you.
Explains why my parents are still asking for grandkids.
Not at all
- with age comes the perspective of distance. Everything is in cycles but has a backlash to center and beyond. It’s not that bad
- children are the hope for the future. They’re the reason we act to improve things. They’re the ones who will both benefit from a better world as well as help create it in ways we can’t imagine. Children today are better off in so many ways, and future children will be even more so.
future children will be even more so.
doubt.
Well not with that attitude.
We should be more concerned about the attitude of the billionaires and the politicians they own.
Things often get a whole lot worse before they get better. People thought things were on the brink of turning to shit in the 1930s, and then we had a world war for 6 years. Tens of millions of people died, countless more were displaced, cities were leveled, and history was lost.
I admire your optimism, but I can’t ignore that the world and even my country specifically look more and more like a powder keg with every passing day. I’m terrified that we can’t get to “fine” again without first suffering through an extremely dangerous period of time, and there’s no guarantee that any of us will be “fine” during that time.
We haven’t had a world war since WW2. We haven’t got two likely sides now. China owns too much of the West, Russia is no longer credible
No things wont be fine. At least for me and many others anyway.
I’m sorry you can’t see that yet.
There is an underclass of angry, often white, men who are frustrated at their life and instead of directing their rage at the capitalist system, which is responsible for the position they are in, they’ve been told immigrants, socialism, feminism, LGBTQIA+ and brown people are the problem.
They are now organising to make their fictional narrative reality and I will be crushed when this happens along with millions of others, like you, who thought this could never happen again.
The tragedy is that those same men who think they’ll be empowered by fascists will be swept aside the moment they are no longer useful. They are victims to an extent too, just that they will have enacted violence and terror while being wrong.
I will be crushed when this happens along with millions of others, like you, who thought this could never happen again.
Be careful of the slippery slope fallacy.
If they ever secure power my fate is basically sealed. I’ve accepted that.
It’s not slippery slope to be clear eyed about reality.
That’s not certain and them getting absolute power also isn’t.
So to me it sounds a bit like the arguments that they like to use. Like:
if we accept immigrants, they will slowly replace us and destroy the country
Technically maybe that could happen, but there are many other things that could also happen and that you are failing to consider.
If Modi, Trump, La Pen, Orban aren’t elected/reelected perhaps I’d change my view but I don’t have good reasons for thinking those things won’t happen.
If you believe that if those people are elected and it won’t lead to more fascism then I’m not sure what to say.
The most likely way I can see the fall of America is through a breakup of the federation. If you’re in a bad state it could be bad
If they ever secure power my fate is basically sealed. I’ve accepted that. It’s not slippery slope to be clear eyed about reality.
Well, I’m not sure which out-group you’re a part of to conclude this. I don’t think things are that bleak. For most of the out-groups being targeted, a coalition exists in the urban areas where they’ll at least be tolerated. A bastion of progressives or people with common identities to rally around. It’s hard to imagine places like NYC, LA, etc. otherwise.
But this is why I hate politics. Everyone who organizes, screws around with power. I don’t believe there’s any “side” that will stand with me in a time of need, or any group to rally around. The only people who will stand for my interests is myself and the few people I can persuade. If you’re this alone, the only thing you can really do is try not draw attention. Don’t even bother voting.
every generation thinks they’re the last ans that everything is about to go to shit. In the end that never really happens
About 3.76% of the worlds population died due to WWII, or about 300MM people if scaled to today. For those people, the end really did happen.
With NATO being threatened by a malicious US presidential candidate, along with Putin getting express approval to go ape by the same, I’m actually quite worried WWIII is more possible than ever in my adult life (I was only a child during the cold war).
Nuclear war is no closer now than it was during the cold war. Everything then was on a hair trigger. Now it’ll just take a psychopath in charge, and no one willing to ignore the order in the command structure
It worries me too and I’ve been thinking a lot about margaritas, I’ve been sober for four years so its troubling thoughts of alcohol are creeping back in. I don’t know what else to say. Need a hug?
Need a hug?
Wish I could give one
Are you going to the meetings?
What fucking meetings? For my alcoholism or for my depression about the future?
…If there’s any for the latter can I get a hookup?
I think this is the meeting.
Hi everybody, my name is Zink @programming.dev and I am a democracyholic.
Hi Zink
https://aa-intergroup.org/meetings/
On line AA meetings. 24/7. The only requirement to go to AA is a desire to stay stopped. If you think your depression is going to make you drink, come talk about it.
SMART Recovery is a non-Christian substance abuse support group. Though it can be difficult to find an in-person meeting because AA is so prevalent.
I’m in NA meetings on discord. There’s also a big God involved but just try to look besides that. They’re open ans very welcome to anyone that wants to stop
AA is a Christian support group, if you don’t believe in their God they won’t help you.
If you look at the site I provided, you’ll see that they have plenty of atheist/agnostic meetings [labelled ‘secular.’]
They also have a lot of LGBTQ+ meetings, as well as men only and women only options.
AA suggests people try to find a Higher Power of their own understanding.
These are religious meetings for addicts and alcoholics. The atheist and agnostic meetings are well-meaning but they talk about gods even more than at the non-secular meetings.
I am however delighted it works for you.
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Yes it literally is. Or at the very least you have to “submit yourself to a higher power”
That’s one of the steps yeah. And it’s recommended to follow all steps but nobody is forcing you. You can just go as you want and try to follow the other ones as much as possible. Also a higher power could mean different things if you’re creative enough.
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I suggest target practice, that way you won’t get crushed by boots…and you can resist any fascist in your area, and encourage others in your immediate area to do the same.
Start a club, and then you can hold parties, where you show each other new knowledge, and help others to protect themselves…and fight against all the fascist hordes!
This isn’t Red Dawn. People will quickly find out how inadequate they are against a military.
When real conflict begins domestically it will be drones being used by those in power. Guns won’t do much good.
Better learn spark gap jammers then
But odds are it won’t be the military. At least, not at first. It will most likely start with all those right-wing punisher-worshipping nutters who want an excuse to shoot ‘the liburlz’, with local cops either helping out or staying out of the way, and the government conveniently ignoring everything. Or at least, that’s how it’s tended to go in the past.
(See kristallnacht, Tulsa race massacre, Wilmington massacre, Rosewood massacre, Ocoee massacre…)
And those local assholes can be repelled with guns.
John Brown gun club or Socialist Rifle Association are out there… also there are plenty of paramilitary and social fascist groups to protect yourself against. Proud boys, border nutjobs, don’t listen to naysayers about learning to defend yourself. It’s not just military with tanks and planes. It’s your back the blue neighbor you have to worry about…
alright now im really confused. how does the world devolving into fascism bring complete anarchy? aren’t those completely different things?
Anything I have learned from history classes is that this cycle of fascism/dictatorship and democracy has always been going on, people are dumb -> they choose fascists -> fascist gonna fasc -> ppl get fed up -> uprising/protests -> government overthrown after tons of bloodshed -> some sort of constitutional bind on rulers/elections -> some peace -> dumb ppl forget everything and chose fascists again -> repeat
I think you forgot the part where capitalism makes peoples life worse and worse, while at the same time conservative media blames the left for it, even if they are the cause.
Because in the End people dont vote for fascists because its funny, but because they believe they can get them out of a shitty situation (Fascism doesnt do that obviously, but people get blinded by propaganda).
We wouldnt have this issue today if politicians werent all neoliberal and actually cared about poor people.
You need history classes that cover more than the little fart of time known as the 20th century.
Well I only studied the history part which was mandatory in my school, so it was naturally not very in-depth or far back, only standard topics like the World wars, french and russian revolutions etc
The human race we have an insane ability to forget history
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I have hope for Germany. The past few weeks we had enormous protests(over 3m people protested in total) and multiple petitions against fascists and the AfD(the party that literally want to deportate everyone who isn’t “German”(this means even if you have a German passport, but came from another country youre going to get deportated)) had blown up. Their youth organisation is now officially a right wing extremists organisation. I still have hope, that we may save our country before it’s to late.
We’ll see how it shakes out this year, but here are some positive thoughts…
2017 was the high watermark for facism’s popularity in the US. They couldn’t help themselves and went masks off in Charlottesville, and their movement has never recovered.
Facism’s rise is always reactionary to rising socialism. If the rural petite bougausie and the New York Times are pushing for facism then that’s because they are worried workers are gaining power and will come to take what they have. They’re worried we are getting organized and winning victories.
Conservatives are currently extremely demoralized. Go check out their boards and discords. I’ve never seen them this universally depressed. Then don’t think they can win and they aren’t excited at the prospect of trying only to fail.
Hmmmm I also frequent white supremacist sympathising discord and my general take away is that they are more desperate and more willing to take violent action to align reality with their views.
Of course this is only anecdotal so it’s kind of a moot point.
I’d be more confident in your opinion if there wasn’t a prevailing view that America will reelect Trump.
If trump isn’t elected it may not even stop fascism though.
Hitler was jailed before he rose to power, trump could very easily do the same. If I’m going to be optimistic about anything it’s the fact that Trump is very old and may not survive prison or the presidency for an extended period.
We’ll see. I’m not sure I fully believe all the polling. Trump has a real shot at winning but I’d give the advantage to Biden by a large margin.
I hope you’re correct. I just don’t fully believe it.
I live in a red state. The neighbors are practicing more with their rifles. But this state used to be blue and has always been 2nd amendment centered (but not always gun worship, just everyone had them for hunting or home defense), so should be interesting if someone actually commits. Jan 6 kind of tipped their hand on how much of a clusterfuck that would be.
Also, read about the “trial” of Hitler. The judge was sympathetic as hell. So far our judges tell Trump to stfu.
Isn’t your supreme court stacked to the hilt with Conservatives?
True but they were back before the election and those same conservatives he appointed told him to cram his election fraud narrative.
Plus it’s just in favor of conservatives, not stacked completely.
No I’m not catastrophising.
2024 is going to be the beginning of the end of us all
Yeah, I don’t know about that.
May i present to you:
the antifacist handbook, free to download/read (in different formats like pdf/epub/html/plaintext):
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/mark-bray-antifa-the-antifascist-handbook
Thanks for this, reading now.
I’ve also been busy reading the history of the rise of the Nazi party particularly the SA.
It’s scary (scary is not a strong enough word for the combined emotions of frustration, anger, fear, anxiety) how close current USA events are replicating the original rise of Nazi Germany.
Even current German events are replicating the rise of Nazi Germany. But many people are too blind to see…
Yeah, it’s so sad. Before inflation and all the other shit, nobody cared about fascist, but now they’re like
“Oh hey, that are so easy solutions to my severe Problems, I don’t care if they discriminate a minority or a group of people. Let’s vote them!”
Just to realize that they would change nothing - they will make it worser - and install slowly but surely their fucking pervert dictatorship.
to my severe problems
You mean the problems the fascist just made up and actually aren’t a really problem
It’s happening in France too. Are the fascists roaming the streets to beat leftists and Arabs in your country too?
Are the fascists roaming the streets to beat leftists and Arabs in your country too?
Only in the east and rural areas. So far.
Organize. The old world is dying, the new world is yet to be born. We are standing at a tipping point not only regarding climate change, but also regarding the future of humanity. It is up to us, how we act and how the new world will look like.
And even if we loose: Its harder to deport and/or kill you, if a bunch of other people got your back.
Maybe we can still win against these fascist assholes
