Comment by Cummunism [they/them, he/him]@hexbear.net on UPDATE: DeWine vetoes transgender medical care, sports bill

not the Ohio legislature, where gerrymandering keeps them safe. Most of rural Ohio should be napalmed, it can’t be salvaged.

Guess I’ve got my new answer for the next round of, “Why aren’t you involved in organizing your local community?”

My local community is up for napalming! Why bother?

can’t win the hearts and minds of everyone, Obama

Obviously billionaires and fash get the wall, but I was under the impression we were planning to at least try with everyone else. Is that not the case? Do you genuinely think it’s not worth the effort?

I’m sorry if this comment seems stupid, it is a sincere attempt to understand, and I can’t figure out if the “Obama” part is a clue that you’re joking or just a reference to the way he conducted his first presidential campaign.

Sorta depends on the level of effort you’re trying to put out, I think. At minimum, maybe put your socdem hat on and badger your city council about putting down a bike lane or something in an email.

Meet your neighbors, and try and build a bit of a support network in case things really go to shit some way or another.

Full scale organizing is obviously better, but that brings a higher level of effort and challenges, and I can see why people would feel like it’s not worth it in a lot of the US.

Thank you! It seems like you think any effort is better than no effort at all, which is how I have felt about it, but wanted to check in and make sure that wasn’t totally deluded. People are still trying to do these little things, right? And have these little conversations that might help push people to think about things differently?

Idk, I just really don’t want to feel like it’s pointless to try. I don’t want to write off most of my neighbors. They’re not educated, they’ve got bigotries and other issues, but it would make life a whole lot easier for my trans kid if I could try to gently wake people up, and I don’t want to feel like that’s a pointless effort.

I don’t think it’s worth the effort to try and have conversations with people to try and convince them to not be fash collaborators(who should also get the wall). Capitalism can do no wrong in probably 90% of fash collaborators eyes. We’ve reached a point where capitalism could fuck everyone over even more and collaborators would blame communism. Republicans have always been the most shit group that exists. The part of the brain that creates fear is way too strong to overcome. My biggest desire is for every Republican/conservative to drop dead because the net positive would be huge. It’d be tough enough to overcome capitalism brainwashing on it’s own, nevermind when you add all the racism/bigotry/religion to it. I’ve seen too much bullshit from Republicans since i first paid attention to politics in high school during Dubya Bush. I basically started off with “fuck these racists and bigots” and then Obama got me to “fuck all these capitalist shitheads.”

There are definitely some people who we shouldn’t even bother trying with. They’re unlikely to move anyway, and even if they do, the effort spent moving them would be better spent moving many others.

The risk is putting so many people in that “don’t even bother” category that we defeat ourselves from the jump. This is one reason I dislike the “social democracy is the moderate wing of fascism” meme (that notably even Stalin eventually rejected), as well as a major problem with the Settlers thesis – if you write off the vast majority of politically active people right away, all you’ve done is create a recipe to accomplish nothing and feel right about it, i.e., defeatism with liberal characteristics.