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Cool, can we fast forward to the hangings pls?
Another thing we can accuse the US and their UK poodles of it's only hanging a handful of nazis for show in their Nurenberg showtrials. (if that's what you're referring to)
They gave the vast majority of nazis all the help they needed escaping to S-America, Canada, etc..
Or simply forgave them and left them in high positions.
I'm tired of hearing about this as if it was the only one. It's what they call a limited hangout.
Everyone knows it and it's somewhat understandable from a pragmatic standpoint.
US/UK took effort to let them surrender to their western friends since the Russians would give the their deserved reward.
After which plenty somehow vanished.
And almost nobody knows about the ratlines, set up by the west to let all the other nazis escape.
Among them mass murderers like Klaus Barbie, Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele, Croatian Dictator Ante Pavelić, and Léon Degrelle.
And masses of low rank war criminals, the worst of the worst, including 1000's of SS division Galizien from Ukraine.
Shipped to the UK and then got relocated with new names in Canada.
Their offspring still very active and with the same despicable ideology.
The Hunka incident is not a coincidence.
The "understandable" veneer is that they were all apolitical scientists who only wanted to do more science.
Of course that's not true, but that's how it's taught in schools.
not for us 'normal' people.
But the Paperclip were useful to them, that's why it can be seen as an understandable excuse.
The rest certainly not.
I don't care what history has to say about us to high schoolers in 2060, I'm living in a country that will eventually hang me for posting this. The world needs to get it's shit together and stop this train.
I dont mean to detract from your point at all here... In fact, PSL is my favorite org in recent memory, but I have yet to join out of fear.
I hope this comment doesn't come across as FUD because I certainly don't want to steer people away from organizing, but.... do you ever fear that getting your name on paperwork in one of these orgs could jeopardize your safety? Shit is happening so fast in America right now that I am straight up afraid of organizing. Im thinking of a scenario where PSL headquarters gets raided, and everyone who shows up on an active members list gets shipped to El Salvador.
Kind of a disjointed reply, but I guess all I really wanted to say is that shit is getting really scary right now, and I'm not even part of a vulnerable group. I'm afraid.
Maybe the answer is that, yes, joining a leftist organization during fascist descent does incur massive risks, but that is the necessary burden that American leftists must take for the sake of the people we are oppressing? Maybe now is the time to be brave?
I get your point and share your worries, but I ended up concluding that I will regret more aiding the descent to fascism than being a casualty of it.
Think of all the people that survived Nazi Germany while being a collaborator and seeing all the horrors their cowardice helped occur.
I don't think those people would have happy lives after that, I know I wouldn't.
Furthermore, I believe that if I don't act now when is somewhat safe, I will act latter down the line and would definitely get killed.
It's your choice.
there's a STRONG trend of black and brown social media influencers warning people not to get involved if they have too much melanin for american standards and learning about the black panthers and the night of the long knives (coupled with my anecdotal experiences with white-passing family members) makes me think that they're right.
some small part of me hopes that my contributions to the greens and psl are so long ago that that i'm no longer on their rosters.
I mean, the Black Panthers murdered by the state are heroes in my eyes, ya know? That seems like a strange argument. As bleak as it is to mention, I feel I must point out that having only the fear of future violence while others must face violence presently is a privilege. The good thing is that getting involved in organizing is also a privilege, the other side of the coin I guess you could say. Way I think about it, you're gonna live with the fear of state violence already, so the fear from organizing is marginal, possibly negligible.
I’d rather be alive than be your hero. Black and brown people in the US already face violence without voluntarily painting targets on their backs. If people want to stick their necks out, good for them. But it’s kinda ballsy to try to shame black and brown people in the current USA for avoiding violence from some “place of privilege “
Alright. Privilege is still relative. Being defensive is not going to change that.
The fear of "sticking your neck out" is still very individualistic thinking. The goal is to learn and organize so WE can stick our necks out together. My lionizing of former martyrs is not an attempt to shame you. I still think that "don't be like the people who actually induced change because they were martyred" is a terrible take.
thanks, but don't be; i'm convinced that i would be yet another liberal doomscrolling my life away, embittering myself further by the day because of the deep ignorance from the western propaganda like it is for some of my siblings/cousins/nephews/neices who turn to alcohol, drugs and other self destructive coping mechanisms.
i'm convinced that my dark skin; my queerness; and my nuero-divergence have forced me to develop tools that have proven themselves useful in thwarting the asshattery that life in this late stage capitalist world throws at me.
If that day comes, do you really think that the absence of your name on a roster is going to stop them? Obedience in advance only teaches authority what it can get away with. The capabilities of authority generally are much less far-reaching than what they lead us to believe. Oppression breeds resistance and struggle, whereas the state would have us believe in the fantasy of unilateral control and suppression of dissent.
You owe it to yourself to study revolutionary history beyond just the most shocking events that scare you away from organizing. In the words of the late assata shakur; It is our duty to fight. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
This is the sole thing that keeps me down. My spouse is a first generation American with brown skin in a Republican state. If any attention is drawn to us, her, her parents, her autistic brother, the lady that cuts my hair, the grocery we visit down the road, half the parents in our neighborhood, I'm the only person in my community that isn't currently represented in the ICE victim pool. If I rock the boat every single person I care about gets a plane trip to a foreign prison.
Every day it gets worse. Eventually, it won't be plane rides, it will be ditches. Even if I don't attract the attention of the government, it's cultists yell racial slurs in as they drive lifted trucks past my community. They gnaw at the bit for a chance to cut loose and remove this stain from their white city.
I've seen the local protests, 10 people with signs on a busy intersection a mile from the courthouse. The police point and laugh as commuters throw drinks at them from their cars for thinking that human rights belong in a red state.
What the fuck do I do? What can I, standing here, actually do to change anything? There isn't a single action that I can take that does not threaten to burn down my community and leave my child an orphan, and even still I'm here asking how I can solve this problem.
Organizing is the only way to protect them. If you do nothing, and it continues on this path, you will not be safe, regardless of your actions. If we can all join together and stop this NOW we can prevent that.
My wife is here on a green card. My employers are as well. Because they are fellow humans, I will die to defend them. I will fight tooth and nail. I will not be cowed by a fat orange blob who diddle kids. I will not be frightened by a mob of egomaniacal imbeciles. Their attempts to emulate fascists of the past is sloppy and will fail if put to any sort of test.
Help me to break them.
This is great, this is what I like to here, but where is the how? What do I actually do to make a difference? That's the part everyone stops at and I'm beating every bush in this county to try to shake loose the one persone with a clue.
I say I'm not represented because my family has been getting kicked about in these parts since the 1800s. As far as I've seen in the news they haven't arrested the straight, white, male, American, partners of all the people they pick up.
Not to say I'm safe, they'll make their way to traitors like me eventually, but right now I don't get the luxury of getting black bagged with my wife in a traffic stop, I just get to sit at home while the life we built falls apart.
You bring up my first intuition on the matter. If the federal government wanted to destabilize counter movements, they most certainly would take three approaches: (1) propagandize the organizations leading those movements, (2) attack the organizations leading those movements, and (3) attack the members of the organizations leading those movements. Look no further than the history between the US and their workers unions.
However, this perspective is unfair. It doesn’t quite justify the alternative, because the alternative seems to be: “don’t join the organization, alleviate the risk from yourself.” That’s just inaccurate positing from the fears mentioned here. The truth is, doing nothing has risks that you can’t predict. Though, you can approximate your risks by asking yourself: “what if I was on a green card right now?” Doing that, at least, lets you view the problem as though it’s already at your doorstep — and this gives justice to the inherent risk we all face during a fascist takeover. Fascists only start with minorities, as they develop the infrastructure necessary to target anyone they please.
If you live in the US Empire, you can be a part of the movement to end it
That's objectively bad messaging. 'End the US Empire' is so trivial to paint as purely anti-American. Not only will fail to win over more than a tiny fraction of people, but anyone part of it will be easily discredited
How would 'end the US Empire' ever be a popular idea in America? Even assuming it is a moral platform, it can only ever be a fringe idea in America
Any socialist organizing will be painted as anti american. Who gives a shit? The fascists call the neolibs radical, marxist, far left, anti american, you name it, despite the fact that they're two sides of the same shitty capitalist coin.
Your comment rhymes with telling a child not to stand up to their bully because the bully will call them names. Even a child would answer with, "but they do that already!"
End the US Empire’ is so trivial to paint as purely anti-American
Being anti-american is good and people are gonna need to rip off that bandaid
I'm going to predict the future exactly as it will happen: either the US empire is ended and humanity survives it's inevitable fall or the empire drags us all down with it in a nuclear fireball. Pick one.
The world needs to get its shit together and stop this train.
No. Americans need to get their shit together and stop this train. Fix your own fucking problems.
If other countries stood up to his tariffs last year maybe our house and Congress would have stood up to him sooner before it was too late. The whole world bent a knee to him.
US: [taxes its own people]
ThePantser: “Why does the whole world allow this?”
The whole world? LMAO
The whole WESTERN world bent their knee, a lot of countries refused that shit.
Ah so it’s everyone else’s fault that Americans are gutless? That makes a lot of sense to me that you would think that. Countries enacted counter tariffs, which is standing up to tariffs.
America has it's shit together, that's why we're able to build a concentration camp over night, why we have a pedophile in charge and why we can just casually kidnap a head of state without anyone batting an eye. This isn't morons blundering around, this is winning a chess tournament by clubbing the rest of the competition to death. It won't get better if no one tells us to stop.
Meanwhile, I get reminded every day that it's my fault personally for letting a nation I had no choice in being part of turn into something so disgusting. As if I need only to get off my couch and blast my way through these blundering Nazis like an 80's action film. I'm told to protest and participate as if my lack of presence was the sole thing that held back the marches and my congressman hadn't blocked my phone number for calling to complain.
As mentioned below, my spouse is a first generation American with brown skin in a Republican state. If any attention is drawn to us, her, her parents, her autistic brother, the lady that cuts my hair, the grocery we visit down the road, half the parents in our neighborhood, I'm the only person in my community that isn't currently represented in the ICE victim pool. If I rock the boat every single person I care about gets a plane trip to a foreign prison.
Every day it gets worse. Eventually, it won't be plane rides, it will be ditches. Even if I don't attract the attention of the government, it's cultists yell racial slurs as they drive lifted trucks past my community. They gnaw at the bit for a chance to cut loose and remove this stain from their white city. They look at me with contempt in the stores for betraying the white race to love a brown woman.
I've seen the local protests, 10 people with signs on a busy intersection a mile from the courthouse. The police point and laugh as commuters throw drinks at them from their cars for thinking that human rights belong in a red state.
What the fuck do I do? What can I, standing here, actually do to change anything? There isn't a single action that I can take that does not threaten to burn down my community and leave my child an orphan, and even still I'm here asking how I can solve this problem.
The only answer is that there is no action you can take that will assure you of that. If you do nothing, it is certain to happen should they succeed. If you do something it is possible that will happen and we succeed in stopping them. Or that we all die in the fires together.
Or we could stop them and you will all live. That's is the best case, but not guaranteed. What do you want to work for? Your family is in danger now. Currently.
This is a beautiful sentiment that I've already passed. I want better, I want to be part of making better, but I do not know how to do that and apparently no one else does either because every time it comes up I get this this same answer. Where is our MLK, where is our Malcolm X, where is the map I need to be more than scared and alone?
I reached out to see if there's any active members in my area. I'm already another warm body on a stat list for so many things, I don't have faith in that going far.
I don't need a slogan to chant, I need a general to follow.
You can't solve the problem on your own and that's the point. Instead of just driving past those protesters go join them. Invite others to go with you. Start a new organization of some kind in your community or volunteer with an existing one. Do whatever is in your power to do.
Victory over fascism is not something that can be bought from Amazon. It requires active participation. The action is less important than the participation. Just pick something and do that until you find something better.
That something better is what I'm begging for. I've stood and chanted, signed petitions, called representatives, stood in the rain to vote, taken every person I know to the polls, and the fascists still sit in office. I don't need a prettier protest sign, I need someone to put a wrench in my hand and tell me the bolts that need tightened. I need someone with a plan that isn't just "tell them we disaprove."
I get that you also don't have a better answer, that's ok. This isn't so much an argument about how as it is an extended scream into the void. I'm here, I'm willing, someone please fucking radicalize me already!
Not to lash out at you specifically but why are USians so stubbornly focused on the interacting with politics along the corporate party approved pathways? Even as others tell y'all it's always back to voting, polling, petitions, campaign rallys.
Join an actual worker's party or volunteer that time towards community outreach orgs rather than the popularity contests of millionaires funded by billionaires. Again, not to go off on you specifically but I've seen this aimless despair all over Lemmy, like everything you could possibly do is useless and, like, yeah, but only if you stay within that framework. That's what the framework was built to do.
I can't speak for all of us but in my area there aren't any of those in my area. There are 4 community outreach groups in my area, two of them are churches and the other two are "non-denominational" shelters that are run out of churches. Try as I might, I've never found a worker's party, I don't think those are a thing here in the us. Outside of that, there's a ton of volunteer options in my area if I want to help the homeless, stray cats, even the elderly. I love those, they're great work, they don't fix this.
I already do what I can for local politics, it isn't making a difference, but maybe in 10 years we can get a mayor that isn't going to raise tax on poor neighborhoods. I do wish I'd gotten into this 20 years ago, it's on me and those like me for letting it get this bad, but guilt is about as useful as the few things I can volunteer for.
Well as you’ve explained at length, there’s nothing that can be done and you (and those who think like you) are consumed with fear. To you, there is no hope so why bother. I don’t have anything else to say to say on this so have a good day.
And what you expect other people to do? What am I supposed to do from the other side of the world? Nothing I do will make any change to your paedophile regime. In fact, why should any other country help you? What if your warmongering country attack my country? Why the fuck should others clean your own country's mess?
Should/could the US population do more to get their batshit crazy government in line? Abso-fucking-loutly!
Should the sane countries of the world do more to push back on us and check our power grabs? Also Abso-fucking-loutly!
Why is any consumer anywhere outside of the US purchasing any of our shit? I recently saw a graph on the global sales of US liquor and most countries had like a 10-20% drop in sales and only Canada went hard with a 60-80% drop (apologies, I’m pulling this from memory so it’s pretty vague).
If you have given up on trying to fix where you live (which may be totally reasonable), then move to somewhere with likeminded people. Once you're in a safer place, then you can speak out and fight for what you believe in.
its been known to be worse than germany for hundreds of years, hitler based his concentration camps and the holocaust in part on the american treatment of indigenous people.
they killed tens of millions of people with muskets, 6 shooters, repeaters, and disease, on horses, and trains. all the while enslaving an entire race of human beings in the process. which arguably was the main reason they could enrich and modernize their country in the first place. free labour.
america has always ALWAYS been the bad guy. they just had really really good "marketing" and military strength for the last century.
what is happening now are the final flailings of a dying empire. it will stretch itself thin, bankrupt itself, crash the dollar, fuck the global economy, and be picked apart by oligarchs until mentioning the word "union" gets you shot on the spot, not by a robot police officer, but your fellow "patriot" between spoon fulls of soylent green.
the rot is far too deep, and the purification of chaos is, unfortunately, the only remedy, and an imminant one at that. whether we agree or not, like it or not, its coming, its here. and thats just the way it has to be, apparantly.
any social progress may have to wait a few decades, maybe even centuries depending on the outcome of WW3. if at all.
but, EVENTUALLY, if we survive it. there will be a social revolution, and hopefully that one creates a better life for those alive to live it. likely still just a handfull will enjoy everything life has to offer and more. but maybe, just maybe the masses will take back whats theirs and live fully again.
Fuckin' hell, I feel like a kid in 2226 reading this on some kind of wall plaque after it was discovered in the cautionary history archives that survived the great fires. I think it struck me when I read this line:
the rot is far too deep, and the purification of chaos is, unfortunately, the only remedy
It's just a very elegant way to describe the btshit craziness of living in "interesting times."
Oh and hey future people who have presumably learned to be excellent to one another: put me in the plaque! It's a thing we used to do on this old internet here with screenshots, you see.
Can read. Not upset. We probably kill more innocent s since the fall of the third riech then they have.
Tbf no eurocentric history book will mention the invasions and murders in slightly browner countries or the private companies' colonization that follow.
They will just mention cold war mostly.
Not to mention interventions they started back in the middle of the XIX century in central america, that were driven by the manifest destiny ideas. So this is nothing new and that has been happening for more than 100 years.
Don't forget that history is written by the victors.
Yup. People forget that whatever the Nazis did, we only see them in a bad way is because they lost. Their enemies are making the movies and TV series we consume to this day.
Unless an actual enemy of the us defeats them, they will never be seen as villains. Even if they lose a lot of power but one of their allies takes over.
England committed countless atrocities and while that is known, they are not seen as villains. They are not in power anymore but their ally is. Even Israel can be a thousand times worse than Nazis, as long as they remain in the winning group they will be forever the poor victim of antisemitism defending itself against evil.
Well, a lot of the nazi leadership didn't lose, at least not personally. I don't know about former nazi or nazi descendant historians specifically, but I doubt the thousands of nazis who escaped via ratlines engaged in zero whitewashing. Hell, just look at us corporate ties to nazi germany which alone gives the us reason to obscure parts of the history.
The regime lost. They went into hiding or ran away. It's not necessary for every single person related to a group to be killed for it to lose.
The soviet union lost. Nazis lost. The Ottoman empire lost. England, Spain, Portugal didn't lose to an enemy but their empires died. One group is always thought as evil in western education, the other is not.
The united states need to be properly defeated for the next winners to see the American atrocities in a proper light.
But I would be already happy with just their empire fading away and only lies remaining in school books.
I mean this is what happens when you send your religious fanatics and criminals to colonize new lands. 🤷🏻♀️
I've never felt more helpless. What do I do?
Build communities with like minded people in real life. Join groups like unions and keep an eye out for local politics.
Arm yourself first and foremost. Get to know your neighbors. Work in your communities for change. Watch what you post and where. They will come after people posting anti regime on social media.
Considering the country was founded on the greatest genocide history has ever seen and chattel slavery, this should have been the case the whole time.
The Nazis were inspired by what went on in America. Genocide, concentration camps, segregation, forced sterilization, taking the children, etc
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