So, as some of you know, I just spent a little over a month in the US. I hadn't been there in about 2.5 years. It was really bizarre for so many reasons, and this is clearly the best community to deconstruct all this head chaos.
Lulu so excited to discover Target is a real place, living the capitalist dream
I don't want to pretend the US hasn't been shitty for a long time - because it has. Maybe forever. Especially for certain groups of people. The US was founded on genocide, built on slavery, and grown on oppression and division. I guess we should've known nothing good would come of this.
To be certain, though, it's gotten a lot worse in the last 2.5 years, mostly I think by its visibility. No one is trying to hide it anymore. The cops have always murdered poc, but now it's on camera, and still nothing is done. I saw today that the police union in NY is appealing the suspension of the pig that murdered Eric Garner on the grounds that Garner was obese and would've died anyway. So. Yeah.
White supremacy is clear as day on the table. Women's rights and lgbtq rights are being rolled back. Then of course there are the concentration camps on the border. Meanwhile, parents are losing rights like wildfire as the pro vaccine pharmaceutical Mafia marches toward their seeming goal of world domination. They will shut down home schooling soon. The dark descent is palpable. And nauseating.
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And yet. The country marches on. Like nothing is happening. When I went, I expected a lot more tension, but it's like the lobster in the pot. Of course so many people are so busy trying to survive that they have nothing left. And I think people are burned out by the continuous assault. It reminds me of when I went to China. What surprised me most (aside from the obsession with KFC) was how similar it was to the US. You couldn't really see or even feel the level of oppression. Just people living their lives.
People always say they'd never let something like the Holocaust happen, but it's just not true. The US is clearly headed in that direction. Fascism is growing stronger and bolder. Maybe it's genuinely too late. Maybe the time to act was decades ago. So the liberals wait for the next election as though that matters. Antifa waits for some sign that revolution has started. Libertarians seem to be defecting to the radical right at alarming rates. And anarchists wait for it to all burn already. While I can certainly feel and understand that, poc, immigrants, lgbtq folx, and women, especially poor women, are being put in increasingly dangerous and compromising situations.
What do we do? What can we do? I think we're beyond the point of calling out individual racists and misogynists. I feel like it's time to lay our bodies on the gears of the machine, but I don't know what that looks like either. Are we relegated to violence? I do believe it's time to put the most marginalized at the center of organizing though. Women of color, lgbtq people of color, lgbtq immigrants. I think this is who we probably need to ask about how to move forward, about what needs to change to improve access and opportunity for everyone.
Curious to hear your thoughts, friends.
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It has not gotten worse in the past 2.5 years.
It has not become more visible.
It is not more widely discussed.
It’s just that finally, white people are outraged too.
But don’t confuse - much of the outrage is being let out on social media - so the “real” actions and “real” change is getting lost in awareness.
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My perception is that fascists have become more emboldened in the current climate. After being out of country for so long, it's an interesting perspective It is definitely true that it has taken this long for white people to wake up and realize what's going on. It's shameful that white people needed video to believe poc. That's certainly useful, but we're in such a dark place that it's not enough.
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So clear and articulate. You state it well... small step by step person by person in our lives changes us all I can think of... it is all so overwhelming.
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Thank you. It really is a lot. We let it get way out of hand. I'd love to know what, say, trans women of color think because I've got not much either in the way of solutions. I really hope we don't end up in violence.
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It's this false sense of security, the 'we will never let a holocaust happen' that was created after the war, by the same people who started it. And I'm not talking Hitler here either. It's like people thought: this was so bad, it will never happen again. And this creates a false sense of security, and because of it, the powers that be can pretty much just go on and do what they've always done. Divide and conquer. All this division is done on purpose. One side doesn't give a damn about the other, nor about their own side. Antifa is all about being right, not human rights. The new feminist movement: same thing. It's not about women's rights anymore, but about who screams the loudest. Most of those people don't even know why they scream anymore. It's all been done on purpose and now we're harvesting the crops.
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There is definitely a false sense of security. Also a false idea of who is protecting us. The idea we're protected by our governments or the military or the fucking cops ffs. And like you alluded to - we have this overinflated idea of ourselves that we're actually going to learn from our mistakes. I mean, I think we could, but how things happen and what the media and governments tell people is absolute hogwash. We can't learn from our mistakes when we don't know what went wrong. I'm continually dumbfounded by the support of so many people for current US immigration policy. Obviously a majority don't support it, but it blows my mind anyone does. The fact that so many have fallen once again for this idea that another poor person is the source of your problems just boggles the mind. The fact that racism is so rampant that people are able to dehumanize people to the point they can justify locking up children and making them sleep on the floor is just something else. People fall for the simple tricks of the 1% elite again and again.
While I do agree with you that the screaming matches and hateful insults have gotten fully out of control and that the division is definitely a strategy of the powers that be, I don't necessarily feel that way about most of antifa or most feminists. I know people involved with antifa, and they're good people who genuinely want only to protect those who are being targeted by a growing hate movement in the US. While I was there in the US, there was a fellow who liked to walk in an anarchist bookstore and start yelling hateful shit about trans people and poc. He had been known to start fights. Antifa was around to protect those who felt threatened by this guy and also let him know (hopefully without violence) that it's time for him to move along. They also often surround nonviolent protesters at Black Lives Matter events or counter protests when neo Nazis decide to get together. They will simply circle and protect them. Their mission is to never use violence unless you or someone else is being physically assaulted. Obviously there are renegades, but that's the idea in any case. Anyway, they get a lot of bad press so I try to counter that when I can. I also hear that a lot about feminists being super aggressive, but that hasn't been my experience. Mostly I have seen a lot of guys who get super defensive and fragile really quickly. My boy will be 21 next week (sniff, sniff!), and I see the devastating effect of our culture's ideas about what it means to be a man. He's really had to undo a lot of garbage - even being raised by me and around other women. I think most feminists want an end to this toxic version of masculinity, no more invasion of our bodies, and more pockets. I guess there are more and more women who are getting frustrated by the lack of change. The problem- and maybe this is what you're getting at - is that it's being directed in the wrong direction. The average guy usually agrees once he understands what you're talking about, but the patriarchal structure, like the racist one and the earth destruction one is held up at the top. The average person can do nothing about this.
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Haha! Now who's babbling?! I should have made that into a post 😂
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LOL. Well, I know most Antifa people or feminists are good people. I'm a feminist my self (wouldn't be good if I weren't one), but just not like most are. The feminist movement nowadays seems to just hate men in general and not the patriarchy. As for Antifa, yes, of course, there's a whole bunch of good ones. However, there are also a whole lot of them who've been deceived as much as the rest of us. I remember seeing an independent journalist asking people at an Antifa gathering about some of their reasons for being there. It was about gun control. They really didn't have a clue. The thing is, there are so many staged and fake events and 'terror' attacks and the mainstream (Vanderbilt/Rothshield) media fuels this by spreading the misinformation. Now, these antifa people were demonstrating wanting gun control. But all this media bullshit is done for one thing only: if people voluntarily hand in their guns or even be made to because so many others want it, there will be nothing they can do if the government comes in and strips them of even more rights.
And then there were the demonstrations all over the country by feminists against Trump. Most people now know that this was all set up by George Soros.
And as for presidents...it's really the same thing: people put the issue with one person and fail to take responsibility. Trump is merely a puppet for the powers that be, as was Obama and every other president before him. I don't believe that either one of them started out pure evil, but once they send out yet another army to kill innocent people and turn their armies into killers, they turn that way. ALL presidents of the USA are and were murderers. Nothing more and nothing less.
The problem now is, is that ALL of the movements, whether it is Antifa, or the feminists or whatever, are ALL playing directly into the hands of those powers. All of them.
While I am absolutely for equal rights for anyone, whether they are women, men, gay, straight or trans. My own daughter and her boyfriend are part of the LGBT community. BUT, things are going the other way now. I have a friend in Holland who's daughter is homeschooled. She goes to gymnastics with a bunch of other 7 to 9 year-olds, boys and girls. One day, they had a meeting in the gym. They were told by the mother of a child and their coach, that Sam was now to be called Samantha. Sam was not a boy, but a girl. They explained trans-sexuality to the children and then told the kids that from now on, Samantha would get changed in the girl's dressing room.
Most of those girls didn't feel comfortable with that. To them, Sam was a boy, not a girl. They didn't understand the concept of trans-sexuality.
They were MADE to accept it and get changed in the dressing room with Sam. And although I believe it would be wrong to have the child singled out, I am also sure that this is part of the agenda. It's absolutely wrong to make those kids do this, as much as I think it's wrong of the girl's parents to support it in the way they do at such a young age. My 5 year old told me today: Mom, when I grow up, I think I will be a girl. Now, I know he has huge imagination. He also says he'll be hulk. So I just said: well, you're a boy now, why do you think you'll be a girl. His answer: Sinatra is a girl, and she was a boy. I told him: Sinatra has always been a girl. So he started laughing and replied: Hehehe, just kidding. Now, there are parents who would handle this completely differently, and almost push the child to rethink who they are.
I support the LGBT community, but when there's an 8-year-old boy dressed in drag, dancing at a gay nightclub, I believe that we've lost our marbles. I wouldn't want my 8, 10, 12, or even 16 year old to go to ANY nightclub yet. But when I say such a thing, I get comments like: Why? Do you think that gay men are automatically paedophiles? Well, no, I don't think that. One of my best friends is gay. Children adore him and he adores them. I know 100% that he's not a sexual predator. But whether we'll go to a gay bar, or a straight nightclub, I am also 100% sure that there's one or two or more sexual predators there. Maybe even a paedophile or two. So to subject a young child to something like that and scream murder when people object, is lunacy and tells me how far we've sunk.
As for the feminist movement. They screamed and demonstrated for women's right to choose. They won. To be honest, I was on the fence. I am for the women's right to choose when or how to birth. I am on the fence when it comes to abortion. I feel that I would never do it, but I also feel that it's none of my business if a woman chooses to do so.
Well, in the UK now it's going the other way. There was recently a case where a female JUDGE ordered for a woman to have an abortion. Forced abortion...yup.
The woman had supposedly the mind of a 12 year old, but her (Nigerian) mother told the judge that she would care for the child. The judge had other thoughts. She said that the mother had enough stress caring for her daughter and that she didn't need another baby. So the decision was made that she would undergo an abortion. EVEN the social workers didn't want the abortion...it was the judge! So where is this world going now? It's come to a point where authorities get to decide who gets to keep their child. And this is only possible because abortion was made legal. It's 1984 y'all, and it's time to wake up.
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wow yeah that is a lot of hard truth to take in, i am aware of it but not really putting it all together if that makes sense. What can we do, we need to keep living, we need to look after our family, we need to speak our truth and be true to who we are, we need to do random acts of kindness and project fuckin buckets load of love out into the world, we change by first changing ourselves, one step at a time xx
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It really is hard to put it all together. There's so much going on, and it's like the synthesis is just out of reach. I really do believe we have to change ourselves first. It's just getting so huge. How are things over there? I feel like it's world wide, but I do also think the US is particularly nasty right now.
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I think you get the fuck outa there asap so you can have PERSPECTIVE. Deselect. Encourage others to deselect. Let it fall. Cos it HAS to.. Meanwhile, create something new and beautiful elsewhere. Nice to see you back, dear.
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That has been exactly my strategy, but then I worry about those who cannot leave. That perspective is everything, though.
Thank you. It's so good to be back.
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