Political Memes

It is our vibrant arguments, passionate disagreements and loud messy divisions and categories that keep leftism from becoming an echo chamber, as you nod towards in putting it in parentheses.

Yes, I could have been more direct there absolutely. Left-wing discussions cannot become echo chambers because there's nothing to echo other than 'help people.' I'm in a workers assembly, and we constantly disagree on how to make major change. We do all of it, however, while handing out gloves, socks, and toques to the unhoused. We do it while making survival packs with menstrual pads in them for unhoused women. We do it while marching in solidarity with striking workers.

I have never, ever seen a single 'centrist' join us in any of these things. No right-wingers, no Centrists, just Marxists, Anarcha-Feminists, Socialists, hell even a tankie once.

The issue we have is that, especially since the 80's, 'centrists' (with the directions of the Right-wing) have tried to make it seem like there's something 'extreme' about the Left-wing. Like there's some sort of thing to fear, some sort of spooky hidden agenda. The reality is that they can pretend the Soviet government and it's progroms or the CCP and it's Uyghur massacre are somehow 'left-wing,' and not authoritarian and conservative. Wanting to 'keep things as they are/have in and out groups' is a core tenet of Conservatism, which is right-wing. The reality on the left is all of our infighting is about the hows and not the whats. Any infighting the Right has is about the what's and not the hows. They don't care how they pay less in taxes, they want to pay less in taxes. They don't care how they get their religion made into law, just that it happens. They don't care who gets deported, so long as it's not them and 'gets it done.' They are complete and total amorality, with a singular objective of more for themselves.

Our issue on the left is one of organization (which, as part of an assembly, I have seen live quite a lot) and choosing a path forward. We all know we want to protect 2SLGBTQIA+ people. We all know we want to protect women, children, the unhoused. Do we work with the government, like the Social Democrats want? Do we burn it all down, and rebuild smaller communities, like the Anarchists want? Do we simply reject capitalism, build our communes, and work together there?

Unfortunately right now those are objectives in the far future. We need to survive to that point, and right now, we're losing. The left in the US hasn't been something a government would fear to cross since the 70's. If it should rise up, if it should finally admit that violence is going to happen whether we want it or not, and we have to meet it with violence in return, then we will see change. If Americans follow this guide and make it impossible for Trumps fascist regime to do what they want, then we have a chance. Yet if they don't, the rest of the world is in for an extremely bad time. We tried voting, we tried peaceful marching, we tried peaceful protests, we tried begging, pleading with them. Our children begged us to stop killing the planet and their very futures, and we refused. The social contract was broken.

What will you do, America? Will you watch yourselves go through what Germany did in the 1930's, on the back of a climate that is going to absolutely be hell for our children, and their children? When do you stand up and refuse to watch? When do you stand up, and do offline what you do online?

I want so very much to believe you'll fight.

I am so sad that many of us will have to die defending people who can't defend themselves, or shouldn't have to. I plan to die that way, whether taking a bullet for a young girl protesting for her bodily autonomy, a beating meant for an unhoused person who just wants to survive, or a baton meant for a young man in transition who just wants to be left alone. I love you all. <3