R
For Dual Power things, I think one of the best practical organizations is Cooperation Jackson:
building a solidarity economy anchored by a network of cooperatives and other types of worker owned and democratically self-managed enterprises
Cooperation Jackson (cooperationjackson.org)
Can you keep Us cops/troops from entering the Bronx? No. Would political victories help with this? Also no.
another "genocide is irrelevant, you must comply, no other choice is possible" guy
I think that you should stop supporting American institutions. Do a community defense and mutual aid organization, start building dual power that will leave people less reliant on the state. Treat all politicians the same way you'd treat local drug kingpins: be wary, but no respect and no illusions that they will help.
Blue MAGA is tiresome. I'm an anarchist and I don't think the US state should exist.
None of what you write here is going to change the actual facts that I brought up.
Both parties reinforce the same myths, both parties have the same basic policies. Obama still has the record number of deportations both in absolute terms and per unit of time, and his policy and rhetoric empowered Trump now.
Some doofus on Bluesky said that people had to defend Bolton and I wonder just how much of a contemptible loser some people can be. Since there are going to be Nazi show trials they should definitely include Bolton, one of the only elements of justice we could look forward to.
There is an intersection between two threads here -- @HeavenlyPossum 's "trust your instincts" and @futurebird 's "what is the difference between ordinary Democrats and 'Blue MAGA'?" (both of those are paraphrases, not quotes) that comes down to: Michael Avenatti.
Does anyone else remember Avenatti? He was the lawyer for Stormy Daniels (the woman paid off by Trump to keep her quiet) who was on MSNBC incessantly for a while and who is now in prison.
1/a few
I mentioned mutual aid and community defense in response to a "purity politics" guy who was saying it's all about elections.
I didn't say that people who voted Democratic or GOP in the last election can't also do good things. They are all genocide supporters, though. They aren't people who I look to for advice on moral decisions.
"I am directly saying that reducing these choices [about whether to commit genocide] to a black and white, “good” vs “bad” is profoundly distorting."
Yeah, no.
As for what "Trans people and migrants" are saying, they are not tokens. Some trans people and migrants are anarchists. Some are not but still understand that an anarchist doing mutual aid or community defense is still helping them more someone who voted Blue one time.
"So, it sounds to me like you’re saying": you don't know what I'm saying, learn something about anarchism if you want to.
What *you're* saying is: people in the US can't avoid approving of genocide and have to pretend that they are doing good by voting for genocide + less bad vs genocide + bad. There is no reason for anyone concerned about politics or morality to vote for this. It just tries to turn approval of genocide into a virtue.
"In my understanding of thoughtful anarchism" says a liberal to an anarchist. Anarchists don't even think that people should vote!
If you want to take the moment of voting as reflecting an ability to signal choice, I think that this society should end.
Anarchists are to some extent responsible, just as you as a Canadian are responsible for destroying the world with the tar sands. But they *don't have to agree* that everyone must go along.
It's a really common Blue MAGA trope to say that people who didn't vote for genocide have to "accept responsibility for the people who are being specifically harmed under this administration". It's a joke and it means that you are not serious or mature in any way. People can see through this bullshit.
"that 2024 was a vote for or against the (obvious to anyone with eyes and ears) genocide implies that there was an actual choice available on that issue"
There was no choice, I agree. This is one of the reasons why I didn't vote for either party. But a state that is hell-bent on genocide no matter who is in office is not a good state. It should end. Having it obvious to everyone that it is run by evil people is therefore a good thing.
"Blue MAGA" refers to a certain subset of Democratic voters like the one guy in this thread who I already blocked -- raised on MSNBC instead of Fox News, fully bought in to US culture war, their people are wonderful etc.
Not all Democratic voters are Blue MAGA. All Democratic voters did, however, vote for and support genocide. They aren't ashamed: why should Trump be?
Blue MAGA in the US tells itself these fairy stories after they voted for and supported genocide. If the only choices are between the guy who supports genocide and says some kind of mealy mouthed deflection about it and the guy who supports genocide who is honest about it so that everyone can agree to hate them, the second guy is less damaging.
Yes, he talks like a mob boss. As an anarchist, I oppose all US leaders. The people who defend mob bosses who talk more politely while doing the same things caused the same cynicism that they now decry.
All leaders of an imperial state do, yes. They just don't tell people about it.
All leaders think this way. Trump is more honest about it and that offends people who want to preserve their unfounded ideas that imperial leaders are good people.
"Why doesn't that make more people as angry as it makes me?"
What are you going to do, if you support the idea of a state? Once you accept a state you accept that it can do whatever it wants, in practice, because the alternative is no state and you don't want that.
In this case it's like the state wants you to pay $100 in taxes to a state crony. So yes, historically all states are corrupt. It's a better use of your taxes than funding the military.
I don't understand what you mean here. Of course the data are now bad. More importantly, they are now impossible to check. The report can not be based on "social security and hard numbers" when the organization counting those numbers is itself corrupted.
"we can all see that no one is hiring" can we? This becomes a contest of anecdotes.