I say this all the time! I use it to try to discredit conservatives when they make up reasons why we can’t have good things. Like, look, you love the library, and you know conservatives would make up all sorts of reasons why it couldn’t ever work. When they’re going on about how free buses (or whatever) couldn’t work, it’s the same
That was an interesting read. Thank you. I’ll have to do some thinking on it, and read more carefully when I’m not befogged by a head cold.
I still want, like, emotionally, the horrible people to face justice (or at least vengeance), but i can see how that can have myriad unwanted consequences.
Getting people to actually organize is hard. One of the consequences of what Luigi (allegedly) did was people at work started to actually talk about politics, where before it had been a little more gauche (pun intended). Will anything come of it? Probably not.
At that job, I feel like I was planting seeds of radicalization just by talking to people about US history. Several of them hadn’t grown up here, and had a very glossy marketing understanding. Just telling them about how like Jim Crow is a thing from living memory, not centuries ago, was eye opening.
Why is it counter productive? I guess because uninvolved people clutch their pearls and then support the police/capitalists?
The huge support for Luigi makes me think there may be a change in the air. But also that was precisely targeted, not just randomly murdering. If he had set off a bomb and killed 30 people in midtown New York, even if one was a hated CEO, I don’t think people would support him.
This is a good point. I hadn’t thought much about how some of the skills and such from unionizing might transfer to other things. Thanks
i don’t know a lot about the history of the black panther movement (not surprising nothing about it was taught to me in school). Infiltration by the government/antagonists is a real concern. As is being murdered like fred hampton. I don’t really know how to guard against that. The “They pull a knife you pull a gun. They put one of us in the hospital, you put them in the morque” attitude has bravado, but isn’t really safe or sustainable. But on the same time, just being casually murdered isn’t either.
To be clear, I support other options like a general strike and unionizing (though I think forming a union is only a bandaid on top of the evils of capitalism, it’s better than nothing).
I don’t think “just vote for the democrats in 4 years” is a viable strategy on its own.
But even so, these have to be backed by might. If you do a strike and they send police to do violence to you, you have to be ready to fight back.
Good read. The problem remains capitalism, I think.
I think a lot of places that prohibit talking about violence are supporting the horrors. Like, it’d be swell if we could vote ourselves out of this mess but that seems like a long shot, and a lot of damage would be done before that even started to take effect.
I get most of us don’t actually want to risk our lives. We don’t want to be the one guy who throws a molotov and gets shot by the police.
But shit is really bad, and at the end of all things might makes right. Principles and philosophy don’t matter if you’re dead.
I think everyone’s thought about like “what if i went back in time and shot Hitler before things got really bad?” Well, that’s now. You’ve arrived at the time travel destination.
I don’t really want to live in a world where republicans are shot dead, where the prosecutors putting people in jail for protesting are murdered in their sleep, or where the owners of a factory that pollutes the air we breathe are beaten so badly they’ll never walk again. But I also don’t want to live in the world those forces will create if left unchecked.
Besides, the right has been using stochastic terrorism for years.
My grandfather had one of these! I really enjoyed mowing my grandparents’ lawn with it as a child.
Cool, i’ll give this a go, see if I can get some kind of trans support group going. Cheers.
One queer friend said this, too:
“”" Also you have to account for people being in the closet. Remaining closeted is much less common than it once was, but when I chaired the LGBT caucus at my old job I had closeted members so I had to keep the email list secret and stuff “”"
I fixed my previous post’s markdown. It is finicky about whitespace, but hopefully my whole message rendered for you.
Ape together strong is funny, but not an answer.
What is the practical purpose? Safety, solidarity, emotional validation, political might, fun. Off the top of my head. Sorry for the flippant answer before, heh.
I know queer people, who maybe know some other queer people they’re friends with, but there isn’t any community, and they’re spread across the country, few and far between. They have no interest in any community. I’ve tried to organise a thing for us all to meet up, but no one is interested. Everyone needs money, they have phones for making themselves feel better.
Ok I’m not myself queer, just most of my friends are, so I can’t authoritatively speak on this topic. I’m going to text some friends and see if they’ll humor me by telling me their takes on if queer community exists.
My impression based on the number of explicitly queer events one friend goes to, and the spiraling social network around that, there is definitely community. They go to a lot of trans punk shows, I think. Plus picnics, beach trips, marches, parties, other stuff. I think they want to organize a knitting circle or something too, maybe?
My other friend who answered between me starting this message and now said, when I showed her the part I quoted: “That’s not consistent with my experience”.
Thinking about it, I know someone else who runs a queer book club.
What the practical purpose of this is and how or if it benefits anyone? ape together strong
i.e. the “gay community”, the “trans community” but it is clear there’s no such thing, hmmm i don’t think everyone would agree that’s a true statement.
How to start and/or join a community Folks seem to like meetup, facebook, plura, eventbrite. One group of I know has an email list and website. You can often advertise in bars or smaller locations.
I don’t know a lot about organizing groups.
I know folks who do stuff for queer community. They organize picnics, happy hours, concerts, discussion groups, and more. So far as I know, they started with someone going “I wanna start this group here.” Advertise on meetup/facebook/whatever, and be ready for minimal turnout for a while. But over time you accumulate more people, and more options open up. With enough people you can accomplish more- lobbying, volunteering, making people feel less alone and terrible.
Google Voice is google’s free telephone service. I’m not 100% certain it exists in the UK, but a quick search makes it look like it does. It’s safer than putting your real phone number because it’s more transient. You could probably also use email, signal, discord, or whatever, but phone numbers are the most ubiquitous.
As to what to write, since you don’t know of anything happening, you might have to start the group. Is there something you want to volunteer to do? Litter cleanup, volunteering somewhere, helping people register to vote (ok that’s probably a dystopian task specific to the US), or whatever?
You’re probably not telling the total truth, but maybe consider that one person being unpleasant 30 years ago isn’t a good reason to abandon an entire form of media for your entire life. Let it go. The librarian is probably dead by now, and they don’t have to matter to you anymore.