I’m very curious to hear your thoughts on this topic. What can we do to fix this? If you’ve already tried something what were your results? What worked and what do you think could be done better?
My thoughts on this are that we keep electing politicians who support billionaires and elite instead of ordinary people like you and me. In addition people are loosing a sense of community and are isolated at home. I think these two things can be fixed simultaneously by getting out and talking about class and corrupt politicians in person and having mutual support networks.
These corrupt politicians typically get elected by exploiting people’s fears and biases. For example a corrupt politician might blame your problems on immigrants or minorities. Meanwhile people won’t notice that they are being robbed by the billionaires.
I read interviews of people who used to be part of hate groups. The consistent theme I noticed is that they had past traumas and issues which draw them towards hateful ideologies. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/12/opinions/former-white-supremacist-how-to-tackle-hate-buckley/index.html
When talking to people it’s important to listen and respect them first before you say your points. This article has a good technique for talking with people: https://www.vice.com/en/article/how-to-change-a-voters-mind-is-deep-canvassing/ I’ve been using myself and I can vouch for it.
its fighting an impossible war against the constant propaganda, which the victims are now self-reinforcing.
even if you stopped the corporate stream of lies via places like fox news, it will take decades to reverse the damage via individual counseling as you suggest. were all fucked unless something drastic happens such as a serious recession/depression forcing the views to change faster.
A depression might be coming. If tariffs go in, prices will increase - that’ll produce some amount of inflation. If the inflation is high, and the dumbasses handling it are incompetent, e.g. if they came off of a clown car, they could trigger a depression. There are a few scenarios that could do it.
When you say impossible do you feel that in a literal way or “impossible” like how some people thought it was impossible for Trump to win in 2016?
I agree that reversing the full extent of the damage caused is going to take a long time, in fact I think it will take a long time even if there is a recession/depression. Right now we are going backwards if we could start by changing things so that we are moving forwards even if just a little bit it will open the door for healing which yes will take a long time but is necessary.
im basing it on the possibility of both stopping the propaganda and reversing its damage. it just seems like an insurmountable task.
I understand that. It’s not something one person can do alone. It won’t be easy. I feel it’s kind of like voting if everyone played a small part we could make big changes. For example if I could convince 5 people to volunteer and convince 20 people on the fence or unsure about Trump to be against him that could be a good victory. With those numbers we’d only need about 5% of the population to participate in this.
Quite simply, we need a financial revolution. If a company pisses me off, I stop shopping there. Even if it hinders me in the long run.
There is a local grocery store chain in the Cleveland area called Marcs. It’s a low budget store. The running joke is that Marc Glassman is selling stolen/counterfeit goods, due to how cheap they are, and how fast they break/rot.
Everyone in my family agrees that I should shop there. It would probably benefit my wallet to shop there.
But in 2003, Marc Glassman was doing a store inspection before I even started my shift. They had NOBODY scheduled in my department before 4pm. They blamed me for why the shelves looked so bad, because I closed the night before, nobody worked the morning shift, and now here I am at 3:45pm, shelfs are a mess, CEO is asking questions, store manager blames me, and I get fired before I even got to the employee area to clock in.
Still to this day, I say that was bullshit. I refuse to shop at a place that took a paycheck away from me whdn I was like 20 years old, living in my first apartment, and needed money the most. They hurt me when I was vunerable. I’d shopped at Marcs since I was a kid. I’d still be shopping there now. Instead, I’ve never given them a dime since that day.
Here’s the thing about people. They have no principals. They will not do whats right if it hurts them. Nestle uses literal slave labor, but here they are, a huge company with so many brands it’s hard to keep track. If EVERYONE stopped buying nestle products, nestle couldn’t use slave labor because they wouldn’t exist.
But that’s not gonna happen, because some people just need those cookies, and hot pockets, and a bunch of other unhealthy products that continue to keep us in a disposable human life cycle. Nobody wants to take responsibility. Everyone just wants fast cheap things. Because nobody has any principals anymore. So CEOs will continue to get rich. Enjoy your hot pockets, fuckers.
Oh boy is that my passion topic. You know why this doesn’t work? Because you as a freaking consumer are not responsible! It’s just capitalism that indoctrinates this BS into all of us.
You can’t check the ethics of every service and product you consume. Nestlé is actually a good example. Yeah they suck. But so does every other nutrition mega corp. Don’t believe me? Check out how ethical “Danone” and “Kelloggs” is. Now go grocery shopping and avoid these three companies. Good luck.
It should not be the responsibility of the consumer to ensure that a company does not kill infants, fuel war, engage in slavery etc.
Just think about what you have bought recently. Did you double check the supply chain? Do you really know the ecological food print? Do you know where this stuff has been produced? Which workers, factories, and other entities have been exploited to make these? The scissors that your hair dressers use are most likely unethical.
They play you, because as long as you think “man I’m not the problem, they are” you will never realize that you have to look up to spot the asshole.
Edit: the responsibility of the customer is more like “what contains less sugar,” “what tastes better,” “what is of better value,” “what is produced more locally” etc. Not literally “are they killing babies,” “do they engage in genocide” etc.
mutual support networks
Now you’ve done it, Anarchist rant incoming …
heh j/k, I’ll just say disengage from capitalism as much as you can. Like obviously don’t inconvenience yourself excessively but the less you need to pay out the less you need to work for pay the more you can work for your community and help others also disengage from this broken system.
You can’t use the state to dismantle the state, vote as harm reduction and build alternatives at the same time. Anarchist Knitting circle at my place.
Repeal citizens United and institute ranked choice voting nationwide (USA)