binary unnuanced thinking is a tool of the right. and this isn’t me trying to be a “informed centrist, both sides are evil, let’s maintain the status quo” motherfucker. it’s simply a fact that for the last 20k years these cycles of rising violence have happened over and over again and the thing that always happens is the demagogues flatten all conversation into us vs them binaries.
part of how this system works is it strips people of their humanity by first not studying what it means to be human in school, and then by telling one class of people that another class of people isn’t. it’s a matter of susceptiblity to propaganda. nazis, idf soldiers, ruzzian militants, genocidal leaders in sudan, they all have the same core belief that they are the ones who are righteous and good for carrying out their acts, and the people they carry them out against could have avoided it by not being here.
by the nature of how america was founded then expanded every single white person living here today is here because of someone in their family tree or someone they knew personally who thought this way. all of us are much closer to becoming ICE agents through the leverage of the propaganda machines, misinformation, and poor education than most liberals are willing to confront themselves with. the most horrifying thing about the banality of evil is that all of us carry a capacity for it. if you really want to avoid it you have to audit it daily within yourself and work to keep the people in your life from falling for it.
once people are lost, they’re lost. they become part of a great organism of hate that is driven by its leadership. that leadership must be removed and the people in the cult deprogrammed. some within the cult are lost forever and cannot be allowed to spread their hate to future generations. but if studying recent history has taught me anything it’s that only 20% of this country actually gets what’s goind on around here. 30% of this country are true, pure, hateful people who cannot be redeemed. and then the remaining 50% see both of those groups as the same and will go along with anything as long as there is a law that allows it and the proper paperwork has been filed.
ICE’s rank and file for decades have come mostly from the 30% of pure vile evil, but now they’re also pulling in people from the 50% and so far this republican regime has had all the paperwork they need to convince far too much of this country that all of this is fine and normal. you have to focus on breaking that myth more than you do on the individuals carrying out the atrocities because, to reiterate, they don’t understand they’re atrocities. they’ve been convinced that this is how the world works and better things simply aren’t possible.
if you want to help, get organized and get active. get a noisemaker and if ice shows up in your community make a racket to disrupt their operations while your neighbors hide from them until the accute danger passes. and remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint
Yeah, I think that people often just assume that there is no path by which they could end up becoming a monster.
binary unnuanced thinking is a tool of the right. and this isn’t me trying to be a “informed centrist, both sides are evil, let’s maintain the status quo” motherfucker. it’s simply a fact that for the last 20k years these cycles of rising violence have happened over and over again and the thing that always happens is the demagogues flatten all conversation into us vs them binaries.
part of how this system works is it strips people of their humanity by first not studying what it means to be human in school, and then by telling one class of people that another class of people isn’t. it’s a matter of susceptiblity to propaganda. nazis, idf soldiers, ruzzian militants, genocidal leaders in sudan, they all have the same core belief that they are the ones who are righteous and good for carrying out their acts, and the people they carry them out against could have avoided it by not being here.
by the nature of how america was founded then expanded every single white person living here today is here because of someone in their family tree or someone they knew personally who thought this way. all of us are much closer to becoming ICE agents through the leverage of the propaganda machines, misinformation, and poor education than most liberals are willing to confront themselves with. the most horrifying thing about the banality of evil is that all of us carry a capacity for it. if you really want to avoid it you have to audit it daily within yourself and work to keep the people in your life from falling for it.
once people are lost, they’re lost. they become part of a great organism of hate that is driven by its leadership. that leadership must be removed and the people in the cult deprogrammed. some within the cult are lost forever and cannot be allowed to spread their hate to future generations. but if studying recent history has taught me anything it’s that only 20% of this country actually gets what’s goind on around here. 30% of this country are true, pure, hateful people who cannot be redeemed. and then the remaining 50% see both of those groups as the same and will go along with anything as long as there is a law that allows it and the proper paperwork has been filed.
ICE’s rank and file for decades have come mostly from the 30% of pure vile evil, but now they’re also pulling in people from the 50% and so far this republican regime has had all the paperwork they need to convince far too much of this country that all of this is fine and normal. you have to focus on breaking that myth more than you do on the individuals carrying out the atrocities because, to reiterate, they don’t understand they’re atrocities. they’ve been convinced that this is how the world works and better things simply aren’t possible.
if you want to help, get organized and get active. get a noisemaker and if ice shows up in your community make a racket to disrupt their operations while your neighbors hide from them until the accute danger passes. and remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint