MayoPete

Trading stocks only radicalized me more. Lunch at a fast food spot is now over $15. Meanwhile it's possible to make a "trade" that nets more profit than a Popeyes employee earns in a day of work.

This can't last... or can it?

Or do bookstores only stock right wing books? The most "left" book I can find at this Books A Million is the latest from Bernie Sanders 🙃

Adult content 🤔

With ever more Supreme Court fuckery going on I'd like to help comrades in my local org be better secured against potential breaches.

Ideally I'd like to recommend 1-3 options that meet these needs:

• Easy to use
• Can be used on phones as well as mobile devices
• Doesn't retain any network traffic data

Any ideas on what options we have?

I get 1-2 of these per day, paste in my question, and never hear back.

Fascist policy has moved quickly in response to the recent solidarity encampments that sprang up to support Palestine. It seems like every state action right now is geared toward either making sure these camps can never again exist, or they can legally be crushed by any fascist who wishes to do so. I'm NGL, it's a scary time to be an American with left views right now.

What's happening just off the top of my head:

• Camps are being destroyed and dispersed by armed police, attacked by right-wing mobs, and harassed by Zionist propaganda shops.
• Positive coverage of the protests on mainstream media is near-zero. Same thing we saw during BLM protests in 2020.
• Individual protestors are facing consequences ranging from doxxing to harassment, to school suspensions, expulsion, and jail time.

That's all run-of-the-mill, seen that before. What's new:

• A man who was convicted, by a jury, of murdering protestors was just pardoned by the Governor of Texas.
• Protests continue to be attacked by fascists in vehicles.
• The federal government & many states are passing laws changing the definition of antisemitism to include the messages that the students were using at the camps, making it that much easier to legally suppress them.
• At least one state (NC) is about to change it's mask law to prevent protestors from wearing masks to protect themselves from Zionist retaliation.

So... protesting is basically banned, extremely dangerous, and silenced due to media blackout, state oppression, and social media bias. I know showing solidarity is important but I am struggling with seeing the local camp my local org helped support, a group of peaceful students and activists, just utterly crushed. IDK what to say to the people who effectively lost their rights to free speech.

Any ideas on what to do? How to escalate? How to protest in a way that is more effective and safer for the folks involved? I know the state is scared of these movements growing because of the sheer amount of action it is taking to quell these. At the same time I see these tactics working. I am tired of seeing good people dragged into jail. I'm tired of seeing them speared under the false charges of "anti-Semitism". I'm afraid of losing the life I have if I speak out. It feels like literally everyone is against us and it is depressing af.

I originally wanted to post a question about defending against vehicular attacks, but I remembered everything going on and realized there's a lot more stopping protests than that. I don't have the answers but hopefully we can collectively figure out some options.

Feeling like shit right now ngl

is down. Also, main

Disclaimers

tl;dr at the end

My perspective comes from living in part of Burgerland (aka the US) and will be focused on the left "movement" in this country. I'm not going to do the typical American thing of assuming my experiences and perspectives are the only ones that matter, so please let me know in the comments how other countries handle what I'm about to cover.

Also this post has been kicking around my head for a while, so apologies if it ends up long-winded or hard to read. The way I think is all over the place, so I have lots of headers and sections to keep things organized.

Intro: Messaging from the left = Capitalist Realism

Mark Fisher (RIP) wrote a very important book about a phenomenon he called Capitalist Realism.

I highly recommend every leftist reads at least the opening chapter to this book.

In this piece Fisher describes a widespread cultural attitude that Capitalism is inevitable, the only system that can exist in this "end of history". No alternatives are possible, so don't bother trying. And if you do try, you will be made an example of, another reason on a long list of reasons not to try again, so don't even bother. Or worse, your criticisms of Capitalism are used to help keep Capitalism going! Your efforts co-opted and integrated seamlessly into the machine. "Sorry To Bother You", but I doubt "Don't Look Up" got throngs of people who never heard of Socialism to sign up with

The left, unknowingly(?), contributes to Capitalist Realism

Look at the news feeds, the posts on here, all of the updates on all of your favorite Reddit subs, left Twitter, etc. Overwhelmingly negative stories about how Capitalism is screwing us, how this week a company is caught poisoning food, or how capitalist governments are suppressing speech, or some shitty Conservative politician pushing the latest woman-hating bill. I could go on, but I think you get the point. Capitalism sucks. No one here needs convincing of that.

What I want you to focus on is how this deluge of negative stories affects activists and organizers. More in comments.

Just wondering if anything good is happening somewhere. Maybe some local organizing wins? Would be nice to see something positive happening.

I know DSA gets dunked on here pretty hard, so hoping we can have a constructive conversation about how to make things better.

I'm a DSA member. Plz don't Ban me...

It's a smaller chapter in the deep south. There's a mix of people including MLS, Anarchists, and some baby-leftists. No and we make fun of Democrats all the time.

What we're doing:

New member education

BDS, in particular handing out flyers with a list of companies to boycott

Attending Palestinian rallies and supporting the Palestinian rights orgs in our area

Tabling at Pride

Brake light clinics

...and we're starting a public transit campaign to improve service

What are we missing? What could we do better?