Divide & Conquer

Nov 8, 2024 6:38 PM

sadurdaynight

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15121

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630

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19

In the US, best thing you can do right now is give a damn about others, and join as many groups as possible. If they ask for help, show up. Because if you don't show up when they need it, why should they show up when you need it?

The goal of the Republicans gov't will be to divide and conquer, and prey upon the isolationists. The "I'm drawing a line in the sand around myself, and if they cross it then I'll fight!" They want that. That means they can go around crossing individual lines quietly, or with selective laws, or other means. They can use a smaller group of folks to pick off a few folks at a time.

I was talking to my wife, and I asked her what her "line in the sand" was. She said when they come for her reproductive rights. I asked if they come for Latinos or immigrants or others, will she stand up for them? "Sure, but I don't want to get hurt." Well, load yourself on the cattle car now, b/c if you're not willing to risk being hurt defending others, then they won't risk getting hurt defending you, either.

You can group up, have peaceable assembly, march, etc. It doesn't have to start with violence or escalation. But, it has to start with folks standing up for each other, and showing up when called upon.

politics

political_shit

1 year ago | Likes 55 Dislikes 2

"We are all stronger together than we would ever be alone, and that terrifies them. Terrifies them! They divide man against man to undermine our collective strength, because that is the only way they can rule! Without hate and fear, they are NOTHING!"

To borrow from some of my own writing.

1 year ago | Likes 8 Dislikes 2

Divide et impera

1 year ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

I have no idea how to even find any of the people in my area who would be willing to protect me, so how am I supposed to show up for them? People say things like "just go to queer spaces", but I'm too disabled to drive, don't have anyone to drive me, and I don't know where anything is. The city I'm in is HUGE, and I know from experience that contacting "local" organizations means contacting people that will tell me to get assistance from some place that's nowhere near me. Where tf is everyone?

1 year ago | Likes 12 Dislikes 0

My line in the sand was crossed on the 5th.

1 year ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Go to the school board meetings.

1 year ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Unfortunately the law doesn't quite support fighting for others in that way. We need to form intentional communities and run hatemongers out of them. Then it's the community fighting for itself. Basically communes, or as the right calls them compounds.

1 year ago | Likes 11 Dislikes 2

Yeah, a lot of people seem to believe that the best course of action is to buy a gun and wait for them to come for them.

1 year ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

#2 they won the culture wars in 2016 and we’re too busy fighting over which 80s toy is coolest to care.

1 year ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

1 year ago | Likes 97 Dislikes 2

This is awesome. I want it on a shirt.

1 year ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

throw more dots

1 year ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

An appeaser is one who feeds others to a crocodile — hoping it will eat him last.

1 year ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

I'm ready. Again. Starting Monday. It's been a hell of a week.

1 year ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

It's a stress response. We shrink our 'responsibility' areas when we fail or lose. You can't magically order people to change that. And realize your anger at others is your excuse not to do more yourself. No, you do not have a working crystal ball that tells us what will happen.

1 year ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 2

Yes, let's disregard years of history, and how things have played out before over and over. Let's disregard that the republicans are just rebranding the nazi playbook "Project 2025". Let's disregard all of that. Let's instead talk about "Crystal Balls" and "knowing the future". The past dictates the future, b/c human beings have not fundamentally changed. Which is why we keep repeating patterns in history.

1 year ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

This is why Christian nationalists focused on trans people after losing the marriage fight. They got many liberals to fight for them too, putting Trans people in the sights with the "Trans athletes" attacks.

1 year ago | Likes 58 Dislikes 1

1 year ago | Likes 21 Dislikes 0

Good luck with that. Many of the straight white male "allies" who were boasting about actively defending women, POC, and LGBTQ when they thought Trump couldn't possibly win are already walking back that predictably empty chest-beating support, telling marginalised communities to just "endure" and "stop overreacting" instead, because they'd much rather keep their heads down and not offer themselves up as potential targets now that the orange rapist has some degree of power again.

1 year ago | Likes 24 Dislikes 3

As a cis gendered white male, I am not tolerating this shit from the MAGAts and will fight to the end for and with members of marginalized communities.

1 year ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Same as it ever was… same as it ever was. I say we start with the most vulnerable. If you feel you’re in the crosshairs, then be ready to stand up for everyone else who’s in the crosshairs. And even that will be a stretch. Looking at you, suburban white women.

1 year ago | Likes 15 Dislikes 0

A good post by @kudzoo: https://imgur.com/gallery/mdN6Soe.

Links to: https://wagingnonvi
olence.org/2024/11/10-things-to-do-if-trump-wins
It's kind of a long read, and the beginning may be a bit "fluffy" for some, but it gets heftier as it goes. It also has some links to some sizable PDFs that look like they could be useful, and to other websites.

1 year ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/666b71d25d155b3509763e61/t/6696c79b4483c7565da3e43c/1721157535696/HOPE+PV+End+Political+Violence+G">f">https://static1.squarespace.com/static/666b71d25d155b3509763e61/t/6696c79b4483c7565da3e43c/1721157535696/HOPE+PV+End+Political+Violence+Guide+07-16-24+version.pdf

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/659f18e58ecd8b48c167275a/t/65a845a81c397a74fc70942f/1705526706337/Authoritarian+Playbook+for+2025.pdf

1 year ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

—Martin Niemöller

1 year ago | Likes 179 Dislikes 1

Hits a bit harder in translation.
An unhappy 1+

1 year ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

This time they first came for the immigrants and I'm already speaking loud as hell because I've read the rest of that damn poem.

1 year ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

My only problem with this is that somewhere along the way, they came for the people who spoke out...

1 year ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

All you have to do is replace with "immigrants", "gays", and "women".

1 year ago | Likes 31 Dislikes 0

They'll come for trade unionists, socialists and jews too if they get the chance.

1 year ago | Likes 14 Dislikes 0

The most terrifying part is that they have the administrative apparatus to come for all of us, just not all at once; multitasking is probably on their agenda. Our best hope is to support one another, as the post suggests, and hope that they are as incompetent, selfish, and myopic as they were last time they tried all of this.

1 year ago | Likes 8 Dislikes 0

Centerist: “I’m the last one on that list so I should be able to ride this out”

1 year ago | Likes 9 Dislikes 0

Even when I *was* a centrist, I wasn't that wishy-washy kind. I didn't use it as an excuse to not choose sides, or to make compromises. I had a very specific set of views on issues, and while most of them aligned with the left, a handful did not. I was just taking the best option - FOR EACH ISSUE, INDIVIDUALLY - from whichever side had the best option for it.

That was 25 years ago, though. Due to the ever-rightward shift of the Overton Window, ALL of the good answers are solidly on the left.

1 year ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

25 years ago Centrists gave us this

1 year ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

So, without changing any of MY views (well, maybe a couple as new and better ideas got introduced, rending previous-best solutions obsolete), I went from centrist, to left-leaning centrist, to leftist, to far-left progressive.

I really hate that centrists are always assumed to be the fence-sitters or the compromisers. I get that a lot who do that do call themselves centrists. But the centrism I once practiced was a lot more decisive, and knew what it wanted.

1 year ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

It’s a lot easier said than done. Especially when the jackboots come with military equipment. Fighting a riot shield is hard enough. Fighting a force that is willing to gun you all down, a lot harder. It’s not even about not wanting to get hurt for protecting others, it’s the hope that if you all keep your head down they won’t notice you.

1 year ago | Likes 31 Dislikes 3

If all your options end with being gunned down anyways, you might as well die fighting

1 year ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 1

1 year ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

The country really is going to go whatever the direction the military knows. Trump learned that the last time. When he kept wanting to field the military against citizens, and they politely told him to fuck off... they've held off appointing new military command so that trump can put loyalists into place. So, you're exactly right. The militarization of the cops is bad enough. But, if the actual military decides to support trump... we're pretty much screwed.

1 year ago | Likes 20 Dislikes 0

Trump has the Senate. They will confirm whatever officers he commands, which means the top will be giving orders to fire on citizens, and we just have to hope the middle officers and enlisted just aren’t willing to do it

1 year ago | Likes 15 Dislikes 0

While screwed, fighting your own populace is very challenging. And it wouldn't be the first time a bunch of irregulars with rifles and home made ordinance held off the US. Afghanistan, and Vietnam, showed how asymmetric warfare can work. I don't have to win, I just have to make them lose.

And most of the fighting would be in the blue cities and ports, which is where the countries money comes from. So you can't just blow up their infrastructure like they did in Gaza.

1 year ago | Likes 12 Dislikes 0

Big difference is this is domestic. The bulk of the military and surveillance is here for them to use.

1 year ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

That's not to say it would be pretty, or easy. Hundreds of thousands will die. And no. Matter the outcome the US will be over. But if the population doesn't like you, you can not win.

1 year ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 0

While what you say is true, those groups were used to a very different standard of living to the average American citizen.

1 year ago | Likes 10 Dislikes 0

Nvm, they had a distance advangtage when it came to logistics. When boots gotta wait for resupply it tends to fuck with what they can actually do as it fucks with morale. All our gear is right here, that said its gona be a weird situation if that move rolls.

1 year ago | Likes 7 Dislikes 0

Yes and no, because their supply lines are run by people who, at least partially, are the enemy. They may not need to wait for the boots, but if some of them come with razor blades from the factory....

1 year ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0