We have so much information and so little power. If only we could leverage our collective power.
What information we do have is regularly downplayed and whitewashed by media, if it’s addressed at all. Dissent and critical voices are muted. We are distracted regularly in every direction.
We can leverage our collective power by striking and taking to the streets before the collapse hits the fan.
We need a new system, human rights for all, and direct democracy.
News should not be able to openly air propaganda without providing factual evidence and counter-arguments. There needs to be oversight for news organizations that repeatedly distort the truth, manipulate the evidence, or suppress viewpoints that differ from their own. If they cannot comply with the tenets of fair and balanced reporting, they can’t air their propaganda anymore and call it news.
We need to take Lemmy’s and the larger fediverse’s concept and example and make decentralized media a reality for the masses. I wish I were able to spearhead this myself, but I would gladly support this effort in any way I could if an idea or plan is manifested.
You could create a lemmy community for it with the first goal of finding the ones who spearhead it.
https://50501.chat/c/mirror is already on the fediverse!
Isn’t 50501 mostly opposing GOP government while you want to create a new system, human rights for all, and direct democracy?
Doesn’t mean I can’t participate in building class consciousness there.
The GOP is clearly heading the country to collapse, I am going to be the person calling for all of those things in their midst while people’s faith in the government and the country’s two-party system falters.
A surprising amount of contributors there share my sentiment, either on the fediverse or on reddit.
Go to protests. Might seem like they don’t do anything, but they give courage to the good people in power to act and they make the bad people who work with the regime scared of the consequences.
Here’s message from Prof Snyders who wrote a book about Tyranny: https://youtu.be/yut2ZFaAU8k
Both?
Burnout and depression are natural responses to a disconnect between what you do and what you care about. Their psychological/physiological purpose is to get you to stop and rethink your life at a deep level. There are many questions that you don’t typically think about, like “why am I still participating in this economy”, “is it ethical for me to pay taxes”, “do I need to prepare for civil war”, or “how do I build up contacts in underground railroads” that your body knows have non-trivial answers in this scenario.
Chimpanzees have politics and tyrants, which means that our ancestors have had to deal with tyrants for at least 10 million years or at least 400,000 generations. We can feel in our blood when other tribe members are scrounging for sharp rocks to bludgeon us to death in the night, and it is only natural to withdraw from business as usual and rethink our options.
While I don’t disagree with most of what you said, rocks don’t need to be sharp for bludgeoning. Heavy rocks for bludgeoning, sharp rocks for slicing/stabbing.
I have wondered about setting up/participating in an underground railroad. I have friends who are people of color and may be targeted for one of those illegal “deportations.” I have started thinking about how that system would work and what we’d need to do/have. In the meantime, I would advise them to have a go-bag ready.
Have you seen Noem’s commercial about “illegals” registering and leaving? It scares me.
Yes.
Which do you think makes Trump happier?
Hearing that people feel burned out and are giving up?
OR
People are feeling mad and organizing?
This. It might seem like insignificant, because we don’t have direct power, but by being mad and organizing we are giving support to people that can do something, and keep the others scared.
Being burned out and not doing anything is exactly what they want.
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
It’s not pointless to make your bed, even if it’ll be unmade when you get back in it tonight. The fact that the fight is hard is what makes it worth fighting.
I don’t like this meme or this thinking in general, because it makes it seem like getting therapy or whatever isn’t worth it. But it is, regardless of whether your depressed for good reasons or not.
i don’t like the thinking that there’s little we can do… that thinking is why so many are doing so little.
we’ve been having large protests that the media isn’t covering, for example. if everyone that wanted to do something but thought they couldn’t do anything, went to the protests, we could shut everything down in a day.
we can also petition and unseat all of them…
but you have to admit that there’s a lot you can do, and it’s a chore….Or that events outside if your control have to influence your mood/energy level
Why not both?
We all need our two minutes hate.
Check the fuck out.
Set a news check in schedule and follow it… avoid the hourly, daily check in…
Personally… I check in on Wednesday and Sunday evenings. No single event between those check ins makes any difference in my life. Not like you can do a god damn thing about it anyway
Yeah I can’t just bury my head in the sand while my country is being taken over by fascists.
I check in on Wednesday and Sunday evenings. No single event between those check ins makes any difference in my life.
Well then count yourself lucky… But also, get ready because it will. And if you’re not paying attention, you will not be prepared.
To highlight the point it is I think the other user is making, can you name an action you’ve taken in light of doom-scrolling in between those days that benefited from immediately knowing that second? Were those actions still achievable if you had read a summary later on Wednesday, or Sunday? (Mind you, I’m not saying I follow this either but I do question whether I should).
Naturally we must strike a balance between being informed and being blissfully ignorant. Blissful ignorance is short-sighted but neither is crippling awareness healthy for the mind.
Now would be a good time to read Marcus Aurelius’s diary now called Meditations
I’m good. Pretty much been the same old dance for the last 50 years, they just switch out the dancing meat puppets to rile the peasants to fight each other in endless cycles. That is our founding fathers vision and it has built the most powerful nation on Earth.
