PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]

its a reminder to redirect you focus from merely “ACAB” and instead focus on “Eat The Rich”.

Okay but what on earth makes you think I’m not focusing on eating the rich? Like “eat the rich” and “ACAB” are complementary. Yeah of course the rich are the biggest monsters, but that doesn’t mean the cops aren’t monsters.

Still a cop, still a bastard.

“All cops are bastards” means “All cops are bastards”, no exceptions. Simply put: even the most polite, most protocol-abiding, most progressive-coded police officer still ultimately serves to impose the will of the capitalist class upon the working class. Rarely do they ever protect, rarely do they ever even make the situation better, and the rare times that they do anything positive are basically when calling a monster with a gun is better than calling no one at all.

It’s not a “barrel of apples” situation. It’s more like a barrel of radioactive waste: some of it might be less bad than the rest, but ultimately we need to get the whole barrel as far away from humanity as possible forever.

It’s that the police are categorically a bad thing. It literally does not matter what else a cop does, as long as the individual is still a cop and still have cop powers and privileges, then like all other cops, they are bastards.

Dude got beaten by his fellow officers.

That sucks and that shouldn’t have happened. But he still went back into policing, even becoming an arch-cop. So fuck him.

Well good thing there are no good cops 🅰️©️🆎

I didn’t say anything about political statements, I mentioned violent statements.

Politics is already violence. For example, even though no gunshots are going to be fired, millions of vulnerable US-Americans are about to lose their state medical insurance. What is this if not social murder?

Politics is systematic social violence, but it is structured in such a way that the systemic aspects are abstracted away from all individuals.

anyone who can’t express the latter without the former should, generally, expect to be censured (and censored).

I reject this notion. For example, I support stopping the IDF from committing the genocide of Palestine. Do I support stopping them peacefully? Of course it would be fantastic if we could peacefully get them to stop what they’re doing, but…this would have to happen immediately, since every moment of every day the IDF is continuously destroying Palestinians. Said differently: we could only afford to work at the pace of liberal democracy if that pace was immediate.

This should not be even remotely controversial!

Like be serious for a minute: would you have a problem if Jews living under Nazi regimes and their allies said “Death to the Wehrmacht”? Well with 80 years of hindsight of course you would now not have a problem with that. But since it’s happening now in Palestine and on a smaller scale than the Nazi Holocaust, you’re having problems with coarse violent opposition rhetoric because you haven’t successfully learned to apply the lessons of the Holocaust to current events!

Chanting “death, death to the IDF” is violent and inappropriate at a music festival. “Fuck the IDF” would’ve been fine though.

No it’s not. Mass music festivals are perfectly acceptable places to make political statements. This has been done for generations now, i.e. Rage Against the Machine.

And when we say “Death, death to the IDF”, we are accurately talking about the IDF like the monsters they are. For a scathing rebuke of respectability politics, I defer to this essay:

I am so fucking mad, sad, angry, and enraged at the actions of the elite and the hateful reality they’ve structured; that the only honest way to express my emotions is to wave a giant neon hatecock in the face of these hypocritical lying shitmongers. I don’t care if they hear me – they would never care, even if I was “respectable.” But they can’t fucking ignore me. They can’t fucking look away. They can only shake their head and claim, ever more shrilly as our world spirals deeper into shit, that “You’ll never convince a moderate with that language!” Fuck you. I don’t want to convince moderates. I want to fucking change shit. I want to inspire people, to get them angry. And if that offends you, if my anger, my emotions, my rage at getting fucked over, over and over and over again, bothers you? Take a step back, and think about what you truly value. Is it the messenger? Or the message?

Honestly, the fact that you are trying to pretend I didn’t tell you my background in an attempt to prove whatever point you are trying to make about me is humourous.

You told me that you’re Greek-Canadian, right? I genuinely forgot that you told me, sorry. Being Greek didn’t register in my 💩 brain as a visible minority group, but it absolutely is. I was also leaving open the possiblity of belonging to any other minority identities you hadn’t previously talked about without assuming cisheteronormative “defaults”.

whatever point you are trying to make about me is humourous

I wanted to move on with the discussion as if you could have been, but did not definitively tell me, that you were from a group which is a minority in Canada. Which you did and I acknowledge that now, and I simply forgot.

I stand by the rest of what I said. I’m gonna leave it here because this is already verging on unhealthy.

Not one word of this is true.

Come on. I know a debate lord when I see one. Game recognizes game. The problem with being a debate lord is that there’s always a bigger debate lord than you 😈.

Maybe don’t make jokes

Socialism is when no jokes /s

…under a warning about peoples safety as a person who is partly responsible for aforementioned lack of safety.

Oh my fucking God no I am not partly responsible for the lack of safety that the US government imposes on its citizens. The US GOVERNMENT is causally responsible, and the fault lies with the people who run the system and the capitalists who are responsible for it. The State imposes this reality on me and almost everyone else here. We NEVER had a democracy, even de jure! The United States is a “democratic” republic! And every step of the way, I have expressed my disgust for this evil country and its trajectory!

Please if you take home only one message, it is this: States IMPOSE their will upon the working class.

And again, what I said did not even go against your warning. It didn’t even diminish the engagement your warning got. It probably got a few people more people to read it because there was an actual discussion below it.

And if you thought what I said was insensitive, you could have clearly stated so. But again… this is my reality too, that I’m fucking stuck in this sick fucking hellhole. I feel like I have a right to make jokes at my own expense.

The delivery of information doesn’t change whether it is correct or not.

Right, that’s why I put it in a separate part of the comment separated by a line. But also… that’s not how humans operate? If you want people to listen to you, in general you can’t be a jerk about it. That’s something you’ll learn as you unlearn debate lord habits.

I have not been a jerk to basically everyone who I have interacted with, but I would love to see you waste your time by providing a chart that demonstrates me being an unwarranted jerk to the majority of people over 1.23k comments and 20 posts.

I mean “being a jerk” is an opinion, so it’s not something you can really do reliable mathematics about, i.e. a chart would be equivalent to what I have already given you in text form. A chart actually would have been faster to make, i.e. it would be less of a waste of time.

More precisely: you’ve been being a jerk to people on Lemmy with the account I’m replying to. I don’t think you’re necessarily a jerk anywhere else. This isn’t a personal attack. I’m commenting on your behavior.

This shouldn’t be too hard since you are already balls deep in my account. I expect it by the end of the week or your fired.

Nah I’m not that deep in your profile lol, and I’m not even good at reading people. Just a week or two to get a sense of where you’re coming from.

I also clearly stated why I proceeded the way I did.

I agree to disagree.

You didn’t have to keep going but you did.

Yup. I’m not a debate lord. I’m a debate monster 👹.

I am responsible for my end, and you yours. It is on you just as much as me that we are here.

Hell yeah I’m riding this train wherever it goes 🚂🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃. Edit: Actually I’m not gonna respond to any responses to the previous two responses because I’ve made my points and the rational side of me is realizing that this is getting a bit excessive. Not that I can’t, but because I’m seeing myself get back into those debate lord behaviors I loathe so much.

So genuinely: beyond this point, I can agree to disagree with you, I apologize for not dropping it earlier, and have a nice rest of your week.

You are making broad assumptions about the entire country of people which happens to be full of “Canadians” from different cultures.

Almost. I am making broad assumptions about people who positively identify with Canada because these are assumptions that, by identifying with and defending Canada’s legacy, you self-associate yourself with. Obviously Canada is a diverse place. Canada even has anarchist federations! But when you choose to identify with the culture of the oppressor, I can freely use the assumptions, which that culture has spent so much time, money, and blood forcing to be the reality, about you.

You assume anyone who isn’t from a country attacked by the US (Which Canada currently is)

Canada is not being attacked by the US. Yeah they’re tariffing goods coming out of your country and they’re harassing and detained Canadians at the border, but you aren’t being militarily attacked.

does not get a say in the matter, …

No I’m not weighting whether or not you get a say at all, I’m weighting the amount of patience I give people for saying things that are incorrect, bigoted, or wrong in any way. And it’s not strictly being bombed by the US that’s the condition: it’s the person’s material circumstances, what kind of danger they’re in, mental state.

It’s not even remotely unreasonable to be more patient with people who are going through hard times or are in distress.

and include everyone who isn’t Indigenous or “Living in the inner city”. (Racist, as I know who you are referencing here. Note: Many people from different backgrounds live in the “inner city” with many different experiences regardless of cultural origin.)

The wording I used was “even on the reservations or in the inner city” about people who I would have more patience with based on their location and material circumstances. Of course race is a huge part of that! And it’s not racist to acknowledge that! But it’s not the only part. For example, there are some black and brown people raised in suburban areas who are quite well off and adopt similar positions to the capitalist monoculture. For these people, I would have a lower patience compared to black and brown people living in the inner city or out in the country who are statistically more likely to be fighting harder than me against the system to survive. Similarly, there are a minority of white people raised in the inner city for whom I would have a higher patience than white people living in the suburbs, because even though white people have not faced a history of race-based discrimination, some white people continue to experience discrimination for their class, gender, sexuality, sometimes even their ethnicity (example: Irish, Italians, Jews).

Acknowledging the reality that people of different races are treated differently and thus are dealing with different circumstances is not racism! It’s anti-racism! Get with the program!

Furthermore, inner cities in particular are marred by police violence and structural oppression. Some of that oppression is experienced invariantly with respect to race by anyone living in the inner city.

Like I was very clearly referring to people living in these locations, and I wanted to encode the subtlety that living in these locations can actually be to your detriment.

You ignore the fact that I am also from a visible minority group and lump me in with a group you know nothing about knowing nothing about me.

Canadians are not a minority in Canada. I actually don’t know about if you are from any other minority groups. I didn’t really get that far in your profile.

How do you feel about Indigenous Government structures?

No one is free until we’re all free. I am a settler and I’m not an expert on Indigenous governing structures, which is admittedly a blind spot. Otherwise, I defer to Indigenous voices about Indigenous issues. For an Indigenous anarchist perspective, see the “Indigenous Sovereignty” section of the following article for a much more subtle discussion about the topic than I could possibly give right now. Yes, even anarchists have problems with settler colonialism, myself included despite my best efforts.

https://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/adcs/article/download/20169/8928/

Alternatively, if you have some reading material about Indigenous sovereignty I’d love to check it out. Anecdotally, I have noticed the rise of a very careful Indigenous Anarchist current since the resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline gained traction.

(Continued in reply.)

Yeah and I haven’t done any of those things. I made a pretty clear distinction between the subjects under a government and the government itself, i.e. people who live in Canada/America/wherever vs the Canadian/America/wherever government.

If hating the Canadian government is bigotry then bigotry is a toothless concept that needs to be dispensed with…but obviously, hating the Canadian government is not bigotry. It’s an emotional continuation of a principled objection to all nations rooted in the anarchist tradition of anti-nationalist libertarian socialism. Hating the cultural institutions invented by the Canadian government isn’t bigotry either. Again, it is an emotional continuation of a principled objection to nationalism, in particular the cultural assimilation

Actually, my argument is closer to “it is bigotry NOT to reject national governments and their cultural assimilation.” Because these national governments assimilate whatever cultures they can distill into something acceptable for capitalism, and brutally destroy anyone who can’t or won’t be assimilated. THAT is bigotry.

Like there’s this distinct sense that you came into this conversation to dunk on “dumb Americans” for being a “big dumb patriot in dumb USA why don’t you just leave” and you didn’t expect to be dealing to someone to your left because literally everyone in America is a conservative no exceptions allowed and literally no one is paying attention. Pay no mind to the LA anti-ICE protests and even the shitlib-controlled No Kings protests where about 1% of the population turned up (which is actually huge for protests!).

And since you’re usually dunking on Americans, who often are actual bigots, as a Canadian in a marginally less shit society, your brain goes “Yeah this dude is American so he must be a bigot, call him a bigot, that’ll show him.”

You aren’t debating me. You’re dunking on this abstract idea of a generic American but writing it in prose with the length and cadence of a serious debate.

And to be clear: I love dunking on my fellow Americans. I really do. We need to be put in our fucking place from time to time…all the fucking time really.

What I don’t appreciate is debating under false pretenses. It was really that first remark about racism where I knew what this conversation was: you were debating the generic American, not me, because it’s obvious to anyone with a pulse that I had said nothing even remotely racist or controversial in the snippet you quoted.

Like you have every right to be mad at America and Americans but maybe don’t dunk on Americans when they’re trying to express their disdain for the things you claim to be against. Like I 1000% support an America boycott, not coming to America, not working with Americans, fuck us and fuck all our shit, but you gotta understand that 100% purely perfect boycotting of America is not possible for people who were born here. It’s not even a remotely controversial position. To deny this is to deny material reality.

People accuse anarchists of black and white thinking but it’s you who’s thinking in black and white, specifically that it is easy for all Americans to leave America and that anymore who doesn’t leave wants to be here and agrees with all or even any of the oppression that the US government has planned for the world.

And usually I don’t keep hammering people like this but…come on…I know you’re a debate lord. You’re usually on the other side of this interaction…so it’s a chance to understand how it feels to be on the other side. (And also maybe I have important shit to do that I’m too anxious to do right now 😆.)

And you started all this over an extremely tame joke which, while literally going against the literal text of your first comment, clearly does not show support for the American empire or even diminish the correct anti-American critique you started with. I even gave you an out in the second comment where you could have said nothing or been like “well maybe I was a bit harsh”.

All of this say: even if you were right, you’re kind of being a jerk in your comment history. Not just to me, but to basically everyone you’ve interacted with lately. Not saying you are a jerk because I don’t know you, but you’re being a jerk. And if I wasn’t such an insufferable jerk myself, I would have probably just told you that directly and moved on with my life. Game recognizes game 😆.

Yeah I have lotsa bullshit to reflect on because I’m an extremely flawed human. Again, my post/comment history proves I have a lot of shit to work on, and I don’t pretend otherwise. Now you know that you do too.

Yeah I actually am thirsty to know what specifically made you think I’m bigoted. We can agree to disagree about everything else but being called a bigot is pretty serious 😳

Like seriously I’d like to know so I don’t repeat it: which part of any of my replies is bigoted?

Yeah because being anti-nationalist is so bigoted /s

I like the way you explain your Anarchist stances.

Thank you. I try my best. God bless.

By that logic, you aren’t the only person in the world and a not so small amount of people are all about that life.

…you seriously think a lot of people are interested in murdering random people? That it’s the existence of the State that keeps people from just being serial killers? Nah.

If the numberless facts which can be brought forward to support this view are taken into account, we may safely say that mutual aid is as much a law of animal life as mutual struggle, but that, as a factor of evolution, it most probably has a far greater importance, inasmuch as it favours the development of such habits and characters as insure the maintenance and further development of the species, together with the greatest amount of welfare and enjoyment of life for the individual, with the least waste of energy.

Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid; A Factor of Evolution

I.e. sure you’re going to get some serial killers and anarchist societies will have to account for them, but the vast majority of people are good enough.

A racist Anarchist? Well I never!

What are you smoking and can I have some?!?

Acknowledging the very real reality that people from Iran and Palestine are more likely to be in a rough state of mind because they’re currently being fucking bombed into oblivion is not fucking racism. Similarly, people living in the inner city or on reservations who are constantly being kicked in the teeth by the system at every step of their lives might are more likely to be in a rough state of mind than I am in my relatively privileged position.

Acknowledging my privilege relative to them is not fucking racist.

We have much to be proud of in Canada.

Yo my sister lived in Canada for several years. She has indigenous descent and she faced so much fucking racism for even looking First Nations.

Feel free to explain how one “abolishes” a country full of people born and raised here from all over the world.

Abolish the State through a diversity of tactics including peaceful protest, nonviolent and violent direct action, and mass mobilization. Convince people (like you) to also break their mental chains (like attachment to your nation). Establish alternative, prefigurative systems in opposition to hierarchy and domination with built-in safeguards to ensure consent of the community these systems serve.

I am not ashamed to be Canadian, and I am proud to be Canadian.

Okay the only people who should be ashamed of their country are people who are currently proud of it. If you need to feel shame to break this chain then please do.

Regardless of the history of both.

Really? Because… that’s kinda important!

We also do a lot of good around the world.

No Canada does not. Canada is in lockstep with America, providing material support for the War on Terror and complicity in the Gaza Genocide, just to name a few.

There is a reason why we have so many allies.

Because Canada is in lockstep with America and the Canadian government has competent diplomats. Also… America has a lot of allies! That’s not a good measure of how beneficial a country is to the world.

I choose to live here because I like my country. I am proud of that choice. Just like you choose to live in the US and play pretend freedom fighter.

Lol I absolutely do not pretend to be a freedom fighter because I’m too tired to fight. But I’d rather be a hypocrite than completely wrong.

And no, I absolutely do not choose to live here. If I left the United States for another country, I would blow through the couple hundred bucks in my bank account (which I don’t even think I can access abroad? My bank will lock my card if I start using it across the country, let alone the world) because I wouldn’t be allowed to get work, then get my ass deported back to the US. At least in the US I have people I can ask for money, and I can get work. Crucially… I’m not gonna dox myself, but I’m working to get the credentials to be able to get the fuck out of here and into almost any country in a way that is sustainable.

To be completely clear: Obviously, “Anarchist”. That is exactly what people say when they have nothing to be proud of in their country.

No lol. Americans are unfortunately super proud of their country. Patriotism gets more fashionable as things get worse.

But also: in my view, there’s nothing to be proud of in any country. Pride in your community? Pride in your culture? Subculture? Heritage? Family? Friends? Your own achievements? Sure thing! But the “nation” is a falsehood organized around the State, run by your local warlords in service of capitalism.

Definitionally, I believe that no one should be proud of their nation. Definitionally, nationalism is bad. I literally don’t care about what quality of life you lead in that nation, because without the violence of the State and the capitalists it serves, you and your neighbors would be better off without the State.

I know what Anarchists are, which is why I said one day you will grow out of it.

No I won’t lmao. Been going strong for ~15 years, and the older I get and the more I learn about the world and the more I experience life, the more I believe that anarchism is the best framework for analyzing and synthesizing a society that’s good for everyone.

As long as you abide by the laws and systems of the things you “advocate against” you are nothing more than a hypocrite like all other Anarchists.

By that logic, I should start murdering and killing random civilians because it’s in opposition to the law. Of course not! Not literally all laws are completely wrong. But I 1000% do not give a fuck about the letter of the law for the things I actually want to do.

If your idea of Anarchy is “Everyone works together to get stuff done without violence inherent in the state and the inequalities of capitalism” we have a name for that and it is called “Socialism”.

Yes exactly, that’s why some people use the term libertarian socialism to describe anarchism and its relatives! (Notice the little “l”; I obviously condemn the “Libertarian” Party and right-wing “Libertarians”.) I will happily identify as a socialist, but “anarchist” is a bit more precise.

The rest of your talking points are directly answered in the Anarchist FAQ previously linked, and they did a much better job than I possibly could.

But let’s get back to where we started. I am no fan of America even though I live here. As an anarchist, I am painfully aware of and vocal about how evil an entity America is. You don’t need to be an anarchist to come to that conclusion, but I brought it up only because it’s sufficient to come to the conclusion that America is evil (if not necessary). But more importantly: just because I live in America does not mean I have no right to vent.

And I would be a lot more quiet if you were from Palestine or Iran or one of the various countries America has bombed into the stone age, or even from the inner city or one of the reservations inside the US. I could absolutely sympathize with them being rude to me. I’d agree with them and take it. I’m an anarchist, and I’m accustomed to reading material written with a confrontational tone; half our modern anarchist literature is just people yelling at the reader 😆.

But you’re from Canada. Canada is just as complicit as the United States in the vast majority of the suffering we inflict on the world. And y’all are just as shitty to your indigenous population as we are.

And I’ve been noticing a distinctly…pro-Canada stance in your recent comment history…

If Americans have nothing to be proud of …WHICH WE DO NOT… AMERICANS HAVE NOTHING TO BE PROUD OF …then Canadians have almost nothing to be proud of. Yeah your healthcare system and social services are slightly less shit for white people, but Canada is still a settler-colonialist, capitalist, racist project that needs to be abolished.

Like if I should feel bad for living in America, then by taking your logic to its logical conclusion YOU should be ashamed about living in Canada.

Which you shouldn’t. You were born there or were brought there. It’s not your fault.

And to be completely clear: I reject national pride overall. National pride is for people who have nothing real to be proud of.

You literally aren’t an Anarchist because you are literally living under the boot of a dictatorship.

No that’s not how it works. Anarchists are people who advocate for the abolition of all authorities and hierarchies, including but not limited to the State, capitalism, xenophobia, racism, sexism, transphobia, etc. You don’t have to currently live in an anarchist society to be an anarchist.

You likely wouldn’t survive an anarchist society, but you will grow out of that idea eventually I am sure.

Well no I wouldn’t survive because everyone dies 😆. But I wouldn’t advocate for anarchism if I thought I was going to have a bad time.

But I want to gently push back against the “Mad Max” notion of “anarchy” that I think you’re working with. Most forms of anarchism actually call for people to work together, to form groups to get stuff done but without the violence inherent in the State and the inequalities of capitalism that States inevitably reinforce.

For more information, see Section A.1 of the Anarchist FAQ.

I am tired of Americans chiming in with “Jokes” when their country is a fucking hell hole that is impacting everyone else.

Go through my post history. I’m literally an anarchist. I literally hate America and I literally want to abolish it. I am perfectly aware of how disgusting American influence is on the world—that’s why I’m making jokes about it. Joking about it is how some people cope with the crushing reality of capitalism. And honestly I thought these two comments were kinda tame.

But if I leave the country for any reason I have to come back. So then I have to travel into the country.

Also that’s kind of an aggressive response for what I meant to be kind of a jokey comment?

you do not have a legitimate reason to travel there now.

My parents live here 💀

I live here 💀💀

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_a_spade_a_spade

The phrase predates the use of the word “spade” as an ethnic slur against African Americans (and others of African descent), which was not recorded until 1928.

The ultimate source of this idiom is a phrase in Plutarch’s Apophthegmata Laconica: τὴν σκάφην σκάφην λέγοντας (tēn skaphēn skaphēn legontas). The word σκαφη (skaphe) means “basin or trough”. Lucian De Hist. Conscr. (41) has τὰ σύκα σύκα, τὴν σκάφην δὲ σκάφην ὀνομάσων (ta suka suka, tēn skaphēn de skaphēn onomasōn), “calling a fig a fig, and a trough a trough”.