🏳️‍🌈 hi there, i’m blake! i’m a silly gay bear 🌀

  • 15 Posts
  • 919 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: February 25th, 2025
  • bearboiblake@pawb.socialOPtoNews@lemmy.world•DNC Shoots Down Resolutions Calling Out AIPAC and Limiting Arms to IsraelEnglish
    5·
    5 hours ago

    How dare you?! Under my false dichotomy, a comparatively small amount of harm would be prevented over the short term. It doesn’t matter about long term outcomes because I decided. I shall end with an ad-hominem attack and if you make me confront the reality of my position I will block you because that makes me uncomfortable. Don’t you even dare think about making any analogies or comparing to any historical examples of persecution. That is deeply offensive when it contradicts my pre-existing beliefs.

  • bearboiblake@pawb.socialOPtoNews@lemmy.world•DNC Shoots Down Resolutions Calling Out AIPAC and Limiting Arms to IsraelEnglish
    1·
    6 hours ago

    I think what you’re probably experiencing is people who kind of intuitively understand the position as I explained it - that there are reasons for that extreme far-right sentiment, and that Israel and the US are kind of responsible for it, so blaming those people for being far-right seems like it’s advocating in favor of genocide - but perhaps struggle to put it into words and explain it in the same way I do. People sometimes get quite emotional around such discussions, which can lead to very charged and somewhat irrational responses.

    Islam is still very unpopular among most westerners. I’m an atheist, but I’m something of a hobbyist theologian, and I will occasionally sprinkle little bits of religiosity into my comments here and there. I have definitely noticed that I get more negative responses when I make a reference to Islam than I do for references to Christianity, Taoism, Buddhism, etc.

    More broadly, people often make quite unfair and broad statements about Islam and Sharia law, for example, and there’s certainly a lot of Islamophobia and terror jacketing that takes place in mainstream and online discourse. Look at all of the hate that Hasan Piker gets, for example - even US Senators have claimed that he is an Islamist and a jihadist just because he is a Muslim. I think that’s extremely wrong and bigoted.

    It’s definitely wrong to tar an entire religion with the same brush - no religion is a monolith - I think everyone recognizes that we shouldn’t judge Christianity by the Westboro Baptist Church, and likewise we shouldn’t judge Islam by Al Qaeda or ISIS. There is a certain beauty in all religions, and there is something objectionable about almost all of them.

    I will share with you with a passage from the Quran - specifically, Surah Al-Kafirun (109:1-6), about how Muslims should address those who do not share their belief in Allah:

    “O you disbelievers! I do not worship what you worship, nor do you worship what I worship. I will never worship what you worship, nor will you ever worship what I worship. You have your way, and I have my Way.”

  • bearboiblake@pawb.socialOPtoNews@lemmy.world•DNC Shoots Down Resolutions Calling Out AIPAC and Limiting Arms to IsraelEnglish
    31·
    10 hours ago

    First off, let me start by telling you that your feelings are valid. I’m not going to shame you for how you feel or for the opinions you hold, you’re entitled to them, no matter how much I disagree with them.

    I am a disabled gay man, so I can understand where you’re coming from. I also want to live in a world without far-right extremism and homophobic hate crimes.

    The real question is, though, how can we achieve that world? What actually causes right-wing extremism, and how can we prevent it?

    Research has shown that the causes for people to drift toward far-right extremist ideologies are:

    • A feeling that their identity (national, cultural, ethnic, or religious) is under threat.
    • Economic insecurity, feeling unfairly treated, job loss or regional decline, lack of upward mobility
    • Political polarization and distrust
    • Histories of trauma, isolation, or humiliation
    • A need for belonging, purpose, or recognition

    With all of that in mind, it becomes kind of apparent to me that the US and Israel’s unlimited colonialism, ethnic cleansing and genocidal endeavors are actually a major cause of far-right extremism in the region. It is very likely that if Israel was dissolved and the west ceased their colonialist endeavors in the region and allowed the people living there to actually begin building a secure, stable society without exploitation and war, we would likely see that far-right extremism would decline and that societies would become more progressive.

    On the other hand, allowing Israel and the US to continue their destabilization and ethnic cleansing campaign will only make the problem worse.

  • bearboiblake@pawb.socialtopolitics @lemmy.world•Orban's chances of winning Hungary election drop after JD Vance rallyEnglish
    72·
    15 hours ago

    Yeah, the soviet union had a lot of problems, Stalin was a psycho. Let’s not do that, but we can do socialism using a bottom-up, direct democratic, consensus based decision making approach, rather than a top-down, centralized state. We can learn from the mistakes of the past.

    I’d encourage you to check out an anarchist FAQ to learn more - If you haven’t heard much about anarchism before, you probably have some misconceptions about it, so I encourage you to watch the Q&Anarchy video series by Thought Slime or have a look through an Anarchist FAQ, because it’s almost definitely nothing like what you think. I personally believe that it’s the most coherent philosophy which adequately explains and addresses all of the problems which plague our society, and which holds the most promise for a path out of the inevitable cycle of the continuous rise and fall of fascism that capitalism makes inevitable.

  • bearboiblake@pawb.socialtoWorld News@lemmy.world•Orban's chances of winning Hungary election drop after JD Vance rallyEnglish
    5·
    16 hours ago

    Europe needs to elect socialist leaders to respond to this moment, or fall into the grips of fascism.

    How does capitalism inevitably lead to fascism?

    Basically, the issue with capitalism is that the more wealth you have, the easier it is for you to make more money. And since money can be used to buy goods, services and influence, there is always a way to use money to gain more political and social power. With that political and social power, you can push society and the legal system in the direction you want to go. So you can use your wealth to gain power, and then you can use your power to change laws and society so that you can make even more wealth and power. It’s a positive feedback loop.

    Obviously, though, if the billionaires and ruling class are accumulating more and more of our society’s wealth, that inevitably means that there’s less for everyone else to go around - therefore, working class people feel poorer and poorer. Meanwhile, the economy is going absolutely great for rich people, so inflation continues to go up - everything gets more expensive, but wages don’t increase. The wealthy just keep more and more of the wealth for themselves. To accumulate more and more wealth, they change the laws so that they can avoid paying taxes, so public services collapse. Politicians are lobbied to ensure that public funds are diverted away from where it is most needed - housing, healthcare, transportation, infrastructure - and instead into industries where their class interests most benefit from it, such as weapons manufacturing and extractive industries such as fossil fuels and mining.

    The working class are bound to notice that their lives are getting shittier and shittier, and if that situation is left unchecked, the working class would realize that the ruling class are fucking them over, rise up, and overthrow their rulers. Obviously, the ruling class need to do something about this, but there’s no solution that the ruling class can offer. They’re causing all of the problems, to fix them they’d have to give up some of their wealth and power - and that’s not something they’re going to do. So they need to find someone else to blame the problems we have in society on. Unfortunately, though, no matter who they blame the problems on, and no matter what they do to “fix” it, the issue will continue to persist, because the material conditions underlying the issues are, very intentionally, never addressed.

    So, the conundrum returns: The ruling class said that minority A caused all of the problems, minority A is persecuted and oppressed, but society doesn’t actually get any better. Either the problem wasn’t minority A, or minority A just hasn’t been oppressed enough yet. So the ruling class can either escalate the oppression, or they can shift the focus to another minority group. The division continues to escalate in terms of how vitriolic and extreme it is, and it also continues to divide the working class into smaller and smaller groups.

    To get the working class to buy into this hateful message, they need to take advantage of our worst instincts, and one of those instincts is the in-group bias. The majority are manipulated into being suspicious, then intolerant, then hateful, then violent, then genocidal, towards whatever the targeted minority of the day is. Anything that can be used to divide the working class - sexuality, nationality, immigration status, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender identity, age, all of these will be used as wedges to keep the working class split apart and not working together, because they know that if the working class actually unite against them, they are completely and truly fucked.

    That’s exactly how fascism manifests. It’s because it’s possible for people to accumulate power through wealth. This is why capitalism must be abolished. If we do not abolish capitalism, fascism will always return. It’s just a matter of time.

    But can't capitalism can be reformed?

    Capitalism cannot be reformed, any attempts to reform, democratize or socialize capitalism may yield short term improvements to quality of life of the working class, but if capitalism is not abolished, it will always reassert itself, and capitalism inevitably leads towards fascism. The New Deal prevented the US from sliding into fascism in the 20th century, so that’s ultimately a good thing, but it did not go far enough, and that’s why we have the resurgence of fascism in the 21st century America.

  • bearboiblake@pawb.socialtopolitics @lemmy.world•Orban's chances of winning Hungary election drop after JD Vance rallyEnglish
    85·
    16 hours ago

    Europe needs to elect socialist leaders to respond to this moment, or fall into the grips of fascism.

    How does capitalism inevitably lead to fascism?

    Basically, the issue with capitalism is that the more wealth you have, the easier it is for you to make more money. And since money can be used to buy goods, services and influence, there is always a way to use money to gain more political and social power. With that political and social power, you can push society and the legal system in the direction you want to go. So you can use your wealth to gain power, and then you can use your power to change laws and society so that you can make even more wealth and power. It’s a positive feedback loop.

    Obviously, though, if the billionaires and ruling class are accumulating more and more of our society’s wealth, that inevitably means that there’s less for everyone else to go around - therefore, working class people feel poorer and poorer. Meanwhile, the economy is going absolutely great for rich people, so inflation continues to go up - everything gets more expensive, but wages don’t increase. The wealthy just keep more and more of the wealth for themselves. To accumulate more and more wealth, they change the laws so that they can avoid paying taxes, so public services collapse. Politicians are lobbied to ensure that public funds are diverted away from where it is most needed - housing, healthcare, transportation, infrastructure - and instead into industries where their class interests most benefit from it, such as weapons manufacturing and extractive industries such as fossil fuels and mining.

    The working class are bound to notice that their lives are getting shittier and shittier, and if that situation is left unchecked, the working class would realize that the ruling class are fucking them over, rise up, and overthrow their rulers. Obviously, the ruling class need to do something about this, but there’s no solution that the ruling class can offer. They’re causing all of the problems, to fix them they’d have to give up some of their wealth and power - and that’s not something they’re going to do. So they need to find someone else to blame the problems we have in society on. Unfortunately, though, no matter who they blame the problems on, and no matter what they do to “fix” it, the issue will continue to persist, because the material conditions underlying the issues are, very intentionally, never addressed.

    So, the conundrum returns: The ruling class said that minority A caused all of the problems, minority A is persecuted and oppressed, but society doesn’t actually get any better. Either the problem wasn’t minority A, or minority A just hasn’t been oppressed enough yet. So the ruling class can either escalate the oppression, or they can shift the focus to another minority group. The division continues to escalate in terms of how vitriolic and extreme it is, and it also continues to divide the working class into smaller and smaller groups.

    To get the working class to buy into this hateful message, they need to take advantage of our worst instincts, and one of those instincts is the in-group bias. The majority are manipulated into being suspicious, then intolerant, then hateful, then violent, then genocidal, towards whatever the targeted minority of the day is. Anything that can be used to divide the working class - sexuality, nationality, immigration status, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender identity, age, all of these will be used as wedges to keep the working class split apart and not working together, because they know that if the working class actually unite against them, they are completely and truly fucked.

    That’s exactly how fascism manifests. It’s because it’s possible for people to accumulate power through wealth. This is why capitalism must be abolished. If we do not abolish capitalism, fascism will always return. It’s just a matter of time.

    But can't capitalism can be reformed?

    Capitalism cannot be reformed, any attempts to reform, democratize or socialize capitalism may yield short term improvements to quality of life of the working class, but if capitalism is not abolished, it will always reassert itself, and capitalism inevitably leads towards fascism. The New Deal prevented the US from sliding into fascism in the 20th century, so that’s ultimately a good thing, but it did not go far enough, and that’s why we have the resurgence of fascism in the 21st century America.

  • bearboiblake@pawb.socialOPtoNews@lemmy.world•DNC Shoots Down Resolutions Calling Out AIPAC and Limiting Arms to IsraelEnglish
    10·
    19 hours ago

    It wasn’t even a binding resolution, it was just a communication thing. The DNC could have chosen to distance themselves from AIPAC with no real harm and also supported the broader resolution, but chose not to do that.

    The DNC are completely infiltrated at this point. Purging the party from all of the corrupt blue fascists is going to be a lot of work, but it needs to get done.

    Organize, protest and elect. Emphasis on organize and protest.

    1. Get as involved as you can with activist efforts locally.
    2. Organize, network, focus on building solidarity. Join or form a union. Join the IWW.
    3. Vote at primaries and elections for the best candidate, even if you doubt they can win.
    4. Don’t punch down.
    5. Don’t punch left.
    6. Educate yourself, politically.
    7. Push for voting reform and for anything that breaks the two-party system.