The Holocaust did not begin with killing; it began with words.
Genocides do not start with mass murder. That's where they end up.
Genocides & other mass atrocity crimes begin with words - specifically, with powerful people dehumanizing a minority.
Once they are seen as less than human, anything is possible, even mass murder.
š You can speak out loudly today for the rights of others, or you can stay silent & wait for tomorrow, when your rights will be taken away too.
@andrewstroehlein A lot of hate speech is being normalized under the label free speech. This leads to the escalation of violence in vocabulary. Free speech should not be free of responsibility - or content moderation - otherwise itās anarchy. There needs to be regulation and accountability for social media platforms like for other media.
Ā« In the beginning was the word Ā» and words lead to actions.
@mattwoodget @Walk_blesseD @Nazishmunch
Unadulterated capitalism is toxic. I find it frightening how unchallenged people repeat the mantra a company has one goal, which is profit.
Absolutely not! No entity has the right to put profit over the well-being of the individual or the community or the environment.
We need strong anarchistic, socialistic and democratic regulations in our society so that the natural instinct of any capitalist entity is to learn to benefit all three as much as able.
@Nazishmunch @mattwoodget @Walk_blesseD
Well, they have and had for decades the clout to generate the awareness and chose not to. Just like Exxon they employ scientists to assess their car's effect on the environment and economical risks, and just like exxon they chose not to heed the warnings.
We're not talking about days but decades.
@Nazishmunch @mattwoodget @Walk_blesseD
Bloody foresight and the chance to keep the lead instead of running behind mediocre competitors like Tesla with a shoddy quality management and a CEO who talks a good game but not much more.
Daimlers lead was well deserved for staying ahead with car developments, just not in one department: emissions.
@Nazishmunch @mattwoodget @Walk_blesseD
As seen in recent days confirmed again, politicians are too corrupt to undo Reaganomics. Robert Reich calculated the cost of additional paid sick days at 1,5% of the current profit margin of railroad companies. It is scandalous.
@Nazishmunch @mattwoodget @Walk_blesseD
I feel the indoctrination in my country. I never put a second thought in whether or whether not I should take sick leave, when I'm sick.
These days, I read complaints of employees that they went to work with covid and now have to do the work of their colleagues, too. It doesn't even occur to them, that their attitude was the problem in the first place.
I have hot discussions with neo-liberals about work ethics, attitude and desires all the time. š
@Nazishmunch @mattwoodget @Walk_blesseD
I'm from Germany. My fight is about to keep a healthy work-life balance.
What we consider normal sounds like utopia to many in the US.
@mattwoodget @Walk_blesseD @Nazishmunch
This is deeply patronizing. Anarchists are often targets of fascists. Many gave their lives to fight fascism and here in a thread about the Holocaust starting with words, you're casually dismissing them out of hand.
@mattwoodget @Walk_blesseD @Nazishmunch
You're "expressing an opinion" in a thread about the Holocaust. A lot of anarchists died fighting fascism and it's entirely unnecessary to "express your opinion" about them ***here and now.***
Lots of people don't like communism, but if they went to the Holocaust museum and started loudly shit talking communists by the First They Came poem, they would rightly be called assholes.
@mattwoodget @Walk_blesseD @Nazishmunch
If you want to know about anarchism, read a book on the subject.
But I think we both know you just wanted to be a low-effort pedant.
@Nazishmunch oh, for sure, I got that much. I just think the popular (and hence the dictionary) understanding of the term isn't useful in serious political discourse, because that's not what most anarchists are advocating. In fact, I find it actively harmful because it misrepresents our goals.
What most people who are actually anarchists could probably agree on is that anarchy is the struggle to dismantle social hierarchies, often because they intrinsically concentrate power.
@Nazishmunch I guess I wasn't quite clear with my wording. Anarchist theory proposes that hierarchical power structures are intrinsically bad because they justify some people having coercive power over others.
Yeah, I guess the Iranian demonstrators are working to dismantle at least one particular such structure, but not all of them are anarchists in the political sense because they don't all necessarily want to abolish all such hierarchies. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure a number of them are, but they're hardly representative of the whole protest movement there rn. Yes, the Iranian state might describe them all as anarchists anyway, but it would be using the term with the same intent to conjure up the image of disorder as you were when you initially used it in this thread; not because it genuinely believes that the demonstrators are motivated by a principled opposition to the very concept of social hierarchy.
@Nazishmunch Thank you for engaging in good faith. There's definitely some nuance to be had in discussions regarding competence, and I too would, in matters of health, defer to the 'authority' (read: greater relevant knowledge) of the doctor.
Also, just on that last bit there, a society without rulers is not necessarily one without rules. People are able to collectively agree to follow rules that exist for the common good without them having to be enforced from the top down.
@Nazishmunch @Walk_blesseD In reference to Fagor going bankrupt, half a century ain't too bad! Fordism didn't last that long and flexible regimes of production are collapsing with the rapid demise of globalism. And, as KM note, in market capitalism, all that is solid melts into air. Perspective is key.
Let's keep this discussion going because small business is a cornerstone of community economics under any system (that endures). It doesn't have to function like petite bourgeois. #community
@Walk_blesseD @Nazishmunch what they're trying to achieve and the inevitable outcome are two different things, just like with every political ideology in existence. They must be judged in the latter.
A free market capitalist aims to reduce costs, offer more choice, reduce inefficiencies - yet free market capitalism does the opposite in reality
A communist aims to increase rights, increase the baseline standard of living, and make the economy fairer - yet communism does the opposite in reality.
> Itās hard bc banks and investors lend money and extend credit lines solely based on financial growth. Working with this system without sacrificing oneās values is possible but really not easy.
Yes, the system is a problem. Somebody should do something about thatā¦
@jake_arkinstall @Nazishmunch communism, defined by having a stateless and classless society, has not been achieved, so I'm not sure how you can claim that it does the opposite of what it aims to. Actors with state or capitalist power might keep a faƧade of having communism as a long-term goal because they hope the promise thereof will keep the working class in its place, but given that it's in direct opposition to the former's class interests, describing anything they do as being an action of communism would be a disservice to real communists.
You're right about capitalism though.
@Walk_blesseD @Nazishmunch Just an historical note: during the first days of WWII t'were "anarchists" who sacrificed their blood in the streets to push back against nazi/fascists. Then had to defend against stalin's goons. We as a society (US) came in much later -- though some of our literati joined in much earlier (eg. Hemingway). A rich history and conceptual legacy that loose wordage obscures.
@Walk_blesseD @Nazishmunch If I might add a note. My understanding is that authentic self-regulation is fundamental to anarchistic thought. So is dissolution of (ethically) arbitrary (ie., hegemonic) power structures (hierarchy). The principles also surely also include #mutualaid
#careforearth #nowORnever #lifestylechange #sustainablelifestyle #deepconservation #sustainablecommunities #resilientcommunities #transitiontowns #closingloops #mutualaid #permaculture #makeitREAL
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