Alissa Azarwhat do you think is the most effective way of using propaganda to fight fascism? genuinely curious what you all think 🧐
fyi this toot was inspired by reading a fash telegram. they were going back and forth about how they need to optimize their usage of social media by slowly engaging with accounts to reel them in as friends and sharing less overtly nazi literature and imagery to slowly start to radicalize them. if there is one thing the right puts a lot of effort, time and money into it’s definitely media training and PR. this unfortunately does make a difference. especially in how neo libs and centrists consume news
Word of Mouth 
@alissaazar
As a proud #neolib I resemble that remark. Neolibs are only globalists because nationalism is more dangerous long term.
It's the fence sitters that bother me. Pick a fucking side. Polarization isn't the problem. The problem is that there's enough people on the side of a literal LYNCH MOB AT THE CAPITOL to polarize the debate. Their existence is the problem. It's Popper's Paradox. We cannot tolerate intolerance.
Lars Fosdal@alissaazar Propaganda as a substitute for addressing the issues that concern people? Transparency in government, free and mandatory education, good social services, good healthcare services?
Paranoid FactoidMake it funny. They own outrage, but they can't do funny. And it really hurts when a barb lands. Remember Michelle Wolf with her Smokey Eye comment about Sarah Sanders?
Really pissed her off. Ha! Good.
@alissaazar
Something like this, the #Fediverse which has precedent. The Velvet Revolution passed around manuscripts.
Choose to use hashtags, and this can work.
Using #hashtags opts your comment IN to federated searches. It's all about #consent
hiding from plagues ☣️♿@alissaazar videos, posters, anything really
Hugo Skavez@alissaazar lots of great antifascist art, music, and theater throughout history, which does influence people’s beliefs
Miia Mustang@alissaazar Written on a brick and throwing it? :D
EminentFaquin
Nathanael NerodeI am not remotely an expert.
All I know is some basic "what not to do" messaging principles, which are actually pinned to my timeline at the moment.
Zoe Gayschanel@alissaazar rally people for community defense, name-and-shame the fascists in your town. you can't convince fascists to change their ideas, but you can convince them it's not safe for them to exist in public
viridian@alissaazar I recommend checking out a ttrpg called sigmata (not a typo). There's a free preview of a chunk of it up on drive thru rpg. It really drives into this in some of the flavor text passages.
Cans of Soup@alissaazar Use the transfer technique to coalesce anti-fascist groups into a single movement like what the fascists have done using symbols like the American flag
AntifaDucks@alissaazar
Show them for what they are and force them out to the surface. Force them into uncomfortable situations. Respond with imagery the public associates with fash.
Show them for what they are and force them out to the surface. Force them into uncomfortable situations. Respond with imagery the public associates with fash.
Medium@alissaazar Teaching our children empathy and critical thinking.
@lostapiarist this part is so important. critical thinking skills seem to be a lost art, especially when it comes to fucking idpol omg don’t even get me started.
The Great Llama 
@alissaazar
Beau of the 5th Column's videos are a great way to introduce broadly left leaning thought in a way that doesn't terrify centrists. He doesn't push for anything too extreme, but that's why it works.
Beau of the 5th Column's videos are a great way to introduce broadly left leaning thought in a way that doesn't terrify centrists. He doesn't push for anything too extreme, but that's why it works.
Author Andrew Massie 🏴@alissaazar Education, mostly. Memes that spread union awareness or solidarity, video essays that teach people to recognize proto and potential fascists, mutual aid programs and infoshops that bring people together to talk to each other rather than caricaturize each other.
The right relies on memes and headlines because they know their audience doesn't read deeply. They don't need to have coherency, they just need to draw people in. The left has to lay groundwork before anything else.
mischief brewer@alissaazar songs. Learn a few tunes used in the little red songbook or RATM or whatever and perform them with your crew anywhere it feels right. Teach them to anyone who shows interest.
Good music gets stuck in people's heads and keeps them coming back
Skyler (Star Group)@alissaazar if you mean genuinely
and i'm not trying to imply we can win by propaganda alone or anything and i am aware of other stuff mentioned about how fascists are being cleverer than us in this right now, but i'm high and this is what i can think of at the moment:
what i think personally is that what i think the most important thing about antifascism is or definitely is most important to me, is that our whole thing should be protecting and preserving life in all its forms, and the reason we oppose fascism is because it is fundamentally against life and against freedom and will destroy a huge amount of human life and other life if we don't stop it
and with that we can have propaganda or something like it that isn't primarily political
it would still be political and it would need to be pointed out where it intersects with political issues
but i think a lot could be done with art, writing, media production, and just conversations and interactions, to promote compassion and respect for life
especially if it was getting people feel differently about groups of people we are being brainwashed to hate, like houseless people, cleaning workers, drug "addicts" etc. and actually instilled empathy
and the other thing that is a big thing philosophically that i associate with fascism, besides the issue of compassion and respect for life, is purity ideologies and purity politics
ideas of things being pure and impure, or superior and inferior, are very dangerous in my opinion and we should try to root out such ideas from our minds and push back a little against stuff we see falling into it even in fairly innocuous ways, like having a purity mindset about a diet or lifestyle choice or an all-or-nothing mentality, i realized it is not helpful at least to me to set rigid rules for myself that can never be broken
and i guess a third thing is black and white thinking about good and evil and "you're with us or you're against us" type mentalities
because of antifascism i changed my views on a lot of weird little things, like i am not as much of a yarn snob and believe eating a little unhealthy food is healthier than being anxious and obsessed with only eating healthy food, and most rules have exceptions even if the exceptions are extremely rare, and probably other things i can't think of
and maybe if we could subtly push people to think and view the world in opposite ways from what fascism tries to make them think, regardless of whether it even involved any explicitly political discussion, it might be more profitable in the long run than trying to use persuasion to swing their view on a given political topic
and i'm not trying to imply we can win by propaganda alone or anything and i am aware of other stuff mentioned about how fascists are being cleverer than us in this right now, but i'm high and this is what i can think of at the moment:
what i think personally is that what i think the most important thing about antifascism is or definitely is most important to me, is that our whole thing should be protecting and preserving life in all its forms, and the reason we oppose fascism is because it is fundamentally against life and against freedom and will destroy a huge amount of human life and other life if we don't stop it
and with that we can have propaganda or something like it that isn't primarily political
it would still be political and it would need to be pointed out where it intersects with political issues
but i think a lot could be done with art, writing, media production, and just conversations and interactions, to promote compassion and respect for life
especially if it was getting people feel differently about groups of people we are being brainwashed to hate, like houseless people, cleaning workers, drug "addicts" etc. and actually instilled empathy
and the other thing that is a big thing philosophically that i associate with fascism, besides the issue of compassion and respect for life, is purity ideologies and purity politics
ideas of things being pure and impure, or superior and inferior, are very dangerous in my opinion and we should try to root out such ideas from our minds and push back a little against stuff we see falling into it even in fairly innocuous ways, like having a purity mindset about a diet or lifestyle choice or an all-or-nothing mentality, i realized it is not helpful at least to me to set rigid rules for myself that can never be broken
and i guess a third thing is black and white thinking about good and evil and "you're with us or you're against us" type mentalities
because of antifascism i changed my views on a lot of weird little things, like i am not as much of a yarn snob and believe eating a little unhealthy food is healthier than being anxious and obsessed with only eating healthy food, and most rules have exceptions even if the exceptions are extremely rare, and probably other things i can't think of
and maybe if we could subtly push people to think and view the world in opposite ways from what fascism tries to make them think, regardless of whether it even involved any explicitly political discussion, it might be more profitable in the long run than trying to use persuasion to swing their view on a given political topic