Anti. 🐘Jan 25, 2024

"many prominent leftists and progressive organizations remain silent as workers are continually sickened and disabled with zero legal recourse. Speaking to them, you will often hear the above talking points- which came from shadowy libertarian thinktanks- repeated word for word."

Reminds me of that "anarchist" who during the "anarchist" (read ableist) gathering last year in Saint-Imier explained to me how we must accept continued infections as the "new normal".

https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/institutional-covid-denial-has-killed

Institutional COVID denial has killed public health as we knew it. Prepare to lose several centuries of progress.

Public health cannot be individualized. Abandoning collective approaches to disease mitigation is a recipe for disaster.

The Gauntlet
Show threadAnti. 🐘Jan 25, 2024

"Attempting to protect yourself from airborne viruses in a world with zero airborne infection control is as effective as trying to avoid cholera in a world without clean public water. Worth doing? Yes. Carries great financial and social cost and still won’t fully protect you? Also yes."

Every few weeks we discuss it here. Should we give up? It's pointless to try & protect ourselves in a world where almost no one gives a shit anymore. The price is huge & it will catch us sooner or later anyway.

Show threadAnti. 🐘

For now we keep our #COVIDcaution up, because it's too risky. My lungs are already in very deep trouble. My partner is too well informed to want to take the risk. Plus, and this is the killer thought, should i get sick and need medical attention, hospitals are no longer an option.

On the other hand, in some ways we simply delegate the risk onto others, for instance when online shopping, and that feels very wrong too.

Jan 25, 2024 at 7:02amWeb
Show threadAnti. 🐘Jan 25, 2024
Thankfully that discussion with the diagonalist libertarian, who claims to be an "anarchist", has convinced me to keep fighting for communal care and an anarcho-feminist approach in regards to the topic. We can't give up, we won't give up. It's just fucking frustrating at times.
Show threadSusanBee Jan 26, 2024
@antiaall3s I had an “anarchist” in a signal chat tell me I couldn’t ask her to mask when dealing with the vulnerable public during a grocery give away because she’s an “anarchist” and I can’t tell her what to do. It’s insane how the left has completely abandoned the disabled.
Show threadBruce MirkenJan 26, 2024
@SusanBee @antiaall3s Or maybe it's insane to think that self-proclaimed anarchists are part of the left.
Show threadAnti. 🐘Jan 26, 2024
@BruceMirken Many anarchists are leftists, just anti-authoritarian as well. So it's more a question of power or on how decisions are taken. But there are strains in anarchy that disagree with each other deeply, a conflict as old as the movement itself between the communal and the individualistic anarchists. If you read the autobiography of Emma Goldman, she had huge fights with Stirner and the like. @SusanBee
Show threadBruce MirkenJan 26, 2024
@antiaall3s @SusanBee Sorry, I think most who claim to be leftists are fake.
Show threadAnti. 🐘Jan 26, 2024
@BruceMirken On the contrary. Have you ever taken the political compass questionnaire? It has its flaws, of course, but i find it helpful, and many anarchists will be in the lower left quadrant, here called the libertarian left. Yes, there are huge disagreements with the authoritarian left, but on the right-left axis, the question is clear.
Show threadBruce MirkenJan 26, 2024
@antiaall3s Again, I disagree. Goodbye.
Show threadAnti. 🐘Jan 26, 2024
@BruceMirken https://www.politicalcompass.org/test
The Political Compass

self-test of your position on 2 political dimensions

Show threadAnti. 🐘Jan 26, 2024
@SusanBee I actually consider myself an anarchist as well, which may surprise you. But for me that has nothing to do with people not allowing others to tell them anything. On the contrary. The way i see it, anarchy is order without rulers, which means people NEED to tell each other what they think ought to happen, discuss it to find consensus. But there is a group of people who call themselves anarchists that really are hyper-individualistic libertarians, often close to the right wing in value.
Show threadIdealistic Pragmatist Jan 25, 2024
@antiaall3s every person who avoids infection is a win for not just that person, but the whole community.
Show threadAnti. 🐘Jan 25, 2024
@IPEdmonton Very true. But as the risks that i/we manage to avoid, by say online shopping etc., needs to be assumed by other people, workers under the capitalist system, this does bother me and robs me of my sleep.