Hey, ever notice how people in power ~HATE~ collective activism: protests, unions, solidarity movements, etc.? And that they'd much rather you act individually and "politely"?
There's a reason. Collective action *works* and individual politeness DOES NOT.
It's not complicated.
We need collective action for socialism and an end to oppression everywhere
@quietmarc @6502ALU we can be polite while blowing up the pipelines, executing the lynchpins and striking fear into the hearts of those who enabled said lynchpins.
In fact I would say it's very much in gentleman spirit to seize the means of productions and reconstruct into a better world, not holding back to perform violence if necessary. It's almost polite by definition because it removed opression.
@quietmarc @6502ALU yeah we know
this is the point of this conversation.
You precisely say what we all already said.
@saxnot@chaos.social @quietmarc @6502ALU ugh no murdering people and doing systemic, normalized extreme violence but ✨communist✨ is not "polite" and is .. pretty fucking oppressive too actually ..
ah yes please make our continued existence and basic rights extremely conditional; please normalize killing people; this will totally make the world better- no oppression! (just dont look over there) /j
@OrionKidder counterpoint; being polite and kind to those theyve demanded you be horrible and treat as subhuman; (disabled, queers, trans, homeless, criminals, etc.) is good actually; and i would say does count as collective action; they thrive off us accepting and going along with that.
so being polite is still important, but the "polite" thing to do when someone tells you to dehumanize someone and/or normalize and be okay with/actively cause someone to come to harm, is to go "yeah no.", and help them.
@Li This is why I would frame it as being ethical and effective. Politeness is a tool. So is rudeness. I'm reminded of the "no more Mister Nice Gay" moment in queer rights in the early 90s. Sometimes, politeness prevents effectiveness.
Anyway, I don't think we fundamentally disagree. It's about tactics.
"One reason people insist that you use the proper channels to change things is because they have control of the proper channels, and they're confident it won't work."
- Jon Stone, journalist
@OrionKidder @Rooktallon I swear to god you say to unionise, protest, disrupt stuff, & not let yourself be ignored- fuck “offical” “proper” shit, someone will hear it as you saying to mass murder people;
But then when someone says to mass murder people they’ll hear like “helping people, doing us all a service” or some shi- just because it’s “offical” “proper” >_>
@OrionKidder that's definitely not my intention, though in a very real sense terrorism is just the most extreme form of collective action designed to achieve political ends ("one mans terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" etc)
probably crossed my mind because i just finished reading "the looming tower" and have been contemplating the fact that bin laden quite possibly succeeded in toppling the united states within "tens of decades" of september 11th (his words, not mine)
@cryptadamist I get that. I've had moments like that: this reminds me of that. That said, it's not what my post was about, so maybe make a thread that's about what you're talking about?
I will also say this, calling terrorism "collective action" is, to put it mildly, rhetorically irresponsible considering that that's the kind of framing governments use as an excuse to arrest and brutalize protesters. This isn't an academic exercise, you know?
I dunno. One individual forced my health insurance company to stop auto-denying claims for a while. But he certainly wasn't polite about it.
@CosmickTrigger Sure, you can get stuff done as an individual for yourself as an individual, but you will have to fight that same fight every time.
I've fought UPS over their junk fees three times in a row and won, but if a vendor ever again uses that enshittified service for something I ordered then I'll have to go through it all over again.
But if I were to engage in collective action *we* could potentially change a policy or a law such that nobody ever has to deal with that problem again.
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