Mastodawn

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/116778230127383031

🤷🏿‍♂️Why are they all from Australia today? Australians must be angry that their football team lost to the US, so they're taking it out on me by sending their silliest poasters to argue with me on Juneteenth.

Look, I'm sorry that the Golden Koalas suck at football or whatever. Truly. And I mean they truly suck, not that I'm truly sorry. Losing to the USA at football? In front of the whole world? Embarrassing.

But look. If you're confused about why Lincoln's actions from the 2 years from the Emancipation Proclamation, until Black soldiers showed up in Texas, gave Confederates the impression that they would not face any real accountability for murdering more Black people and keeping slaves after the proclamation? If you don't know what happened at Fort Pillow, or what a Radical Republican was? Then go read a history book. But don't post silliness in my mentions from Australia on Juneteenth, talking about "Lincoln only had 5 days to hold Confederates accountable! Timeline error! 🤡"

Any country playing against the US team right now has one job: win. This is more important than Commonwealth countries beating England. Let England win. Save your strength. Beat the USMNT.

Guide for patriotic US citizens:
In football, we cheer *for* the US Women's National team. We cheer *against* the US Men's National team. Nothing against them, but you don't give Trump the satisfaction.

Same in ice hockey: Cheer *for* the US women, and *against* the US men.

In basketball, we cheer for both the men's and the women's team.

Because patriotism is supporting the 64% of US people that *don't* like fascism, and that care about other people.
♥️🇺🇸

Americans, if in doubt about whether to support a US team, ask yourselves, "If this team won gold, would they turn down the invite to go take fashy selfies and eat cold hamburgers in the oval office? Would they use their platform to speak out against fascism? Would they even get an invite?"

This is fashy garbage. We don't cheer for this.

Thomas Strömberg Jun 20

@mekkaokereke Man, is that some Nazi Germany level of patriotism or what. 🤮

@thomrstrom @mekkaokereke It’s not an accident or coincidence. A lot of Federal social media accounts have been posting content that reads as fascist to anyone with the slightest literacy.

I think they want us to react so they can make fun of us to their preferred audience of illiterates? IDK, I don’t try too hard to get into the heads of trolls, it’s smelly in there.

@fivetonsflax @thomrstrom

Yep. They are entertained by the reaction. That's why they do the ambiguous nazi salutes and the dog whistles and the inside jokes.

But the fashy marketing also serve an important purpose for them of normalizing nazi concepts. Concretely: if you ask white US voters if they agree with nazi concepts, almost all will say no. But more than half of all white US voters agree with alt-right policies. But alt-right policies are nazi policies. The author of those alt-right policies is a nazi, who said, "If we normalize it this way, most white Americans will join our nazi ethnic cleansing party without even realizing it!"

Their plan is working.

We can disrupt their plan by rejecting the rhin veneer over the nazi talking points, goals, and individuals. I'm strangely OK with people joining the nazi party *on purpose*. Happens.🤷🏿‍♂️

Because there just aren't that many nazis. But people joining a nazi ethnic cleansing campaign obliviously? Is a huge problem. Because that's the majority of the alt-right supporters, and many Dems too. That's the most powerful voting block in the world. That's most of the entire world's wealth. That's who controls the most powerful military that the world has ever known.

@fivetonsflax @thomrstrom

And finally, the fascist aesthetic is effective, and powerful. Leni Riefenstahl was immoral, not talentless. She was brilliant , which is why she was so dangerous.🤷🏿‍♂️

A subtle point that George Lucas tried to make at the end of Star Wars A New Hope, is how powerfully seductive the visual appeal of fascism is. Lucas intentionally designed, shot, and cut the final medal ceremony to look like Leni Reifenstall's "Triumph of the Will." It's supposed to be a warning about the seduction of the real dark side: fascism.

There is no dialog. It's more limbic. Think about how this Star Wars Medal ceremony imagery and music makes you *feel*.

Star Wars Medal ceremony:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yixG8pfncOs

Then realize where it was borrowed from.

Comparison to Triumph of the Will (nazi propaganda film)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xiYfn9kad9c

Star Wars IV: A new hope - Final Scene (The Throne Room) and End Title

YouTube

@mekkaokereke @fivetonsflax @thomrstrom
obligatory plug for this one video about the cinematic language of Triumph of the Will https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ1Qm1Z_D7w
tl;dw: nothing about it was really new other than that nobody else had put so much money into state propaganda before, and also the film is intentionally extremely repetitive and lengthy so that its mere presence, length, and expense would basically serve as a flex to wallpaper over the nazis' actual dogshit economy and extremely unstable government

Triumph of the Will and the Cinematic Language of Propaganda

YouTube

Franceska Mann 6d ago

@thomrstrom @mekkaokereke @fivetonsflax

Hey, wait a minute there. The majority of Americans, and we're talking 80% plus, agree with progressive policies. Maga people agree with progressive policy. Unless this has changed?

At the same time, white folx are frightened. They buy mace & have cameras on every aspect of their lives. When I say abolition they say, but we need police 🤮 The paranoia is staggering. They are all on Facebook & they are scared.

@FranceskaMann @thomrstrom @fivetonsflax

Kinda?

They agree with progressive policies much less they think that Black people will also benefit.

If I survey white Americans and ask two variants of a question:

A) "Do you think healthcare should be affordable?"

Or

B) "Black people benefit from affordable healthcare. Do you think healthcare should be affordable?"

I get fewer people willing to say healthcare should be affordable if I ask B than A.🤡

White Americans were less likely to wear masks during the pandemic once they learned that Black people were dying the most.🤡

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795362200257X

White Americans are less likely to support social welfare programs when they don't think white demographic supremacy will be maintained. 🤡

https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2018/05/welfare-opposition-linked-threats-racial-standing

Etc.

So no, not 80%.

Because a lot of white Americans hate Black people more than they love themselves. 🤷🏿‍♂️

Franceska Mann 6d ago

@fivetonsflax @mekkaokereke @thomrstrom

WTF is affordable? Healthcare should be free. It's not free, because our taxes pay for things. But in the USA our taxes only pay for war, genocide, algae filled swamps, corruption and grift.

Black Lives Matter. The same people that hate Black people and minorities also hate gay people. They hate everyone. The 1% has class solidarity and their propaganda poisons far right minds.

Solidarity forever.

MissConstrue 6d ago

@FranceskaMann @fivetonsflax @mekkaokereke @thomrstrom

I know I'm preaching to the choir when I say that this looks to me like they're running the Southern Strategy 2, Electric Boogaloo.

I'm not gonna defend LBJ about a lot of things, but when he was fighting the Dixiecrats and GOP to get the Civil Rights Bill passed, Bill Moyer tells this story: (Bill was a staffer for LBJ at the time)

"We were in Tennessee. During the motorcade, he spotted some ugly racial epithets scrawled on signs. Late that night in the hotel, when the local dignitaries had finished the last bottles of bourbon and branch water and departed, he started talking about those signs. "I'll tell you what's at the bottom of it," he said. "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

The GOP specializes in "othering" so they can keep picking pockets.

Franceska Mann 6d ago

@fivetonsflax @mekkaokereke @MissConstrue @thomrstrom

it's beyond the GOP. It's beyond the United States. The fascists specialize in othering so they can keep exploiting us & killing our world.

but enough complaints, enough rage, enough sadness. It's time for a global strike. Let's shut it all down.

MissConstrue 6d ago

@FranceskaMann @fivetonsflax @mekkaokereke @thomrstrom

The thing is...we can't. Literally. I mean, we can...but how many people constitute an acceptable death count if we do?

I'm only going to speak to the continental US, because it's the only global region where I have a pretty good handle on the entire economic structure and the agricultural underlayment.

Let's talk keeping people fed during a strike. There is no safety net. School lunches have already been cut. 1 in 4 American children are food insecure. 1-5 adults skip meals because budget. Food banks are struggling to meet needs. People making 6 figures are hitting budget walls, so low paid workers are seriously hurting already.

Strikes work. Historically true. But if we demand a strike, we have to have a plan to feed people. People need to stock meds and pantries.

Yes, General Strike. But we need to have a plan. Actionable demands. And a way to support people.

Of course, there's always guillotines...

Franceska Mann 6d ago

@thomrstrom @mekkaokereke @fivetonsflax @MissConstrue

Mutual aid distribution channels work. I organize my cities Community Garden. Home Gardens produce a lot of food too. We can do this. We can global strike. If we have each other's backs. The selfish Republican mindset of I've got mine so FU does not work. We have to have solidarity and take care of each other. All we have is each other.

@fivetonsflax @thomrstrom @mekkaokereke

Short story. In early July last year I saw an old friend at a wedding in Italy. He currently lives in the US, for work, which is fair enough. He invited me to his wedding, which is in the US, quite soon.

I carefully replied that while Trump's fascism continues, I will not voluntarily visit the US. I thought he might be offended but he just said... "Yeah, I agree".

If you've only just noticed that the US is fascist, you've not been paying attention

@fivetonsflax @thomrstrom @mekkaokereke

From here in Europe it's been BLEEDINGLY obvious from about five minutes into Trump's second term