reimagining

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our freedom is mutual or it's nothing
adjective-free black flag anarchism
https://reimagining.noblogs.org/

Last election, I was left with my jaw dropped that during massive protests against racialized police brutality (and policing/the carceral system more generally), the neoliberal establishment ran the guy who is widely known as the principal architect of the 1994 crime bill. This bill is considered the set of laws that put into motion modern mass incarceration.

Now, the same person has been full-throatedly backing a genocide, and we're told it is necessary to vote for him because the other option is worse.

At what point does voting for and supporting the man who is materially facilitating the genocidal slaughter of Palestinians mean one has acquiesced to the view that this genocide is an inevitable prerequisite to sustaining the American Way of Life?

Is the dream of Liberal Democracy people are worried about saving truly a nightmare built on a mountain of corpses of "necessary" victims of historic and current state violence?

When people claim that support for Biden is necessary to protect marginalized groups from Trump (a dangerous piece of shit, to be sure), what does that mean for the marginalized groups facing increasing levels of state violence—such as asylum-seeking migrants, trans youth, communities with dramatically increased militarized policing, and Palestinians facing textbook genocide—under Biden? Do they not exist?

Could it be that many tacitly understand the ethically inexcusable brutality underlying the American system, and when they opine about reluctant Biden-voting to stave off the seemingly inevitable rise of US fascism, they are more honestly concerned with maintaining a stable, yet blood-drenched, status quo in which they find relative comfort from the social positioning they enjoy within it?

I'm not posing a singular solution, but I am 100% saying that it's time to think harder and evaluate one's ethics – no more lazy thinking that functions to perpetuate moral atrocities.

@josh Just to be clear, the "damage" you're claiming must be voted for as a moral necessity is genocide – you'd be co-signing genocide.

If you can think your way out of admitting that voting for Biden is to support a genocide, I reckon you could think up an alternative political framework to function in that doesn't restrict your options to 1) genocide, 2) worse genocide or 3) failed third party.

The people of America are lesser-evil voting themselves further and further to the right – I think your rationale supports this, under the premise of a cynical electoral consequentialist framing that must be rejected to halt it.

@markvonwahlde I feel like you didn't take in my points. I'm not trying to debate which tyrant war criminal is "better" but explicate how acquiescence to the choice that's so easy for you is fraught with ethical issues – that is if you possess ethics outside of lesser evil electoralist consequentialism.

Last election, I was left with my jaw dropped that during massive protests against racialized police brutality (and policing/the carceral system more generally), the neoliberal establishment ran the guy who is widely known as the principal architect of the 1994 crime bill. This bill is considered the set of laws that put into motion modern mass incarceration.

Now, the same person has been full-throatedly backing a genocide, and we're told it is necessary to vote for him because the other option is worse.

At what point does voting for and supporting the man who is materially facilitating the genocidal slaughter of Palestinians mean one has acquiesced to the view that this genocide is an inevitable prerequisite to sustaining the American Way of Life?

Is the dream of Liberal Democracy people are worried about saving truly a nightmare built on a mountain of corpses of "necessary" victims of historic and current state violence?

When people claim that support for Biden is necessary to protect marginalized groups from Trump (a dangerous piece of shit, to be sure), what does that mean for the marginalized groups facing increasing levels of state violence—such as asylum-seeking migrants, trans youth, communities with dramatically increased militarized policing, and Palestinians facing textbook genocide—under Biden? Do they not exist?

Could it be that many tacitly understand the ethically inexcusable brutality underlying the American system, and when they opine about reluctant Biden-voting to stave off the seemingly inevitable rise of US fascism, they are more honestly concerned with maintaining a stable, yet blood-drenched, status quo in which they find relative comfort from the social positioning they enjoy within it?

I'm not posing a singular solution, but I am 100% saying that it's time to think harder and evaluate one's ethics – no more lazy thinking that functions to perpetuate moral atrocities.

The Rule of Law exists for the powerful. It is not a system of universal justice but a sly and convoluted means for the opulent to systematically legitimize their daily theft, murder and cruelty in service of amassing wealth and securing Kingly positioning above us plebs.

The moment the supposed universal values of The Rule of Law are inverted to hold accountable Lords of the Social Order who wield immense political and economic power is the moment it's universal pretenses collapse into a pile of worm infested shit for all to see.

Law will never stop these monsters; it is the sphere that births them, the dimension wherein their plunder and assaults are validated, indeed, normalized.

Law is where Justice and Freedom go to die humiliating deaths, and where their mutilated corpses are cynically paraded by arch-villains masquerading as saviors.

The Rule of Law exists for the powerful. It is not a system of universal justice but a sly and convoluted means for the opulent to systematically legitimize their daily theft, murder and cruelty in service of amassing wealth and securing Kingly positioning above us plebs.

The moment the supposed universal values of The Rule of Law are inverted to hold accountable Lords of the Social Order who wield immense political and economic power is the moment it's universal pretenses collapse into a pile of worm infested shit for all to see.

Law will never stop these monsters; it is the sphere that births them, the dimension wherein their plunder and assaults are validated, indeed, normalized.

Law is where Justice and Freedom go to die humiliating deaths, and where their mutilated corpses are cynically paraded by arch-villains masquerading as saviors.

@structuralimage I swear I was drafting this as I came upon your beautiful post -

"If your primary political concern is how the illicit profits that the US reaps through colonial exploitation, financial predation and ecological plunder can more effectively be deployed to support the working class inside the imperial core, then I have questions about your proclaimed leftist bona fides."

weird how certain leftists comprehend and oppose the horrific things the US government does but then are like "tax the rich" as if the additional extraction revenue would magically be distributed to regular people via social services rather become more funding for exactly what the US government has always done (horrific things).

Further to the point: if the spoils the US government's imperialist conquest and neocolonial geopolitical domination were made to bolster a benevolent welfare state and bestow upon it's citizenry "universal" (nationalist) basic income and "universal" (nationalist) healthcare, would these folks remain in opposition to the US Empires crimes against humanity and it's eternal war upon human freedom, or would they simply slip into the acquiescence we expect from run of the mill liberals? I'm guessing mostly the latter.

Anti-electoral poster spotted in Soho, NYC

This tree saga came to a conclusion a few weeks ago, but not without comedy. the construction guys kinda tried bully my arborist friend into trimming more than he contractually agreed (which would have been disastrous for the tree) but he's been doing tree work and dealing with guys like this for two decades, so managed to refuse this while calling them "just meatheads who want to kill everything" to their faces and laughing it off like it was a joke.

then, best part, was when the 35 year old macho site-boss was like "I gotta be careful what I say, there's Biden people everywhere" (insinuating my friend is a liberal) my grizzled, 6ft 2" 50+ year old friend, all serious and with eye contact is like "I've been a molotov cocktail throwing anarchist for long time" and just leaves it hanging in the air. the guys like, "uh... ok let us know if you need anything".

I know it sounds like one of those "and then everyone clapped" embellishments but that's actually what happened lol

these fucking developers and construction firms think the world is theirs to shit all over, felt good to successfully push back and at least win a battle.