Trans woman - 9 years HRT

Intersectional feminist

Queer anarchist

  • 24 Posts
  • 1.34K Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 9th, 2023

help-circle


  • Of course not. But that narrative is easily applied to tariffs. In political ideologies like fascism which promote centralized authorities not only on morality but on reality itself, what is real is far less important than what the narrative is.

    They already doubt all information provided by any source other than their fascist authorities. What any other source has to say on the matter is irrelevant to them. “The entire world is a gigantic global conspiracy against fascism. All non-fascist media lies incessantly to discredit fascism.” Any non fascist academic institutions, non fascist news sources, non fascist people, and non fascist organizations will by default be assumed to be lying. The very notion that any information provided to them by anything outside of the fascist sphere of influence could be true is impossible to them. They are not scientists, nor are they economists, nor are they academics. Ask them what tariffs do, and they’ll say, “Make everyone else pay America our fair share.” That’s what the fascist authority has told them. They believe it unquestionably.

    Are there non-ardent fascists who support fascism but oppose the tariffs, like investment firms and individual educated citizens? Sure. But we’re talking about fascism as it inflicts its ideology as a world view. Those who truly believe Donald Trump to be a good person, a messianic like figure sent from heaven. Those who voted for him not for any benefit they indirectly believed he’d give them (like tax cuts for the wealthy), but purely because they are true hearted fascists. They believe in white supremacy and in Christian nationalism. They want to make America a white christian ethnostate. Whether they state it openly or not, whether they believe that’s what their motivations are or not. Racism, christian nationalism, misogyny, and xenophobia these are the only material things he has to offer these people.

    So when he says that tariffs do x y and z, he could be saying anything, and they will most likely believe it. If the economy tanks, it couldn’t be because of him. He will blame someone like Biden and the deep state (jewish people), and they’ll believe him.


  • Fascists are nothing if not predictable. Tariffs arise naturally from far-right ultranationalism. There’s a few reasons for this.

    One is that it plays directly into notions of national/racial exceptionalism. “Our country/race is better than all the rest. Other nations/races should have to pay exorbitant fees just to do business with us.”

    Second is that it severs ties with international mechanisms of diplomacy and peacekeeping. It serves as a convenient way to detach a state from its allies (who stand in the way of its conquests). This is typified by events like the Japanese Empire’s withdrawal from the League of Nations, in that case not over tariffs but a war of conquest, but tariffs can provide similar opportunities to break apart treaties and start preparing a populace for the conditions of all out war.

    Thirdly is that it stops trade with other nations. This forces manufacturing facilities to be bolstered in the nation, isolationism. This means that once all-out war is declared, the nation has the full-scale production facilities to create machines of war at the pace required to sustain large-scale conflicts. This creates the precarious situation of having more production than you do resources (because you can’t trade for them anymore), but this problem is solved by conquering territories rich in natural resources.

    And fourth, it serves as a direct prelude to declaring all out war. Trade wars are nearly always present prior to full-scale conflicts in modern history. Both Nazi Germany and the fascist Empire of Japan were widely sanctioned internationally in the years leading up to the Western, Eastern, and Pacific fronts of World War 2. These trade wars actually served fascist interests in so far as they made the lives of their citizens already feel constrained and pressured. An escalation to all-out conflict wasn’t that great a change when already all their sons were being drafted and common household goods were becoming scarce and rationed.

    Trump is not original. We’ve seen these events play out before under a variety of different circumstances. The move of economically isolating the United States from the rest of the world perfectly serves the fascist conquering aspirations of his Christian white nationalist voting base. They’ll grumble about cost of goods, but they lap up his ultranationalist “making the world pay us” rhetoric like they’re dying of thirst.




  • I think a big part of this miscommunication was the language used earlier, like civil service and conscientious objectors. In a system like you’ve described, i don’t think that having that as an option is necessarily a bad thing so long as it is voluntary. There are lots of benefits to programs that incentivise community service. I don’t particularly like the way we recruit high schoolers into the military already, I genuinely just think a lot of the practice is manipulative and misleading. But so long as it is voluntary, it is what it is.










  • Putting someone in prison for refusing to do labor for the state is violence, yes. Definitionally. I don’t even know where to go with this conversation if you don’t understand that incarceration is violence.

    Do you think the draft is a suggestion? Do you think that in countries with the draft that refusing involuntary servitude is like… optional? Just a pat on the wrist and off you go? They incarcerate you at best, and in its most vile instances they literally shoot you.

    Involuntary servitude is involuntary servitude no matter whether it’s being forced to work under inhumane conditions in a factory or being forced to do community labor. It’s wrong. I’ll happily plant trees given the choice to do so, but no, the state does not just get to force me to do labor for it.

    Nationalism is the basis for a lot of what you’ve said about Canada yes. Even going so far as to say I don’t deserve to have rights because of my strong objection of the draft. No community labor isn’t itself nationalism, but Canada isn’t my community. My community is the people around me, Canada is the state whose borders I was born within.

    Don’t even know what you’re on about with ghosts or ptsd. My opposition to mandatory enlistment and involuntary servitude is not a mental illness? Unless you want to point out what exactly it is that I’m invoking, it’s probably a good idea not to accuse someone of being mentally ill who you know nothing about.

    I’m not in crisis. Canada is also a state, not a person. There is an international crisis in the form of the rise of american fascism both in the US and here. The response to this is not authoritarianism. Not having a draft is one of the best things about this country.

    Bigotry is not the only thing that makes a conservative. But fair enough, you’re an authoritarian. Or at least are fine with some aspects of authoritarianism? The draft is a necessary aspect of authoritarian states. It is an authoritarian policy in that it literally places the rights of citizens beneath the desires of the state. It puts individual bodies at the whim of the state. Directly.



  • Education has direct benefits for literally every single aspect of society. It also is flawed in Canada and serves a large part in the means by which working class people are indoctrinated into nationalism and anti-socialist and anti-revolutionary politics.

    Civil service is only a thing in select countries. The majority of countries that have mandatory enlistment do NOT ALLOW you to participate in any kind of service that isn’t directly associated with the military. I am not a conscientious objecter, I am an anti-statist anarchist, and I am against involuntary servitude in every single way that it exists. I have no moral qualms about violence being used to further the well-being of the working class. I am anti nationalist in every single possible way and absolutely resolutely opposed to the draft. You’re never going to get me to believe that compelling anyone UNDER THREAT OF STATE VIOLENCE to PERFORM LABOR is morally justifiable or beneficial. The draft was the beginning point of many aspects of the modern workers’ rights movement. It is wrong no matter where it shows up. One of the most abhorrent aspects of society is the military. I’m a woman, have a look sometime at how often women get r*ed while in the military.

    I’d happily pick up a gun. I am pro-gun ownership. I am anti military in every single conceivable way. Absolutely I would shoot nazis if they came here and I had weapons with which to shoot them. But no, a thousand times I will never join a military. It is indefensible to force civilians under threat of state violence into involuntary servitude. It definitionally isn’t voluntary. It’s wrong, wrong in every single way.

    To your last bit, typical of anti working class conservatives like yourself. What’s your response to native communities? Do you think that native Canadians should be forced under threat of state violence to join the Canadian military or otherwise be forced to do involuntary labor for the Canadian state?

    I am living my values. My values are anti authoritarianism and pro workers rights. You clearly don’t even know what anarchists are. Every major workers’ rights movement in history has had large participation by anarchists. Anarchists are the ones who fought back against Stalinists in Spain and Ukraine. Anarchists were the primary force behind the workers’ rights revolutions at the end of the 19th century. My anarchist beliefs are foundationally a part of my beliefs in the safety and well-being of working class people. I am not an egotistic isolationist. I am saying that categorically pointing a gun at someone and forcing them to do something is wrong. It’s always wrong. Threatening violators with prison time is wrong. The draft is wrong, and it is one of the best parts about this country that we do not have one.



  • Yes, and I also think that it is wrong in all of those places, too. South Korea is one of the worst countries in the world in terms of the rights and equality of its citizens. It is also a turbo capitalist military state. Yes, I absolutely think it’s wrong there, too.

    I’m an anarchist. I’m anti involuntary servitude in all it’s forms and I will never be a part of the military or perform duties in support of one. I would own a gun for my own sake, for the sake of my family and my community, but I will absolutely never be an agent of state violence. There is no room whatsoever for accommodation here. This would be a fucking nightmare scenario.