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I apologize for my ignorance but, is the US really this bad and if so, why aren't more people banding together and doing something about it? (beehaw.org)

submitted 2 days ago by BevelGear@beehaw.org to c/askbeehaw@beehaw.org

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[–] ErsatzCoalButter@beehaw.org 29 points 2 days ago (2 children)

There are tons of reasons because Americans have been groomed this way on purpose, but here's one I haven't seen brought up here yet.

"Doing something about it" has consequences. In no order, and wildly varying in severity:

You may be imprisoned (whether or not you are charged). The jails and prisons are very bad & this can lead to enslavement.
Convictions strip you of civil rights.
You may be entrapped or assassinated.
Public activism and willingness to volunteer is frequently redirected by capitalists to spoil outcomes or just waste activist energy.
Professional skilled volunteering (lawyers, librarians, medics) does not count as employment in your field for most purposes and this will inhibit your career. It can also get you blacklisted.
Capitalists intentionally endanger and expose activists during pandemic events.
Street violence from police, security, hate groups.
You may be doxxed.
Propaganda aimed at normies may turn friends and family and community against you.

All of the above are things that happened to me or activists I know / worked with in the Central & Eastern Rustbelt region of the stolen lands.

[–] pupbiru@aussie.zone 3 points 11 hours ago

(i’m an aussie so i have no place to actually comment on lived experience in the US)

… but i will add, because this is similar in most places i think:

Public activism and willingness to volunteer is frequently redirected by capitalists to spoil outcomes or just waste activist energy.

on the rare occasion that activism is getting somewhere, they’re very good at giving just enough to make just enough people stop participating that it falls apart, and the “just enough” that they give are short-term concessions that they claw back in other ways (or sometimes not even in other ways: just straight up revert)

[–] BevelGear@beehaw.org 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Thank you for this. Was it worth it?

[–] ErsatzCoalButter@beehaw.org 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Hard to say, friend. My life is worse for the work I did and "America" is Nazifying rapidly. Fled John Fetterman's region with my family and just trying to get my life back together now, figure out what is next.

[–] BevelGear@beehaw.org 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm sorry that you have to go through this. But what you've done was worth it and I appreciate it.

[–] MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

America isn't enthusiastically going for the racist guy. Right now no one is happy and the people will continue to vote out the incumbent. Any incumbent would have lost this election.

[–] ErsatzCoalButter@beehaw.org 3 points 1 day ago

Both parties are Nazifying rapidly. I'm not in the business of arguing over which had further distance to shift, as both have directly impacted my life with their fascism. I fled Fetterman's district. My choices on the ballot were Oz or Fetterman, and they are both Nazis now. I don't know who you are or how you think you align, but at present I feel surrounded.