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most people literally just think that things are going to go back to "normal" at some point instead of getting exponentially worse for the rest of our lives, which is crazy tbh (hexbear.net)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by revolut1917@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

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like even ignoring the worst-case scenarios we're set for crises in the immediate future that will dwarf the "cost-of-living crisis" of 2022-23 and the pandemic. but basically the vast majority of people are just hoping that it'll all be fine and we'll go back to how things were in the 90s if we have some Good Government. it's going to be interesting to see how the masses respond to this situation, which they have been repeatedly informed of for decades now, but which they still don't understand.

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[-] Dort_Owl@hexbear.net 70 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Things will get worse, absolutely.

Which means it's the perfect time to be pushing communist ideas. The perfect time to agitate and organize.

I don't know what circles you run with, but most "nonpolitical" people I speak to have become very dissatisfied with the western system. They starting to realize that we have never been a democracy. I don't think that the people who are still clinging to liberal democracy are being honest with themselves. They're desperate for direction and stability.

People know shit sucks but they don't know what to do about it because they're overwhelmed, scared and tired.

Things suck and it's getting worse, but there are opportunities to radicalize that we can take advantage of, no matter how small. Also, things can change wildly without us expecting it. Decades in weeks and all that.

[-] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 31 points 3 days ago

The hardest part for us Australians in my opinion, is getting people to stop being so fucking racist. I can get people to agree with pretty much every socialist idea, but when it comes time to any sort of practical analysis of China it's like their brains switch off and their racist programming takes over. I can literally describe everything China does in a vacuum and they will say it sounds great and we should do things like that here, but then if I mention that China does that stuff it's always just "authoritarian and bad" after that. And even if I do make headway with someone, they'll speak to one of their friends or a rello and it'll be back to thinking China is the evil empire from the Star Wars or whatever.

Do you have to deal with this stuff? I even have to deal with it with local "communist" orgs, who are MLs with CIA characteristics. I try but...it just feels like I get nowhere a lot of the time. I try to never stop explaining, but when I have to explain the same basic thing over and over and they just forget it the instant someone gives them an easier answer that means they don't have to think anymore. I just...I don't know how to convince people that thinking is a good thing and blindly hating the foreign people is a bad thing, even if they don't think of themselves as "racist" while parroting opinions about how all of China should be nuked.

Sorry for the rant.

[-] Dort_Owl@hexbear.net 20 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

You're allowed to rant lol.

Yeah I have the exact same problem, lots of racism around. It sucks. But sometimes people can be dechuddified. It probably sounds naive and a bit cope of me to say given just how shit the world is right now, but I remind myself that a lot of people here were ex-chuds. People can change.

The right wing, capitalist world view is built on shitty foundations because its built on a flawed understanding on how social animals survive and flourish. It is unstable and results in constantly fluctuating living conditions for most of the population. When the system let's people down, when the system shows its ass and people start wondering if anything makes sense, leftists should be there to offer an explanation and a solution. Our biggest barrier is we have to fight against the most sophisticated propaganda mill in history.

Isn't it telling that despite all that propaganda, leftism still exists at all? Isn't that amazing?

Sorry, now I'm ranting

[-] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 10 points 3 days ago

That's a good point, despite anticommunism being almost entirely all consuming, people still can recognise that the explanations given don't actually add up, even when they've had no formal education in critical thinking skills. I guess that's the root of my problem. I keep expecting to "fix" and "improve" my friends, I want to help them, but you don't help people by forcing them to change their views. They aren't properly changing because they need to be the ones recognising that their thought patterns and habits need to change. I wasn't "forced" into being a communist, it was a long slow path, and while people helped me, it was only because I was actively trying to understand more. I just need to be there for them and support them, rather than getting frustrated that we aren't making "progress" fast enough, because they aren't even aware that there is progress to be made.

This helps a lot actually, reframing it makes it look much better, at some point the contradictions of capital that I've been rambling about will effect them more noticeably, and they will connect the dots themselves with all the things I've tried to teach them. I shouldn't get frustrated when they don't bother to understand things properly, I should just accept that they aren't in a position to question the status quo that much yet. I should have faith in my friends and myself, that I can give them the tools needed to work this stuff out for themselves eventually, rather than getting upset that they aren't using those tools right now, when they personally don't see any use for them right now.

Though I still don't know how to reach people "further out" friends of friends and family of friends, who are just fundamentally incurious people who pressure my friends to think in a similar way, though probably not intentionally. I cannot fathom how people like that exist and I have 0 idea how to actually reach them, I don't have any friends like that for a reason, I can't stand that sort of outlook. But I guess if I can help my friends, maybe my friends can help their friends and so on, maybe this communism thing requires a group effort or something.

Thanks so much! You've really helped me organise and fix some very doomerish thoughts I've been having lately.

[-] coolusername@hexbear.net 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

show them Blondie in China videos

[-] SkingradGuard@hexbear.net 1 points 2 days ago

They'll just say she's payed by the SeeSeePee

[-] movie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 3 days ago

Hoe would you start organizing? Especially in a small chauvinistic community? Any tips appreciated. Ps. im neither well read, nor a very outgoing person.

[-] jack@hexbear.net 3 points 3 days ago

There is almost certainly at least one decent organization already in your country. I'd always suggest people finding a good Marxist-Leninist communist party.

[-] DornerStan@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 2 days ago

If there isn't already a leftist org in your area, and if you don't have local friends who are comrades, try volunteering anywhere (food bank, shelter, etc) and see if you can find like-minded people.

Additionally/alternatively, look online for an org in the biggest city near you. Often they'll have outreach and be able to connect you to others in your area.

[-] GayTuckerCarlson@hexbear.net 66 points 3 days ago

Things are so bleak people believe 2019 was a golden age

[-] tricerotops@hexbear.net 28 points 3 days ago

i remember reading an article in or around 2015 saying that 2015 would be the peak of humanity and it was all downhill from there. I don't totally buy that assessment but at least for the next hundred or so years things aren't looking so good.

[-] redchert@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 3 days ago

According to some astrologers 2026 was supposed to be the best year this century.

[-] Edie@hexbear.net 2 points 3 days ago

With JDPON Don? Maybe something grand happens

[-] redchert@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 3 days ago

Nah palmist ankur believes JDPON DON will croak soon and Vance will become president or be "elected" president 2028. Also the United States will collapse by 2033.

[-] EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 2 points 3 days ago

I have pegged around that time to be the peak. At least from a technological standpoint.

With the exception of medical tech, it seems that most "advancements" in the last 10 years haven't represented actual quality of life improvements for the average person. Instead, they have been ways for corporations and governments to extract more money from us, gather more information, and exert more control.

[-] FidelChadstro@hexbear.net 15 points 3 days ago

Only topped by 2015

[-] stink@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 3 days ago

I dictate how good an era was based on the music, and 2015 was THE year in my opinion

[-] Biggay@hexbear.net 5 points 3 days ago

2019 was the best year of my life, and that isnt a good thing.

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[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 58 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Multiple generations of people have been taught that all political participation is voting in a ballot box, nothing beyond that. They have been robbed of all political initiative and they will not get it back.

It is the job of vanguard parties and their participants to provide the initiative for them, and to drive them into following its leadership.

[-] revolut1917@hexbear.net 61 points 3 days ago

prediction: they're going to blame minorities

[-] godlessworm@hexbear.net 55 points 3 days ago

well, who else are they gonna blame? the rich powerful crackers who actually did it? don't be ridiculous

[-] Carl@hexbear.net 24 points 3 days ago

There was a moment in that Medhi Hadan Jubilee where the fascist kid is talking about how Microsoft, Google et al fired tens of thousands of people... and then gets mad at the H1B visa applicants instead of the CEOs.

Shit is bleak.

[-] QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml 23 points 3 days ago

What do you mean? Of course we need to TAX those unaccountable NaRciSsIsts!

[-] marxisthayaca@hexbear.net 52 points 3 days ago

Looking at the Gazan genocide and knowing that encampments, kamikaze drones, and starvation await Americans who are deemed undesireable or unworthy of aid during the next big crisis. We are truly living in apocalyptic times.

[-] peeonyou@hexbear.net 4 points 3 days ago

This shit will come home to us too. What is happening to them can happen to anyone.

[-] marxisthayaca@hexbear.net 4 points 3 days ago

Oh absolutely, the Hakeem Jeffries of the world will allow it to happen. Its been happening! It happened to indigenous people and their reservations, it happens to Black kids in American ghettos. But it will expand, and expand until no one is safe. The goal is to beat it back and abolish it in its entirety.

[-] peeonyou@hexbear.net 3 points 3 days ago

It is already happening to Latinos too.. it's only a matter of time before it reaches this level.

[-] RedWizard@hexbear.net 21 points 3 days ago

"We just have to get the right people in there" is what my MIL told me this weekend. She wanted to know where I get my "news" from and then she told me she "watches CNN every morning". That sums it up for me.

[-] EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 3 points 3 days ago

“We just have to get the right people in there”

I mean in theory I suppose. But this is the same fantasy-land of "if everyone just got together and did this one thing" like some sort of hivemind. Sure, the laws of physics don't prevent this sort of effort, but it goes against human nature.

[-] RedWizard@hexbear.net 1 points 3 days ago

I knew a guy who, prior to the recent election was saying "if everyone voted for RFK, who knows what could change! He's not beholden to anyone! But people are just brainwashed into voting R or D!!". He was like that about 3rd parties for several elections.

[-] redchert@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 3 days ago

People are conditioned and limited in their political thinking. Its also more tenable for the "normies" to image voooting for someone who snaps his finger and makes everything okay, while not changing the system.

[-] godlessworm@hexbear.net 51 points 3 days ago

i honestly think liberals believe in 3 years trump will be replaced by a 'good democrat' who will undo everything trump is doing and everything will go back to 'normal'.

[-] 30_to_50_Feral_PAWGs@hexbear.net 29 points 3 days ago

Perhaps... A Good Democrat[ic Centralist]? lenin-crush-capitalism

[-] Carl@hexbear.net 23 points 3 days ago

They really believe the line that Biden was the furthest left a Dem has been since the New Deal and that his four years were Good™️.

[-] Bay_of_Piggies@hexbear.net 25 points 3 days ago

Again?

[-] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

In 3 years Republicans are going to came back to their senses and compromise is going to be possible, democrats are going to need to concede on some points and move further to the right, but at least civility is coming back to politics.

[-] BountifulEggnog@hexbear.net 33 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

All data points to us hitting 2c in a decade ish. There are no signs of it slowing down. We are so fucked.

[-] marxisthayaca@hexbear.net 30 points 3 days ago

it's going to be interesting to see how the masses respond to this situation, which they have been repeatedly informed of for decades now, but which they still don't understand.

The only respite is that the masses might start committing increasingly more violent acts of resistance.

[-] Speaker@hexbear.net 25 points 3 days ago

What I ordered: disciplined vanguard militias and politically unified insurrectionist cells doing revolutionary violence

What I got: stochastic terror as every white dad has his Falling Down moment

[-] DornerStan@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 2 days ago

Can we have a proletarian revolution?

Best I can do is redirect 1.4% of school shootings towards CEOs and cops

[-] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 12 points 3 days ago

I think this is a psychological phenomenon. Maybe it's related to that thing about fearing loss more than you desire gain. People have also been very conditioned to things never getting better, but they do know that things can get worse. It seems like the only improvement that most people can imagine is going back like a year in time.

[-] knowone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I've also been thinking about this. One of the absolute biggest things that has caused us to get into this situation is everyone having some degree of bad risk assessment, with most having it really bad. Like most people have some real main character syndrome. I wonder if this is a consequence of so much privilege compared to the vast, vast majority of humanity that have lived so far. I have wondered if it's something that's always been inherent to our psyche and it's just been exacerbated by things in modern society? I dunno I'm no psychologist, I'm just rambling on the internet

Edit: Also I'm not saying this is across the whole world, when I say "most" I mean "most in affluent countries." Obviously there's many in the world who have good risk assessment from just having to for survival

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[-] glimmer_twin@hexbear.net 14 points 3 days ago

Being over 15 years old is knowing things were never normal tbh

[-] QueerCommie@hexbear.net 25 points 3 days ago

If only our rulers did their job!

[-] MohammedTheCommunistPalestinian@hexbear.net 12 points 3 days ago

lol you should’ve known this was bound to happen when you let away the biggest YouTube on earth get away with making someone hold a sign that says “Kill all Jews”

But the student protesters (no they are anti semitic) ~ 🤡

[-] redchert@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 3 days ago

Or when supporting banderaites and azov nazis became rootable underdogs.

[-] MohammedTheCommunistPalestinian@hexbear.net 5 points 3 days ago

"Hamas is anti Semitic and terrorist" ~ same 🤡

[-] peeonyou@hexbear.net 8 points 3 days ago

Things will reset after WW3. There is no status quo that survives a world war. Unfortunately that is what the capitalist system requires in order for a systemic change to take place as far as I can tell. Even then there's no guarantee the changes will be for the common good.