Political Memes

Reminds me of an old song "Union Maid" telling women they want a union man because "Married life ain't hard when you got a union card."

This is great! My husband has been suggesting gun sausage yoga where real men can be men, while also getting their stretches in...

The hard part will be convincing them that people they don’t like deserve basic human rights. The right wing religious propaganda has really taken hold of them in that regard.

remember when mandela actually became president of south africa after spending 27 years in prison, he made a speech and said something like "the boers are no longer our enemy, they are our countrymen." Basically, they are our enemy now, because they've fallen victim to the propaganda that's been fed to them by the television they watch, the online communities they frequent, the churches they go to and the radio personalities they listen to. But if one can reach out to them, talk to them and get them to listen and hear, then it might be possible to deprogram them from those hateful stances they hold against people who are not like them.

For example, one can try to talk to them about immigration by asking why they don't like immigration. they might respond like "the immigrants take our jobs", which is the lie that is told to them so that they want to fight other working class people instead of focusing that fight on the people who actually are responsible for their suffering: the wealthy.

When I was a lad we used to say

the only reason to be Christian is to be in the closet with a priest

The other two were definitely musts though you would see “n-words beware” “no n-words allowed” graffiti on signs and others of that ilk. Even today you will find Swastika drawn on things around town

But how do you do that? We can try to convince and provide all the evidence in the world and we still get met with "deep state" and get told almost every scientist and doctor is part of a secret pact to make us eat bugs.

To say nothing of how difficult it is to talk to people who would rather you didn't exist.

I get that it's distasteful to give anyone their due when they have hate in their heart.

That said, people are mutli-faceted. We can engage with one another on one or many axes, and GP is suggesting that we pick and choose the ones where there is common ground. The key is to be mindful that this person is not your friend, but when it comes to some specific political point, they are aligned with you. Demonstrating that this is possible and fruitful is key to fighting back against polarization and black/white thinking.

The alternative is a permanently divided political landscape where everyone and everything is deadlocked, and we argue about wedge topics forever.

Survivor bias. My uncle survived because he was thrown clear!! Dead men tell no tales, etc.

My elementary school best friend's father was one of those people.

Probably. Does anyone really believe all the BS spewed forth by conservative politicians?

During COViD, I did have a bit of a discussion with an anti-vaxxer. He denied believing a lot of the extreme views, although said he had more conservative family that did. For him, it came down to being low risk as someone rural and not wanting the government to tell him what do. He also had a naive look at statistics showing Florida did pretty well without any precautions.

I didn’t have the statistics to give a closer look except to talk about some of the differences. I didn’t get anywhere pointing out that he visited more populated areas and was in Boston right then. I didn’t even get anywhere pointing out that they ran a home daycare.

So, I don’t know, definitely conservative, definitely in denial, definitely not able to look at the bigger picture. He denied extremist views but did seem to accept them as common background.

AnArChY aS uNdErStOoD bY a ThIrTeEn YeAr OlD!!!

i agree but 20 years is putting it mildly. Overman and HUAC was almost a century ago and McCarthyism has been well and alive since.

a systemic disease has a systemic root. i wouldn’t put the blame on any one generation of leftists when capitalist white supremacy spans dozens.