You Can’t Post Your Way Out of Fascism | Authoritarians and tech CEOs now share the same goal: to keep us locked in an eternal doomscroll instead of organizing against them
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One of the problems with online forums for organizing is that it's hard to naturally build an organizational structure. It's possible, but I think it requires experienced organizers to start choosing collaborators from the userbase.
- in online forums, people get upvoted based on how much users agree with the comment. They are rewarded for being popular, not for having a direct impact on the problem being discussed.
- IRL people who commit effort to the cause get a certain amount of social capital, and the satisfaction of having an effect. They also form social bonds with other people in the group. Participants are rewarded for having an effect.
We haven't seen a lot of organizing boiling out of the existing forums (Reddit, Facebook, blogs) and microblogging (Twitter) platforms. There have been a bunch of leaderless movements, like #metoo and BLM, but those have had a moment and then faded out. If they were effective tools for organizing, I would expect to see more organizations come out of them and persist.
Conversely, volunteer community organizations form all the time - people are physically situated near people experiencing similar problems who are invested in solutions they think will work for their community. In-person organization is self perpetuating in the sense that there is an inherent reward for having an effect.
I think it's possible to use online tools to create a movement, but like the author of the article says, most of us spend our time posting and upvoting rather than doing something that will change policy.
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For anyone interested here is the CIA's publicly available field manual for simple sabotage. Dated, but mostly still relevant.
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Just because you have an easy time with something does not mean everyone does
That was the whole point of my answer.
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People need to know that posting doesn't actually do anything!
posts an article about it
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Posts comment about it.
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Not a comment on the merit of the article, but a tangential thought:
Fediverse has presented the same amount of doom to scroll as the algorithms. I open my phone to get a break from work, life, etc, and any app I think to open for social or news, presents the same anxiety of "I just can't deal with that type of shit right now; where can I bury my head in the sand?" -
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What will matter in the end isn't what you put online.
It'll be how good your memory becomes when ICE comes knocking on your door asking about your neighbors.
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The field manual was to cripple the nation (Nazi Germany) so it could be conquered by other nations.
The USA being conquered won't reduce fascism in the slightest.
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Reminder that the USA has a nationwide strike at State Capital Buildings TODAY.
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I am definitely one of those "to arms" types because I think talking is over. That's all the oligarchs want, more talk. When a forum for discussion is introduced the controlling powers study it for monetization and misinformation purposes. When they figure out how to manipulate the fediverse and platforms like Bluesky it'll be over.
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As someone who is outside the US, the best I can do is share important information with people inside the US.
I would be very surprised if any of our US-Allied governments call out Trump. I would be overjoyed, but surprised.
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Well at least the article validated some of my feelings and gave me a sense identification of the problems I have been sensing around me with the flaccid liberal rebellion.
Hey wait a sec! Dammit!Most concrete action I can think of is some posts I remember seeing about coat-hanger do it yourself frontal lobotomies. I've seen plenty of very low IQ Americans with economic status as bad or worse than mine somehow perfectly happy with all the fascist shit that is going down. This seems like an opportunity to join in their bliss.
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That was a joke. And besides, only certain distributions count anyways. Keep an eye out for our Slackware brothers, they need our help and support in these times.
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I’m afraid you can’t vote or protest your way out of fascism. Only way out is to shoot.
