ID: 3 panel comic:
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A surprised looking person pops in to existence on a floating rock surrounded by fire, next to the devil.
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The person asks “wait a second-- why’d I end up in hell??”
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The devil, now taking up the entire frame, replies: “because centrism enables fascism”
The capitalist status quo is protected by a political wing we call “liberalism” and a paramilitary wing we call “fascism.”
Carrot and stick, good cop/bad cop - pick your metaphor.
For far too long, leftists have laboured under the delusion that liberals are merely “misguided” people that can be “pushed” left as soon as we could get them to read this or that book by our favourite Beardy McDeadguy. This kind of understanding of these people we call “centrists,” “moderates,” and, by far the most accurate term, “liberals,” completely ignores the fact that it is liberalism - not fascism - that is the true ideology of privilege. Privilege that means that liberals are even more invested in the maintenance of the status quo that the rank and file of fascism are.
The left has always proven itself capable of defeating fascists - but it seems that it has no real answer to the insidious, co-opting tentacles of the liberal and the mountain of lies liberalism is built upon.
So your solution is to increase the genocide and hostility while also pushing us further away from democracy? That just sounds like you’re resigned to being stupid and evil.
So your solution is to increase the genocide and hostility
That’s not my “solution,” liberal - that is what your precious status quo will be doing anyway.
No, that is a choice that you made. The two options were less and more and by abstaining from less you got more.
If a Nazi sits down at a table of 3 and nobody says anything. There are now 4 Nazis at that table.
I don’t know what you think “the center” is, it doesn’t mean being undecided or voting against human rights. The Left is not a religion, and anything which demands “with us or against us” membership is not any better than fascism.
It’s you. You’re the meme. You’re going to hell when you die.
Remember kids get radicalized or you’ll go to hell.
You don’t have to be a radical to support progressive reform. If anything, a lot of Radicals believe the “both sides bad” flavor of Centrism.
First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
- Martin Luther King Jr, Letter from the Birmingham Jail
Context for readers: The direct action MLK Jr spoke of was political action and progressive legislative reform. The reason I bring this up is sometimes Tankies and Anarchists use his words to incite violence, which MLK Jr would strictly oppose.
Says the white moderate who was taught so by the establishment that doesn’t want you to consider violent opposition to their violent oppression a viable option, which he absolutely did, as, without even the slightest sense of irony because the reality is going over their head in its entirety, they tell you they "agree with you in the goal you seek, but cannot agree with your methods of direct action”.
Perhaps educate yourself on MLK and what he actually stood for, rather than what those who murdered him for opposing them want you to know, before you so confidently spread misinformation and continue in the task of whitewashing his legacy.
"Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself.”
1964, I guess white oppressors forced him to write this.
Non-violent protest is an opening offer, not the endgame. It’s a promise not to be violent so long as there’s an honest dialoge.
Without the threat of eventual violence, they have no reason to listen at all.
You’re not arguing against me, you are arguing against civil rights legend Martin Luther King Jr. and he can’t hear you.
So we inevitably reaching the claim that everything on the right from left is fascism.