Tag: fascism

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I was asked how I’m doing

I just learned the FBI has stopped just putting trans women on lists and threatening them (and companies associated with healthcare) and has started following them (and invading homes) and is about to open up terrorism cases against activists in order to fabricate the narrative that all trans people are terrorists to back up their threats against all gender affirming healthcare and disappear even more people than have already been disappeared. I knew it was coming, I was just hoping it was coming slow enough that it wouldn’t arrive. But now it seems clear things are going to get a lot worse in the next few years before we have any chance of it getting better.

It feels hopeless to try to do anything, because there’s nothing I can do. And while I’m not a public figure, and thus much lower on the lists, I’m still there. Just because I’m last in line to be targeted doesn’t make it any better.

And unfortunately I was doing some reading and stumbled across some other really blatantly evil stuff being done by the federal government so I was already feeling rather depressed and trying to move on and ignore it because I can’t do anything about it and it is only causing me more harm to stress about it.

It’s also deeply upsetting because it’s the kind of thing most people don’t believe is happening, even if you clearly demonstrate evidence. So there’s not much push back. I’m being demonized just for existing, just like so many other people, and it’s just a small part of a much bigger plan to continue regressing on all human rights issues.

And this is after similar efforts stripped me of access to healthcare and even before that, I was arbitrarily denied most of what I need. So it’s not like I was getting anything I deserve anyhow. But now I’ll also be killed for needing it. Someday.

A year ago, I was talking to my partner about how we probably should leave the country because it’s only a matter of time before we are targeted, and it’ll be too late to leave well before that happens. Shortly after, trans people were banned from leaving the country. It’s already been too late for most of a year.

I dunno if you heard about that. It’s old news at this point, but they just stopped issuing passports for trans people. And they target trans people who already have one to make it more difficult to leave for any reason.

I think the most upsetting part is how it’s cruelty for no benefit. These efforts only extend harm to a broad range of people by targeting a minority. There is not a single shred of benefit for anyone. Not even the rich and powerful, because the economic harm does more to them than any consolidation of power assists them. :/

Ostensibly, the point is that trans people are more likely to advocate for positive change, because just being trans makes someone much more likely to recognize how many systems in place don’t actually benefit the majority. And they want to stop progress. But it doesn’t even really achieve that goal because it just highlights how bad things are.

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Blood Test (Drabble)

The world was due for cancer screening. A century prior, it had barely survived. From the fallout, symptoms were documented, and as the years of testing passed, the world was content that it would not return. Attention turned to its autoimmune disease. If left untreated, fever would come, and kill. A screening was missed while the autoimmune treatment plan was drafted, but the symptoms were minor, and the world was content.

The cancer, it turns out, had returned. Its presence accelerated the autoimmune disease, and the fever had started.

The world is dying, but it has survived worse. Have hope.

Drabble is a form of extremely short storytelling, where you are limited to exactly 100 words. This one was written for Lawrence Simon’s Weekly Challenge, on 2024-11-07.

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Stay Alive

They want you to despair and die. They want you to kill yourself because then they can pretend they aren’t the cause. It’s critical that you understand this: Despite any pain we endure in the near future, it’s nowhere near over and we will fucking survive.

I am not making an optimistic assertion when I say this cannot stand. Fascism always destroys itself. We may end up living under a fascist dictator, but the world has survived powerful fascists before, and it will again.

Edit 2025/08/17: I’m sorry, but the first link wasn’t archived properly and has been lost.
Edit 2025/12/17: As I am once again more likely to become homeless, I am asking for help directly instead of keeping this at the top.
Edit 2026/01/05: I found a mostly complete version of Rebecca Solnit’s post and changed the link to point to that.

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Learning in Progress: Equality Has Many Definitions

This is a Learning in Progress post. Contents are brief thoughts based on few sources, and have not been checked for accuracy or usefulness.

These notes are based on a section of Equality by Darrin M. McMahon. I haven’t finished reading it, and a bug deleted most of my notes from the first ~200 pages, so it is even less complete than it might otherwise be.

People are different, and this makes them inherently unequal. This has been used to justify bigotry on arbitrary differences throughout history, but declaring equality of all doesn’t make people equal either. Everyone has needs and capabilities, and the only path to equality is to have all people use their capabilities collectively to fulfill their collective needs.

Stalinism took “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” and replaced the word “need” with “work”. By including this seed of meritocracy, anyone injured, disabled, or elderly is excluded from equality. (I think every person has a phase where they see meritocracy as ideal. Fortunately, most people grow out of this phase.)

Nazis promoted equality of a few at the expense of everyone else. (How equality has been used throughout history changes. It is important to recognize that it means different things to different people.) Fascism creates a meritocracy exclusive to one class, relying on the existence of outsiders (who must be murdered1). In this way, fascism must shrink the accepted class to have more outsiders, and eats itself4.

We claim all nations are equal, while propping up some, sabotaging others, and we can all see that nations are not equal. WWII’s devastation increased equality (see “four horseman of leveling” in Quotes). Post-WWII, economists claimed that industrialization forms a natural progression of brief extreme inequality that quickly brings in equality. (This is an obvious lie.) At the same time, economists claimed that it was better to make a nation wealthy than to fix its inequality, and that commerce is a leveling force. “When a rich man sells to the poor, they become equal.” cannot be true, and yet it was the predominant claim.

Quotes

  • “self-love is the great barrier to full human equality” I see in many people, especially myself, a critical lack of self-love, so this stood out to me as worth investigating further. It may not be true, or it may be more true than I am capable of recognizing right now.
  • “Christianity is Communism” If you research when and where Christianity was formed, the people were living under a form of communism.2 The ideals of Christianity are communist ideals, but have been changed and replaced by centuries of adaptation and interpretation.
  • “iron law of oligarchy” In every government, an elite few control all. There are many systems to stop this, but they have all failed so far.
  • “four horseman of leveling” – war, revolution, state failure, disease. These are all common things that have caused increases in equality by hurting everyone.

Questions

  • Does communism only work at small scales? It is implied to have only worked when implemented by communities instead of countries.
  • Does Marxism rely on individualism? The more I learn, the more I see that individualism is the biggest threat to progress. (Ever heard “divide and conquer”? Individualism IS self-division – a destruction of community. It makes us weak.)
  • What makes immigration “good”?3 From my education, I “know” that immigration has always had benefits, but what are those benefits? Why do we call them beneficial? As far as I know, the benefit has always been cheap labor (exploitation of immigrants). I want to challenge my education, and learn more about the complexities of immigration. (There is never a valid reason to stop immigration.)
  • Should we not want greatness? What IS greatness? Nietzsche argued for a constant personal struggle to achieve greatness, and against many institutions that improve equality. If seeking greatness requires sacrificing others, should we ever want it?
  • What was good/bad about the “New Deals”? They compensated for a destroyed economy, and produced infrastructure still used today, but what were the exact short-term and long-term effects?

Further Reading

  • Capital: A Critique of Political Economy by Karl Marx

Footnotes

  1. Fascism relies on exploitation of the unaccepted classes, which often literally involves mass murder, but also makes the unaccepted people leave. This is why fascists inevitably shrink their accepted class.
  2. Romans were the capitalists of their day, exploiting the people that became the first Christians. Communism is a broad and complex subject. In this context, communism is being used unrelated to the way it is used as a classification for modern countries.
  3. A partner reminds me that diversity is an inherent good, and that immigration increases diversity. (At minimum, diversity brings new ideas and perspectives into focus, and increases resiliency.)
  4. Fascism relies on blind obedience above all else, and thus breeds incompetence. This is another critical factor on why fascism fails. (Relevant tumblr post.)
A well-presented video talking about related concepts, but especially defining fascism early on.

Updates/Changes
2025-03-24: Added a video related to totalitarianism.
2025-04-28: Added an extra footnote about how fascism fails.

(It’s difficult to keep motivation when hard work is unceremoniously deleted by a glitch..)