I’m dumbstruck as to what to do. The US is building literal concentration camps, and none of my co-workers care at all.
In fairness, I work in healthcare with an almost exclusively cishet white population who are financially well off.
Many of them espouse to be Christians, and no one cares at all that the American government is following the exact playbook from Nazi Germany.
What do you do? How do you make people care before it’s too late?
I’ve never done something on the scale I’m describing, so this is mostly just speculation, but I hope it could be useful.
First of all, find the people who do care. Talk with them. Make a local antifascist group in a secure messenger (Matrix/XMPP, or at the very least Signal), or join an existing org that you disagree with the least (don’t be afraid of the word “socialist” if you stumble upon them). Do not discuss anything illegal, as it could spell trouble for everyone - you live in an (increasingly) authoritarian country with a wide range of tools to repress you. Keeping it legal at least makes it less likely.
Now that you have a support network, you can start reaching out. Until/unless your organization gains serious traction, unite over common goals instead of squabbling over your differences. DO NOT guilt anyone for being financially well off, voting for the wrong candidate, believing in stupid things, etc. Find people who are somewhat unhappy or unsure about concentration camps. Try convincing them that concentration camps are bad - it probably would be easier if they are on the fence already or if they are being unjustly treated themselves. Show compassion. Do not be condescending or use the words that may trigger them (Nazism, etc), instead appeal to humanity and empathy to specific people who are being repressed. Bring some examples of unjust repression with you. Do not overdo it - you don’t (yet) have to agree on anything except that these concentration camps are bad. Propose to do something together - it can be small at first, like calling your representative or organizing a picket - common action builds connections and mutual understanding.
Don’t waste your energy on people who won’t listen.
Look for people, places and groups that support your own beliefs.
If you can’t find those people at work, then just be nice to them but not too close. Them in your free time, use your energy to support those people and groups you believe in.
Don’t waste your time on those who won’t listen.
What do you do when those people are your family?
Easier said than done (though recent events have made it a little easier).
Not impossible, look into cult deprogramming. My mother a few years back had a media diet of Steven Crowder and talking heads alike. She has very different views now. Her social life has improved, she dissects political news and generally became a more stable person.
If the concentration camps were started during the Obama administration and (nobody cared), then were operated during the first Trump admin and (the only caring-concern was performative) then they continued to operate under the Biden admin (while still nobody cared) then why would people suddenly start caring now?
BTW I’m referring to the immigrant concentration camps near the border. What ones are you referring to?
call them american
I spend a good amount of energy trying to explain the merits of Marxism-Leninism and Leftism in general on Lemmy (and IRL, though that’s much trickier). Ultimately, you can’t make someone care. You can’t convince people of something they choose not to want to believe, either, no matter how much evidence you throw at them. Roderic Day wrote a great article titled Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing” that perfectly encapsulates this process. People license themselves to believe whatever it is that they believe benefits themselves, regardless of evidence or empathy.
What you can do, however, is explain the merits of that which you believe in, and this is far more effective with people already targeted by the current system. Those closest to the edge, those radicalized by their conditions but not yet organized or versed in theory, are the perfect people to talk to. The effort required to gain an ally in that sense is far less than someone who is convinced that the system is fine, but just needs a little tweaking. Building strength through organization helps legitimize your positions and expands the circle, so to speak, by moving the “line of radicalization” further. Person A, who believes the system is fine but needs tweaks, goes from comfortably mainstream into the new line of radicalization, one step away from working to supplant the system, when those who were radicalized near them organize.
Further still, as conditions deteriorate, more people are impacted and more people are radicalized. This is both good and bad, bad in the sense that more are affected by the evils in society to a greater degree, but with the good being further chance of organization.
Just my 2 cents as someone who has spoken with many different people about Marxism.
Thank you.
No problem!
People won’t care until negative things start effecting them. Even at that point, many will still deny negative things are happening or they will put the blame somewhere else. This is why I believe things are going to have to get bad, really bad, before they can turn around. The biggest thing to go bad would be the economy. An economy so bad would be hard to deny and live with. Unfortunately, the more money you have, the longer you can “deal with” a bad economy, and still think everything is okay.
Even at that point, many will still deny negative things are happening or they will put the blame somewhere else.
My daddy is good, he would never hurt me, he only hurts people who are “illegal” 🤡
That is a particular subset. There are people who see nothing g bad happening to themselves, but do have their eyes open and see the bad things happening around them. But, again, they are ready and primed.
It is much the same as addiction counseling: until people are primed to change, there is little to do but leave your hand out stretched, not pushing any further than that.
My (great)-grandparents were part of the Dutch resistance during WW2. Along with a full 1.5% of the population.
Most people will not do anything, even if they are literally rounding up people for a genocide.
On the more positive side, a lot of people will support the resistance in small ways.
The number of people who actually, whole heartedly collaborated with the Nazi’s was quite small.
Even some of the German soldiers stationed in their village would turn a blind eye. Some of them realized they were on the wrong side and they just did the bare minimum of what they needed to do to not get in trouble and not get killed.
Do you want people to care or do you want to lecture people who don’t agree with you. People like to give lectures on politics, but no one listens to them. If you want people to care you have to care about them.
As someone who admittedly is guilty of “lecturing,” many do enjoy it and have DM’d me or replied thanking me for it. Different people respond better to different approaches, be they the walls of text I am frequently guilty of or shorter questions trying to get them to elaborate on their own understanding.
Actually, I don’t remember if I ever thanked you for your work; We don’t always agree on everything but your positions are thought-provoking, your delivery respectful, and your patience seemingly infinite. I wish there were more people like you on the left.
Thank you so much for the kind words! Genuinely. Many will slander me a troll or whatnot, but it’s words like yours and the others that say similar that keeps that patience going. I mean it.
Idk I listen to politics lectures all the time, most of which I don’t fully agree with, many I disagree with outright, listening to other takes, especially opposing ones helps me scrutinize my own reasoning and critically analyze what’s what.
It’s not really the lecturer’s fault he was lecturing, if he was right and so he should be lecturing others on truth. Much like any subject really.
This idea that all opinions are equal are how we ended up in a post-truth world.
Thought-terminating clichés of “everyone likes different things” or “people believe different things” are not just signs of a lazy intellect, they are the harbingers of our doom.
You can have beliefs that aren’t facts, in fact - you have to, but you can’t just believe whatever, you need to be able to justify it, and to do that you need to understand logic, you need to understand evidence, you need to understand the scientific method and how to reason.
There a big difference in seeking something out and someone walking up to you and talking at you.
Especially at work, where you can’t leave and should probably be focusing on the work.
Yeah, but what do you do when a good chunk of the population doesn’t go ‘seeking something out’, yet vote and influence the lives of those who do anyway?
Try making friends first, or at least understanding them. If you aren’t willing or capable of doing that you are just going to make things worse.
How do you make people care before it’s too late?
none of my co-workers care
You can’t force another to care. We can educate them with facts and reason while trusting them to make their own choices. And, that isn’t done in a workplace, instead one on one in presence of a human relationship.
But, if you insist, then there’s always a way. Read the Bible as part of a Bible study to develop a nuanced understanding of its message. Relate that message to social democrat, socialist, communist, and anarchist ideology. Determine the relevant Bible passages useful in the specific situations you encounter with specific Christians, then memorize those passages. Then, in full context of Bible and situation, in the moment, quote the passage. Finally, shut up and wait.
To add to this, be sure to wait for the immediate pushback. Stay calm, and understand that this will be a slow burner. Kindness and repeated contacts to the change minds more than one off aggressive arguments.
People have a difficult time changing their points of view, and some people can feel lots of psychological pain during that process.
Have you ever wondered how people reacted to the original Nazis in the 1930s? Well… now you know. If can feel proud of something, it is at least I am extremely against it and the whole ‘what would you have done?’ is basically answered definitively for me.
I sometimes wonder is Trump does a lot of crazy sounding shit to make people who speak against him sound insane.
You can stop using stupid shit like “cishet white” for starters. Statistically, most people who do not care will be cishet white. Those who care, will also mostly be cishet white. With this type of exclusionary discourse bordering on racism, no one will ever listen to you because from the start, you already sound like you have nothing important to say. There’s three types of people in the US: Slaves working 2 and 3 jobs to make ends meet, middle class being pit against the slaves by the third group, the capital. By using exclusionary discourse, assimilated from bougie fake activism, you’re promoting infighting within the classes that should be hunting the capital like animals, the French way!
Edit: your country has sacrificed countless children to never eschew the right to bear arms. Well, stop bitching online to make yourself feel good and use them.
By using exclusionary discourse, assimilated from bougie fake activism
This is a totally normal, relatable sentence
I’ve seen some leftist arguments that were denser than lead, this ain’t that. Let me rephrase for them, though:
Stop allowing social media fart sniffing contests control how you do activism. There’s mastodon, and then there’s real life.
Stop allowing social media fart sniffing contests control how you do activism
I’m onboard with this sentence. I’m sorry, but if you’re going to preface an argument on the premise of kneeling to another’s level, then actually commit to the kneel.
I used that term to show that they are privileged folks who likely won’t be directly targeted by the administration, at least at first.
Ah yes, mob “justice” always works so well.
Nobody is advocating for cross burning. People need to rise against the first steps of a totalitarian government that only serves the oligarchy.
Something I’ve had to accept over the course of my life is that the vast majority of humans will passively accept anything as long as they feel like there’s something they can do to not be killed. Only when it feels out of control whether they might be killed will the majority of people feel the need to act and no sooner. There has never been any changing this. Fortunately the vast majority of people are not needed to affect positive change. People who care need to set the tone and followers will follow as they do. Your efforts would be better served among people actively resisting or building structures that benefit people.
Lots of good answers here already. I’ll just add that Jon Stewart recently did a great segment that touches on this. Basically, he says if everything the government does is “OmG nAzIz FaScIsTz TrAiToRz!!!” then people who aren’t already paying attention will continue tuning it out. I forget at which time in the video he gets to this point, but honestly the whole 20-minute video is worth a watch.
IMO ‘comedy’ does a lot more to further political debate & informedness than it gets credit for.
I love Jon Stewart but I think he’s a little off base with this take. Are we supposed to not call out the overtly fascist stuff the government is doing? Will that get more people to listen the next time we have to call out an overtly fascistic act or will we have to hold our tongue then, as well? How many grannies need to be eaten and impersonated by wolves before we’re allowed to move past the “ooh what sharp teeth you have” crap?
With fascism especially, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. The people going through life like everything is fine are implicitly supporting the fascism. I’m not going to stop yelling about how a pack of wolves has taken over the government, just because some people think the word is overused.
Yeah, it’s kind of a bad take. Maybe we should teach people what the word actually means so that they can understand that the applies to everything they’re doing*
You mean the US is building MORE concentration camps
Again…
