#political dissent

[firstpersonnarrator]

Robert Sheehan reads Chinese dissident-poet’s letter from prison.

#how have I never seen this before #it really seems to speak to rob #robert sheehan #liu xiaobo #Chinese political dissident #political dissent #Tiananmen Square uprising #freedom of speech #human rights #dissidents #dissidence #political dissidence #political dissidents #political dissident #chinese dissident #4th of June 1989 #june 4 1989 #tiananmen square #Youtube #free speech #the right to freedom of speech #robert sheehan poetry reading #poetry reading #robbie was 5 months old

[typhlonectes]

#antifa #dissent #politics #race #USA #street action #direct action #praxis

[18thcenturythirsttrap]

Ministers are considering expanding the definition of extremism and banning MPs from engaging with protest groups as part of a crackdown on people 'undermining' Britain’s institutions values.

According to reports, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has asked Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove to update the Government’s definition of extremism - set more than a decade ago - which currently defines it as 'vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values'.

That definition is vague enough - because what the hell are 'fundamental British values'? Essentially, whatever the Government of the day decides they are / are not. Clearly, though, Sunak wants even wider scope for his Government to define what is 'British' according to their own priorities. For example, I wouldn't mind betting that, while it's clear anti-genocide groups will be labelled un-British, anti-trans campaign groups will somehow pass under the radar.

Combined with Sunak's threat in front of Downing Street on Friday that non-British nationals who take part in protests could be deported, this signals a worrying new advance in the assault on civil rights and civil liberties, promoted by the Conservatives and unopposed by Labour.

#civil rights #civil liberties #right to protest #defend dissent #palestine #uk politics #Instagram

[amerasdreams]

I'm sorry but you're either for Ukraine or for russia. There is no middle ground. I don't care what your normal politics are. This isn't about politics. This is about people's lives. About them not being taken over by a country that is not only bombing them but raping and torturing them.

If you don't think we should do all we can possibly do to stop such evil, you are on the wrong side of history.

#Ukraine #I'm serious stop with regular politics for a second #If your politics supports bombing innocent civilians then you really should rethink your politics #I could word this more harshly and more eloquently but I need to go to bed #Just. Look at it from Ukrainains POV once. #Empathy is a thing. #It is our business because russia is big and so Ukraine needs a lot of help #Also russia is not going to stop there #These people with their republican and democrat blah blah blah #Nope I'm not talking about American political race #There is more at stake here. #Any moral person will support the victim over the abuser. #And when I say russia I'm talking about the government and any z ppl and supporters #Not the dissenters who get 15 years for speaking out about Bucha #And the poets who atrack the war and get raped #Wake up people #Look at their reality and quit being so selfish #I'm glad I'm taxed so my tax dollars can go to Ukraine. #I gave #More than that #Which is only about 0.02 cents of average tax vs all the other gov services so.... #Balance #Fight where you want #But there is no option here. #Fight for Ukraine or fight for russia. #To not speak up is to be for murderers and rapists. #I will never back down and this is a thing I ams all should be mad about #How can you not care about them? #If you could help people in Iran wouldn't you? #We habe the opportunity with Ukraine to help but ppl are being such misers

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

I do not advocate rebellion or civil war, but when the federal government actively blocks a state from protecting its citizenry from invasion, that is exactly what you flirt with

#- HK #I can’t believe how stupid they are being about this #like #pick up a history book #they want civilians at the border taking matters into their own hands that’s what they want #so they can pull another January 6 and justify jailing political dissenters #mobile #x #respublica #immigration

[irhabiya]

egyptians are so fucking illiterate i'm gonna kill myselfffff

#it's been over a decade and people still cannot properly assess what went wrong in our revolutions #and how we got here #i'm seeing people say that if the mb was still in power then the genocide in gaza wouldn't be happening rn you HAVE to be actually stupid #hate how reactionary people are here why are we acting like morsi and his gaggle of fundamentalists were principled anti imperialists lmao #their response would have been the same mediocre condemnation lipservice that other states have issued #but nothing more severe than that. anything else and you're wildly mistaking what their politics are #definitely not anything that would intervene #as if they didn't drastically dial back their “pro-palestine” sentiments after they were actually elected can we be serious please #what you should be lamenting is the counter revolution and us backed military coup that happened #which cracked down entirely on dissent that's the biggest loss from the past decade

[berniesrevolution]

DISSENT MAGAZINE

At critical times, foreign wars have tested the moral convictions of American leftists and affected the fate of their movement for years to come. The Socialist Party’s opposition to entering the First World War provoked furious state repression but later gained a measure of redemption when Americans learned that U.S. troops had not made the world safe for democracy after all. Leftists proved prescient again in the late 1930s when they rallied to defend the Spanish Republic against a right-wing military and its fascist allies, Italy and Germany. The republic’s defeat emboldened Adolf Hitler to launch what quickly became the Second World War. When, twenty years later, American Communists backed the Soviet Union’s crushing of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, they shoved their party firmly and irrevocably to the margins of political life, which opened up space for the emergence of a New Left that rejected imperial aggressors of all ideological persuasions.

The war in Ukraine has a good chance of turning into another such decisive event. Who to blame for the bloodshed in that country should be obvious: a massive nation led by an authoritarian ruler with one of the world’s largest militaries at his disposal is seeking to conquer and subjugate a smaller and weaker neighbor. In pursuit of that vicious purpose, Vladimir Putin’s soldiers have committed countless rapes and acts of torture. His air force is systematically trying to destroy Ukraine’s infrastructure and economy, hoping to undermine its citizens’ will to resist. Yet Ukrainians, with the aid of arms from the United States and other NATO countries, have so far managed to fight this superior force to a stalemate.

A sizeable number of American leftists have embraced an alternate reality. For them, the culprit is NATO’s post–Cold War expansion, fueled by the drive of the U.S. state and capital to bend the world to their desires. The popular author and journalist Chris Hedges cracks that the war in Ukraine “doesn’t make any geopolitical sense, but it’s good for business.” The Green Party condemns the “perpetual war mentality” of the “US foreign policy establishment” and concludes, “There are no good guys in this crisis.”

These critics ignore or dismiss the fact that every nation that joined NATO did so willingly, knowing that Russia was capable of launching the kind of attack now underway in Ukraine. In the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s demise, the expansion of NATO may well have been too hasty. But not one of its newer members has done anything to threaten Putin’s regime. And every country that joined the alliance enjoys a democratically elected government. They contrast sharply with the handful of nations, besides Putin’s, that voted against a UN resolution last month demanding the Russians withdraw from Ukraine: Belarus, North Korea, Syria, Nicaragua, Eritrea, and Mali. All but the last are one-party dictatorships, and Mali relies on Russian mercenaries to battle Islamist rebels.

It seems not to bother these leftists that they are making common cause with some of the most atrocious and prominent stalwarts of the Trumpian right. Tucker Carlson routinely bashes the U.S. commitment to Ukraine with lines like “Has Putin ever called me a racist?” while Marjorie Taylor Greene recently declared, “I’m completely against the war in Ukraine. . . . You know who’s driving it? It’s America. America needs to stop pushing the war in Ukraine.”

On February 19, some members of the alliance of right and left staged a demonstration at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington to vent its “Rage Against the War Machine.” Speakers included Ron Paul and Tulsi Gabbard as well as Jill Stein, the Green Party’s 2016 nominee for president, and Medea Benjamin, the founder of Code Pink. Carlson promoted the event on the highest rated “news” show in the history of cable TV. At the Memorial, several protesters flew Russian flags.

To paraphrase August Bebel’s famous line about anti-Semitism, the hostility of those leftists who oppose helping Ukraine is an anti-imperialism of fools—although, unlike past Jew haters, they are fools with good intentions. Wars are always horrible events, no matter who starts them or why. And we on the left should do whatever we can to stop them from starting and end them when they do.

But neither the United States nor its allies forced Putin to invade. In speech after speech, he has made clear his mourning for the loss of the Soviet empire and his firm belief that Ukraine should be part of a revived one, this time sanctified by an Orthodox cross instead of the hammer-and-sickle. As the historian (and my cousin) David A. Bell wrote recently, the United States is not “the only international actor that really matters in the current crisis.” It may have the mightiest war machine, but Biden is not shipping arms to Ukraine in an attempt to subjugate Russia to his will. We should, Bell writes, “judge every international situation on its own terms, considering the actions of all parties, and not just the most powerful one. . . . the horrors Putin has already inflicted on Ukraine, and his long-term goals, are strong reasons . . . for continuing current U.S. policy, despite the attendant costs and risks.”

(Continue Reading)

#politics #the left #dissent magazine #foreign policy #war #progressive #progressive movement #Russia #ukraine #NATO #imperialism

[youthdissent]

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#scotus #original post #queer youth assemble #qya #us politics #queer rights #trans rights #affirmative action #we the youth dissent #youth dissent

[trashpandaart3000]

#direct action #politics #dissent

[natalia-lafourcade]

My dads stories about his Pueblo scare the shit outta me 😭😭😭

#our Pueblo predates colonization and the stories that get passed down…. god #the stories from the revolution. the witchcraft. the murders over land disputes. the freak accidents #the fucking SPIRITS #apparently during the dirty war the gov would throw bodies of political dissenters out of helicopters and onto our lands #the energy there is so potent esp at night you can just FEEL shit #id go back in a heartbeat though

[lachonk]

If you dare pull some hand wringing bullshit about "both sides" you're blocked on sight. The Israel government is responsible for the violence being wrought. The solution to the conflict is and always has been to free Palestine.

#palestine #not to get political but this is infuriating and i want to make my stance clear #canadian press is positively abysmal rn. the propaganda is being eaten up and dissent is being censored left and right

[typhlonectes]

#trans issues #lgbtq+ #missouri #politics #memes #direct action #dissent

[18thcenturythirsttrap]

The authoritarian underbelly of self-proclaimed democracies is often hidden, but it’s there nonetheless. That undercover police officers infiltrated environmental groups with fake identities for years, even having protracted relationships with female activists under false pretences, seems more reminiscent of a Stasi state than a liberal democracy. But it did happen here, and it was able to happen because such groups were cast as extreme menaces for whom democratic norms could be easily discarded.

Excellent again by Owen Jones.

#civil rights #civil liberties #right to protest #defend dissent #uk politics

[nokingsonlyfooles]

The Quiet Part is Getting Louder

Here we have someone trying to primary a "squad"-aligned progressive Dem for being anti-genocide (in the most pro-Biden way possible!) and supporting the "uncommitted" protest votes. Because Trump. Also because Israel = Judaism, don't wanna leave the whole dual-loyalty thing out. Both sides are excusing the genocide and plugging antisemitic lies, that's where the Overton Window is at the moment. Even supporting Biden but maintaining that the genocide should stop is dangerous and suspicious.

So, here's the damage. People are silencing dissent (their own and that of others) because they want the Democrat to win. Because the Democrat MUST win to save democracy. So we're saving a "democracy" where dissenting against the ONE PARTY that MUST WIN is ANTI-DEMOCRACY. It's so fragile, dissent could END THE UNITED STATES.

Gee, that sounds like treason. Is dissent treason yet? We're dancing around the way it's phrased, but we're quietly treating it as if it's so. In big ways and little ways. Every time you ding someone for not being pro-Biden enough in their dislike of genocide, or for making sure their method of protest - FIRST AND FOREMOST! - won't hurt Biden's chances of winning.

If it's all about Biden winning, folks, Summer Lee and a lot of other progressives have got to sit down, shut up, or leave. These are the people that would support those progressive policies Biden wants (and so often fails) to push through, from the congressional level all the way down to your local school board. Taking a stand against genocide will knock down their numbers, and replace them with "centrists" who are willing to let it slide. And also willing to let a lot of other things slide.

So, what? Maybe progressives should quiet down about the genocide so they can all stay in office and keep reducing the harm, right? Maybe all of us should.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Play "Silence the Dissent to Save Democracy" and win Fascism. No matter who wins, if that's HOW they win, the democracy is over. You won't be able to vote it back to life. Voting in lock-step for one party in perpetuity for God (or Good) and Country isn't democracy. You can't save democracy that way.

I can't understand why the voices insisting that's the ONLY way to save it are so damn loud. I just... What's happened to you? Is there no way to make it un-happen?

#us politics #us news #us elections #actually saving democracy will take dissent and protest and direct action #resist #if you have to tear up everything that makes democracy function to win elections wtf are you winning? #sure - we're going to get lots of progressive policy passed after weeding out as many progressives as possible #you can always always tell yourself a story about how you're making it better because you can imagine it much worse #but i can't make myself believe it #never could

[immaculatasknight]

The passion of Palestine

#Israel #US #complicity #Gaza #genocide #dissent #protests #politics #Zionism #Palestine solidarity #military #Ann Wright

[queeryouthassemble]

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#original post #qya #queer youth assemble #scotus #supreme court #us supreme court #us politics #queer rights #lgbtq rights #gay rights #lgbtq community #affirmative action #student loan forgiveness #youth dissent #we the youth dissent