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Top-level
There's a lot of *wildly* irresponsible rhetoric floating around right now about how all queer folk should arm themselves to resist what's coming. And, deadass? If you're armed, and you're not 10000% sure that you can shoot to kill, the only thing you're gonna do is get yourself and everyone around you dead. Period. A weapon is a *massive* escalation. Meanwhile, the tool that really gets you out of deadly trouble in a fascist dictatorship? A silver tongue and steely guts. (2/?) 118 comments
Fascism is a machine. All machines have moving parts. You don't attack the reinforced bits. And fascism, specifically, is a machine built to kill. When you take up the same arms, you're attacking them where they're strongest. So, when you plan your resistance, unless you're a very rare sort--probably with preexisting military experience--don't plan for a violence that you can't and won't win. (4/?) Governments are nowhere near as omniscient as you think, and have nowhere near enough resporces to follow up on what data they do have. Wanna resist? One of the very best things you can do is look suspicious as fuck while doing *absolutely nothing* illegal. Consume their resources. Frustrate the machine. *That* is how you save lives. Not weapons. Not for the overwhelming majority of you. Leave that trouble for those truly prepared for it. (5/5). Tl;dr: Don't be the queer version of Meal Team Six. You're gonna be just as ineffective as they are. @Impossible_PhD Also also? Not to put too fine a point on it, but arming one's self is a responsibility - to do so safely involves building and maintaining perishable skills. And the best time to have started that is not "now" it's "some years ago". Weapons aren't magic talismans; they're tools with a specific purpose and like any other tool they're not that useful for someone who doesn't know what they're doing.  @Dani Saying "you must do this thing, but you have to have started some years ago" is never useful. It's redundant to those who already have done it and worthless to those who haven't.  @daviddlevine @Dani It's not at all worthless to those who haven't in this case, the point is don't start now if you don't want to get dead because you can't get to where you need to be to stay alive in the time you have left. The most important thing is, if you bring a gun to the fight, the fight will be about the gun. Are you prepared to struggle for possession of a firearm? Doubt it. @daviddlevine it's extremely useful; it establishes a reality check on what investment is necessary to be competent to with a tool in order to accomplish some goal. If someone isn't capable of coming to terms with that idea, I'd prefer they not do the thing. @Dani Okay, I see now what you were trying to say. It's a valid and very important point, but I'm afraid the words in your initial post didn't convey that message well.  @daviddlevine @Dani I would say it advises those that haven’t how they might better use their precious time. @Dani @Impossible_PhD  @Dani @Impossible_PhD Meh, pretty much everyone knows how to use a hammer and it's not a whole lot more complex than that. You have to maintain and secure it because it's more dangerous than a hammer. Mistakes are a bit more costly. It's not complicated though. You can go practice aiming and such to be better, but you don't need to be Rambo to rid the world of bigots trying to rid it of you. You better be willing though, and you might lose still and lose harder so...everyone's got choices I own guns. Despite everything I believe about guns, I have thought about carrying because I just haven't felt safe. This is exactly why I have decided I cannot allow myself to carry one. @Wendy But doing _anything_ under pressure is different. And under that much pressure...? @Impossible_PhD @Impossible_PhD "Meal Team Six vs. Rainbow Division" would make a great team v team game akin to team fortress though. Addendum: What the fuck, people?! I talk about how bad an idea it is to arm yourselves and a bunch of yall start arguing about blades and homemade bombs instead of firearms?! When I said weapons and not firearms, I meant ***all*** weapons. This is not a fucking movie. This is your lives. All your posturing is gonna do is get you and the people around you dead. Knock it off, dummies. Knee jerk, I am afraid. Folks, don't be daft, don't get killed. You will not respawn. Or, if you have such a death wish, do not write about it in public (which means internet at large). Save your contacts from unwanted visitors. @Impossible_PhD Out of all topics... I guess "missing the point" illustrates the point, huh. I am absolutely NOT questioning your practical advice with respect to the current situation AT ALL, but out of curiosity, given your position, what is your take on the role that armed self-defense historically played for Black resistance in the he US? I know there are people who argue it was crucial in that situation. Not to anticipate your response, but I suppose that DID include Black veterans from WWII and Korea, and therefore partly fell under the exceptions you mentioned?  @Impossible_PhD Well you know how Americans are, thinking everything can be solved with guns…. @MisuseCase It's apocalyptic thinking. People want to go out in a heroic blaze of glory, because doing so has been held up as an ideal. Its just evangelical rapture-thinking. Yeah, in the grimmest times, someone has to do the dangerous work, but they need to *live* afterwards. The fascist machine wasting resources fruitlessly chasing them is the real benefit to what they do. @Impossible_PhD @MisuseCase If people absolutely need them, you can get a three hole punch at Staples and punch up to three holes at a time. Less risk to self and others. And everyone knows a good binder's at the heart of every revolution.  @aadmaa @Impossible_PhD @MisuseCase Particularly a transmasc revolution @aadmaa @Impossible_PhD @MisuseCase Yeah, but what good binder requires a three-hole punch? Although... I've always found 2 too few, and 4 too many... Maybe it's the UK's Big Binder keeping us in a state of under equipment! The stationary-industrial complex up to its old, tired playbook of dirty tricks SMH @MrBerard @Impossible_PhD @MisuseCase Two hole binders? Four hole binders? I finally understand Brexit. British policy statements were incompatible with those of Brussels. Doomed from the start to be left out of every proposal since 1973. All for want of a good, three-hole punch. How are you for staplers btw? @aadmaa @Impossible_PhD @MisuseCase I think we're using... Staplers... But I wouldn't put it past the Brits to use a set of staple gauges completely incompatible with the staplers of the world. @Impossible_PhD @MisuseCase Yep. People like trump have no idea what it takes to serve. He only knows how to manipulate in order to take.   @Impossible_PhD So I've been thinking about this, and if he goes through with this whole Mass Deportation thing, it will be ridiculously difficult and impractical, and I think there's room there to get mud in the gears. @Impossible_PhD Read Machiavelli and turn them against one another - the same tactic Putin is using to great effect against the western world. Talk about how Musk is trying to push Trump out and how Vance despises Trump Jr. How Hawley secretly wants to blow Jim Jordan and has video of Lindsey Graham cavorting in a nightgown alone in his mansion. How Clarence Thomas blackmailed his fellow justice into resigning to make room for Kavanaugh  @Impossible_PhD I also recommend reading “Steal this book” by Abby Hoffman. It’s got some amazing ideas, and even though it was written a while back (Nixon’s time) it’s got a lot of applications today. @CWilbur @Impossible_PhD even older but not without its charms is the simple sabotage field manual [1] which has a lot of fun & plausibly deniable ideas for how to slow the gears of a large machine of which you have no choice but to be a part  *Steal this book* is not by "by" Abbie Hoffman. It's by Emmett Grogan. Abbie stole the manuscript from him. Emmett describes this in *Ringolevio*, a much better book.  @Impossible_PhD Well said. Force them to dedicate resources to something they didn’t plan for. That diverts and slows their efforts to their goals.  @Impossible_PhD Dumb advice. "Looking suspicious" while doing nothing wrong.   @Impossible_PhD slowing down and pretending incompetence should be as effective  @Impossible_PhD Another good example about how little power governments can have is Russia right now. No matter how much power Putin wields, Ukraine is holding the line, and will continue to do so for some time. Even straight up dictators are limited by what they can and cannot do.  @Impossible_PhD  Take into consideration, dependency. What we're calling fascism now, is probably a lot more sophisticated than the fascism of the past (though built on it). It's possible to smash things, but a lot more difficult to destroy things that we're dependent on, or feel dependent on Then there's the better the devil you know. If people are so used to something harmful, they might not try to escape it, because of fear of the unknown > Governments are nowhere near as omniscient as you think Are you sure that's still true in the age of mass surveillance, big data, and large language models? @matt Yes. First of all, LLMs are not intelligent. They're autocomplete on steroids. Their use actively degrades work efficiency according to every survey I'm aware of. Second, the mass surveillance is the problem. The government now captures *trillions* of hours of video a year, plus an absolutely incomprehensible amount of text data--so much that it hasn't known what to do with it for decades. The point of the observation regime is your post. It's the panipticon. |
Gregory's Server
Resistance is about far, far more than the image we have in our heads of the brave French resistance fighter in WWII. It's making the gears of their fascist machine grind. Drop a little sugar in the right gas tank. Lose important paperwork and records. Follow all the rules, *exactly,* in excruciating detail, explaining to the fascists that their superiors will come down on you if you don't.
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