3 ms·

Violence is a proven effective tool and it is used as a last resort (to be considered justified). There is no denying people are feeling powerless and not repr

• macawfish 9y ago
  Proven effective? To what end? And what kind of violence? Also, b.t.w., I'm not trying to judge you if you think violence is effective. I'm just convinced that it's actually self-sabotaging in the long run. The actions I'm describing are violent, but not in the war-mongerer's way. They're violent in the same sense that Slavoj Žižek (regardless of your opinion about him) says love is violent. My point is not so much that our huge problems have easy, one-stop fixes, it's moreso that we often reinforce the bigger problems with a multitude of little, normal habits that we can exercise control over if we choose to. Go ahead and stomp out those big bad enemies with your violence. Their seeds sprout daily in most of our hearts. After the fire, what's gonna grow back if we haven't learned to cultivate justice in a positive sense? The same old shit. Paulo Friere writes about this in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Everyone in capitalist societies is educated to desire to become like the oppressor. Kids wanna grow up and be rich, have servants. What are we doing to break that cycle in ourselves? My example was just one wake up call showing me that I do have some power. It's rare that you get to see that your actions have consequences. This one was dramatic for me. For the record, a lot of my musician peers are cultivating their own events these days instead of using the booze/drug clubs. It's a movement, and I was a small, real part of it. Platitudes/things I believe are powerful: Fix shit instead of tossing it. Go on regular hikes instead of flying to another country every time you need a break. Cut out the petty shit talk about people. Stuff propagates fast and it only takes the right straw to break the camels back. Take care of yourself so you can shed your bitternesses. Practice forgiveness. Don't take debt, only to pass its burden onto others. Don't encourage others to take debt. Don't tell young kids to take debt because it's "what adults do". When you do this, you're propagating the very thing you wish deep down to violently destroy. Quit it with the "adultism". You're awesome. Keep learning why, so we can be free of the burden of proving yourself by putting others down. As for the housing thing... I understand that the solutions to this problem are radical and associated with stereotypes like "hippy" and "college student". We need to shed that. Here's an organization devoted to assisting people in building equitable housing relationships: https://coophousing.org/ https://coophousing.org/ Keep striving to look past peoples' educational degrees/class/race/culture/intelligence. Cut your superficial judgements out with the same violence you're imagining against "the system". Learn to recognize non-traditional intelligence. Learn to have deep conversations with conventionally unintelligent people. If you think people with down's syndrome are dumb, you are enacting the oppression you hate. In positive terms, keep striving to love and understand people, to be teachable, to be open hearted. Walk/bus/bike more. Slow down. > What do you do to address those issues? Not participate in the economy? Create your own currency, your own bank and somehow escape regulation? Vote? As much as it's possible for you. But also: divest from inequitable businesses as much as possible. I mean this in a big way. For example: stop using amazon prime when ebay would be just as good. Use the slow shipping. That itself is a small, radical act. Buy an old, used computer/phone, upgrade the ram, fix the little broken stuff. Plant a garden. Last but not least, call your representative and tell them we want score voting in the primaries.