Is this the showdown we’ve been waiting for that will finally definitively prove we’re no longer a Constitutional Republic?

I guarantee you there’s going to be a fuck ton of obnoxious fascists on Reddit and Twitter quoting the fuck out of Jackson today.

That’s a different situation considering the Irish language was created before there even was a united Ireland. We can trace the history of how English came to America, and it came from the English people. We can’t trace the history of how the Irish language spread across Ireland because it predates history.

I was mostly just making a snarky comment about how everyone is going to get tooth decay from lake of fluoridation.

Like I said, while semantically imprecise, yes, we did get the English language from the English.

That’s just semantics. Sure, I guess the more proper way to say it is that when the Americans founded the US they continued the practice of race-based chattel slavery which the British had instituted in the colonies prior to the formation of the US. Is that really substantively different than saying the Americans adopted slavery from the British?

Sort of to both, but not really.

Slavery has existed for at least as long as states and kingdoms have, yes. But the specific form slavery took in the Americas (not just the US and North America) was unique. That being race-based chattel slavery. That form had not existed anywhere else in the world previously or since. The closest you could claim were the Helots in ancient Sparta, but even that was closer to serfdom than chattel slavery.

So, no, the British did not “invent slavery”, but they (along with the Spanish and French) did pioneer a new form of slavery that was uniquely brutal and inhumane.

And while you’re correct that America as a nation did not adopt slavery from the British after the formation of the US since the colonials had already been practicing race-based chattel slavery before the US existed. But where did those colonials get that slavery? From the British who were their overlords and ancestors, who formed the colonies, and who created the economic system that relied on race-based chattel slavery.

So while you might be technically right, it’s only due to semantics. The Brits absolutely did create virtually everything about the American system of slavery, which we then continued to perpetrate for another ~century after independence.

Sure. And the US government has the CIA and military to enact that regime change. Plus they have all the cops and military to defend against a popular uprising overthrowing the government.

I’m not saying it can’t be done, but we’re still in the early stages of a popular uprising. That’s what these protests are about. This one on Saturday got, reportedly, ~5 million people on the streets at the same time. That’s ~1.5% of the country’s population. According to the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, it takes ~3.5% of the population mass mobilizing at the same time to effect political change. That’s ~12 million people. That’s why this wasn’t a 1 and done protest. The next one is already scheduled for April 19. And there will be another after that. And another after that.

Let’s not just aim for 3.5%. Go higher. What can 5% of the country, 17 million people, do if we’re all out in the streets together? Rather than just complain that one single protest didn’t immediately result in widespread political change, why don’t you get out there and join us on the 19th? Bring your friends. Bring your family. Help make a change rather than just complaining that others aren’t doing it for you.

There is no mechanism within American politics to run a new election. If that’s the demand, we first would need to amend the Constitution, which isn’t going to happen, or violently overthrow the government. Just demanding, “run a new election” is as empty a demand as anything else you could imagine.

Sounds like a good time to be in business as a dentist!

I’m just a simple construction worker who’s not wise to the world of international geopolitics, but isn’t a military strike on a foreign country’s sovereign territory usually considered an act of war?

What have you been doing?

I am in the streets every chance I can get, and have been for more that 2 decades.

And you’re never going to get people on board if the solution (general strike) doesn’t meet their material needs. If people have to starve and lose their homes while under threat of arrest or more violent action, you need a way to support them or they won’t stick with it. Revolutions are built on mutual aide and community organizing, not empty platitudes and gumption. Or, worse yet, shit posting and cynicism.

Don’t limit the size of your movement or it’s popular support because you’re unwilling to include people who aren’t able nuke their lives. If I don’t keep my job my children go hungry and lose their home. I’m unwilling to do that to them.

Is your argument is that anyone who is unwilling to nuke their entire life for the movement is insufficiently motivated and shouldn’t even bother getting involved?

If that’s your stance, then you’re just plain wrong and you should probably keep quiet about it because your working against the movement.

Vanguard revolutions don’t work. They just replace one set of shitty authoritarians with another. The ONLY way this can ever work is if we make the movement accessible to as broad a swath of people as humanly possible.

I’ve been a political activist for 22 years now. I cut my teeth on the front lines of the anti-Iraq War movement in 2003. I was at Occupy. I spent my early-to-mid 20s with little regard for my personal safety and financial stability. But nobody keeps that up forever. I’m pretty sure I did it longer than most. But that’s not all I want from life.

Yes, fighting fascism is important to protecting my kids’ future (I have 2 kids). You know what else is equally important to that, though? Making sure they have a stable home and food on their plates now. And I can’t do that if I nuke my life by spending every single day in the streets, losing my job, and getting arrested.

My kids won’t have to ask me what I did because they’re there with me. Both my 3 yo and 5 yo were at the DC protest on Saturday. And this wasn’t either of their first action. My 5 yo was with us at the 2020 uprising when she was less than a year old.

A successful movement takes all kinds. Yes, there are some who can take greater risks and more radical actions, but I’m not at that place in my life anymore and that’s fine. If we can’t find a way to include people who have other responsibilities in life, too, without insulting them or implying they’re not really interested in change, then the entire movement is cooked.

So, thank you for your past service to the cause, but if you don’t have anything constructive to say, kindly fuck off.

There were multiple US House Representatives as the protest in DC on Saturday. Several spoke on the stage and others were out in the crowd.

You do realize these are regular ass people who have jobs and rent and mortgages and bills to pay and kids to support? Like, we can’t be out on the street every single day.

How often are you out in the streets?

I know it’s easy to criticize the media, but, like, they have been reporting on it.

MSNBC

CNN

USA Today

Washington Post

New York Times

It’s really REALLY funny to see you criticizing people for what you described as “repeating near verbatim the talking points on the left” then go on to literally do the exact same thing with fascist talking points.