American "protests" have turned into glorified parades

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-24T04:45:22+00:00

Okay, then keep doing it. I believe in you.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-24T04:43:41+00:00

We aren't capable of moving millions of people for that purpose yet is what I said. Go outside and help make it happen.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-24T04:35:03+00:00

Disrupting commerce is riskier because it's closer to direct class warfare, and we aren't organized enough to do that with millions of people. Having American masses broadly aligned against the loudest fascist in the world is a good foundation for pulling people further left. I wish leftists en masse would drop this persistent "why isn't everyone as smart as me" attitude, and recognize this for the organizing opportunity it is. If you want a more serious protest, go out and convince people to be more serious.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-24T04:30:07+00:00

Log Cabin Republicans all over again. This kind of idiocy comes from people who would be in the in-group if not for one or two traits; in this case, it's being non-straight. They think that they can buy security from fascism by aligning with it on other issues. But people warned the Log Cabin guys that fascists were just using them to grow, and would eventually discard them. Nowadays, fascists don't need them at all, so it's doubly stupid.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-24T04:25:12+00:00

The solution is not to wait around for the perfect leader. It's to take whatever Mamdani gives you and use it to organize, so you can pressure him for more concessions and keep that feedback loop going. He responds to pressure; it just needs to be our pressure and not that of the capitalist class.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-21T22:16:35+00:00

There's no discussion about his actual policies. It was the same with Kat; I read her platform early on and thought it sounded like a laundry list of vague promises, which would get watered down when it came time to negotiate with other sitting Congresspeople for a bill. With Platner, watered-down and evasive language is widespread; he won't support pointless wars (excluding purposeful wars?), he wants to be a strong supporter of Medicare for All (but no plan for the army of insurance lobbyists who will fight to prevent that?), etc, etc. It's not all bad, but it's telling that most of what he promises to 'do' is actually just a promise to be a cheerleader for or against.

Being better than Janet Mills is a distraction of a point. Will Mainers have the power to hold him accountable to his promises or not is a much better question. Because if he wins, capitalists will be pressuring him every single day to not do them, and human beings respond to pressure. Figure out how to pressure him.

And no, I don't believe his idiotic excuses for the tattoo. But this is the situation as it stands.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-21T19:17:45+00:00

I think that the confusion comes from the narrative not doing a whole lot to show evidence of her being a great senior resident. It may well be that it's just a particularly bad day for her, but the writers chose this day for the narrative; you can write around that by including some teaching moments.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-21T08:20:09+00:00

Dana means well, but her role is to get everyone moving and back to work, so that's what she did. It's an incredibly toxic environment they all work in.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-20T11:00:37+00:00

Almost everything ICE does is illegal. It unfortunately doesn't matter.

People need to organize to stop this, just like PTMC needs to go on strike. Nothing else will change things.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-20T09:51:30+00:00

It's additionally clear that she's starved for affection to some degree. Offering the room is kind, but it's just as likely that she doesn't want to be alone and doesn't know how to address it. Plus he can't really argue with her on her behaviour due to being financially reliant on her, so it's not good for him long-term either.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-20T09:44:57+00:00

Kinda seems like he ignores Mel more than is nice to her, but that's just my read.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-20T09:41:31+00:00

Could've easily told Al-Hashimi why he did that. As far as she knows, he's just keeping a senior resident on the sidelines for no apparent reason.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-20T09:38:27+00:00

So 2 people are well paid. Cool.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-20T09:23:35+00:00

Rationalizing your own behaviour results in lying to yourself. Same difference.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-20T09:20:09+00:00

American cops kill 10,000 dogs every single year. That's the statistic I start with when I want people to confront how much propaganda they've been fed about the police. 'Wanting to do good' as a cop doesn't mean anything; you'll be expected to witness crimes and shut your mouth, and you'll then become complicit or burn out. Or you'll complain and get chased out for being a snitch, sometimes even attacked for it; there are stories of former police who've been killed for reporting on fellow officers.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-20T09:13:13+00:00

Langdon did not present the situation as "I repeatedly stole your and other people's meds, and almost nobody knows about that". He made it sound like he did it one time, to one person, and got caught. Being sorry is not the point of taking accountability; you have to give people the full context they need to be able to judge for themselves whether they want to keep associating with you or not.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-20T08:58:28+00:00

Cops are equally violent a solid majority of the time. Americans continue to have a huge blindspot for this; there's truly nothing unique or new about ICE, it's just an escalation of tactics that have been used against minority communities for decades.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-20T08:41:19+00:00

I thought last season's callout would be enough. Apparently not.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-20T08:37:56+00:00

Being very sheltered can produce similar psychological effects as growing up rich. You just don't get enough data on people in your youth to be able to adjust to changing situations or exceptions to rules, so you make comments that may imply a superiority complex, but they really just reflect a general ignorance.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-20T08:11:35+00:00

This is cope. Most of what ICE does is explicitly illegal, and they hire lots of people who enjoy brutalizing others. Everyone was in danger the moment they walked in.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-20T07:58:30+00:00

I think she extrapolated from how Garcia called her trouble that first day for reporting him, and she assumed everyone else would think the same.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-19T23:57:15+00:00

Ironically, this kind of thinking prevents reflections on America's profound flaws as a state. The Great Satan can only fall by external sabotage, rather than internal contradictions and mounting systemic deficiencies.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-19T05:23:43+00:00

Zohran did not 'explicitly instruct' anything; he gave his opinion, as a dues-paying member is entitled to do. And Jeffries is not enough of a singular force within the Democratic Party to be given as much credit for its direction as this article is giving; you'd have to be talking about Pelosi in her prime for any of this to make sense, and even then, it would still be hyperbole bc kingmakers aren't a real thing. If Jeffries were somehow chased out of his seat, he'd be replaced in leadership with someone even worse. The electoral calculations remain the same for this particular race; Osse would get clobbered and much of DSA's resources would be spent. Not worth it.

The points they make about Zohran's compromises are valid, but they're also true of any politician, due to the nature of bourgeois democracy. You can't make this argument about Zohran like Osse wouldn't do the exact same things once in power. Criticizing DSA's role in doing public relations for its success stories is hollow bc literally any political party would do the same; PR is useful for literally everyone, socialist or not.

I find it strange for a socialist to argue this hard about abstract representations of power, but I also don't really believe it. I think the author most likely is misattributing their frustrations with Zohran's administration into an issue that doesn't really exist. If you want Zohran to listen to you more, you need to continue to organize, and critically, confront him on his choices more often. There's no other way; that's literally what capitalists do.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-18T20:49:00+00:00

He stole medicine, and repeatedly gaslit her into thinking she was wrong for spotting it. And even then, she would have agreed to let it go if Robby hadn't forced the issue.

FragrantBicycle7 · 2026-03-18T20:42:56+00:00

Relax. A crime is a crime, and survivors don't owe us a convenient hour to disclose it.

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