I am not saying hate speech hasn’t had any role at all on what happened to Native Americans, but to my knowledge there wasn’t a deliberate and systemic call to eradicate Native Americans unlike with the Holocaust or the Rwandan genocide. A lot of native people and colonisers have initially gotten along, but many colonial conflicts happened because of neither misunderstanding or some trumped up cassus belli orchestrated by local colonial officials, which the central government may not know due to poor communications over long distances at the time. Even the Spanish crown have gotten appalled after learning what Christopher Columbus did to indigenous population in Hispaniola, which took a long time for Spain to find out because of long distance.

Again, I am not trying to say hate speech hasn’t had any role whatsoever on the genocide on Native Americans, but it is more complicated than that. Western colonisers still saw indigenous people as humans, but lesser if that makes sense. That’s why even for the Western Allies, the systemic hate speech and call to rid the Jews had been a step too far, even though they themselves own colonies.

Action comes from speech though.

There are plenty of things that are restricted from frivolous communication and nobody thinks twice about it. Yet when it comes to hate speech, it’s suddenly difficult.

Homophobia used to be accepted because society accepted it, but not anymore, at least in the West. The Holocaust happened because Germans at the time accepted it.

Ultimately, I think what is acceptable speech is down to morality, which many could argue whether morality is subjective or objective. And I don’t have time to argue for either because I am not a philosopher.

This is also the rationale to people defending Nazis because “it’s just their opinions”.

I find that it is mostly Americans who do this sort of thing because of exaltation of free speech. I don’t wish it would happen to the US, but it is primarily because they haven’t had much experience with inciting hatred that led to genocide. Other parts of the world have had this experience so they have restrictions.

Don’t get me wrong, I love free speech as much as the next guy, but as seeing how unbridled speech led to genocide in many cases, I used to be absolutist and now I am on the fence. I think free speech is something that will be perpetually debated. I was told the social contract could define what is acceptable speech and what isn’t; but society at times is not a great arbiter of many things.

I know guys who straddle the line, and I give the benefit of the doubt because they are simply confused and don’t know better. And then there is the Andrew Tate gang.

I just want to say that saying only right-wing groups are promoted by Kremlin is American-centric (understandable since most audience on the Internet are Americans, but this leads to insularity in discussions). The far-left is also funded and promoted by Kremlin, especially in Europe where many far-left parties are Russia-apologists, and either have lukewarm support or blame Ukraine for being invaded. There is little information if the American far-left are co-opted by Kremlin. The leftist group, in the broadest sense of the word, is nonexistent in the US because of decades of fear mongering that made the group too insignificant to gain media attention. But if we count Jill Stein and the Green Party as left, then we can say some sections of the left have been compromised by Kremlin, because Stein had been hesitant to call Putin a dictator in an interview.

But think of the market!

The “blue MAGA” usually refers to tone-deaf centrist Democrats who maybe socially progressive, but economically on the right. They refuse to acknowledge the ramifications of jobs outsourcing, without offering alternative jobs to replace the outsourced one, and then call the working class – who by the way used to vote Democrat-- as “stupid, imbecile and red neck Hillbillies”. Blue MAGA are also NIMBYs who tend to object to building more affordable housing because it will bring down the property value in their area.

In other words, blue MAGA believe in social justice, but think economic justice is a step too far. The working class who try to voice their genuine economic concerns, are scoffed aside as idiots and condescended by elitist blue MAGA. And then they wonder why the working class turned to right. The blue MAGA (let’s just call them neoliberals because that’s what they are actually called in the rest of the world), are just as complicit in the rise of fascism. The neoliberals don’t want their precious stocks and corporate lobby money touched and would rather see Trump and Republicans remain in office, than actually return to keeping in touch with the working class.

I was half asleep and missed your second paragraph. Lol.

It is the blue MAGA and neoliberals. There are plenty of them in Lemmy. Any thing that will say their policies no longer work and it what led us to Donald Trump, and they be like: “Don’t touch my precioussss! I am filthy richesss!”

At least they not as loud as they were and chanting “vote blue, no matter who” since Chuck Schumer gave the Republicans the pass on the previous budget bill.

We all know why.

Who the f cares. These hit pieces does nothing to actually mobilise the already tamed population. As long sycophants and oligarchs see Trump as being useful for as long as possible, he will be tolerated. In a dictatorship-- either in a quasi or full fledged one–the most important resource is access to the dictator. As long as Trump is useful enough for the elites, he will stay in power, even if Trump knows everyone hates his gut.

Hear, hear! I miss the days when trolling used to mean piss take. If someone is trolling, troll them back!

Somehow people forgot to give other the people this memo, including the “you don’t fucking join social networks as your self”. Anonymity makes this all work.

I do get into political debates, but I don’t overshare my real info and I certainly don’t ban anyone for disagreeing with me. I find it cringe if anyone bans someone for disagreement to maintain “mental health”. Unless someone is stalking or making a calculated harrasment on the person online, sure ban or report the troll, but banning someone because the person does not have a good response shows pettiness and immaturity.

Are we now doing phrenology, Father?

we accept you as the only good kind of liberal ❤️

Good enough for me as another socdem 😂

We’re in a new phase of 'Murican^TM fascist eugenics, everyone!

I don’t know where you reside, but can’t you write on the back of the envelope containing the letter with “return to sender”? In my country, this is what we do to notify the sender that the addressee no longer lives in the premise.

McConnell would be ousted but he will just stare at nothing at stay in the Senate.

Not sure what you mean, but communication itself and its effect on human culture does not change, no matter the media. You can draw a painting to de-humanise and incite hatred towards a group, or you can go on radio and incite hatred towards a group. Either way, both methods can be used to incite hatred.

also includes many lessons we’ve learnt since 1930s.

Sorry I forgot to address this.

Correct me if I am wrong but I don’t see how we learnt since. As we speak, a used to be unknown far-right party gained massive electoral votes in Romania. It turns out that they have been making their presence in social media, where older establishment politicians have no familiarity with. The bigger lesson that democratic and liberal forces should do is knowing to use new forms of media instead. Franklin Roosevelt and Barack Obama knew this very well.

There were radio, televisions, and books. And while people had overall poor quality of education back then because of lack of access, Noam Chomsky mentioned people still try to educate themselves through reading.

The problem then and now is that mass communication is used by bad faith actors to emotionally manipulate the public into voting against their own interests. Back then, yellow journalism riled up jingoism. Goebbels and the Nazis saw potential use of radio for mass indoctrination, and made conscious effort to make radio cheaper and widely available in Germany.