It doesn't matter. They're getting what they want. You can play nice and let them have what they want, or you can take some risks, stand for what you believe in, and fight back.
Fighting back against school bullies is also "against the rules."
Everyone gets lost talking about this thing. Purchasing and driving a poorly-engineered or aesthetically-questionable vehicle isn't the primary problem. That's not unique. There have always been shitty vehicles.
People who drive these gave $80,000 to empower the Nazis. The fact that they're shitboxes just underscores that conspicuous consumption and the support and affiliation for and with Fascism are the entire point.
This is a disastrously ill-informed perspective. There is no historical precedent for an electoral solution to rising fascism. There is no historical precedent for an electoral solution to massive wealth inequality.
Stop scrolling and sit with these facts. Then stop rage-posting and start planning.
Yes, because if we weren't captured by a single-party corporate system we wouldn't be in this mess. Reactionary fascism arises from the material immiseration of the people. If the Democrats were beholden to improving the lives of citizens rather than clinging to power and corporate interests, we would not be in this mess.
There is no way to conclude that sentence that anyone should give a rat's ass about. If you buy this sort of post-facto justification for the Brown Shirts murdering people, you're a Nazi.
But sometimes history comes along and says "too bad." There is no historical precedent for fascism or extreme wealth inequality being corrected by electoral politics.
If you're able to comfortably sit on the fence, recognize two facts: One, that's a position of entitlement (Plenty of people are already having their lives destroyed by what's happening). Two, being passive is choosing to allow authoritarianism to win.
To reiterate, I'm not a Tankie. I don't whitewash the heinous history of revolutions, upheaval, and failed government systems. And I am positive that I'm screaming into the void. In every historical example I've studied, the comfortable middle class eventually sides with elite authority and not the peasants. And the peasants always lose. But the alternative is too awful to surrender to. Centralized techno-fascism and eventual catastrophic conflict with China are what's in-store.
Because being a passive centrist while the world slides towards authoritarianism, global conflict, and environmental holocaust is not morally acceptable.
You don't have to be a Tankie to want to fight these fascist fucks and their suicidal agenda.
I have an inside line at the EPA that administrators are now tracking what websites employees visit on their work machines and wanted to know, specifically, if employees visited "standupforscience.org".
When we're still asking the question "why?" we're stuck in disbelief and denial about the reality we're in.
1/3 of the country is aware and cares, but is too atomized and disempowered to act meaningfully. 1/3 are too comfortable and attached to their slipping consumer entitlement to take risks for the sake of anyone else. 1/3 have channeled their entitlement and/or immiseration into enthusiastic support for what's happening.
I'm with you, but the reality is that the majority of the country would shake their heads and go back to watching Netflix rather than do anything while you're being dragged to the camps.
I visited Switzerland just after the vaccines dropped. The Swiss COVID response far surpassed the response in the United States. They rolled out a nation-wide app for vaccination attestation, and any museum, restaurant, etc. could scan a QR code on someone's phone with a phone. But do they have a scary, socially reactionary subset of their population? Yes.
In some harmful ways they are fanatically culturally conservative. But they also care about community, sustainability, health, the well-being of children, environmental preservation, organization, and self-reliance. Being a small, rich, homogeneous, topographically-isolated country drives these characteristics.
Surveillance State developments are depressing but not surprising.
Yes, it's literally a pointless cash-grab that they can bill to insurance.
Last time I was at my primary care, I was handed a survey as part of my pre-appointment paperwork. I started filling it out before I read the fine print at the end: It was optional. It would be billed to my insurance, and "most patients'" insurance covered the charge. I refused to complete it. Just one more tiny outrage as part of the massive scam that is the American medical system.
No just any shit, shit that helps everyday people living in their country.
I'm just thinking of the major cities in my U.S. state where the public transit map, before and after, looks like Chengdu in 2010. So as unfortunate as the circumstances are in Toronto, they can be even worse.
It doesn't matter. They're getting what they want. You can play nice and let them have what they want, or you can take some risks, stand for what you believe in, and fight back.
Fighting back against school bullies is also "against the rules."