that had a great point about how other countries handled the pandemic and how frustrating it is to live where profit was prioritized over people so much so that it's almost become irreversible. It's like brainwashing. Then you get to the notes
and you might immediately spot the problem. This person has focused so much on how much they dislike America that they forgot to be progressive. You can tell because they're defending an imperialist settler state with one of the largest active militaries in the world. Probably also unaware that they've sold their own drones in the Middle East and Africa to help better secure their interests. That's fair, folks don't know about major superpowers having military might or international presences but to have never heard of Hong Kong, Tibet, or Taiwan is a bit much nowadays. Especially if you're claiming that China is better than the US in every conceivable way while massively reducing the anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments and policies there as being insignificant when they're turning more and more sinister. But it felt necessary to point out that we shouldn't praise other empires and it seemed like the most decidedly easy way to express that was by mentioning the horrors of this
absolute fucking brainless excuse for leftism. Besides the fact that the Uyghur genocide is incredibly thoroughly documented nobody who would ever consider themselves a good person, let alone a leftist, would ever advocate "at least there's is an ethical genocide." But it highlights an incredibly salient point that a little bit of knowledge can stubbornly refuse to go a long way. For instance, while the word "authoritarian" might have the same root as the word authority it doesn't mean that the concept of government, the people coming together for a common cause or the common good, is inherently authoritarian. Or, while the Chinese government operates under the philosophy of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" under the communist party in the same way America runs under the idea of "free-market capitalism" and "fair democracy," that's not the same as reality because China has a dictatorship over the proletariat and a social market economy which means that they have a powerful bourgeoisie that lives differently than the rest of the country.
Now, all of this is fairly common knowledge and incredibly easy to learn even when sifting through the American and Chinese propaganda but the incentive to know any of it isn't there because the point wasn't to be ethically sound but rather to be morally superior. It was to dunk on the libs and America but not to do the right thing or want the right thing done so it wasn't genuinely critical or constructive. Frankly, I think this is how so many of the "Bernie or bust" people were redpilled. The substance needs to be there to call it leftism. The heart.
But it isn't limited to just a couple morons here and there. As the compassion fatigue rises, so does the burnout. For everybody. That comes with confirmation bias. That comes with convenient omission. That comes with tacit ignorance of the systems of power. It brings no call to action or even a desire to inform. There's no better way to describe it than as an existential threat to the core values of leftism.
If we want to turn things around then the first thing we absolutely must address is the heartlessness in our own circles. We have to care, above all else. Because if we care then we will absolutely get our fucking act together.
