• yesman@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    As with Napoleon, who spoke of the glory of France but whose narrow ambitions for himself and his family brought France to ruin, Trump’s ambitions, though he speaks of making America great again, clearly begin and end with himself.

    As the author keeps comparing Trump to Napoleon and Hitler, I can’t help but wonder if maybe the US is due a conflagration. At what point do we admit that the American experiment returned a null result?

    • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      In the cases of France and Germany, the answer was violence. Oppression has never been defeated with pacifism. If history is our guide and conservatives are our oppressors, soon we may have to make some very difficult life and death decisions.

      Conservatives have already embraced violence as part of their ideology, which I think makes the path out of their oppression more clear.

      • Uranium3006@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        the choice of weather there will be violence isn’t ours to make, the conservatives have made it for us, and they chose violence. our choice is to resist or concede to fascism. conceding won’t make the violence stop, it will only make it worse and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise

      • m0darn@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        Oppression has never been defeated with pacifism.

        I was taught that Gandhi helped India defeat the oppression of the British Raj with pacifism.

        Is that not the case? I mean I wouldn’t be surprised if Power taught me peaceful protest works every time.

        • orrk@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          as Orwell stated:

          “As an ex-Indian civil servant, it always makes me shout with laughter to hear, for instance, Gandhi named as an example of the success of non-violence. As long as twenty years ago it was cynically admitted in Anglo-Indian circles that Gandhi was very useful to the British government. So he will be to the Japanese if they get there. Despotic governments can stand ‘moral force’ till the cows come home; what they fear is physical force.”

        • Magical Thinker@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          11 months ago

          I was taught that Gandhi helped India defeat the oppression of the British Raj with pacifism. Is that not the case?

          You couldn’t have Martin without Malcom and you couldn’t have Ghandi without Ghadar.

    • Lomeshag@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      I think it’s more that human societies are very rarely stable across 3 or more generations. The US has had a number of major crises through its history, it’s definitely due for another. Repeating the dead line about a failed experiment is kind of needlessly deaf to that history.

      All you can do for now is stand up and fight it.

    • PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      At what point do we admit that the American experiment returned a null result?

      Probably when the commerce clause meant the fed can regulate shit you do in your home with your own body.

      But even failed experiments give data. I’m a fan of the bill of rights, save for a few niggling details.