Is the US a dystopia?

Parable of the Sower is pretty much non-fiction

The amazing thing is we might have someone who is unable to make decisions for himself -- never mind others or a country -- already in power, and the 'good' guys are putting that person in an eelction against someone who is guilty of crimes, a person who you'd think would easily lose to most

"god help us if someone with a little brains and charisma comes along next, with the same agenda."

this is kinda Reagan. people loved him. not actually dumb. came across in public as benign and cheerful. extremely destructive for 8 years. endless repercussions.

I’ve made very few IRL friends in the US since I moved here in 2008 but one of them - who I considered really smart and caring - just revealed she’s voting for RFK, which led to me finding out she’s antivax. She was someone i worked with until the pandemic and we have a sporadic texting/Instagram friendship, so we’d never discussed this stuff. I’m absolutely stupefied by the things she just said to me, like truly shocked. I can’t be friends with her anymore because her political beliefs have completely undermined what I thought of her. Like my husband said when I told him: the left-wing-to-science-denialism pipeline is depressing and very dystopian.

If you're interested, there's a chapter in the latest Naomi Klein book that's the best thing I've read so far on why presumably leftish ppl fall into these conspiracies; dunno if it's the case with your friend, but the way Klein describes it it's less about being left wing and more about being into yoga, healthy eating, stuff like that which used to code as left wing but is rapidly merging with right wing culture

Hmm...yoga coded as left wing? It was taken up by hippies but that isn't the same thing to me.

Its certainly co-opted by the right now (esp in India).

She’s very artsy, queer, a longtime Burner, not a health fanatic… like, just very chill and very Collectivist. That’s why I was so shocked by our convo today - everything she was saying was so the opposite, very much that individualist mindset of “well it doesn’t affect me and mine”. I knew she was a tiny but woowoo but I’ve also known her to be very practical and thoughtful.
“I never got the vax. I got Covid once. I’m fine! I don’t know anyone with long covid”. I told her that was literally the definition of confirmation bias and there are 8b other ppl in the world. I got the vax and all boosters and I’ve NEVER had Covid, despite sharing a bed with my husband when he came home with it!

Also her mum is like a retired rocket scientist or something.

I’m just so fucking bummed out, man. I was already an antisocial hermit too lazy to make a lot of friends and this is not encouraging me to put more effort into it.

This private equity / veterinarian thing is evil, because big businesses are taking advantage of people feeling overwhelmed by COVID / Trump etc. to pay attention.

Ditto the real estate bullshit going on.

Nobody knows how to find good news sources anymore. They find out when they get the vet bill.

I highly recommend a book called McMindfulness, which details how meditation became co-opted by businesses, the armed forces, and schools

if i read that book will i be given better options for the country's future

Hmm...yoga coded as left wing? It was taken up by hippies but that isn't the same thing to me.

Well we've all read the texts that explain why hippies weren't actually left wing and etc but within the context that say my boomer German parents operated in, the people doing yoga/going vegan/doing organic farming and the people reading Marx/starting discussion groups/going on protests were def mostly the same people.

kennedy-stan is something that's long been coded as left-wing which really really isn't

(a way bigger red flag for me than yoga, yes im looking at you oliver fkn stone)

Well we've all read the texts that explain why hippies weren't actually left wing...

I thought that mostly related to US hippies though?

kennedy-stan is something that's long been coded as left-wing which really really isn't

(a way bigger red flag for me than yoga, yes im looking at you oliver fkn stone)

head just stopped doing that

Well we've all read the texts that explain why hippies weren't actually left wing and etc but within the context that say my boomer German parents operated in, the people doing yoga/going vegan/doing organic farming and the people reading Marx/starting discussion groups/going on protests were def mostly the same people.

― Daniel_Rf

sure. "left wing" is more of a coalition than anything else. i guess what i'd say is that there's nothing _inherent left wing_ about new age thought. a lot of it is woo, and with woo, when you have an ideology that has...

i mean a lot of it is magical thinking and right-wing thought kinda relies on magical thinking. i think it's important to note that he also reaches out to a lot of people who _don't_ have strong christian beliefs. reagan did the same. the backbone of his policy people are hardcore fundamentalist christians putting those ideas into practice, but as far as trump himself, he doesn't go out and perform christian moralism.

so culturally, yeah, new age stuff was left wing. culturally, the center-right was denouncing _the simpsons_ as "morally degenerate". the hard right was saying _rock music_ was a tool of satan. fascists these days love zep. the church of satan are kinda fascists, that's the funny thing, they've split like the baptists, you have the satanic temple who are the cool trans rights satanists and you have the church of satan who stan Traditional Satanism and probably are insistent that Crowley was in _no way shape or form_ queer. if the Church of fucking Satan can be fash, people who love yoga and hate vaccines can be fash too.

that said, the satanic temple is a lot more popular than the church of satan around these parts.

And the Order of Nine Angles and Joy Of Satan are both straightforward fascist sects.

i guess what i'd say is that there's nothing _inherent left wing_

Agreed! This is why I said "coded as left wing" and not just left wing.

And the Order of Nine Angles

― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo

oh god, i had to look up the Order of Nine Angles because i genuinely wasn't sure if it was a typo - catholic theology claims that there are nine orders of angels, and that's more along the lines of the mystical/hermetic catholic tradition... anyway NO not a typo but ok i know these people are evil but order of nine angles "theory" is the stupidest fucking shit i've ever read. like this shit is dumber than fictitious occult fascist sects invented specifically to make fun of occult fascists.