This is a valuable thing to internalize (and to spread) and expand upon, especially if you want to be effective irl. People that do terrible things and want you and yours dead can be very nice. They can be your current friends, family members that you value. Scratch that liberal and you will find they support your murder at the hands of the cops, they knee-jerk support fascists so long as they fit the hegemonic mold (Israeli, Ukrainian, KMT, Hindutva).
And then you have to work around it, evaluating how you will subvert those tendencies. Maybe it's recruiting from young people so you can get them into a political education pipeline that heads this off. Maybe you try to address them directly and weaken their positions. Maybe you just Isolate them.
Either way, this bleeds over into our own spaces and our own organizing. The people we try to organize and radicalize are not there with us yet, they are not conscious. They won't always let you know that they are your enemy. They might call the cops on you or snitch to your boss even though they called you a comrade a week ago.
For this reason, it is imperative that we weed this out in spaces where trust is necessary. We cannot build trust in a culture that doesn't require solidarity and explain its meaning. And we need trust, because what we do will be illegal and then criminal soon enough, if it isn't already.
Was renting a boat at the river last summer with my gay friends to this adorable German grandma in the outskirts of Berlin/Brandenburg. When we were done and back, we were resting and I sat between the legs on my partner. No kissing, groping or anything, we were sitting and holding hands. She became really agravated and started shouting at us slurs and other things.
So yeah. Many bigots are nice people most of the time. They're still bigots.
They are human beings who choose to pursue hate because it's an easy choice and looking at themselves, and questioning the system that they participate in, would be too much for them. Fuck em.
They're people that are so opportunistic and parasitic that they're fine with others being mass murdered and looted if it means the treats keep flowing in.
I genuinely really struggle with this. Not in a "this is wrong" way, I agree with the screenshot, but if someone who is obviously bad appears to be nice, smiley, friendly, down to earth all of a sudden, I'll find it really hard to stay mad at them. Definitely a weakness of mine.
One of the greatest emotional advances I made in my life was realizing that I had control over who I gave my empathy to. I was being heavily manipulated by many people in my life prior to that and it applies to fascists, too. Fascists get the, “they’re such normal people if you follow them around for a day” treatment by default. And that is a political choice, one we can reject.
it's not even necessarily a tactic. Some fascists just like to pet their dogs and kiss their babies and say howdy neighbor. Then you ask them about marginalized people or economics and the jaws of hell open up.
sociopaths excel at tugging on heartstrings when it can benefit them. that's part of how they maneuver their way into whatever positions of power they want.
nah fuck this the whole idea of nazi (or similar to nazi people) being inhuman is what brought us this mess. They're still just human, just as capable of the full human experience as you are, and this is not a defense