Divide and Conquer

There has been a lot of de-federation action in the fediverse centering around J.K. Rowling and some dumb wizards game. The game, of course, is "Harry Potter Legacy" rating a 1/10 over at Wired. It brings up a some issues that do need to be examined closely.

What, exactly, is the definition of supporting fascism? There is a very loud audience that says buying the game, or posting "Let's Plays" of it, means you are supporting genocide. Let's unpack that one for minute.

Do you use the bathroom? Of course you do, and the toilet paper you use likely comes from Georgia-Pacific, owned by the surviving Koch brother. Would buying from an alternate supplier make more of a dent in the far-right ideological campaign than crappy-Harry-Potter-game? I would say yes. You could probably claim "Whataboutism" to that response. The fact of the matter is, you cannot live in today's society without actively giving them money, which in turn, is used against you to remove freedoms and the right to exist. There is a root to all of this, and that is "Money equals speech, corporations are people."  All trails will lead you to this conclusion.

Any action that ignores that fact is a fruitless exercise that might make some people feel as if they are accomplishing something. The reality is, it just fractures and pits allies against each other. It also smacks of the op the Russians ran in Texas. Before anything else can be cleaned up, Citizen's United must be struck down. The Founders, even with their 3/5 compromise and other blatantly racist assumptions, are spinning in their graves over this one.

What will it take to overturn Citizen's United? If we can't get rid of the idiots currently sitting on SCOTUS, they will have to be neutered and rendered inconsequential. There was a movement to increase the number of Justices, but it seems to have slid out of focus without much fanfare as "un-doable". It needs to be done. The alternatives are too horrible to consider. We need to update the number of Justices. Until then, the people have no voice. Screaming at each other won't change this, no matter how justified you feel in the matter.

There are some hard realities to face here, as our current administration doesn't think it has the political capital to move through with it, or doesn't in fact want it to happen. This is unacceptable. When faced with the unwavering ideology of a fascist right wing, we can't detour around it, it has to be taken on with a united front. We see what happens when we don't. Spain 1936-1939, Germany 1925-1945, Italy 1922-1945. Fractured opposition swept aside, authoritarian rule cemented into power to take the world to grief.

I guess the point of this is to say, a united front is needed, short of that our descent into a very dark place is assured.