My mind keeps thinking back to a brief exchange I had with my mother about a year ago. It was sometime in the late fall/early winter of 2020 and my mom was watching some local news channel that was showing a segment on the state of pre trial detention in the U.S., and my mom turned to me and said something along the lines of "That's terrible! Did you know that some people are spending over a year in jails just waiting for their trial?"
(I don't remember the exact words said in this exchange but I remember the jist of it)
"Mom, you know I spent the entire summer yelling at cops. What makes you think that I didn't know about the terrible things they do?"
"Well, this doesn't have to do with cops because this is just the justice system not taking care of these people's cases fast enough"
Now normally I try and educate my mother about the bullshit in the world but that answer was so blatantly intentionally ignorant that I was just fucking speechless. It took me a couple seconds of complete bewilderment before I could ask the very, very obvious follow up question of "WHO DO YOU THINK PUTS PEOPLE IN JAIL???"
At that point my mom just threw up her hands and just gave up. I'm pretty sure she even realized that what she said was completely absurd. But I keep going back to this exchange in my head because it's such an eye opening view into the liberal mind
Anyone else have any good stories like that?
my mom, who is EXTREMELY liberal and hates republicans and all that shit literally did not know that current russia is not communist lol i tried telling her that the soviet union fell, which she understands, but thinks they are still communist. she also thinks communism is absolutely 100% linked to authoritarianism, which is def not true, but shes coming around since i got her to get some chiapas coffee and explained their shit in the meantime :cmnd-marcos-pog:
My mom helped Chiapas farmers grow coffee as part of a missions trip(s). Like over several years. I really want to put socialism in that context for her. Any tips? Because even if she becomes an anarchist that's better than whatever republican ideal she represents.
i mean its either gonna be hard or impossible to get someone like that to even get past the words "communist" and "anarchist" but there is literally zero meaning behind it for them. my mom literally thought those words were synonymous with "BAD". best bet i always go for is relating anarchism to the idea of right wing "anti-state" bullshit. oh bro man you dont like "big govt"? well have i got a good one for you!
of course this can also still be impossible if a mfer just dont want it.
I think her background may at least leave a gap for anarchism to get in.