On the day of writing this (7th January 2021) I awoke to news of an attempted coup in America. That is literally the only word for it because that is what it was. Right wing Trump supporters stormed the capital to try and overturn the election result. A result that was decided by the people of America. It was democratic, it was fair and was done as other elections have been over the years, and yet, because they didn’t get the result they wanted, they rioted, primed and backed by Trump himself. It was heart-breaking to watch. Absolutely heart-breaking to see that instead of airing their frustrations in the correct societal way that almost every other country does, they decided to resort to violence, and it was literally an attempted coup.
One where people lost their lives. For “the greatest country in the world” this is disgusting. This, as well as other videos I have seen online through various communities left me thinking, why do the left and right hate each other so much that extremists would lead to things like this happening? Of course, my voice is small, I am nobody of importance in any sense other than I am me, and I am a person on this planet so take these views as my own and not in speaking for others. I hope others do feel this way too, but I am only speaking for me and what I see and know (I could be wrong, I'm not perfect).
I understand that everyone has different views, and it is their right and privilege so be able to vote for and speak their views, that’s democracy. I feel that, from what I've seen, the right has HUGE problems with the left, and they openly voice their hatred and views through well known names. The problem I find is, a lot of the time, they are completely wrong. They take some extremists and spout it out that that is the entirety of the left. That they are trying to change your way of life and make it so you can’t earn a living or must change everything you do. That the left are WOKE, or SNOWFLAKES and ANTIFA. I will discuss ANTIFA in a little while but from my perspective … and yes, I am a leftist, I'm not out to upend everyone’s lives and bring down society. All I want, is for everyone to be treated fairly, EQUALLY, and with dignity. I feel it is a humans RIGHT to be able to have access to FREE HEALTHCARE. I feel its criminal and abhorrent that some people must decide whether they can afford to seek out medical help when they need it and not have to worry about getting into crippling debt.
Now I know a lot of people would chirp up saying,
“Well why should I have to pay my taxes to go to fund other people’s healthcare? Why don’t they get a job and pay for it themselves?”
You know what? … I Get it. I understand the logic of, if I'm working to earn a pittance, why should I be paying for those who don’t work. Its not fair. They’re right, it isn’t fair … it isn’t fair that society and the systems in place, keep the poor people poor and the rich people rich. Its bullshit. Its bullshit that there are people in this world who are worth (and yes, I realise worth does not equal bank balance) Billions and the opposite side of that scale is people having to work multiple jobs to just survive. It is bullshit. As a leftist I believe that it should be more equal. I would love to see a universal basic income in place where we are given enough money to survive happily and then can earn more in a job we may chose (through education and learning). How many companies and billionaires get away without paying their fare share of taxes because of the system we are in now? I can tell you, it’s a lot and yet I can work overtime, and it is not worth it as most of the money earned extra, will be taxed.
So back to the free healthcare, I'm going to use America as a baseline here as they have one of the worst medical system in the world. Not from medical breakthroughs, but in that only the super-rich and well off can benefit from it. So where can the money come from? Its not fair to raise everyone’s taxes, that will just bring more divide. So, tax the rich, tax the corporations getting away with tax avoidance. I do have one more solution. This fact was brought to my attention in a tv show, and I just wafted it away as just a tv show but from looking into it and finding official statistics … its true. In 2019, America spent $732 BILLION on the military. That figure, as shown in the graph below, is more than the next 12 countries COMBINED … and a fair few of those countries are ALLIES of America.
So, if you half that figure, America would STILL be number 1 in military spending but around $100 billion and have $366 billion to spend on other things … like, oh I don’t know … free, decent healthcare for all Americans. All without raising any taxes. Now I'm sure there’s something I haven’t thought of or missed, but just looking at that data … it screams at me.
Now to go onto ANTIFA. Trumps favourite domestic terrorist group, the one who get blamed for everything these days and are spouted as being the biggest problem by the right.
So, what does ANTIFA mean? … ANTIFA is a portmanteau (no not the teleportation devices in the wizarding world) which is a combing of 2 words to make one new word. The 2 words in this instance are anti and fascist. So ANTIFA are anti-fascists.
So, what is a fascism?
I'm glad you asked … according to the Oxford English Dictionary, fascism is;
“an extreme right-wing political system or attitude that is in favour of strong central government, aggressively promoting your own country or race above others, and that does not allow any opposition”
So … fascism … bad.
“aggressively promoting your own country or race above others” ... also known as xenophobia, racism, discrimination. So Yes … I am proud to say I am an ANTIFA as I detest xenophobia, racism and all forms of discrimination. We are all humans, we should all be treated equally, fairly and just and no country, race, gender, etc should be raised above any others.
I might follow this post up with more and go into more details for things, but I think I've gone on long enough for one post.
In conclusion, me, as a leftist,
- · does not want to upend society
- · wants a more fair and just society
- · realise it won’t happen overnight
- · doesn’t want it to suddenly change, but micro change over time (but somethings need to change NOW … racism needs to end … NOW)
- · believes everyone should have a right for free, decent healthcare
- · everyone should have a right to vote
- · everyone should be free to chose who they want to be
· and many more
I realise I don’t have all the answers, I realise that I'm not smart enough to know how to enact these changes, but I will get involved with the conversations around it all. I will stick up for my views and beliefs and will speak up when I believe people are being inconsiderate and discriminatory.
There may be mistakes in this post also, I'm not perfect, I'm basically emptying my head thoughts onto this document so some might not make sense, it may have shit layout and grammar etc … but its from the heart and with some data.
If you’ve got this far, thank you so much for reading and I hope I can write more about these things because we are all humans … we should be sticking up and working together to better ourselves as humans.
No comments:
Post a Comment