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Yeah so weird that people like an actually working class candidate running on policies and values that are important to the working class.
Finding it interesting how many anti-Platner posts are popping up as we get closer to the election. Do the billionaires pay you a penny per meme or per day?
Okay fine I can’t convince you to not do electoralism (it’s actually not fine but just to move the conversation along I’ll pretend it’s fine for a few seconds). Is it really that fucking hard to find a candidate who’s not a former Blackwater mercenary? Is it really that hard to find a candidate who’s not a fucking monster? Or are
settlers really so fucking fascist that even our “”“communists”“” are Nazis?it’s not hard, but how could they trust such a person?
Bad take. Platner catching flack from both parties says everything, and he has seemingly united a deeply purple state with a traditionally very red working class. He is helping guide a state full of gun owning libertarians into realizing their politics are actually radically left and pro working class. I grew up in Maine, with people that are pro personal liberties and personal privacy and anti billionaire. Platner is showing those folks that all people are deserving of privacy and dignity while uniting against the Epstein class. A trans woman at a town hall of his I think said it best:
“I have changed a lot from the person I once was, I believe you are capable of the same”
As a trans person myself, Platner’s politics are some of the most honest and human I have seen in a long time. He’s helping deep rural Mainers come around to kinder ways of thinking, particularly toward people of color and queer folk, just as much as he is pushing the comfort of establishment democrats with anti capitalist thinking. I have also lived in Pennsylvania and am deeply wary of people pulling what Fetterman pulled. Maybe I’m misguided. Maybe I’ll be eating my words in a year, but I do find myself willing to give him the second chance he seems to be trying to earn.
EDIT: Obligatory mention of a top level distrust of all politicians, yada yada yada, electoralism bad, yada yada yada, voting bad, yada yada yada, don’t revoke my anarchist card. To me this post is about who to vote for if already operating under the assumption of voting at all.
Lmao blahaj literally stanning for a neonazi. Can’t make this shit up.
The guy would murder you in half a second if it was legal. And here you are carrying water for him. It would be funny if it wasn’t true.
I’m not seeing where he says he’d kill me…
Unfortunately not everyone is born with a survival instinct, even some of my more-vulnerable comrades.
You go ahead and vote for the neonazi. Good luck, lmao.
I’m not voting for him as I no longer live in Maine. All I’ve really said is I think he’s genuinely changed his way of thinking and has earned the opportunity to let the people he claims to represent decide if they want him to represent them. If you are one of those people then by all means cast your vote for Collins lmao.
I have also said it’s entirely possible I’ll eat my words. I’ve been through the Fetterman saga, and as such I promise I won’t complain if a leopard eats my face XP
both parties
Didn’t Schumer just endorse him?
Gotta kiss the ring or they kill your family
both parties
voting for populism
The difference is that elon clearly knows it was a nazi salute and it’s kind of hard to fuck that up.
The grahm platner thing is suspicious but there’s true things that are much more ludicrous.
It’s literally the “are we the baddies skull”, it could not be more on the nose
. Afaik the guy never even said that he didn’t know it was the SS Totenkopf, that was just cope the libs made up iirc.
Jesus fucking Christ, I don’t like politicians anymore than the next anarchist but the mental gymnastics it seems most lefties have been doing to convince everyone that Platner is still a bloody thirsty fascist merc is just insane. I dont know how you can be a leftist and not believe people are capable of change.
Like genuinely what is more likely? That Platner is a fascist who is faking support for progressive issues like trans rights, universal healthcare, etc to dupe all the leftists into supporting him; or that he actually has had a change of heart and just is dumb.
Do I trust him? No, but thats because I dont trust any politicians. But I find it a lot easier to believe he isnt the same gun for hire he was before, than to believe he is the only fascist out there that can hide his secret hatred of trans people.
Being dumb should be just as disqualifying as being a Nazi.
We’ve been burned before. I’m willing to give the guy a shot. Not too crazy about Schumer endorsing him though.
Sure and bernie is also not a zionist anymore bc after two years he called it a genocide I guess…
yankee’s are so gullible I swear, anything in order to be able to vote (D). Has he said anything about his role in abu ghraib? The makeshift mortar he made bc the shelling got forbidden by the army bc it resulted in too many civilian casualties? Any of this?
It’s gonna be barbarism isn’t it?
From the Junius Pamphlet itself
And what did we in Germany experience when the great historical test came? The most precipitous fall, the most violent collapse. Nowhere has the organization of the proletariat been yoked so completely to the service of imperialism. Nowhere is the state of siege borne so docilely. Nowhere is the press so hobbled, public opinion so stifled, the economic and political class struggle of the working class so totally surrendered as in Germany.
I dont know how you can be a leftist and not believe people are capable of change.
Of course he’s capable of change, but:
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He has not shown the requisite action in my view to warrant my forgiveness. I admit that this will be very hard for him to earn. And I think a lot of leftists and anarchists will agree with me here.
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Even if he is capable of change, that does not mean that he should ever be allowed a position of power again. I.e., he may have a position in socialist society, but not a leadership position. He can do something else.
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As anarchists, we shouldn’t even be giving our precious finite time and energy to Demonrat monsters. They are an enemy. The only engagement Demonrat politicians deserve from anarchists is unmitigated hostility forever.
Edit: I want to close this comment (thank you to @mathemachristian@hexbear.net for originally posting this image in the thread; it bears repeating!) with Platner’s own words and actions. I hope you can understand why Platner has to do so much more for people to begin to forgive him, if that’s even possible.
I have already addressed that quote before in a different post. There is an interview where he renounces the beliefs he held in that quote. I do not care enough to dig it up, and if you care enough I trust you are capable of fact checking (this is not intended to be rude).
And I dont believe he should hold power either, but more so because I believe no one should. But I’d argue if someone believes he shouldnt win because of his past, then none of his competition deserve to hold power either as they are just as bad in different ways.
As for forgiveness. Thats your own personal choice so I don’t begrudge you not forgiving him. My issue is it feels most people shitting on him have no intention of ever forgiving him no matter what, and care more about ignoring what change he has made in order to paint him in a worse light. Informing people of his past is good, but not also bringing up how he has addressed and changed from that past is dishonest.
Edit: removed part about owing forgiveness
There is an interview where he renounces the beliefs he held in that quote.
That’s a good start, but nowhere near enough for someone whose actions were so monstrous.
My issue is it feels most people shitting on him have no intention of ever forgiving him no matter what, and care more about ignoring what change he has made in order to paint him in a worse light.
I actually responded to a comment about forgiveness in anarchist spaces a few hours back. Platner fits the discussion like a glove. Unfortunately, Anarchist Nexus doesn’t let you view comment links without a login, so I’ll just quote myself:
I don’t get why some people excommunicate them for their past actions.
There are definitely a few people on Lemmy who have lost relatives or been personally fucked over by the
military. I can 1000% understand why these people are not necessarily ready to forgive veterans, even ones who try to right their wrongs.Fact of the matter is: they are not owed forgiveness, no matter how hard they try, how much work they put in, how much they sacrifice. It’s that simple. Some people are just not gonna forgive you for your service. For the veterans in the chat, part of your journey has to be to learn to understand and live with this reality, and to work around it as best as you are able.
And just in general: you are never ever ever owed forgiveness, no matter what. Full stop.
Unlike what I said in the quoted comment about the veteran who got beaten up at Delaney Hall, in this case I am not willing to forgive Platner … yet. I am personally leaving open the future possibility of my personal forgiveness … but again, I must push back on the notion that anyone owes him, nor anyone else (myself included!), forgiveness for anything. Continuing,
But that’s my privileged
-ass opinion, coming from someone who’s never been personally hurt by veterans, someone who has nothing to even forgive him for. I.e., my view rightly has no bearing on the opinions and analyses of people who have been brutalized by veterans. So if someone else is not ready to forgive this guy, that’s something we just gotta respect.As I said previously, Platner has a long way to go before I’m ready to forgive him. And it is completely understandable if some of his victims never forgive him at all, even if it is not politically expedient for people living in
who care about electoral victories.Thats fair, and yeah you are right that he is not owed forgiveness. I apologize, I was wrong when I said otherwise. Frankly idk why I said anything to the effect he was owed it, that is my bad.
All good 👍
Because unless proven otherwise giving people the ability to grow and change is a good moral thing to do.
I don’t disagree with that, but I also do not feel it is antithetical to also believing that people are entitled to forgiveness by everyone.
People should be able to move past their mistakes and able to grow, but that doesnt mean everyone needs to forgive them. The families whose loved ones were killed by Platner do not need to forgive him, and neither do people who wish to stand in solidarity with those families. But that also doesnt mean we have to hold Platner’s past over his head while ignoring what he has done to grow into a different person.
I didnt mean to imply one is entitled to forgiveness, though I doubt many of the people pearl clutching were actually impacted by his actions, particularly when it’s a bunch of hawkish Democrats who would gladly send the military to kill more innocents without a second thought but love trying to find ways to have moral outrage over Platner’s past.
There is some real problematic shit, but he’s saying the right progressive things, which is why the establishment is trying to fling as much shit at him as possible.
I forgot about his defense of the SS “bolts” https://hexbear.net/post/6500448 lol just scroll through https://hexbear.net/search?q=platner&type=All&listingType=All&page=1&sort=TopAll&titleOnly=true beyond me how anyone can still defend this guy when he is trying to just gloss over his nazi past with some catchphrases
Dudes even got endorsed by Chuck “My job is to keep the left pro-Israel[sic]” Schumer https://hexbear.net/post/8671101 come on now
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Add to that he’s the only candidate for anything who came out and called the genocide a fucking genocide. Pretty easy test of character that 90% + of politicians seem incapable of.
It’s not a test of character, it’s the bare fucking minimum character to be allowed to hold literally any position of literally any responsibility. Like you shouldn’t even be allowed to run a chess club if you don’t call the Gaza Genocide a genocide.
and if we wanna get into it, he’s denouncing funding the genocide in Gaza while endorsing increasing funding for gencide in latin America. of the candidates left in the field, he gives us the most chance to organize on the margins, but he still sucks. the reality is he sucks because he’s a politician. people who don’t suck don’t get into office. the system isn’t designed for that. still, we have incentives as organizers to get more less worse into office. but we still have to confront that no one can liberate the people but the people themselves.
shit. i broke my rule. time for another walk
That’s certainly the reason that centrists hate him.
the only
I do care if he’s a blood thirsty murder enthusiast. Best chance at congress.
He is a fascist pretending to be an ally. You can tell by the “(D)” by his name.
You can just not vote because you don’t agree with it. You don’t gotta accuse everyone of being a neo-nazi. In fact, compared to every other candidate he is the least fashy of them all, which is ironic considering his fascist past.
If you aint gonna vote, then don’t. If you are gonna vote, then I don’t know how you can rationalize voting for anyone but Platner when you can see his competition.
Edit: Like I agree the Dems are fascists-lite pretending to be allies. I aint arguing that. That is an argument about whether or not to vote in the first place. This is an argument about if you are going to vote, who for.
You don’t gotta accuse everyone of being a neo-nazi.
I can’t believe people are calling everyone with a totenkopf tattoo a neo-nazi, how utterly dramatic and unreasonable!
You’re just reading whatever the hell you want out there, arent you?
I was stating the pro:bloodthirsty murder slut, might get into a room full of congressaurs.
And con: declared chronically backstabbing fascist piece of shit wearing ally colors for pride month
No, I am highlighting that if you arent going to vote for someone cause you view democrats as fascists (which isnt inaccurate), then you probably arent someone who is going to vote in the first place.
Like if Platner isn’t up to your standards then who is?
someone who’s not a fascist child killer with a nazi tattoo?
Like, if Platner is up to your standards, then who isnt?
He is. He’s a violent murder monster and I would like him to be in the congress room please. What part of this do you not understand?
Like if Platner isn’t up to your standards then who is?
Literally no one because I’m a goddamn anarchist
I can agree with you on that lol
Edit: deleted other comnent because I realized this comment wasnt made by the original commentor)
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Yes. This exactly. Seems like a lot of effort when he could just be leaning into either the deep red of rural Maine or the bright blue of the coastal cities and towns. Instead he has found a way of gaining support from both with good working class politics.
Yeah, I’m tired of seeing this so much. Like I feel like there probably is something a little off or fishy about his story that he really didn’t realize until he was running for office, but not that he’s secretly a Nazi, and more along the lines of be knew and kept it cuz it was a funny story or something.
Either way, he’s by far the best candidate in his primary and general elections so it doesn’t really matter, and he is a great candidate for his state.
the best candidate in his primary
Who would you say was better?
The one that would empower Maine, and horizontalize power. Too bad he’s only applying for a Senate seat. A pretty distant and populist position if you ask Maine.
I assume you mean David Costello?
From what I have seen he’s somewhat similar in positions and such to platner, maybe a bit less populist/leftist than platner. He entered the race a little late tho, and got less attention. He also has more experience in public office and is more of a regular politician tho, but that can either be a good or a bad thing depending how you look at it.
Janet Mills is a just a Zionist aipac shill tho
Do you even understand what empowerment means?
Broadly more or less yea? I haven’t seen the specific thing you linked before though, and also you were quite vague about what you meant in your last comment.
I would appreciate if you could explain a bit more what you are meaning, and educate me a little.
To turn the state blue, yippee.
To give the guy a pass by because he was supposedly out drinking with his fellow Marines and supposedly accidentally got a Nazi tattoo? Maybe. I’d hate to be in an accidentally do something offensive competition with a random drunken American enlisted. I think I read that he is Jewish, so bonus points to the story, I guess.
His Reddit history has been made out to make him a bit of a chud.
God I hate when I drink too much and wind up getting a well recognized symbol of hate and fascism permanently marked on my body. A symbol that’s so well recognized that you typically have to seek out specific artists who are even willing to create it and who would be unlikely to find by stumbling into a random tattoo parlor.
I was expecting a swastika, but when searching for the original image I found a stylized skull and crossbones I had never seen before.
You mean the Totenkopf? The symbol that was on the hat of every SS Concentration Camp Guard and has been prominently featured in nearly every form of media that has shown Nazi’s? You mean that skull and crossbones?
Yeah, that’s it.
I saw a different image and didn’t put 2 and 2 together there.
I though the ss had lightning bolts, which embarrassed Germany so much they used ß.
New England liberals are some of the most racist sexist people you will ever meet. they’ll proudly make fun of a southerner as soon as they meet them assuming they’re racist, and then turn around and make comments about a Black woman’s skin tone. they’re frustrating self congratulatory people.
All of this said i don’t know any of the specifics about Graham Platner’s problematic past since i don’t live in Maine, don’t vote in Maine, none of the news sources i follow are talking about him, and none of the on the ground leftists are talking about him. it’s only the propaganda outlets and a certain kind of chronically online person who’s really thinking about him. my wife and i have taken a strict “if someone’s asking us about Graham Platner, it’s time to go for a walk” policy.
i’m going for a walk
Probably the best policy of all.
If it was a swastika, or maybe even the SS bolts, it’d be a different story. The salute is way more widely known than a totenkopf.
It’s not even universal. It looks like a skull and crossbones, and the skull and crossbones isn’t fixed, drawn in one way. Look it up. You’ll get a confusing page of variations all labeled as such.
I have to remind myself that these days, campaigns are conducted on social media. The rabid, obstinate posts might be genuine. They also might be where superPAC money is being spent, on people, whose job it is to post and keep posting more organically than AI can as of yet, until the election ends. (I’m sure we experienced none of that leading to Nov2024).
Yes or no, I really do hope none of us (over 35) is exactly who we were at 20 years old.
What kind of horseshoe-pilled purity-obsessed circlejerk do you have be a part of to think that defending a billionaire apartheid nepobaby solipsist and voting for “not-Susan Collins” are remotely equivalent?
The kind that exclusively blows the most overtly authoritarian dick in the world
Populism.
Centrists don’t want to see a progressive unseat Collins after decades of centrists failing to unseat her.
Their narrative that we can’t beat republicans without being republican-lite is in danger.
