"When the concept of safety is invoked by our leaders it is always trick. It is a tool used to get buy-in from the subjects of empire towards the goals of capital."
One of the more radicalizing moments for me was realizing that the safety of everyday people has never truly been the priority of the American political establishment. We're only viewed as being expendable cogs - serving the interests of capital and empire in a violent, inhumane, and profit-obsessed machine. Referencing Jordan Neely and Daniel Penny is a great way of demonstrating how consent is manufactured in real time, which then paves the way for the establishment of the permission structure to allow for people to replicate Daniel's horrifying actions. Even looking at the perpetual scapegoating of migrants shows us just how much our political establishment loves to hallucinate "villains" as a means to keep the people scared, divided, and fighting amongst themselves - never to realize that the true enemy hovers up above us at all times.
"If we zoom out and realize who is actually putting us in danger, those who seek to use these narratives to discipline and distract us can’t succeed."
We're very much so in a time and place where those windows of opportunity are presenting themselves - we just need to find the courage, willingness, and boldness, to act upon it. If we don't push back against the perpetrators of these propagandized weaponizations of unsafety, then marginalized groups, like the Palestinians and many others, will continue to suffer, and justice and accountability will continue to escape those who deserve it the most.
Another fantastic piece Scarlet! Thanks again for another thought-provoking read as always!
I noticed this too with TYT's right wing turn. They bang on about safety and feeling unsafe but what they are really concerned with is things like visible homelessness which doesn't make you personally unsafe, but makes you feel that way because it is confronting. It makes people think of crime even though it isn't crime. Ana justified her entire right wing turn around one unfortunate incident with a homeless man. The right wing is perpetually afraid of everything, cities, subways, immigrants, etc, and their solutions are all ones that will make them far less safe than what they are afraid of. No one ever asks if the homeless man is afraid to sleep outside, because he isn't ever afforded the status of victim or the right to be afraid.
Yeah watching Shaky Gurga and Ana continue to drink the right-wing kool-aid has certainly been an experience as of late. The homelessness point is a good emphasis as well, and reminds me of something that Dr. Ally Louks has discussed in relation to this topic as well. She's talked about how different scents and smells can be weaponized to establish discriminatory "cause and justification" to target specific marginalized groups (like how marijuana scents have disproportionately affected people of color). So much of this manufactured fear is purely aesthetic, and has no real basis in reality. Any of these right-wing outlets will see 1 homeless person, 1 migrant, and create an entire hyper-sensationalized fearmongering campaign around them. Like you said, none of their solutions actually make anyone more safe - nor do the whims and wishes of the people most affected ever get considered. It's such a cruel trajectory that we've been on for such a long time, and it desperately needs course correction if we're going to build the world we want and need.
This is an important read for those liberals who are now turning to radical politics. It is the state and the system that uses and has a monopoly on violence.
Thanks for your writing on here. It’s important to keep leftist discourse alive and not circle the drain on things like whether or not exercise is fascist. I do have a genuine bone to pick about the premise of urban unsafety however, which I know is just the stage upon which the rest of the article is set, critiquing Zionism etc.
The NY subway system is incredible in its ability to service such a large population, and is a valuable example of a successful and affordable transit system in a country so dominated by systems designed for private vehicles. I’m not debating the need to use, defend, fund, and improve the NYC MTA, and want to see it replicated across as many US cities as possible.
Jordan Neely had been throwing trash at other people on the subway, approaching them, screaming at them, and indicating feelings of extreme mental and emotional distress, yelling at strangers that he was “ready to die,” which is explained by his schizophrenia diagnosis. He also had a recent history of assaulting women unprovoked on the subway. He did not deserve to die, and the veteran ex-cop vigilante who killed him did not need to do so.
A woman was set on fire in Brooklyn by another man on the subway and was filmed while she burned to death and cops strolled by. The same day, a group of men tried to rob a sleeping man on the subway and killed another man in the process. People are pushed from the edge onto the tracks in random attacks by strangers. These are just incidents from the past few months.
I don’t know if you live in NYC or a similarly large metropolitan area, but this isn’t that uncommon an occurrence for other transit riders to have to deal with. It is something the New York working and middle class have learned to just accept about their transit system.
If this whole picture is to be seriously considered as the American leftist position of acceptably “safe,” and nobody on the subway should have been feeling unsafe while Jordan Neely was having an episode (or when the vigilante was restraining him, for that matter), because there was “no evidence that he was getting violent,” what is the line that needs to be crossed where other transit riders are allowed to demand more safety? Did Jordan Neely need to assault someone before another person stepped in to restrain him? Where do the rights of the unhoused and mentally ill end and the rights of those who are trying to get to their minimum wage jobs from across the city begin? Is the American left just going to keep moving the goalposts of injustice all the way down to whatever floor an evil capitalist hell can dig to?
I don’t think the solution is necessarily “more cops,” as clearly they have shown to be incapable of keeping people safe. Singapore, Hong Kong, Berlin, Stockholm and other cities worldwide do not use a bunch of police to solve this problem.
I do think the solution is more housing, more services for the mentally ill, and a generally less brutal society for the poor to survive in. But if the American left loses sight of all the injustices people experience, and focus on only the experiences of the most oppressed, having New York subway riders check their privilege at the doors of their landlord-owned apartments, the vision the left casts of a just society becomes unconscionably small and bleak. I worry that demanding that other residents who are already enduring a lot just to travel around their city, compared to other large metro areas around the world, pipe down and stop being pussies about the untreated mentally ill dangerous individuals they come into contact with regularly is actually not a winning message from a political movement that claims to speak for the values of the masses. Transit should be safe for children, women, seniors, and people with disabilities, not just whoever happens to be the biggest most ex-military guy on the train. This callousness toward anyone who isn’t the most acutely in need of services is exactly the environment that leads people to abandon transit systems, states, and communities altogether, and creates space for private companies to swoop in on a new market of personal vehicles, personal security, weapons, and other new systems that do allow those who can afford it to avoid the public system that turned a blind eye to their safety. If we play the game of drawing lines around who is allowed to feel “unsafe,” with the way America is going, the only people who are going to be left inside that ominously expanding circle are going to be those who are too helpless and distraught to help themselves.
"When the concept of safety is invoked by our leaders it is always trick. It is a tool used to get buy-in from the subjects of empire towards the goals of capital."
One of the more radicalizing moments for me was realizing that the safety of everyday people has never truly been the priority of the American political establishment. We're only viewed as being expendable cogs - serving the interests of capital and empire in a violent, inhumane, and profit-obsessed machine. Referencing Jordan Neely and Daniel Penny is a great way of demonstrating how consent is manufactured in real time, which then paves the way for the establishment of the permission structure to allow for people to replicate Daniel's horrifying actions. Even looking at the perpetual scapegoating of migrants shows us just how much our political establishment loves to hallucinate "villains" as a means to keep the people scared, divided, and fighting amongst themselves - never to realize that the true enemy hovers up above us at all times.
"If we zoom out and realize who is actually putting us in danger, those who seek to use these narratives to discipline and distract us can’t succeed."
We're very much so in a time and place where those windows of opportunity are presenting themselves - we just need to find the courage, willingness, and boldness, to act upon it. If we don't push back against the perpetrators of these propagandized weaponizations of unsafety, then marginalized groups, like the Palestinians and many others, will continue to suffer, and justice and accountability will continue to escape those who deserve it the most.
Another fantastic piece Scarlet! Thanks again for another thought-provoking read as always!
I noticed this too with TYT's right wing turn. They bang on about safety and feeling unsafe but what they are really concerned with is things like visible homelessness which doesn't make you personally unsafe, but makes you feel that way because it is confronting. It makes people think of crime even though it isn't crime. Ana justified her entire right wing turn around one unfortunate incident with a homeless man. The right wing is perpetually afraid of everything, cities, subways, immigrants, etc, and their solutions are all ones that will make them far less safe than what they are afraid of. No one ever asks if the homeless man is afraid to sleep outside, because he isn't ever afforded the status of victim or the right to be afraid.
Yeah watching Shaky Gurga and Ana continue to drink the right-wing kool-aid has certainly been an experience as of late. The homelessness point is a good emphasis as well, and reminds me of something that Dr. Ally Louks has discussed in relation to this topic as well. She's talked about how different scents and smells can be weaponized to establish discriminatory "cause and justification" to target specific marginalized groups (like how marijuana scents have disproportionately affected people of color). So much of this manufactured fear is purely aesthetic, and has no real basis in reality. Any of these right-wing outlets will see 1 homeless person, 1 migrant, and create an entire hyper-sensationalized fearmongering campaign around them. Like you said, none of their solutions actually make anyone more safe - nor do the whims and wishes of the people most affected ever get considered. It's such a cruel trajectory that we've been on for such a long time, and it desperately needs course correction if we're going to build the world we want and need.
I just listened to criticism of TYT on this on the UNFTR podcast! Great minds etc.
This is an important read for those liberals who are now turning to radical politics. It is the state and the system that uses and has a monopoly on violence.
Well-stated!
Thanks for your writing on here. It’s important to keep leftist discourse alive and not circle the drain on things like whether or not exercise is fascist. I do have a genuine bone to pick about the premise of urban unsafety however, which I know is just the stage upon which the rest of the article is set, critiquing Zionism etc.
The NY subway system is incredible in its ability to service such a large population, and is a valuable example of a successful and affordable transit system in a country so dominated by systems designed for private vehicles. I’m not debating the need to use, defend, fund, and improve the NYC MTA, and want to see it replicated across as many US cities as possible.
Jordan Neely had been throwing trash at other people on the subway, approaching them, screaming at them, and indicating feelings of extreme mental and emotional distress, yelling at strangers that he was “ready to die,” which is explained by his schizophrenia diagnosis. He also had a recent history of assaulting women unprovoked on the subway. He did not deserve to die, and the veteran ex-cop vigilante who killed him did not need to do so.
A woman was set on fire in Brooklyn by another man on the subway and was filmed while she burned to death and cops strolled by. The same day, a group of men tried to rob a sleeping man on the subway and killed another man in the process. People are pushed from the edge onto the tracks in random attacks by strangers. These are just incidents from the past few months.
I don’t know if you live in NYC or a similarly large metropolitan area, but this isn’t that uncommon an occurrence for other transit riders to have to deal with. It is something the New York working and middle class have learned to just accept about their transit system.
If this whole picture is to be seriously considered as the American leftist position of acceptably “safe,” and nobody on the subway should have been feeling unsafe while Jordan Neely was having an episode (or when the vigilante was restraining him, for that matter), because there was “no evidence that he was getting violent,” what is the line that needs to be crossed where other transit riders are allowed to demand more safety? Did Jordan Neely need to assault someone before another person stepped in to restrain him? Where do the rights of the unhoused and mentally ill end and the rights of those who are trying to get to their minimum wage jobs from across the city begin? Is the American left just going to keep moving the goalposts of injustice all the way down to whatever floor an evil capitalist hell can dig to?
I don’t think the solution is necessarily “more cops,” as clearly they have shown to be incapable of keeping people safe. Singapore, Hong Kong, Berlin, Stockholm and other cities worldwide do not use a bunch of police to solve this problem.
I do think the solution is more housing, more services for the mentally ill, and a generally less brutal society for the poor to survive in. But if the American left loses sight of all the injustices people experience, and focus on only the experiences of the most oppressed, having New York subway riders check their privilege at the doors of their landlord-owned apartments, the vision the left casts of a just society becomes unconscionably small and bleak. I worry that demanding that other residents who are already enduring a lot just to travel around their city, compared to other large metro areas around the world, pipe down and stop being pussies about the untreated mentally ill dangerous individuals they come into contact with regularly is actually not a winning message from a political movement that claims to speak for the values of the masses. Transit should be safe for children, women, seniors, and people with disabilities, not just whoever happens to be the biggest most ex-military guy on the train. This callousness toward anyone who isn’t the most acutely in need of services is exactly the environment that leads people to abandon transit systems, states, and communities altogether, and creates space for private companies to swoop in on a new market of personal vehicles, personal security, weapons, and other new systems that do allow those who can afford it to avoid the public system that turned a blind eye to their safety. If we play the game of drawing lines around who is allowed to feel “unsafe,” with the way America is going, the only people who are going to be left inside that ominously expanding circle are going to be those who are too helpless and distraught to help themselves.