I started volunteering at a nearby courthouse, as kind of an alert person. ICE was grabbing folks who might be in court for a hearing on other things, like traffic violations.
The complete blatant disrespect and disregard for the Constitution and enforcing it. Tied with the total lack of punishment for disobeying and betrayal of the sacred oath of office.
I mean “radical” is saying you want to change the system, not just tweak it a little.
And for that… *gestures to all of the everything*
Wealth inequity, women’s rights, lgbtiq+, religion, the abuse of free speech, hatemongering and bigotry, racial injustice, some groups being above the law… 🤷
Growing up Christian, hitting adulthood, and realizing how many people from church I respected—lay and leadership—didn't act a thing like what they preached.
Also going to college in a very small, DEEPLY poor town after living in STL county.
Politics.
I almost always voted Republican.
Then trump appeared and I actually paid attention.
Now I lean to the left and realize how wrong I had been.
Ok, maybe it was trump, not politics.
I was mortified by Trump winning Republican nominee in 2016. I had been a lifelong conservative. I started volunteering for Hillary Clinton's campaign in the summer of 2016. I did phone banking, canvassing, and donated whenever I could. I have been voting for Dems up and down the ballot since.
Reading Black authors as a young person. Living on a reservation as a child. I stopped saying the pledge in 4th grade in the 80s. I couldn’t pledge allegiance to a country that kidnapped my friend’s parents as children, forced them into boarding schools and abused them.
For me it was always being invisible. Making too much money to qualify for government programs and poor enough to not be able to send my kids to college. I agree with helping those in real need. I oppose some elected officials helping themselves and creating laws that make big corporations richer.
It came in phases for me. 1st my dad dying in 1973, & mom not being able to access their bank acct.
2nd, Reagan killing my dependent SS benefit when I was 17. 3rd was watching wyt ppl lose their minds over a Black prez, & the final phase that made me 100% radical- my baby boy coming out in 2010
We had a racist librarian at our most accessible library. I am mix race. I pass white. I used to get requests from my darker cousins and do the library runs for all the kids my age, because the librarian didn't pick on me. That was when I learned about systemic injustice.
TREASON! I came of voting age during the Reagan/ Bush Sr. Iran/ Contra mess. They committed acts of HIGH TREASON to gain the White House in 1980. Nixon committed treason to gain the White House in 1968. Trump committed TREASON to gain the White House in 2016. Republikkklans reward TREASON!
Adopting my black son around the time trump for elected the first time. I just got so scared for his safety and my eyes were opened to ALL the danger at once.
Despite cleaving atheist at a young age I picked up the Golden Rule and a couple other sandbox rules while suffering Sunday church service. Ironically I took that stuff to heart while apparently many (most?) actual Christians do not
He seemed like a xool dude and would be happy to meet him in a coffee shop for deep discussion. But he wasn't a god or son of God or lord savior or any of that crap
It was realizing even as a trans man that I havnt been attractive or valued since the age of 12 for more than half of the countries population. Thats a problem worth fixing and im not ugly or worth nothing im just 39. yt supremacy must be destroyed
Watergate was more than the burglary of the DNC HQ. Dan Rather had a book called the Palace Guard that was not about Watergate but was a good preamble on why Watergate happened.
Radicalization is a staircase for me. It's hard to pick one event.
Finding out my ideal profession was likely not possible halfway through my first VERY expensive year of college isn't something I regret, but I will be paying for it for the rest of my life.
I was never radicalized, my dad was a local council member for a small town and union worker at a grocery store. He blamed Reagan for raising his taxes and breaking the unions and he was right.
Constantly being gaslit by the GOP while more & more of the benefits & safety nets my parents had were ripped away.... and the constant cheapening of human life. I remember when a life in this country was the most important thing & dignity a close second. Now, no life is precious. None.
I was born radicalized. My brother used to call me such a bleeding heart liberal I was more blood than heart. I converted my Mom from a Republican to a Democrat when I was in elementary school.
When the US president and his government used a terrorist attack as justification for a unjust war in an unrelated country, sent my husband into danger, and lied about the reasons we had to be there.
I got excited to see a new virus happening (it was concerning, too). I did all kinds of research on my own. I discovered facts never mentioned by the media. I found so many lies by those in power.
Finding out my brother was gay and my sisters interracial relationship. I was very young (age gap siblings) but I felt like I needed to protect them from not only certain family members, but from the general public. Then I realized that being a female is whack and that fueled my fire even more.
The DNC in Chicago 1968.On
a side note, none of us are “radicals “. We are people that want our freedom and democracy for not just ourselves but for all the people. Strength in numbers
💙💪🏻
Working as a lawyer right out of Mizzou law school…
At Bridgeport Legal Services in Connecticut, in one of the Johnson era “war on poverty” programs.
Me, hick from the Ozarks getting some justice for impoverished black and brown people living in the projects.
I've watched people I've known my whole life who were supposed to be following the teachings of a man, who clearly laid out what it was to be good, right in front of them. They spoke the words in church, then ignored them with their actions in the world.
Keep your religion.
My last job put so much pressure on me that, by the time I was finally able to get out, my mind and body were completely wrecked and I’ve been dealing with chronic health issues ever since. I have a BS in Economics and an MBA but, yeah, that kinda ruined capitalism for me.
I was radicalized when my 3yo daughter required very expensive infusions for a couple years and raised my entire company's insurance policy premium by 75%. (She's fine now)
I’m not sure that I’m radicalized but racism was the tipping point which led me to the conclusion that poverty is the main barrier to peace in America. Not getting paid when sick causes people to work when sick and spreads disease.
The promise of things my kids could've had under a solid, competent government as they began their adulthood & the idiots that are so selfish who voted against real progress & growth.
Also, asshole wealthy folks that DGAF about us & can't be bothered to contribute to anything for the good of all.
I was once a Republican for decades, but I started seeing so much racism and hearing talk about “Replacement Theory” and reverse discrimination. When I heard Rush Limbaugh insult John Lennon just after his murder. I left and went Left.
A slow drift toward being more liberal as I met more people from outside my small town and become more educated. A giant jump towards being progressive in 2016 when so many ppl I knew from church all voted for trump after having told me how important character was for so long.
La radicalisation est néfaste et contreproductive, il faut garder son indépendance d'esprit et sa capacité à toujours tout remettre en question, c'est une question d'honnêteté intellectuelle.
For me it was waking up to how working people are nickel and dimed to death. And how rigged the system is to make working people less able to get ahead.
My mom to start..then my daughter has years long mental health issues that were not connected until she was able to get health care under Obama and which i spent my entire working life paying her hospital and medical care. I have nothing but Social security to live on now.
For me it was when my parents lost our house in bankruptcy from medical debt. They had insurance. 2/3rds of all personal bankruptcy in America is due to medical debt. Many of those people have health insurance.
I was in summer school at college and I and my roommate were attacked by five klansmen in white sheets who disagreed with whom we were studying with. We managed to fight them off (punched one in the groin). The school refused to admit it happened. They taught me that intolerance affects everyone.
Working at a non-profit drug and alcohol rehab for 10 years where I saw the failures of our healthcare system, and how institutions/society/stigma contribute to people’s suffering and inability to get ahead in life.
I never considered myself radical until Dobbs. That’s when I think it started. Realizing that my country is fine with me dying because I have lupus and functional reproductive parts hit pretty hard. The election was the final nail though. That was when I realized… yeah. We should eat the rich. Ok.
2005, realizing for the first time the indoctrination intrinsic in my public education experience vs. the reality American history and domestic and international policy. I am not the least bit surprised by the election when our education system only gets defunded further every year.
Poverty. Grandparents raising grandchildren. Children in “the system”. Paying for supplies and books I needed in my classroom. Talking with gay kids or kids with gay parents who were scared. Kids who lacked hope. Hearing that people should “pull themselves up the their bootstraps” 1 too many times.
For me it was my Catholic upbringing. I don’t practice Catholicism now but the nuns beat (literally sometimes) into me to love my neighbor as myself and that we are all gods children created in his image. It really stuck with me. Racism and bigotry just wasn’t a part of my home life either.
A lot, but the proverbial straw was being told loudly by a good friend and a friend of hers that NOEL MKUS is the most innovative, most important person on earth
Same. I had 4 years of homelessness as a child (we lived in a car). And despite my education & license, I'm still living paycheck to paycheck bc I was a single mom. The hoarding of wealth disgusts me. I used to be sad abt it, but now I'm pissed.
As a teenager, I was left to die, because “preexisting condition” and “lifetime spending cap”.
I was a lucky one, as I was in a time of paper health records.
So I survived long enough to get a desk job and lie my butt off and finally get treatment again.
Meeting a Republican family that got a massive contracting job for generators after Hurricane Maria even though they were not in that business. They got VERY rich in a year but used to rail against programs for the poor. They did a sh*tty job in PR btw
Education and fighting the Missouri GOP. First when they tried to get rid of tenure a couple of decades ago, and then it got worse. Oh, and when that moron U.S. Rep said “You lie!” to Obama.
I was born a radical person, but watching Chris Hedges cover our violent and bloody bipartisan foreign policy during the Gulf and Bosnian wars as a correspondent--validated to me why the way our nation works isn't right. I was 11 and it was 1991.
For me, it was just who I was. I have always had a lot of empathy for others, maybe because of my childhood trauma. I’ve always been concerned about justice and fairness and about helping my fellow men and women. I was just born a non-shitty person I guess.
I grew up in a family of democrats and Union workers in the Automobile Industry in Michigan. There was never any question about what party was for the workers in my house.
I was in the Army from W. thru Trump. I saw progress all the way until Trump. Then I saw hate, and rollbacks on Environmental policies and required Sexual Assault Awareness training and, yes, EO/EEO policies. I saw brave women scared to report assaults again & deserving minorities being passed… 1/3
3/3… ousting Soldiers who refused to obey lawful orders. I saw good leaders drummed out of the service while Trumper leaders boasted of their admiration of the man while finding reasons to retaliate against Soldiers who didn’t. Which led to unspoken intimidation. I saw the GOP turn their backs on us
2/3… passed over for assignments and promotions. I saw that Republicans were pro-military only in so far as they could award lofty contracts to their wealthy buddies and vote against earned benefits for deserving & disabled veterans. I saw a once apolitical military be threatened by Trump for…
It was gradual. Reagan's fight against the New Deal policies when I was a kid. I was jumpstarted by the racism that followed 9/11 and the bad evidence that was in the public domain about Iraq. Immigration & gay marriage highlighted the right's fight against freedom. Finally, organizing unions.
Same. Plus a childhood friend who was abused by her father, then when her mom left him and remarried she was abused by her stepfather. And when she aborted his baby she was vilified by the whole town.
Comments
I'm fucking pissed off sick and tired of the constant stream of bullshit and hypocrisy.
Unless that's the definition of radicalized, then I guess I'm that.
And for that… *gestures to all of the everything*
Wealth inequity, women’s rights, lgbtiq+, religion, the abuse of free speech, hatemongering and bigotry, racial injustice, some groups being above the law… 🤷
Also going to college in a very small, DEEPLY poor town after living in STL county.
I almost always voted Republican.
Then trump appeared and I actually paid attention.
Now I lean to the left and realize how wrong I had been.
Ok, maybe it was trump, not politics.
Accepting myself as I am
Inequality
2nd, Reagan killing my dependent SS benefit when I was 17. 3rd was watching wyt ppl lose their minds over a Black prez, & the final phase that made me 100% radical- my baby boy coming out in 2010
Fascists…
I guess that’s enough.
#landofthefree
Finding out my ideal profession was likely not possible halfway through my first VERY expensive year of college isn't something I regret, but I will be paying for it for the rest of my life.
Oh and my frontal lobe developed.
Drew Pearson's editorials.
I got excited to see a new virus happening (it was concerning, too). I did all kinds of research on my own. I discovered facts never mentioned by the media. I found so many lies by those in power.
That is when I started to see clearly.
a side note, none of us are “radicals “. We are people that want our freedom and democracy for not just ourselves but for all the people. Strength in numbers
💙💪🏻
1. Escaping an abusive marriage and everything that it took to get my life back.
2. Having daughters
At Bridgeport Legal Services in Connecticut, in one of the Johnson era “war on poverty” programs.
Me, hick from the Ozarks getting some justice for impoverished black and brown people living in the projects.
Keep your religion.
Also, asshole wealthy folks that DGAF about us & can't be bothered to contribute to anything for the good of all.
Or in other words, Stark by Ben Elton.
survived pretty much alone as a tiny fem person in kkk country
the bush admin and its aftermath
pelosi, holder, obama and yates letting bush/cheney get normalized
mueller
pelosi, garland and biden bungling trump twice
luigi
take ur pick
i refused to be confirmed
i seduced the four toughest kids in my town and then blackmailed them
i fought the bush admin on huffpo forums
i helped victims chase the catholic cardinal of boston back to rome w the formerly complicit cops on his tail
i make memes v bluemaga
i opened a few eyes v fighting bush
the hundreds of priests that were exposed by our site have saved countless others
every day another pelosi fan hears what i have to say and a lightbulb goes off
worth it
a tiny army of one survived it all and left the world better for my efforts
i also learned the bufferfly effect close up when cardinal bernhad law turned tail and ran w his lover in tow to ROME for protection
How? Because you can't have morning prayer at a public school?
I was a lucky one, as I was in a time of paper health records.
So I survived long enough to get a desk job and lie my butt off and finally get treatment again.
Since the age of 19 (I'm 55 now), I have seen the rich continually try to move this country towards a serfdom.
-Guaranteed Climate Collapse (perhaps in my lifetime).
-MAGA and complete disregard of American values.
-Ongoing USA social decay.
The world I once knew is gone.