Krono

Americans see protest as pointless right now.

Americans have seen a generation of peaceful protests that were crushed and villified. Anti-WTO, Anti-Iraq War, Occupy Wall Street, George Floyd, etc; all failed to achieve any of their stated goals.

And now that the fascists have taken control, peaceful protest is even less effective. For peaceful protest to succeed your opponent must have empathy, and fascists have none.

The last protest movement that accomplished something substantial was the civil rights movement. It was not peaceful, it was militant. I think we need a modern Black Panther Party.

Have you actually tried to do this?

Personally, I've tried to reform the democratic party from the inside for the last 20 years, and I've given up, I think it's a foolheardy endeavor.

Corporate interests are thoroughly entrenched in the party at every level. The democratic party has set up so many structural hurdles that make it nearly impossible for a progressive challenger to have a shot.

Take a small example: when I was volunteering for two different local progressive challengers, they both had extreme difficulty doing basic campaign things like printing flyers, road signs, pamphlets etc. Why? Because the Democratic Party has a explicit policy of blacklisting any vendor who aids a progressive challenger. No print shop would print our flyers.

There are so many structural hurdles like this set up by the Democratic Party, I would encourage you to volunteer and find out how bad it is for yourself.

And how do you propose we wrest control of the Democratic Party from its corporate overlords and put the power in the hands of the working class?

Seems about as farfetched as a new party imo, but I'd love to hear a realistic plan.

Anti-science, misogyny, etc may be bad independently of religion, but they aren't independent of religion. Religion is a source of these problems.

You can imagine a hypothetical religion that is simply a "social club" or whatever, but here in the real world religion comes with baggage.

Religion is why my cousin's children have never seen a doctor in their life. Religion is why my gay friend in high school tried to kill himself. Religious indoctrination has led to lifelong shame and trauma in many of my friends.

And this was just from a "moderate" sect of Christianity- the millions living under fundamentalist religion have it even worse.

What you said is all true, but you are ignoring the negative aspects of religion.

Religious influence, both on their followers and on government, is anti-science, misogynistic, and anti-LGBT.

Religions are funded like pyramid schemes, with the most desperate and vulnerable as their victims.

Religious indoctrination is child abuse.