otherwise you justify all kinds of “just following orders” arguments.

I’m not sure I’d equate having your hand forced with following orders blindly. It’s nearly impossible to change individuals’ behaviors unless it’s due to systemic forces (minus the few who just want to be correct as long as it is visible). But if you’re more focused on individuals and their “responsibility” even though they had no input on the creation of this system, I’d only assume that you’re fine with this system and would rather shout at the brick wall of “individual responsibility”, then get frustrated when people end up hating vegetarians and vegans. I’m like 90% vegetarian nowadays because I can’t really afford meat anyways as well as it giving me headaches and foul moods, but I don’t think you’re being realistic in what you’re asking. Would the world be better with no factory farming? Absolutely yes. But we’re in this situation not because of people’s choices. We’re in this situation because the choice has been made for a lot of us. Some people are a single paycheck away from homelessness, so they likely don’t have the resources to learn how to cook, then ruin a bunch of food in the learning process, only to overspend, and be threatened with getting kicked out all for your own comfort. Go fight the people making this the reality we’re living in.

There’s something to be said about the ease of access and personal energy needed to deal with changing a diet that has been inherited by birth where the alternative is possibly much more expensive. I don’t blame individuals who eat cheap meat out of necessity just as I don’t blame people for not recycling since the responsibility of the exploitation and destruction of our planet lies entirely with the people who run the machine, not those who are forced under threat of violence to exist inside it.

Leftists are anti-capitalist. Liberals support capitalism. Republicans and Democrats have more in common than liberals and leftists. Would you call a debate between trump and biden infighting?

You overestimate how much power you have in this situation. We don’t get to pull the lever. The choices given to us have been approved by the same people who are tying people to the tracks.

You are either tied up to the track or shoveling coal into the trolly’s furnace.

Liberals getting angry at leftist isn’t infighting, it’s just regular fighting.

I feel this. Though I don’t tend to be optimistic in general about the state of my little place in the world , it definitely gets worse when I think of the big picture stuff that I have even less control over. I really wish I knew how to help, but I guess all I can do is relate and hope that you’re doing okay. At the risk of sounding insincere and acting weirdly intimate to a stranger online, we might never see each other in our lives, but we are fighting and suffering a reality that was forced upon us together. Hopefully things get better, but even if it doesn’t, we aren’t alone in this.

The weird incongruous part is that the people on Rednote (up until recently) thought the average American has over a million dollars (due to a weird mistranslation of something our embassy said about the average income from all Americans being over a million dollars), have a house (due to television shows), have free healthcare, and generally live a carefree life. Many people are questioning why there’s been such a push to work over here by their friends and family who visit.