What is an important "butterfly moment" for you that helped push you towards leftism later on?
Like a moment that seemed insignificant and unimportant at the time, but looking back was in fact a pivotal moment in pushing you towards radicalization.
For me probably being introduced to Guitar Hero at my friend's house in like summer 2007. At the time it was just another day, but looking back I ended up falling in love with those games, I ended up being introduced to The Ramones and even more importantly the Dead Kennedys through them, which caused me to get into punk music and resulted in me adopting very critical attitudes towards larger American society, attitudes which later grew into anarchism and then Marxism
someone in government near me admitted this recently
they were touting their reductions in homelessness, and someone at the meeting called them out and asked if that statistic would include people who died, and they don't even monitor that shit or try to adjust for it so of course it does.
Yep. I've made this connection before although I wouldn't be surprised if people much smarter than me did it before, but America is the Sparta of the modern day. Sure, you can say Britain is as well but they've fully passed the torch onto us.
Although more subtle, it's disgusting just how eugenic this society is. Prohibitively expensive rent likely in no small part to "weed out the weaklings" and have them die homeless. The low paychecks because "the american worker is too tough for decadence", and the creeping militarization of everything, but that's a rant for another day. Almost everything feels like it is designed to make life so insufferable for the poors under the foolish idea that they're "toughening us up" or something.