What is socialism? What does it mean to be a socialist?
Let's really boil it down. Simplify it. Make it something anyone can understand and digest.
To be a socialist is to be Goku in this clip.
It is to see the suffering, the callous death of innocents at the hands of those reckless with all-consuming imperialist power and to stand the hell up. Despite the pain of living in a world so brutal that a life can be traded for a few dollars and a weapons contract.
It is to be so robustly optimistic that you cannot falter, because you know you are on the side of what is righteous and good. Even in the face of power and cruelty expressed so unadulteratedly.
He holds the bird. He bares witness to the bird's death. He gives his energy to the bird. He sobs and takes what he has and restores the bird's live, and that restoration is what gives him the energy to transform. Only in the acceptance of the pain of another is he able to reach his own potential. It is solidarity that gives us breath.
"You didn't do anything wrong. I can't…"
Can't bear to continue on? Can't bear to look away?
"I kill when I want to. The weak die and the strong survive," says Cooler.
"Alright then. We'll play by your rules," says Goku.
It echoes Fanon. The Indigenous subject who's had enough and meets the colonizer in the only language they understand: violence.
There's something about the moment when the protagonist has had enough of the enemy's nihilistic, nothing-matters nonsense. Oh, we're the strongest. Oh, we're fighting to the death. Oh it's some grand tournament. Oh your scouter said this is the power level. It doesn't matter. None of that shit matters. The scouter explodes for a reason.
What matters is the reality that people who don't give a fuck about your immaterial nonsense are being killed, maimed, brutalized. From the birds who steadily see their numbers shrink year after year, to the men and women who struggle to feed themselves with each toiling day after toiling day while the rich feast.
It's a constant. Some must be exploited so a select few can profit. And then the game is revealed to be bullshit. Enough is enough.
"The whole planet is shaking! We're all going to die!"
That's the crisis of capitalism.
We have to fight. But the bird? It didn't do anything wrong.