Revolution is necessary, because the bourgeois state cannot be dismantled and a proletarian state put in place via peaceful means.
If they thought we could vote our way into socialism, they wouldn’t let us vote.
Definitely true!
☭ 🫡
I think you’re probably right, but I do worry about any violence that would ensue . . .
Violence is an unfortunate necessity when pacifism ensures loss.
Blaming the Republican party is wrong. They’re evil, but it’s the rich continuously stealing more capital and destroying businesses that is the problem. If the South and rural areas had equal access to wealth and education, the identity politics bit wouldn’t work on them.
it’s the rich continuously stealing more capital and destroying businesses that is the problem
The rich are rich because they own the businesses. They own the means of production. The problem is capitalism; it’s private ownership of the means of production.
I don’t see the connection, personally. There’s no problem when wealth is probably managed and distributed. Plenty of societies do that with private ownership, and there’s no reason to believe that a communist society would do it better.
Then you’re entirely misunderstanding all of human history. Communism has been the source of the most effective poverty alleviation programs in the history of humanity.
Blaming the Republican party is wrong
not it isn’t, they have much to be blamed for. but there’s plenty of blame to go to other groups, too.
If the South and rural areas had equal access to wealth and education
If you think the North and urban areas do have equal access then you need to take another look. The oligarchs are quite fond of living in metropolitan areas and segregating education between public and private schools.
I don’t really, Dems are pretty useless and bought by the rich as well. Which is why the two party system can’t work to solve these issues effectively. I don’t blame Trump either, he is more a symptom, than the problem
the uniparty is the problem I agree
France’s two party system was overturned electorally within the past 10 years, the UK’s is currently in the process, but maybe the same thing can’t happen in the USA
I agree that it’s the rich that are the root of the problem, but also I don’t understand what the Republican party is (since the great depression) if not a roundabout way to harness fear of downward social mobility to vote in favor of the rich.
And when I say “I don’t understand”, I mean I really don’t understand, because I also recognize that the rich pulled the same shit back in the civil war on the uneducated southern Democrats. The way I see it, today we have “Temporarily Embarrassed Billionaires” fighting for the rich in case they ever get rich, but back in the 1800s they had “Temporarily Embarrassed Slave Owners” who were, again, fighting for the rich in case they ever got rich.
I guess I’m supposed to conclude that the “liberalism” of that time was just misguided because it was attempting to justify abridging others’ individual freedoms as an individual freedom. And then maybe the “republic” of Republicanism was seen as the elite telling the uneducated, “the masses are too dumb to be trusted with a direct democracy, we need to elect an educated intermediary to represent us”. If so, that seems like…not even close to what the Republican party stands for today; Trump was elected on a Populist platform, the opposite of a Republic.
tl;dr I get that despite the corruption in the DNC, liberalism is a valuable philosophy worth refining and progressing toward. But I don’t know what the Republican party still has that’s worth keeping.
“I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land can never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed, it might be done.”
- John Brown
I am quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I know think vainly, flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.
- John Brown
Never forget- John Brown is the first American hung for treason. The Confederate leaders got minimal incarceration (if any), pardoned, or just walked back into society like nothing happened. Then they built statutes, named schools, and carved a mountainside with their images. Our only consolation is that Stonewall got shot by his own troops and died in agony a few days later after having his arm sawn off.
John Brown
Perfectly normal reaction to slavery. The sickest among us are well adjusted to this unjust world. Like a gambling addict who always wins. Until they dont…
There won’t be real reforms from Democrats because they’re complicit and invested in the system staying exactly as it is. Just “nicer.”
Exactly. The current system of government isn’t democracy, it’s competitive authoritarianism.
Yes. We need to work to create a democracy.
Is reforms from Democrats enough?
“They’ve got a set of Republican waiters on one side and a set of Democratic waiters on the other side, but no matter which set of waiters brings you the dish, the legislative grub is all prepared in the same Wall Street kitchen”
Huey Long, campaign speech for the re-election of Senator Hattie Caraway (D-AR), 1932
Am I the only one that believe the US has to go through some sort of painful transition/civil war/revolution to fix it?
No, you aren’t. I’m sorry you have to go through this hard way
Sorry if my english is bad
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If the petrodollar fails that’s exactly what’s going to happen. The rest of the world won’t miss the opportunity to hamstring the US during their moment of weakness and ensure they turn into an insular, regional isolationist power. It’ll be well deserved too…
when*
Anything else on your wish list? Just curious.
Oh, sweet summer child. The Democrats don’t even have an interest in reforming the system, which is why nothing changes even when they have a majority in congress. Reformism is dead. Only a revolution can save the working class from the stranglehold of capital.
Now, is a revolution in the US forthcoming? Unless conditions change dramatically, I would say not. But we have entered the weeks where decades happen and left the decades where weeks happen. If you want to be prepared, organize and read theory; having a reality-based perspective will help you regardless of where we’re headed.
If revolution happens right now, it’s going to be oops! All reactionaries.
Not today, not next year. I’m uncertain about the mid-to-long range projection, like 5-10 years or beyond. I think either people will wake up and revolution will be a real possibility as our living conditions deteriorate, or we’ll be completely enclosed by the panopticon and the Jakarta method will come home. It all boils down to socialism or barbarism, at the end of the day.
or we’ll be completely enclosed by the panopticon and the Jakarta method will come home.
Heaven forbid!
Nothing will change until we group together and stop exploitation. This includes how America has propagandize that all violence is equal. Nothing is going to change unless some bricks go through some windows and I think we are past even that. Not a single person in power is on our side.
If reforms from democrats was enough, we wouldn’t have Trump right now.
The founding myth of your nation is violence. I think it’s like asking if there will be snow in February (I’m Canadian btw)
What’s the founding myth of Canada if not Eurocentric settler colonialism intended to displace and exterminate the indigenous peoples of the land they were invading?
Oh hi Freagle! And yeah you’re exactly right!
For the most part, I think, yes. However, there was a compromise between the English and the French living there, IIRC, instead of a war.
A distinction without a difference
if there will be snow in February
Climate change might do this phrase in one day.
No, plenty of us believe it. I didn’t recently purchase 10+ different guns and a ton of ammo because I think things will work out.
Unfortunately, more people think diplomacy and peaceful protest and waiting until the next time to vote will be enough.
It’s fucking dumb.
If my plan to leave the US permanently fails, I’m prepared for literal civil war.
The US needs to be dismantled. There’s no such thing as fixing a settler colonial state. Everything about it is very young and paper thin, from its philosophies to its narratives to its borders to its laws to its “culture” to its religions. None of it will withstand the slow and inexorable resistance of the world’s people.
It’s a class war, now combined with AI sucking up the most basic of living resources, from us to the billionaires’ latest pet project.
Everything else is a distraction. Remember, up to 50% (depending on what study you read) of social media is bots.
You aren’t the only one, this has been the rhetoric from the far right for over a decade now. The “Boogaloo Boys” were named for what they forsaw as “Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo”. They gained notoriety during Trump’s first term, and later rebranded/forked into the Proud Boys. Now you don’t hear about any of them as much because they’re all hired as ICE agents, military, or working for Hegseth at the Pentagon.
The thing to recognize is, while we’re all flirting with the idea that maybe, if we’re not careful, we might see a civil war in the US’ future, the Trump administration is talking and behaving like we’re already in phase 1: determining allegiances and positioning forces.
The trump administration has a lot of factions involved with a lot of different long-term goals, but right now their common goal is to dismantle the US, and they are currently on track. If at some point one or more states decide the only way to put a stop to unconstitutional federal action is through force, they’ll use the military to “keep the peace”. But that will be the tipping point, and they’ve been preparing for a while…
What leads you to the belief that the elite have a common goal of dismantling the US?
First off, I’m not a fan of the fuzzy term “elite”, but I’ll assume we both know what that refers to.
People think the rich just like to get richer, that Musk and Bezos are competing to have the biggest number in their bank account. But no, they have no interest in “USD”, they don’t care about being crowned “richest person on the playground”, they want to own the playground. They don’t want to be confined by some government’s laws. After a certain point, the only reason to keep accruing wealth is to one day become the government and write your own laws. To me, that goal IS what makes someone “elite”. Conversely, a wealthy person who welcomes high taxes on the rich because it makes the society around them better is still wealthy, but not “elite”.
The elite are always looking for a route to absolute power, and they all see the Trump administration as an opening and are all jumping at it. The only thing they have in common is they want the US govt to be weakened beyond repair, but where they differ is they all want to be the one to take its place (or retain a position of influence like Little Finger).
Got it. We generally agree on the elite motivation. But I think we disagree on government.
For me, bourgeois government is the structure of collaboration between and among the elite, not a separate entity. So I don’t think Musk wants to dismantle the US government, he is playing the game between and among other elites and the field of play is the government that represents the collaboration. In so far as the government limits the power of the elite, it generally does so with the consent of the elite. The problem is that the laws remain even though the state of play changes. The system designed by and for the robber barons of the gilded age didn’t work for the entrepreneurial 1950s and the system of the 1950s didn’t work for the financial transformation of the 1980s and the regulation of the 1980s didn’t work for the tech revolution. None of these were dismantlings of the US but reformations of the system from the old state made by the old elites for the old conditions into a new state by the new elites for the new conditions.
They fundamentally want the US to continue. It gives them a military, a way to repress the masses, access to massive natural resources, a reliable money spigot, and dominating power globally. They don’t want to dismantle it. They just need to reconfigure the machine collaboratively to maximize their power.
The difference in what we’re saying is semantic.
They fundamentally want the US to continue
If this means a government “of the people, for the people, by the people” that maintains a monopoly on violence to ensure no one is above the law/Constitution, then I disagree.
If this means a puppet state that the “elite” holds oligarchal control over, but maintain whatever facade of democracy they need to, then I agree. But I would not call that the US govt. You could say that because they call it the “US Govt” it’s still the US govt, and you could say that because they call it the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, it’s a democratic republic. But I would disagree on both points.
Yeah obviously they’re not going to personally crown themselves as supreme ruler on a towering citadel constructed where the whitehouse once stood like a caricature of a villain. But if the structure of “government” that we end up with is completely powerless against them, then it’s objectively not the US anymore; it’s just the “elite”, the govt is whatever they say, they are the govt, wealth only flows wherever they say it’s allowed to in order to maintain power.
And that’s always their goal, to become the govt, that’s what I mean.
The US has always been a project of the elite; US democracy was only ever a facade.
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The bourgeoisie will not allow their power to be voted away. There’s a reason the choices in the voting booth are always so narrow; you’re only allowed to vote for a candidate that they’ve pre-approved and bankrolled. Vote or don’t, it doesn’t actually matter.
you could say the same of every democracy that has ever existed, and yet they did (and do) exist.
I have a feeling we would disagree as to which countries are actually democracies.
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It’s always been an oligarchy. At no point were the masses in charge of the US. It was founded by rich, landed gentry from Europe leading the common man to battle under the banner of liberal values, but they formed the entire government to be by of and for the land owners. They even gave MORE power to land owners who also owned people. That’s how committed they were to oligarchy from the beginning. It’s always been a structure by which the elite manage their affairs including how best to prevent a revolt by the masses.
Tell me not to go vote in midterms, then.
I don’t waste time telling people how to vote. Electoralism is a total waste of time. I vote how I vote, keep it to myself, and spend the rest of my time not thinking about electoralism. None of these politicians deserve my free labor when 100+ Democrats just voted to expand ICE and DHS power to obtain consumer data from retail companies to use in their operation. I put my labor into deconstructing white-supremacist patriarchal capitalism in the hearts and minds of my people in my neighborhood and online, and when I do put in physical effort equivalent to door knocking, it’s doing food distribution for the people around me who need food.
Go ahead. Vote in the midterms. The Ds in the house just proved to you that they’re onboard with the whole fascist panopticon policing program. They’ve always been collaborators with the Rs. But vote. It’s literally the least you can do. Don’t let anyone stop you. And then, forget about elections immediately after and do something about the fact that your neighbors, their kids, and their teachers are all replicating the white supremacy myths of this country into every single generation and glossing over it all with a simple “vote for the good guys and bad things are because of the bad guys” narrative.
If this means a government “of the people, for the people, by the people” that maintains a monopoly on violence to ensure no one is above the law/Constitution, then I disagree.
Given that the US was never that, obviously that isn’t what it means.
If this means a puppet state that the “elite” holds oligarchal control over, but maintain whatever facade of democracy they need to, then I agree. But I would not call that the US govt.
Incredible. No notes.
But if the structure of “government” that we end up with is completely powerless against them, then it’s objectively not the US anymore
Fucking incredible
