What is it you wanted me to reconcile myself to? I was born here almost 60 years ago, I'm not gonna live another 60 years. You always told me it takes time. It's taken my father's time, my mother's time. My uncle's time. My brother's and my sister's time. My nieces' and my nephews' time. How much time do you want? For your progress.

James Baldwin, 1989

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[–] 11 points 2 weeks ago

Status quo incrementalism led to where we are now.

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  • This is evidently a very leftist focused space. The rules and about make it clear, there isn't tolerance for liberalism here. You can discuss and understand more about leftist ideology if you ask here, but don't come here, defecate on the carpet, and tell us to clean it up.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    Great, dont wait, pu in a vote to minimize harm, then get out there and burn down your local amazon warehouse. I know you have one. Or is all you do complain online in the most leftist friendly space you can find. Get yourself banned from Facebook for livestreaming a a riot. But if we haven't seen you commit a felony before Nov, I think we all know what you actually are.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    This is a huge strawman argument I see quite frequently. I agree change happens with force, but without collective action, one person burning down a warehouse might have effect, but how much? Wouldn't it be better to plan, gather together and act collectively? Why does this argument that you have to prove your metal and burn something down, alone or you just aren't hard core enough and therefore a fake, come up so much? All it does is detract and dismis from the important points. Do you really feel like the answer is all people who feel they're "real" leftists, should go do some severe property damage and then bam, everything solved? I'm doing the same thing, by even asking you, but I see it so often. I don't see that as the answer at all, I don't see how that helps, but you do, I'm genuinely curious what you see as a result of burning down an amazon warehouse, and therefore proving "leftism", what changes do you feel that makes? They just get to sit in jail and wear a badge of honour they know about? Or do you see actual change occurring from these actions?

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  • [–] 5 points 2 weeks ago*

    I'm not advocating for violence, but OP sure is, look at their post history. I want to know what violence they intend to enact change through.

    You're asking if it's better to do nothing (give up on incremental liberalization, aka don't vote dem, and also don't burn down a warehouse right now) and instead do what, sit online and plan, maybe in 5 years burn down a warehouse together? I been on lemmy for like 3 years now with this constant chatter. What have yall done after three years of planning and gathering together? Give me examples. I'm open to it.

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  • [+] -2 points 2 weeks ago (16 children)
  • [–] [S] 6 points 2 weeks ago (10 children)

    Every single one of your rights was won via violence..

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  • [–] 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    What actions are you personally taking that others should be "getting out of the way of"? What actions are these liberal incrementalists blocking you from doing?

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  • [–] [S] 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    This is never a question that's asked in good faith. This is always a question that was asked to stop a conversation. Your mind is colonized with individualism.

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  • [+] 0 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)
  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)
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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    Start with “A People’s History of The United States” by Howard Zinn

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  • [+] 2 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)
  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

    I never said the whole world.

    You might remember the chapter on the second Civil War? The one that’s never talked about?

    You might remember a guy named FDR, who was wise enough to recognize that if he did not give the people a little socialism that they would ask for a lot, I believe is his quote.

    The wealthy have spent the last 100 years clawing back everything we’ve gained, and we put up no resistance. People literally fought and died for the rights we have now, we deserve more than we have now, and they are not going to give it to us without another fight, or many more fights.

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  • [+] 2 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)
  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    Well I’m willing to be open minded if you have alternative suggestions. I’m just tired of watching everything get worse all the time

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  • [+] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago

    Yeah, that approach has worked for me on a few formerly-ignorant coworkers

    My concern is that the disconnect between the ruling class and the buffer class is so wide that, without reinspiring some mortal fear into the ruling class, they will remain unwilling to make any concessions.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    violent revolutions always tend to backfire

    That's completely ahistorical. Violent revolution in China doubled life expectancy within a generation; violent revolution in Russia led to industrialization and the transformation of a fuedal backwater into a global superpower capable of stopping the Nazis; violent revolution in Vietnam led to the expulsion of violent exploitative colonial rule and establishing autonomy to this day, as well as allowing them to stop the Cambodian genocide; violent revolution in Cuba expelled the oppressive gangster state and led to Cuba having one of the highest numbers of doctors per capita in the world, which have been sent around the world to assist in humanitarian crises.

    The claim that violent revolutions "always backfire" is just propaganda you were told to encourage complacency. The negative aspects of revolutionary countries are always highlighted and pushed to the forefront, while any positive accomplishments are ignored or written off.

    What’s the third option?

    Rather than looking at it in terms of just going out and trying to overthrow the government, look at it this way. The system is failing, and if it cannot correct itself with significant changes, then it will collapse. And currently, the right is better prepared for that collapse and more likely to take advantage of it. That's a part of why they can be so obstructionist and not care if the system actually functions. What we need is to become better prepared, so that if an when shit hits the fan, we at least have a fighting chance. And in the meantime, if there's any way to actually make the system work, then it's through giving the powers that be something to be afraid of.

    What we can do currently is to participate in other non-electoral tactics, such as strikes and demonstrations, while making preparations and building dual power structures. Again, rather than thinking in terms of, "How do we overthrow the government," think in terms of, "If there's a breakdown in order, and a fascist militia shows up to my community, what can we do about it?"

    Currently, for example, there are masked fascist thugs raiding workplaces and dragging people away, claiming to be government agents, and we may not currently have the capacity to fight them and win, but what we can do is track their movements and give people early warnings to get to safety, and we can pressure workplaces to refuse to open their doors to them, and we can do whatever we can to make their jobs harder and make their lives hell while preparing for the day that we can kick them off our streets.

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  • [+] 2 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)
  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

    Having ideological predelictions for or against violence are both liabilities. You have to evaluate the material conditions to determine which tactics are more effective and make the determination based on those conditions.

    Abandoning any possibility of armed fighting, just because you evaluate it to be non-viable under the current conditions, is a mistake. The current conditions will not last forever, for better or for worse.

    During the years of the Weimar Republic, the conditions weren't there for the left to overthrow the government through armed fighting (the failed Spartacist Uprising demonstrates this), but one of the ways the Nazis secured power was through street-fighting, expanding their practical, physical control block-by-block, while the left failed to mount an effective resistance to them. While the Nazis controlled the streets, there was no real possibility of making a legal or political challenge to Hitler's seizure of power (it would have been unenforceable). Had the left been better organized and better equipped militarily, they might have been able to remove the Nazis' de facto control of the streets and better challenge their power. It could happen here.

    History is full of examples that prove that armed fighting can be an effective tactic, and in many cases, is the only viable tactic.

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  • [+] -2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)
  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    Stop living in the past.

    Which I have done, and my determination is that rioting and larger-impact violence (like, say Weather Underground) tend to backfire and turn the public against the cause you’re fighting for.

    Stop living in the past. Those people are dead, and so is their worldview and culture. So there's really no telling what could happen from a violent revolution today.

    Or, we could not arbitrarily write off historical examples and actually study and learn from history.

    If it came down to it, and say, all the MAGAs in the South and in rural areas of blue states “rose again” and tried to take the streets by force, they would soon get a wake up call, because even the vast majority of police wouldn’t join their ranks (as crazy as that may sound to those of us on the left - there are “good” cops out there who believe in the myth that we were taught growing up about what cops should be - to serve and protect the public).

    Lol, if you had opened with, "We don't need to worry about defending our communities because we can always just rely on the cops to protect us" then I would've just laughed in your face.

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  • [+] -1 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

    If it came down to it, and say, all the MAGAs in the South and in rural areas of blue states “rose again” and tried to take the streets by force, they would soon get a wake up call, because even the vast majority of police wouldn’t join their ranks (as crazy as that may sound to those of us on the left - there are “good” cops out there who believe in the myth that we were taught growing up about what cops should be - to serve and protect the public).

    “We don’t need to worry about defending our communities because we can always just rely on the cops to protect us”

    How are these two statements meaningfully different?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago

    You readily conflate adventurism with revolution.

    To quote Castro: it is not the revolutionary's choice to be violent. It is a path imposed to us by oppressors. So people have two choices: to give up, or fight.

    If you've chosen to ignore the advice given to you in this very thread regarding the historical importance of violence, you've chosen to give up.

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