It’s easy to call us cowards, in reality we live in a surveillance state that makes trillions of dollars by killing and torturing it’s own citizens. In a place like this lacking morals becomes a question of survival. Definitely not excusing it, but it’s the truth.
There’s just very little solidarity. I’m from the US, and I didn’t realize it was missing until I moved to a country where it’s normal. Nobody trusts others to have their back, so why would they risk anything?
That said, it looks like it’s slowly developing. Ten years ago, I would not have expected Minnesotans to en masse refuse to help ice agents caught in the snow, for example. That may be because of my own ignorance, but in my home state of Connecticut there is a group of insurance professionals (not your local brokers, more like actuaries and people who work at the insurance company headquarters-not a group inherently predisposed to solidarity with immigrants) who coordinate shopping for local immigrants.
Well, they’ve also been brainwashed into extreme individualism, “if you fail at life it’s your fault” kind of thinking. The fact that losing your job means homelessness, no healthcare, and with extremely powerful corporations handling pretty much everything you do or own makes it incredibly hard to organise.
Revolutionaries have succeeded in worse conditions, like Russia, China, Cuba, etc. The reality is that a good portion of the US Empire’s working classes are bribed by the spoils of imperialism, and that there is a huge settler population that benefit from settler-colonialism. Organizing in the US needs to primarily be from a decolonial and anti-imperialist standpoint, which is largely why the Black Panther Party was so successful in garnering support, along with the mutual aid and community defense they performed.
A lot of the Black Panther Party was inspired by global south movements, including juche socialism from the DPRK, and Mao’s policy in China. They focused on independence, sovereignty, and self-reliance, which is why their community defense and free lunch programs were so critical to their strategy. They believed that they needed to correctly show the working classes how to properly be a disciplined, working class party, bringing them up to their level theoretically and practically.
In America it is somehow, inexplicably, easier to organize and coopt conservatives into betraying their cause than it is to get more than even 2 or 3 self proclaimed leftists to agree to do anything at all substantial.
edit: This has been my experience, at least. The American “left” mindset is so very performative and seems to think that doing anything other than voting the problem away is too scary or too much or too something. I cannot imagine we will see actual organization until something so bad happens that not being organized seems more dangerous than being organized, and i’m pretty sure it’ll be way too late to get started safely and cleanly by then.
It’s my experience, too. Even worse they freeze you out for speaking like this. They just want to march and getting killed or tossed in jail for it isn’t enough to convince them.
Revolution is neither easy nor impossible, it’s difficult. The fact that obstacles stand in our way does not mean they are insurmountable, and as the empire decays it becomes more and more a “paper tiger,” rotted from the inside out by finance capital. Imperial security is being enshittified, so to speak, along with the rest of society. That’s why the war on Iran was lost.
It’s easy to call us cowards, in reality we live in a surveillance state that makes trillions of dollars by killing and torturing it’s own citizens. In a place like this lacking morals becomes a question of survival. Definitely not excusing it, but it’s the truth.
The problem is not that you are cowards, the problem is that you are stupid cowards.
You don’t organize, you don’t know how to either. And yeah going to prison sucks but that is true for the whole world.
There’s just very little solidarity. I’m from the US, and I didn’t realize it was missing until I moved to a country where it’s normal. Nobody trusts others to have their back, so why would they risk anything?
That said, it looks like it’s slowly developing. Ten years ago, I would not have expected Minnesotans to en masse refuse to help ice agents caught in the snow, for example. That may be because of my own ignorance, but in my home state of Connecticut there is a group of insurance professionals (not your local brokers, more like actuaries and people who work at the insurance company headquarters-not a group inherently predisposed to solidarity with immigrants) who coordinate shopping for local immigrants.
This was the purpose of the oligarchy sponsored NoKings bullshit, to give the illusion of organization and resistance in a nonthreatening format.
Well, they’ve also been brainwashed into extreme individualism, “if you fail at life it’s your fault” kind of thinking. The fact that losing your job means homelessness, no healthcare, and with extremely powerful corporations handling pretty much everything you do or own makes it incredibly hard to organise.
Revolutionaries have succeeded in worse conditions, like Russia, China, Cuba, etc. The reality is that a good portion of the US Empire’s working classes are bribed by the spoils of imperialism, and that there is a huge settler population that benefit from settler-colonialism. Organizing in the US needs to primarily be from a decolonial and anti-imperialist standpoint, which is largely why the Black Panther Party was so successful in garnering support, along with the mutual aid and community defense they performed.
A lot of the Black Panther Party was inspired by global south movements, including juche socialism from the DPRK, and Mao’s policy in China. They focused on independence, sovereignty, and self-reliance, which is why their community defense and free lunch programs were so critical to their strategy. They believed that they needed to correctly show the working classes how to properly be a disciplined, working class party, bringing them up to their level theoretically and practically.
You’re right, it is easy. Seems to me there are exactly 3 people in America who aren’t too cowardly to take a shot at the pedophile king.
In America it is somehow, inexplicably, easier to organize and coopt conservatives into betraying their cause than it is to get more than even 2 or 3 self proclaimed leftists to agree to do anything at all substantial.
edit: This has been my experience, at least. The American “left” mindset is so very performative and seems to think that doing anything other than voting the problem away is too scary or too much or too something. I cannot imagine we will see actual organization until something so bad happens that not being organized seems more dangerous than being organized, and i’m pretty sure it’ll be way too late to get started safely and cleanly by then.
It’s my experience, too. Even worse they freeze you out for speaking like this. They just want to march and getting killed or tossed in jail for it isn’t enough to convince them.
Revolution is neither easy nor impossible, it’s difficult. The fact that obstacles stand in our way does not mean they are insurmountable, and as the empire decays it becomes more and more a “paper tiger,” rotted from the inside out by finance capital. Imperial security is being enshittified, so to speak, along with the rest of society. That’s why the war on Iran was lost.