How bad do we let things get? Should we wait until the planet can’t sustain life anymore? Should we wait until it’s 100 degrees F in the Artic? Until wildfires blanket entire continents or the last glacier is gone? Should we wait until fascist billionaires take even more from us? Until there are Flock cameras at every mail box? Maybe we should wait until the wells run dry or the tornadoes never stop. When is it going to be enough? I’m so tired of seeing things getting worse. Every. Single. Day. I’m ready. I’ve been ready. How about you?
How do we coordinate? How do we look after each other? What is the signal? If we don’t work together then we are just continuing our slow march to destruction to the drum of the parasitic billionaires. Please, for us, for the cats, the dogs, the birds and trees. The fish and the whales, the beatles and the centipedes. Please tell me it’s worth it to you, that you’re willing to get uncomfortable, that you’re willing to fight. There are more of us than them, and we are rapidly running out of time to make that mean something.
I tell people all of the time
“I won’t throw the first brick, but when the bricks start flying give me a call”
The thing that broke me wasn’t data centers or hot weather, it was when I had to pay $7 for hot dog buns
The business men who put a $7 price tag on hot dog buns during the 4th of July are not nearly as afraid of the public as they should be.
It’s fucking bread. Bread!
When stealing bread to feed your family is almost a felony… burn it down.
Problem is, if it happened, you would need to choose your targets wisely for it to be effective. Looting a Target isn’t the answer. The point is not to get yourself a new TV; it’s to advocate for real change. Don’t burn down your own place of business, don’t burn down your own neighborhood… burn theirs
Find the motherfuckers in the Epstein Files, sink yachts, tear down the walls surrounding billionaire neighborhoods, etc…
You’re spot on with identifying “bread” as the general problem. The issue with your perspective though is that people are burning things down in order to get bread. They know where the bread is in their neighborhoods, and “their” businesses. At the point they’re burning and looting why not grab a circus(new TV) on your way out?
Do you know where the bread is on a megayacht? I don’t! It’s not where the rioting is going to start. It will start at where there is know bread. If you have the understanding that that the fires need to reach the billionaire enclaves you can’t be shaming people for getting their bread however they can and then burning the evidence after. That will always be the initial spark.
I’m not rioting for bread, I’m rioting to tear down a broken system
If I want bread, I’ll just steal it. I don’t have to burn down Target to steal bread now, why would that change?
I do need to remind the people in charge who they work for though… and if they’re not willing to share what they have, then I’ll take it from THEM. If they’re not willing to get rid of their shit to save the environment then I’ll get rid of it for THEM
I don’t want to steal a TV from Target, I want to steal the TVs from the CEO who decided bread costs $7
The rioting needs to target the capitols and in my opinion, not the grocery stores. Down with the parasites!
The grocery stores are capitAls too.
Grocery stores are also a parasite who’s entire existence is in order to ration food/supplies/materials at the barrel of a gun to see how much extraction people will put up with.
However, I agree. Killing the canary doesn’t close down the coal mine. Ideally the canary wouldn’t be harmed but you’re going to need to dramatically change your relationship with the canary first, starting with setting it free.
Its when people have nothing to lose.
The issue is that the powers that be did learn their lesson and they learned it well. If you keep the masses JUST sufficient enough that they still have something “to lose” they’ll be to busy chasing that to be able to mount any kind of resistance to their exploitation. It’s the splash and dash mentality. It’s also why they are so against abortion. they frame it as a moral issue, but it’s really about ensuring a good crop of fresh people to exploit when the current crop wears out. It’s a common fascist tactic: Concentration Camps were usually billed as “work” camps where people would be set to menial or meaningless tasks, so they would waste away on purpose, and the deaths could be logged as “by natural causes” and not murder. (only what the regime defined as “undesirables” were sent to be euthanized.)
Competing Lords owned the land and extracted labor from the peasants, and this was feudalism. Then peasants overthrew the lords so they could seek ownership of those lands, but that only benefited those who already had the means to fill the vacuum left by the lords. Capitalism only shuffles the deck of Feudalism. it doesn’t solve the underlying flaw in the game, namely that there will always be someone with more means than you extracting value from people whose only asset to sell is their labor and time. Eventually a group of gentrified individuals will emerge that fill the rolls that the old lords did, and given that nepotism is rampant in industry, it’s not even really that different at all from feudalism. The idea that a CEO should be president of a democracy is such a perversion of the idea of public rule that it is anathema to it. Extreme wealth should be disenfranchising in of itself, as if you are that wealthy, you no longer need the protections of a popular government, but rather, you are what that kind of governance is supposed to be protecting against.
For years I’ve held the view that slavery never ended, they just made the entire country and most of the world of the plantation, with the illusion of mobility and free choice. All you are really free to do is choose what cog to be in their machine, and as soon as you are used up you are replaced with another. I agree with you on abortion, but I think it also goes deeper. Parents have even more to lose, and are more likely to be good little wage slaves to protect their children in the short term, unable to see the long term.
Part of the problem is that there’s a thing called “Co-opting the Revolution” that’s been figured out, that you can neatly repackage dissent as a product to sell.
Like how you get Che Gueverra as merch now.
And it’s done an incredible job at making people feel like they’re doing something, whilst actually doing nothing.
I’ve done my part! I wear a ACAB pin that I purchased from Hot Topic
Or
I’ve done my part! I participated in the Reddit Blackout, and then bought the memorabilia
And the sad thing is, IT FUCKING WORKS
Psychologically, for many people, it silences the parts of the brain that are like “FIX THIS! DO SOMETHING!” for quite a lot of people
The technical term often used is “recuperation”. Any innovation in radical evolution of culture is seen as a threat to the status quo, so recuperation comes in to co-opt the radical impulse and funnel it back into the status quo in a manner that is not destabilizing to exist structural power.
The classic example is media piracy like napster, bit-torrent, etc being co-opted into streaming services, itunes, etc. Service the desire that animated the radical impulse while reinforcing the existing power structures, foreclosing the potential threat. Enshittification often follows shortly after the enclosure has been successful.
Ooh neat!
this is not an argument against the need to fight. just giving up the future because the enemy will be underhanded in how it fights back.
Rioting is illegal and usually it’s poor people smashing the windows of other poor people’s shops.
The word you’re looking for is “uprising” or “revolution”
I see where you’re coming from, but that’s why we need targeted action and leadership. An uprising or revolution would be just as illegal.
Any group with a serious leader gets co-opted and the leader killed or imprisoned. Small underground groups of 10-20 people or fewer can do a lot. Many components of things like Patriot missiles are made in average workshops and factories with relatively little security. With a little know-how a small drone is relatively easy to construct as well.
The second paragraph answers the first. We wait until we’re coordinated.
If you want to speed up the process, get out there and coordinate. You might be ready, the people here might be ready, but a few thousand geographically isolated people on a left-leaning niche forum aren’t gonna do it. Getting out into the community and getting active, that could actually shift sentiment.
Find a local organization with at least a hundred members. Even if you don’t align 100% with the DSA, join and go to meetings. That’s where you’re going to find people to coordinate with. Network with people, find out who has which skills, and volunteer your own. Participate in mutual aid. Canvas for leftist politicians. Even if you only care about revolution, going to these events and interacting with these causes will bring you in contact with the people who will coordinate with you.
Part of the issue is that everyone I know that wants to do something is terrified that it’s going to place targets on vulnerable members of their larger communities. A lot of trans people, queer people, black and brown people, disabled people, immigrants, and indigenous folks I know want to DO something. They’re just scared that if they do, then it’s going to only accelerate violence against their marginalized communities and the greater population isn’t going to fight for them.
Nothing is going to happen until we weaponize the cishet white dudes and get them on our side.
I get that, for sure, as one cishet white dude.
This 100%. It’s the only demographic that can do any heavy lifting if we’re talking raw manpower, and they’re currently being heavily courted by fascists and death cults. That tide needs to turn.
If anything is done it’s done offline. The best way to fight back is to build community and solidarity. Meet your neighbors, volunteer, get out there off the computer.
Computer can help with spreading the word for said meetups
That’s how we get COINTEL on your ass. Any open rebellion is useless.
It’s why I’m going for the legal way, will at least give them some pain.
Only of you stick to platforms that are closed that you can’t control. Facebook, etc.
Some places don’t have a lot of third spaces unfortunately
eh, that’s bullshit. the success of any operation basically depends on the quality of the plan behind it. a plan is information and therefore processed with the help of information processing machines, in other words computers (and the internet).
“organizing offline” is bullshit. yes, you can organize a farmer’s market offline, but anything more complicated than that is gonna give you a PAIN IN THE ASS if you try to organize it purely offline. the internet is the best tool for organization. because it allows information exchange.
Universal basic income would be a huge way to facilitate this. When we have a bit of a safety net, we can afford to take a few weeks off for a general strike. We can leave that evil corporate job, or educate ourselves on issues that need our attention. Studies have shown that with a little more time each week, people tend to invest more in the community or mutual aid. Not to mention, we could compel billionaires to join and facilitate the greatest redistribution of wealth in history. There’s a foundation (ITSA) attempting to start it’s own UBI via an app I recently joined. DM me if you want the link :)
Its less about starting to riot and more about stopping to buy. Cancel your accounts, throw away your credit cards, stop paying taxes, start a fucking garden ( now is perfect btw) and build a network of friends and neighbours.
We all want to have a good life lets just live it.
I have pulled back from consumerism as much as possible, anything I can buy used I do, and I have been gardening and planting fruit trees since before covid. It’s not enough, not in the face of the problems before us, and the greed that has brought it about. Everyone should start a garden if able, if nothing else to find out just how hard it is to get viable crops thanks to our erratic climate.
I know I’ll get downvoted for this, but…Lemmy and related are an “echo-chamber” of sorts. You’ll find that a vast amount of people “in the real world” don’t share this sort of imminently apocalyptic mentality. I really mean no offense in my phrasing and I’m not trying to shit on anyone here. It’s just the way things are.
I remember being almost surprised at how “normal” life was when I first moved to a place that had polar opposite political views than me. Life went on…in mostly the same way it did when I was surrounded by people who mostly shared my ideologies. Life goes on…especially in the western world. Even in different parts of the US, it’s a far cry from some place like Somalia or Iran or Israel/Palestine or North Korea.
Idk. Sorry I got a bit rambly. Suffice to say that I don’t think you’re ever going to find what you seek.
Your fellow countrymen are rounding up people of colour and putting them in concentration camps and you’re right that, for you, life goes on.
I don’t think that’s entirely accurate. I try to talk to people every day about the greed of billionaires, the invasion of our privacy, the fascist takeover of the US government and the actions of ICE, and the horrible state of our climate. And I’ve yet to have anyone argue against me in real life. If anything, it’s worse on lemmy. We can do something about this, but we have to do it together, and that doesn’t happen without talking to people face to face. So many people know the situation is terrible, but feel completely helpless. We have to support each other so they see they aren’t alone.
I know I’ll get downvoted for this, but…Lemmy and related are an “echo-chamber” of sorts. You’ll find that a vast amount of people “in the real world” don’t share this sort of imminently apocalyptic mentality.
Not really sure about the echo-chamber thing though, but I feel like most people outside the Fediverse only doomscroll “brain-rot” content on social media.
Politics, climate change, science, Star Wars/Trek, programming, GNU/Linux, etc, are such niche topics that don’t drive that much interest, unless it’s rage-bait.
For real. I have to travel often for work, which means driving through big cities, little towns and the countryside. If someone never got on the internet, they’d never think things are like the way they sound online. Especially in the rural areas but even in most areas in towns. Houses are all within 50 years of age, all the cars and trucks are new. Crops are growing, streets are being worked on, society is humming right along. Average people seem to be doing just fine.
There’s definitely a corrosion in the fabric of society but when people wonder how the “other side” can vote the way they do, especially in light of xyz, they don’t realize that for many folks their perception of the current state of events is significantly reinforced by their day to day living, which is going reasonably well.
Is it going to stay that way? Maybe. Probably not. But you can’t convince people who are doing well that they need to change their outlook for some imagined future.
Life goes on…
… until it doesn’t.
or, one could say life goes on even in mad max world
Don’t look on the internet, you won’t find the community you’re looking for here. Find the coolest candidate running in your local area and volunteer for their campaign. Even if they kinda suck, show up for their events. You aren’t there to meet the candidate, you’re there to meet other people who care about their community. Talk to the other volunteers. You’ll be surprised at who you meet.
This is a good approach, thank you for the suggestion.
You’re welcome! I hope you find your people, we’re going to need a lot of local organization to get through this.
This is the best advice for sure.
Local action is the most approachable and effective for the average person. Unless you have tons and tons of money, its hard to move things higher up as an individual.
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When death is no longer the worst alternative, there will be revolution.
- my favorite high school history teacher
Smallscale you want a laugh?
10 odd yrs ago we and a friend were exploring and abandoned building…had 13 squaddies and a chopper on us…had reportd we were stealing lead (we werent…obv) yet when our forests burn our gov cant send a chopper with water…shits been burning over a week now.
Priorities!?!?!?
I guess you don’t live in an area surrounded by the wealthy. You and I both know that if you did, those choppers would be there a week ago. Our government doesn’t serve we the people, and that’s why we are in this mess and desperately need change.
No one REALLY feels the threat posed by the polycrisis. It’s all complex, intellectual worries about things that FEEL like they’re still just a little ways out, not quite here. People are mostly focused on the here and now and the very near future. The riots happen when people literally can’t feed their kids in the here and now. As long as it’s just difficult, and not impossible, people will struggle on with their nose to the grindstone. Watch for rises in unemployment. CoViD showed what can happen when millions if people find themselves with mountains of free time to use on political action. When enough people are hungry and have no job to distract them, the fires will come.
