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.
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.
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.
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.
We couldn’t organize enough people to go stand in a line for 20 minutes and scribble in a few little pencil bubbles to prevent the hell upon earth that is currently happening.
Unfortunately there will be no revolution or uprising or meaningful riots until things are far, far, far worse than where they are now.
Our citizens couldn’t sacrifice 20 minutes out of their lives to prevent what appears to be the beginning of the end of the USA; they’re certainly not going to give up their homes and livelihoods and freedom anytime soon.
A small group of very passionate people can move the world, in fact its the only thing that has ever moved the world.
Sounds like you should consider working to get out the vote. I certainly will be.
Yes, that might have to happen. Historically it’s how things tend to go. And in the mean time, boycott everything you can, hit them in the hip pocket, find groups with listings that make it clear what’s owned by “the bad guys” unsubscribe, disengage and lock down privacy, they make money from you, by you just engaging. There’s a creator who led a boycott on Kelloggs after the ceo said, when asked about the cost of living, how people should cope, he said people should eat cereal (which had recently doubled in price) I’m retelling it poorly, but it drove people to gather and start a boycott. And it was big.
If we led instructors on how to unsubscribe, disengage and engage privacy, that would hit their hip pocket.
If we figured out who sucks the most, and targeted them, one by one, boycotting, they’d feel it.
Figure out and share reports on local candidates and politicians, because the news is owned by the billionaires.
Remember that they want you to believe change isn’t possible, they will fight you with big shows of how what you’re doing isn’t causing change and isn’t worth the risk, by putting people in prison for ridiculous lengths of proposed time, and filming their own atrocities to keep everyone in fight or flight, (in a head space where you can’t organise and fight back)
A lot of their warfare against the public consists of driving you into despair, driving you into fight or flight, etc. You can see that, in some of the ansers here. People who have or are giving up and exasperated, thinking what they’re doing isn’t making a change. A huge way to prepare yourself for the fight is learning nervous system regulation tools and practicing them daily. You need your faculties about you. Let the turkeys around you gobble all they want, keep on your path.
You’re asking people mostly disconnected from global affairs, buried under poor working conditions, trying to stay afloat and distracted from their own foibles, to take part in something that will take the pathetic and worse existence they are living now into a direction that is SIGNIFICANTLY worse.
Riot and revolution are always downgrades from the status quo in the hope the suffering leads to something better. The jury is out on whether not that always happens.
For now we get a very boring five phase empire collapse and its never a drastic change to bad until multiple systems fail.
It’s when those in charge start destroying the circus and the bread isn’t affordable people usually revolt as well. They’re in the process of that (ID laws for internet and rising food prices) but we haven’t reached a point where essentially death is a preferable outcome to not doing anything.
I’m free past 4:00pm
10 years or so ago? Tomorrow?
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.
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.
Are you guys fucking nuts?
You can’t even utilize the tools giving to you to muster a solid defense online. You’re all just showing up everyday giving up/down votes and reading your daily alloted news article about Trump in your over moderate hug box.
You probably had to review multiple rules just to post this message in case you pissed off some almost homeless 18 year old moderator. I know the instinct is to say fuck me over this stuff. But think how moderation is actually a tool to destroy creativity, originality and effort. Moderation is a tool created by corporations to sanitize the internet so it could be sold piecemeal to advertisers. But what this also does is prevent us from keeping events in the forefront. If i have a political content community that only allows one type of content, that is fucking boring and stifling. When we separate our politics into [discussion], [political memes] [news] it may look nice but you kill free form thought and how people actually communicate. This is what feels different from the internet back in the day and the internet today. We have moderation sanitize our efforts. Compare this to MAGA or the right whose spaces are more creative. They combine multiple types of media into a menagerie that keeps things alive and interesting. Their spaces are filled with new, memes, in jokes plus calls to action. Because that’s exciting. That’s how content works. There’s collaboration and mixing of media to create new stuff, like we use to before 15 years ago.
The left has been boxed in on purpose. We are in a snuff box. MAGA seized every platform that’s full of kindling and energy while we placed ourselves into a snuff box. Until we fix some core problems and understand how the internet works to engage people then nobody should be encouraging any kind of revolution. If you cannot fight in an online digital space and get measurable victories in a low effort maximum impact environment then a revolution is just going to get people killed and laws that push us towards more authoritarian state.
And maybe I’m wrong. Could be full of shit. But if you want things to change we need to look at us as a whole and address our faults because we all fucked up big time. For decades the left went from a dominate culturally relevant position to a fucking joke. We’re still using the most outdated playbooks and refusing to adapt to a new world. MAGA fucking sucks. But their victories is directly related to how we reacted and interacted. How did we show up for no kings with millions and nothing happened. How did we show up to BLM and only thing that lasted was the idea that the organization was corrupt and stealing millions. How did we show up for the woman’s march and still they’re dying in states because they can’t access abortion. What we did is not working and I think it’s a systematic problem in the left that needs to be reviewed before attempting anything.
For what it’s worth, I agree with you wholeheartedly.
But think how moderation is actually a tool to destroy creativity, originality and effort.
I see what you’re trying to get at, but you picked the wrong target. Moderation is a tool to keep a community that is focused around a specific topic from devolving into flame wars, trolling, spam, and co-opting. I don’t know if you have see what happens in large, unmoderated online forums, but it isn’t pretty. Tin-pot despot mods are a big problem, sure, but getting rid of moderation is not the solution.
Even 4Chan has mods.
Mods today are not what mods where originally used for. Hell does anyone remember what the original point of up and down voting was for.
Originally we held a strong belief that the community should control moderation while mods were there to make sure nothing illegal or crazy was posted.
We also didn’t call people arguing “trolling” but that changed so mods could remove anyone they didn’t agree with. It’s disgusting that we accepted it.
Moderation is abused quite literally everywhere, including on Lemmy. I just got banned from Lefty Memes by diva because I said Mao killed millions of people. Reasoning: transphobia/chauvinism.
This user is 100% correct in their assessment.
last interaction we had you were transphobic as fuck to me, called me a troglodyte, clanker, mentally ill, fake trans, all sorts of gross shit. obviously it never got moderated because .world. I even posted my fucking sharps container, some good that did.
then i see your name pop up in an anarchist space doing apologia for US empire.
spoiler
obviously it’s on sight, go pollute some other space with your presence.
death to america btw
If you cannot fight in an online digital space and get measurable victories in a low effort maximum impact environment then a revolution is just going to get people killed
Has anybody an idea of what is lacking?
One thing comes to mind: overcome or circumvent “the algorithm.”
Retreating from spaces like X and Reddit has had one big drawback: we are choosing to not engage with people that have bought into propaganda and right-wing rhetoric. There’s no winning anyone over or changing minds if you’re not there to speak.
At the same time, those spaces have elevated the generation of echo chambers to an art. Social media algorithm drive feeds of all kinds of media that strongly reinforce this. Breaking into those spaces would be a useful ability to bring change. Again, we can’t even begin to address that kind of a problem if nobody is there.
Alternately, we need a vehicle that can go around all of the above. What does that look like? I don’t know. Alternate media like print perhaps? Or maybe just an outrageously good youtube channel? Pooling some cash and buying advertising space? Anything would be better than nothing.
I don’t think it’s quite as bad as you suggest, but I understand where you’re coming from here. I think it’s also worth considering who stands to benefit from our lack of organization. When the right wing wins, the billionaires win, but when the left wing wins, the billionaires lose. Left wing leaders are systematically targeted and repressed. MLK Jr wasn’t assassinated until his message started to reach more than just poor black people. When he started encouraging all people to throw off the yolk of the ruling class, by providing for themselves instead of being good little capitalist consumers, that’s when he became so dangerous it was worth it to murder him. We need leadership, yes, but we also need a message that endures through whatever they throw at us. I think it’s possible, and I hope we can make it happen.
I never read the rules before posting btw, I just went for it.
*Yoke, btw. Just in case you want to use the word again in the future.
:::
Ah, you’re right, that was actually a mental typo so thanks for the catch.
We wait until the day after it’s too late
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 with an app called comingle if you are interested in getting started at the grass roots level.
You just gave them more reasons to deny UBI.
UBI will be used to control us. It sounds good, but it won’t be. As evidence I would like to point to everything humans have ever done.
I applaud the initiative (because at least they are actively trying instead of just talking about it), despite the inevitably devastating outcome this will have.
For anyone who would be interested in joining, be aware that not only will you lose everything you send there, the lawyers will strip you bare throughout the decades long legal battles, after what is basically an insurance company you helped to crowdfund goes belly up.
What if you choose another path instead? The government that installed the flock cameras is usually 5 overworked people trying to do the best they can for their community. Go to a city council meeting and speak to them as though they have not been radicalized yet.
Volunteer for and show up to city council sponsored events. The very same people who make decisions about the flock cameras put on these events and they will be there. Get involved in your community and get to know the leaders.
All of the city council people I know are either idealistic and trying to build a better community or they are tired and looking for someone to give their seat to. If you can’t convince enough council members to change their mind get them replaced.
The tricky part is going to be the rest of your life.
All the city council people i know got their job because the big developers in the area backed them. One of them even owns 100k+ stock in palantir. We need ranked choice voting so bad
until it’s 100 degrees F in the Artic
that was 6 years ago:
https://www.livescience.com/un-confirms-arctic-hottest-temperatureI guess we should wait for 110 degrees then.
