"I can't endorse radical political change because the disruption would harm too many people."
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@artemis As a white person who’s also doing okay financially, I do carry a certain anxiety about what real change will mean for me. Hitting the billionaire class where it hurts will hurt me. Or at least, it will if you still believe that money brings stability.
See that’s the kicker. We’ve been raised to believe and to trust in certain kinds of stability. Exactly those kinds of stability that large scale social change disrupts. Your bank account and 401k are only stability because we’ve built a system that relies on the individual having money. Having a bunch of money in the bank means you’ll be good for a while. And as a white person, we’re very much raised to assume and build that stability.
@artemis But if you take a step back, real stability is having a roof over your head, food to eat, and friends to share it with. Those are all extremely local things. Those aren’t actually enhanced by money.
Landlords don’t provide housing, they charge for it. The maintenance guy at your apartment could still be the guy who fixes things and might even enjoy it more if he did it for his community and were actually appreciated instead of doing it for a poverty wage. Grocery stores don’t provide food, they pre-package it so you can’t have the feeling of individuality while some factory pre-breads your chicken.
At the end of the day, what we’re actually relying on is other people. The only thing capitalism provides is a framework that says that if you have enough money, you can coerce them into helping you with the offer of a Venmo transfer. That’s it. It’s not adding any more value than that. What actually takes care of you and adds value to your life is people.
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We're not going to first have the "revolution" & THEN try to sort things out & help people.
The problem-solving & mutual help IS the revolution. They cannot be separated.
Old systems must be torn down. Part of tearing them down is creating new ways of living.
Begin creating the world you want to live in NOW. Don't wait.
that's the anti-communist propaganda of Lenin's "revolution", which the rest of the fascists have used as a scapegoat because Lenin called his so-called revolution "communist".
it was Lenin who said "after the revolution, when the state has whithered away".
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@artemis But if you take a step back, real stability is having a roof over your head, food to eat, and friends to share it with. Those are all extremely local things. Those aren’t actually enhanced by money.
Landlords don’t provide housing, they charge for it. The maintenance guy at your apartment could still be the guy who fixes things and might even enjoy it more if he did it for his community and were actually appreciated instead of doing it for a poverty wage. Grocery stores don’t provide food, they pre-package it so you can’t have the feeling of individuality while some factory pre-breads your chicken.
At the end of the day, what we’re actually relying on is other people. The only thing capitalism provides is a framework that says that if you have enough money, you can coerce them into helping you with the offer of a Venmo transfer. That’s it. It’s not adding any more value than that. What actually takes care of you and adds value to your life is people.
@artemis When I take a step back and remember all that, I stop caring about my 401k so much. If we can get in this together, I’ll be fine just like everybody else. And that’s the point.
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@artemis that's what decades of fascist, anti-communist propaganda has done to peoples' minds. now they don't know what socialism is, they just think it's bad, and can't recognise fascism when they see it because they also don't know what that is.
@burnitdown @artemis
This was the end goal of destroying education. Uneducated people are significantly easier to control. -
@burnoutqueen
100%.One reason we know that it can't simply be peaceful is that when our peaceful efforts to help each other get in the way of the interests of capital, they send the police in to stop them. We will not be allowed to create our alternatives without a fight.
The revolution, to me, is simply the act of the working people seizing political power. In simple words, to win the battle for democracy
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Mind you, we will not be left alone to create our alternatives in peace.
Any time you challenge the interests of capital, no matter how peacefully, their answer will be violence.
That's what the police exist for. Some cities make it illegal to hand out free food, for fuck's sake.
We will build our alternatives, but we WILL also be forced to defend them.
We'd do it 100% peacefully if we could, but people experienced in creating these kinds of alternatives will tell you: eventually the state will step in with violence to protect capital.
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It's also the "first they came for" poem in action, but we don't recognize it when it's bureaucracy & systemic abuse rather than the actual Gestapo.
Other people are already living in the dark reality where the things they need to survive & thrive simply are withheld from them, but that reality will come for you too. We're just not there *yet*.
Do we really need to wait?
Mind you, we will not be left alone to create our alternatives in peace.
Any time you challenge the interests of capital, no matter how peacefully, their answer will be violence.
That's what the police exist for. Some cities make it illegal to hand out free food, for fuck's sake.
We will build our alternatives, but we WILL also be forced to defend them.
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@artemis the formation of mass movements and working class political parties, the forming of a multiracial, pluralistic coalition of the working class movements against the ruling class, etc
@burnoutqueen @artemis yeah but a lot of the related stuff is also kinda lifestyle change - if the movement is going to succeed we can't be waiting until we're in power to ask (force?) people to do climate & environmental justice adaptation. Like reducing air travel, car use, plastic use, retirement expectations, disposable consumerism, sacrifice zones and bad jobs are all things that are necessary and legal and if we wait to be in power to make those changes, we'll be very quickly out of power.
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@burnoutqueen @artemis yeah but a lot of the related stuff is also kinda lifestyle change - if the movement is going to succeed we can't be waiting until we're in power to ask (force?) people to do climate & environmental justice adaptation. Like reducing air travel, car use, plastic use, retirement expectations, disposable consumerism, sacrifice zones and bad jobs are all things that are necessary and legal and if we wait to be in power to make those changes, we'll be very quickly out of power.
Lifestyle changes alone cannot break the iron alliance of the state and the corporations, or underdeveloped infrastructure, or the political autocracy in the US
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We'd do it 100% peacefully if we could, but people experienced in creating these kinds of alternatives will tell you: eventually the state will step in with violence to protect capital.
They will disrupt us. They will try to destroy our ability to help each other.
The world we want to build is not compatible with the tyranny of wealthy oligarchs, & they will not hesitate to command their footsoldiers to violently oppose us.
They create suffering & deprivation intentionally. They will not leave us alone while we work to alleviate them. They will criminalize our efforts, justifying extreme violence.
So...do you want to defend a status quo maintained by state violence?
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They will disrupt us. They will try to destroy our ability to help each other.
The world we want to build is not compatible with the tyranny of wealthy oligarchs, & they will not hesitate to command their footsoldiers to violently oppose us.
They create suffering & deprivation intentionally. They will not leave us alone while we work to alleviate them. They will criminalize our efforts, justifying extreme violence.
So...do you want to defend a status quo maintained by state violence?
The answers lie outside the system.
We can work on them now.
But don't be surprised when your good work is met with hostility.
Creating alternative ways of meeting each other's needs is an attack on the existing system. Capitalists won't take that lying down.
The revolution isn't all about fighting, but they will fight us every step of the way.
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@artemis THIS! I think the idea that you have to be a soldier or "criminal" to participate in revolutionary work is what holds a lot of people back.
Most of the groundwork for a new world is peaceful. We can be prosocial WHILE undermining the oppressive systems we operate under.
you don't have to be a "soldier" or "criminal". the state labels you as one to justify its brutal persecution of you as propaganda to the rest of society
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The answers lie outside the system.
We can work on them now.
But don't be surprised when your good work is met with hostility.
Creating alternative ways of meeting each other's needs is an attack on the existing system. Capitalists won't take that lying down.
The revolution isn't all about fighting, but they will fight us every step of the way.
This thread!!
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The answers lie outside the system.
We can work on them now.
But don't be surprised when your good work is met with hostility.
Creating alternative ways of meeting each other's needs is an attack on the existing system. Capitalists won't take that lying down.
The revolution isn't all about fighting, but they will fight us every step of the way.
(Sometimes I write threads like these & start to see parallels to the sayings of the Jesus character in the Gospels & think "wow. I was soaking in revolutionary concepts & had no fucking idea.")
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Lifestyle changes alone cannot break the iron alliance of the state and the corporations, or underdeveloped infrastructure, or the political autocracy in the US
@burnoutqueen @artemis of course not, but lifestyle change is necessary and hard and the easier we make it - by doing it ourselves now and by building the structures to make it easier for more people as we build more political power - the more likely we are to have any larger political change succeed in a more popular and lasting way.
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(Sometimes I write threads like these & start to see parallels to the sayings of the Jesus character in the Gospels & think "wow. I was soaking in revolutionary concepts & had no fucking idea.")
@artemis So ...love thy neighbor, but be ready to flip some tables?
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you don't have to be a "soldier" or "criminal". the state labels you as one to justify its brutal persecution of you as propaganda to the rest of society
@coolcalmcollected @artemis True, but that label will be applied to everyone no matter what, eventually. Starting a community garden is lower stakes for many people than other options and food security is absolutely an imperative.
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@artemis they have no example of what disruption they're even talking about. it's a bluff so they can continue to pretend they want something different while really wanting no change at all.
@burnitdown @artemis "anarchists and communists disrupt my comfortable illusion that the current state of things is basically okay"
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@coolcalmcollected @artemis True, but that label will be applied to everyone no matter what, eventually. Starting a community garden is lower stakes for many people than other options and food security is absolutely an imperative.
@coolcalmcollected @artemis Also "insane" is a label they have historically used to justify psychiatric incarceration as a way to bypass the justice system and the human rights the courts often impose.
Which is why I find the sudden expansion of involuntary "care" being pushed in all provinces in Canada right now so incredibly concerning (am "Canadian").
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We're not going to first have the "revolution" & THEN try to sort things out & help people.
The problem-solving & mutual help IS the revolution. They cannot be separated.
Old systems must be torn down. Part of tearing them down is creating new ways of living.
Begin creating the world you want to live in NOW. Don't wait.
If I could make everyone in the USA read something right now, it would be "From dictatorship to democracy" by Gene Sharp
He talks about this in that essay
(it's an essay published as a novella)
