I’m envious of the way the French protest their government. They’re literally setting things on fire because their schools aren’t adequate. Because the government tried to raise the retirement age. Because their politicians are shitbags.
I think the biggest obstacle to organizing in the US is the sheer distance. It takes 40 solid hours of driving to get from one side to the other. That’s not counting any breaks. France takes about 14 hours. Doable in a day or so if you push it.
Anyway, I’d sign up for a Revolution if there was a serious contender.
Asking for a friend, how does one lead a revolution? I’ve always assumed it was more about the universe lining up, right place/right time sort of thing and someone/someone’s are just there at the time, not that anyone really ever set out to “lead the revolution” as a job
Same. If there was a pipeline I’d surely be in it by now.
I can’t answer, but I can tell you that if your revolutionary group is online (Discord, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp), you already have a watcher in your midst.
They can’t watch everywhere, but bots can, and the owners of these companies are certainly on the lookout for certain words and phrases. It’s not even vaguely secure.
Given that, I don’t think that revolutionary groups like the Black Panthers, Minutemen, et al are a viable option today. Whatever your online group is, it must be able to withstand discovery and observation. Only small cells with in-person meetings can avoid detection. Unions, churches, and organizations are all virtually public.
People ask “why aren’t they doing anything”, meanwhile there are hundreds of arrests all over the country with regularity. They’re getting arrested shortly after organizing… and the full extent is not going to be openly reported. So you see hints here and there about “plots” with a mention of “informer” at best. (likely the company that was used to communicate).
So, in my opinion, all that’s left is spontaneous eruption. It could be someone setting themselves on fire, an assassination, war, food shortage, economic collapse, and so on. It won’t be because it was lead by a Robert the Bruce
The sitting president in his second election was never the lesser of two evils.
Hey, as much as I get your point about distance, I don’t think it’s the whole story. I think there is one of the most powerful history and tradition of revolt and demonstration in the US. I think the difference has something to do with the esthetics of it. In France, revolt, fire and police violence are associated with beauty. I’ll leave that here.
The distance thing is a real issue. Look at a list of countries by size and three of the top five all have massive long-standing authoritarianism issues.
I guess Canada doesn’t, but what’s the other one?
Not Antarctica.
I may have answered confusingly
It is it is, that’s the whole point of municipalism and things like bioregionalist anarchism. But there are stronger factors to mobilizing. Imagine a synchronized mob of 50 persons in each county. Also, France is a country built as a basic centralized system where all roads of transportation and communication lead to Paris. So, yeah, sure, but also absolutely not.
The French retirement age is a bit of a problem.
France partly has a pay as you go system, meaning current working people are paying the pensions of retired people.
France also has an aging population, so there will be fewer people paying for more people. And that’s a problem, and you can really only solve it by increasing income, decreasing spending, or having fewer retired people (and raising the age is the most ethical way to do that).
You can’t do nothing and expect a pay-as-you-go system to keep working with an aging population.
The average employee is less and less compensated for the ever increasing productivity of his work. Fix that and we can see and discuss if a pay-as-you-go system really doesn’t work amymore.
For the moment the rich hoard more and more while claiming the productivity isn’t increasing and we have to cut back everything that benefits the majortiy for the sake of even higher profits.
It’s really only an issue because governments refuse to tax the rich.
Governments taxing the rich would be like Hanna Montana taxing Miley Cyrus. Taxes have always gone the other way around sucking from the poor towards the powerful.
French protesters have been putting even most other European protesters to shame, yet France is pretty far from being the most socialdemocratic European country.
Knowing little of the matter: French protest a lot but seem to achieve fairly little. The Yellow Jackets wreaked havoc of the country for a couple of months… got nothing. Current protests don’t have a real political agenda other than “this is not okay” and I haven’t heard of a political response other than wait-it-out.
this is completely wrong, institutions and companies respond most to protests, then they have to invest additional effort to pretend as if the protests did not work, so that people will not protest as much
French have more rights than Americans and institutions and corporations fear more taking them away from them.
I think France should rather compare itself to its less protest-happy peers, not some third-world shithole.
I haven’t heard of a political response other than wait-it-out.
This is generally how it’s done here in Germany, too. Seems like the state understood at some point that protests don’t actually do anything, and the more radical activity that might actually make a difference is generally only a pretty low amount of people - this part seems to be bigger in France, but far from big enough.
But the have the lowest retirement age of Europe, that’s all worth it!
Akkording to Wikipedia, that’s actually Ukraine at 60 years, 2-7 years lower than France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement_in_Europe.
As far as I understand, in France you can retire early (possibly as early as 62) if you worked for 43 years, otherwise you retire at up to 67 years. And nowadays it’s pretty common to lose your job in your 50s and spend the rest of your time before retirement underemployed, which is going to make it rather difficult for a lot of people to retire at 62.
“Prepare for revolution!” exclaims your friend; “is that possible?
Yes. Not only is it possible but absolutely necessary.
“Do you refer to secret preparations, armed bands, and men to lead the fight?” you ask.
No, my friend, not that at all.
If the social revolution meant only street battles and barricades, then the preparations you have in mind would be the thing. But revolution does not signify that; at least the fighting phase of it is the smallest and least important part.
The truth is, in modern times revolution does not mean barricades any more. These belong to the past. The social revolution is a far different and more essential matter: it involves the reorganization of the entire life of society. You will agree that this is certainly not to be accomplished by mere fighting.
Of course, the obstacles in the path of the social reconstruction have to be removed. That is to say the means of that reconstruction must be secured by the masses. Those means are at present in the hands of government and capitalism, and these will resist every effort to deprive them of their power and possessions. That resistance will involve a fight. But remember that the fight is not the main thing, is not the object, not the revolution. It is only the preface, the preliminary to it.
It is very necessary that you get this straight. Most people have very confused notions about revolution. To them it means just fighting, smashing things, destroying. It is the same as if rolling up your sleeves for work should be considered as the work itself that you have to do. The fighting part of revolution is merely the rolling up of your sleeves. The real, actual task is ahead.
What is that task?
“The destruction of the existing conditions,” you reply.
True. But conditions are not destroyed by breaking and smashing things. You can’t destroy wage slavery by wrecking the machinery in mills and factories, can you? You won’t destroy government by setting fire to the White House.
To think of revolution in terms of violence and destruction is to misinterpret and falsify the whole idea of it. In practical application such a conception is bound to lead to disastrous results.
When a great thinker, like the famous Anarchist Bakunin, speaks of revolution as destruction, he has in mind the ideas of authority and obedience which are to be destroyed. It is for this reason that he said that destruction means construction, for to destroy a false belief is indeed most constructive work.
But the average man, and too often even the revolutionist, thoughtlessly talks of revolution as being exclusively destructive in the physical sense of the word. That is a wrong and dangerous view. The sooner we get rid of it the better.
Revolution, and particularly the social revolution, is not destruction but construction. This cannot be sufficiently emphasized, and unless we clearly realize it, revolution will remain only destructive and thereby always a failure. Naturally revolution is accompanied by violence, but you might as well say that building a new house in place of an old one is destructive because you have first to tear down the old one. Revolution is the culminating point of a certain evolutionary process: it begins with a violent upheaval. It is the rolling up of your sleeves preparatory to starting the actual work.
Indeed, consider what the social revolution is to do, what it is to accomplish, and you will perceive that it comes not to destroy but to build.
What, really, is there to destroy?
The wealth of the rich? Nay, that is something we want the whole of society to enjoy.
The land, the fields, the coal mines, the railroads, factories, mills, and shops? These we want not to destroy but to make useful to the entire people.
The telegraphs, telephones, the means of communication and distribution — do we want to destroy them? No, we want them to serve the needs of all.
What, then, is the social revolution to destroy? It is to take over things for the general benefit, not to destroy them. It is to reorganize conditions for the public welfare.
Not to destroy is the aim of the revolution, but to reconstruct and rebuild.
From Now and After by Alexander Berkman. Chapter 26: Preparation. Written in the 1920s.
Available to read or download in multiple formats, for free, here: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alexander-berkman-what-is-communist-anarchism#toc28
Where do I sign up?
The distance is for sure a thing, but I believe it’s also a huge reason we dont have universal healthcare.
If I didn’t need a job to help subsidize my outrageously expensive health insurance that doesn’t cover shit, i’d be able to be more motley.
That said, at this point i’m about to go fucking French regardless
The biggest obstacle is the American people. Lol y’all are a bunch of coddled little girls. Way too many Americans, including left wing ones, fall for the American exceptionalism myth hook line and sinker. The fact that anyone with a head on their shoulders thinks there is going to be a return to the status quo after Trump is very very cute!
It’s crazy how you are all just watching your democratic devolve into chaos, poverty, and conflict with the rest of the world and you just… Make communist memes about it on social media… Protest on Saturdays… Act like you are the only country where it’s expensive to live and there are large distances…
Maybe stop being such little bitches!
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Fairy creek, actually
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Yeah are you familiar with the fairy creek protest, at all? Lol. Like I’m not throwing stones in glass houses, bud. I’m ready to die for my nation defending it against American aggression, should it come to that.
Nah, dont try to pass the buck back when called out on sloth and apathy.
Why would they? They don’t even live in the US! They are just russian bots trying to stir discontent in order for you to not vote so the orange turd can continue breaking up the democracy.
Isn’t this another way of saying that you are voting for the best available option? What’s the alternative? Vote for the worse option so things get worse? Don’t vote at all and tell other people to do the same so the worse option always wins? If you aren’t voting and are also not out in the streets stoking revolution against the greater evil, you can go fuck yourself. Because people spreading this bullshit concept and voter apathy is the real reason we have the government of today.
The problem in the U.S. is, unfortunately, that everybody is too comfy and they’re just hoping somebody else does it. A person could go and end a prominent politician while shouting “THIS IS THE REVOLUTION! TO ARMS, FELLOW AMERICANS!,” and everybody else would just watch the fallout on TV.
I think it has more to do with being a police state that imprisons more people per capita than any other nation on the globe. Peaceful protesting is too easy to ignore, and we all know the cops would just love a good excuse to beat our asses before locking us up for as long as they can find an excuse to.
Choosing lesser evil is not cause of problem. Not choosing anything instead of lesser evil is a key problem. The time to activate is before it comes down to final choice. Not voting, means all of your concerns are irrelevant, because you are unlikely to vote next time, according to establishment algorithms.
Nice try, DNC.
The Bernie and Kamala experiences suggest otherwise. They will dictate as they wish.
Time to vote harder for Bernie was when it was relevant. In November, turning out for HRC over Trump would have prevented the worst of oligarchist supremacist tax cuts and covid response. Kamala had no primary, but no Epstein mossad kompromat on her wouldn’t have forced submission to Israel for Iran war, and yet more oligarchist tax cuts, and a collapsing financial overextension, wouldn’t have happened.
The lesser subhuman demonic piece of shit is still better for you, and most importantly, not voting means its easy to keep you not voting, and they know you aren’t voting. That DNC gets paid to lose intentionally for the best Israel outcome, even then doesn’t mean you shouldn’t vote, and vote for them. Politics is a continuous process you get to be involved in. Election day abstention is the complete opposite of any flex.
What experiences?? You mean the lack of?
Every permutation of LateStageCapitalism I’ve ever seen acts like a gop honeypot to keep people from voting.
LateStageCapitalism on Lemmy is almost assuredly exactly that. It is run by a single crybaby mod (Godless Commie) that non-stop espouses quitter bullshit and deletes comments and bans anyone that disagrees with his shitstain opinions. No one should be visiting that sub. If it isn’t a honeypot, it may as well be.
LSC will also ban you for telling people that they are a honeypot to get people to stop voting.
I wear my ban from that shitstain sub with beaming pride.
Whole bunch of pussy ass accelerationists on this platform. I enjoy calling out their pussy ass behavior.
Vote or die.
And I suggest voting for a candidate that isn’t guaranteed to lose if you want anything other than fascism to happen.
Ranked choice voting makes it easier to vote for the best candidate AND one that won’t lose, if two states can do it so can more.
But I’d rather sit around and critique the system while allowing the candidate that is objectively worse to win. It makes me feel superior as I sniff my own farts.
It’s INTERNATIONAL. It’s our world-wide economy, which is directed by investment companies and their holdings all around the world.
If you killed everybody in the White House tomorrow, absolutely nothing would change (other than an increase in security elsewhere). At most, you’d delay business by a few weeks.
It’s not one country, it’s not one person, it’s not one company, it’s not one family.
This isn’t France with a couple million people and a simple paper bureaucracy, muskets, and cannons. Grow up
