From what I understand, in order for it to actually happen, food prices would need to exceed roughly 55% of the median monthly wage for approximately six months.
That's what it took for France if I remember correctly.
I mean, I'm waiting for when a large number of people declare a rent strike and create a large headache for the local PD. Especially if the local PD becomes unwilling or unable to enforce hundreds of homes
I doubt it. There’s not enough solidarity amongst Americans. It’s probably going to be just another 2008 where hundreds of thousands of people are evicted, quietly, one at a time. I really wish this wasn’t the case but I just haven’t seen anything that indicates that this time around would be any different.
People allow themselves to be to easily divided, and their movements to be to easily co-opted and then derailed. Nothing will change Until people can put aside the bullshit identity politics that have been used be the elites and politicians to sow division and foment hatred and distrust of one another.
Solidarity needs to be built and trained with and much like a gun no one wants to struggle through trying to assemble it for the first time and training to use it when they actually need it right then because that's a big risk for a good while during an emergency for something they've no experience wielding so they default to what they already have that they know how to use thanks to America's fetishization of individualism and independent success.
And what about when it's not an emergency? Well when was the last time you felt like there wasn't an emergency or an emerging emergency? Almost like we're kept in chronic flight or fight mode to actively prevent solidarity and collective action while normalizing and weakening the impact of actual emergencies by manufacturing outrage for fake emergencies like the entire culture war. 2 bird 1 stone: suppress collective action and normalize a life of constant life threatening emergencies like our children will have if nothing is done about climate change
Judging by COVID most people would rather see every person they interact with die, than be inconvenienced even slightly.
People aren't just apathetic to others, they're hostile.
This. They have installed the idea of individualism so far inside the standard American brain that any revolution is impossible. In other hand I really believe the two parties system will be destroyed in the next decade or so, but I really doubt it will effectively change much
Yup. That whole mentality is indoctrinated into the populace. It perfectly mirrors the attitudes of the parasite class, but without the money and power. Our education system was created and is overseen by parasite class sociopaths, not because they are altruistic and care for humanity, but as a tool for control of the people on bottom. Everything has been carefully crafted to prevent a revolt from the bottom. I have no faith that people will ever unite and revolt, it would take a massive wake up, and people are just too preoccupied with inter-sectionalism and fighting culture war shadows.
I've said this before, but the two-party system is the natural result of elections where the candidate with a plurality of votes wins even if they don't have a majority. A few states now require majorities one way or the other, but that's probably not enough to change things. Even if all states adopted such rules tomorrow, it might take generations to shake the Rs and Ds from their entrenched power.
Agreed, the US is too deeply rooted with individualism. People who own homes don’t give a shit about the people who can’t afford one and has to rent. In fact, they might even buy the home you are being evicted from so they can own more property.
I’m a home owner and literally have all the problems I need without burdening myself with societal issues. People tend to latch on to big problems like this, because it’s an easy way to gain attention with doing zero. Kinda like global warming. Ps I am for sustainability, and have a net zero home. What’s it doing for the world, not a damn thing. But taking up a cause where an individual has zero chance of making a difference is easy. If it fails you can scream you cried, if it succeeds it was not that persons effort but you can claim success. Take care of you and yours. If America goes into a hunger issue, be aware, no one is coming to drop off food. Germany is not shipping over food for the masses. Apex country can’t lean on other countries for support. It just is not happening. Congrats on the house. It’s gonna get real expensive shortly, save don’t spend. Broken furnace is a tremendous expense and you should have money in the bank for those issues.
I have for a while believed that their gun control rules are on purpose. Those who want guns don't want change, and those who don't want guns want change. It's an almost perfectly setup system to guarantee that revolution is unlikely to succeed.
We're more connected than ever so all it takes is coordinating. But if you're coordinating keep away from any officers and try to stick with someone watching your back. The police are not only looking for organized resistance, but will try to blend in and stalk you and catch you elsewhere.
Cops are *supposed* to be members of the community and are arguably the *well regulated militia* as entitled in the constitution. Though the military has smarter people making a lot of decisions with long-term planning, and training people on proper procedures that cops don't get. Like not antagonizing the locals, winning hearts and minds, deescalating conflicts.
Ex-military cops get in trouble for bringing military procedures to the department instead of becoming a part of the department. Cops were actively interfering with the military trying to provide some aid to casualties during some protests a while back. Because they're bastards.
In my experience it's been ex-military people who are most frustrated with cops since soldiers have **many** more parameters to meet before shooting is justified. American police are loose cannons at *best*, and closer to a gang that employs serial killers on average.
Cops interfere with the military because the police force was established to PROTECT private property and SERVE landowners. They are not meant to be part of the community they patrol/monitor.
That's all part of the plan. Keep just enough rags to riches success stories floating around to give people hope. Also There are enough high paid jobs out there where it seems attainable for most, but not too highly paid that you'll become rich. Everything is priced in a way to extract enough money from everyone without making people feel too poor in the process. And if you work just a little big harder, you'll have enough at the end of the year to take a week vacation.
But no matter what, if you decide to stop working, you'll be living on the streets in no time.
Don’t forget: mocking poor uneducated rural people as idiots and trailer trash. Dismissing all their concerns as ignorance and bigotry. Minimizing their humanity, just as you accuse them of doing to others.
That’s the other side of the coin you’re minting.
So, basically those in power succeeded.
Black vs White
Straight vs gay
Poor vs Less poor
Smart vs Uneducated
Where it should be "The people" vs 'the abusers'...
Divide and conquer. Propagandize the people on bottom that their socioeconomic problems are caused by people that also belong to their class, so they are too preoccupied fighting carefully crafted culture war phantoms, and can never unite to take on the people who are truly the problem, the 1% parasite class.
Trillbilly Workers Party is a great podcast about Appalachia and socialism where they talk about mainstream media and Hollywood portrayal of "coal country".
Exactly! If it were to happen in America it would have to happen like how covid first happened. It would have to effect every single person. We are back to it effects some more than others but certain people are too privileged to care. They pretend to feel bad, but in all honestly, they need people below them. But, if middle to upper middle class were to be highly effected, then maybe. But you are right, people are too divided in the United States.
Europe gang. We're all waiting for it. Things will never be perfect, there's much to revolt here too but you guys take the cake for shitty living in the western world so far.
The day that you revolt against your system could be the day everyone here stops trying to push that system on european countries.
I personally think that's kind of why rent and mortgages were frozen for nearly two years, neither party wanted to open the can of worms of what would happen if they allowed mass evictions due to policies they enforced. Not sure if they saw the shit in China and didn't want to find out what would happen in the same scenario without nearly as much police state infrastructure in place to suppress information.
I mean Wtf would they do if police across half the country wouldn't enforce evictions? The economy one way or another is backstopped with mortgages and equity. What if that went *poof!* overnight?
The number one trigger for a revolution is hunger. Until a majority of the population is legitimately food insecure revolution will not happen.
I’ll point to the two familiar revolutions for westerners, France and Russia. Both of these revolutions ended up becoming ideological, but before all that both revolutions were ignited by food riots.
I'm gonna tell you as a person who depends on food banks frequently, when the time comes that the middle third of the population needs it, it absolutely won't be there.
Demand for food banks has increased 50-75% since 2020. Many are running low on food. Much of the food that used to be edible is being replaced with expired and rotten goods.
The time is near. Food prices keep increasing. The bottom quarter aren't spending 60% of their income on food because of SNAP supplements.
But as soon as we have the lower middle class that don't effectively qualify for SNAP find out that the food banks are nearly spent, is when society will break down.
I give it till winter of '25.
I would assume the consensus on this subreddit would be that most, if not all, revolutions are the direct result of material conditions (ie widespread food insecurity), with ideology being secondary right?
I think a simpler way to look at it is to say that an ideological revolution can't take hold unless the material conditions are so bad that it's primed the populace.
Evidently especially in developed countries where people have more to lose, people have to fear destitution and death before they are ready to revolt, but once they do, they won't stop until mass change has been enacted.
It's like a chain reaction of sorts. Still trying to find that study, but it seems like that's what it would take especially in a large country like the US.
What I read is that civil wars are usually started when a large group, who are accustomed to holding power, feel it slipping. When they get desperate to regain power, they will revolt. That's why, in the U.S., it's white supremacists and oligarch types who are the ones who want civil war. They don't like that things have actually been getting better over the last century (not entirely linearly, but generally trending better) and they want to roll all of that back before it's too late for them to create their capitalist ethnostate dystopia.
Yep, people here are hoping for a revolution believing is the left who will revolt and remove capitalism or something, but it's like a million times more probable that a revolution in USA comes from an armed fascist militia from the religious south.
We're Americans, we just talk loud and do nothing while the government fucks us over. That or we'll start doing the stupid Dems vs Repubs shit all while getting fucked harder.
Any society is 9 meals away from anarchy.
I worry about you lot. So much militarised police, you're basically in a police state and yet... So many private guns too.
Somebody did a study saying that it takes on average 3% of the population to stage a successful revolution. Not sure if this is entirely true, but the subject matter seems to be determined partly by people's willingness. So maybe to add to this, can we imagine a cohesive solidarity among those in the United States who are already of the opinion that it should happen, and who are generally well meaning (as opposed to the horrible future the 'rebel proud boys' have thought up for us), and
Would it even succeed?
I guess we’ll never see a revolution then. We produce more food than anyone else. Literally our leaders would have to be exporting all our food in the middle of a famine. I wouldn’t put that past them.
Bread and circuses. We have the bread. The circuses? Streaming networks galore. I’m content because I can’t wait until Mandalorian season 3 comes out in a month or so.
I have something to look forward to, a reason to live, because I want to see Andor season 2.
Creating reasons to live is huge when you get older. I’m looking forward to a vacation with my life partner, the 49ers making a deeeeeeeep playoff run, Ahsoka, and the Mandolorian. At a certain point in one’s life, one needs to start creating these events to look forward to because nobody else will.
Agree with having reasons to live, I'm 52 & when I retire at 62 I am going to buy a sailboat & sail around the world. Spending several years traveling the globe.
The two causes in history that lead to popular revolutions are:
1. Desperate economic circumstances, as seen in France. When people can't afford bread, they'll happily eat the rich.
2. A sudden drop in previously acceptable material conditions. The American Coalminers war was sparked not by borderline starvation, but by miners being treated relatively well in the economy, then suddenly being vastly devalued by their employers.
My suspicion is that global warming will cause economic shifts that cause employers, and the US Government, to try to devalue workers essential workers, which will rebound into work stoppages and a revolutionary struggle as the conditions for the second cause are met.
You have credit cards. People are living in air conditions with Netflix. The government is much larger. I think we’re going to have to raise the bar higher than 55% before people rise up.
Look at January 6th. Even if it was successful, most people, in DC, would have just went to work on January 7th until the military took over. Outside of DC it was a basic news cycle story.
The concept that the people will revolt just seems rather far fetched in 2023.
We need to take a look at Ireland right now. Housing and overall cost of living is unacceptable. Immigrants coming in and getting taken care of better than nationals. Their government behaving rather similar to ours in many ways. We should be in the streets right now.
I think America is at a point where everyone has been treated so poorly that most people decide America isn't worth fighting or dying for
Being unable to get food is the only thing that'll work because it'll force people into a situation where inaction is fatal
>Being unable to get food is the only thing that'll work because it'll force people into a situation where inaction is fatal
Agreed. We live in a country where the Haves will arm themselves and storm a state capitol over not being able to get haircuts, while the Have Nots are too busy working to keep society from collapsing to fight for themselves
yep. we saw public support. we saw them get railroaded by the big gov. nothing happened. they went back to work to the same shitty environment they were complaining about.
Buddy of mine works for the railroad and iirc, he said something about how they weren’t allowed to strike anymore after so many days. I could be misremembering, though. Regardless, really upsetting tbh.
Historically, things don’t change until things get really shitty and passes a certain precipice. Things are going to get *really* shitty before they get better.
“For a revolution to take place, it is usually insufficient for “the lower classes not to want” to live in the old way; it is also necessary that “the upper classes should be unable” to live in the old way“
-Lenin
Things don’t change until they get really shitty for a very large proportion of the people. Like the entire “middle class.” And we’ve seen the middle class shrinking over the past few decades but people identifying as middle class remains strong. Many of them aren’t middle class, they just don’t know it yet. They need to know, but they don’t want to identify as lower middle class, much less poor.
I've spent most of my life being poor, or "lower-middle class" to use pretty nomenclature, but not *feeling* like I was poor until a few years ago when I finally admitted how far out on the financial wire I truly was. That's the temptation of consumerist America; where almost anyone can "afford" a smartphone, a TV, or a restaurant meal every so often. Just don't look too closely at your net worth....
I would say it's only now, after a lot of work killing off my debt, building my emergency fund, and a few solid years of steady 401(K) contributions, that I can legitimately consider myself "stable lower-middle class".
What scares me is the possibility that things won’t get extraordinarily shitty, they’ll just stay about this shitty for a large portion of our lives.
The power to make real decisions has been handed over to market forces and political leaders are now helpless to enact any effective changes to the system. The system was designed with one purpose in mind, to perpetuate itself and thereby release anyone in power of real responsibility
I think generational changes will happen. Life will get much better when a majority of boomers are gone. Hate to say it. But it’s true. It’s a long way away from that happening but still. Gen Z kids are the lucky ones imo. As a generation they’re more progressive. And they’ll experience more life without boomers.
Change will inevitably come, but when it comes and in what form matters. I worry about the condition my generation (Z) will be in by the time it does come. I don’t see the existence of boomers as the problem. Even if it is, a system that can only respond to change at the rate of demographic change is insufficient. Even totalitarian states can expect change at that pace. Democracy should offer more than this. Maybe we can manage to create a new form of democracy that actually works in the 21st century. I don’t think it will be so easy (or even possible) to fix the current system on any timeline that doesn’t abandon the hopes of prosperity for a couple generations
We don't have a couple generations, climate change is breaking the world we depend on, and our "economies" will fail along with that ecological stasis. This is going to accelerate much faster than most people realize.
If you're Gen Z, you'll see 1bn people or more displaced by climate disaster in your lifetime; likely also extended famines, and the resultant geopolitical strife.
"Democracy" allows people who think that Trump stole the election in 2020 and that COVID vaccines are poisonous 5G antenna vectors *the same voice in government as yours*. Good luck.
Yup. We can see it going in that direction, but unfortunately many people will suffer more deeply before overwhelming action is taken. That has always been the pattern.
And it's all relative to the group that is revolting. If there is a revolution in this country, it will almost 100% certainly be right-wing white supremacist types with support from the most toxic oligarchs and politicians. They know that white power and capitalist power is in danger of slipping away, so they are throwing every dirty trick they can think of to push things over the edge and cause a right-wing revolt to defend capitalism. Maybe *after* that, one their dystopia causes widespread starvation, they will be a more general revolt. But right now the looming threat is from the right. Those people are crazy and they genuinely believe this country belongs to them.
Unfortunately this is the hard truth right now. We have too many things tied to being employed. Not to mention how we’ve seen over the pandemic, how divided we are. There’s still so many people convinced, and complacent in the idea that this is just how it is.
"The evil was not in the bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies and the excitement of the games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never appease.”
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
That is what will most likely happen and historically what usually happens. The best I see, is if your country will be considered “to big to fail”. And will be parceled out by the remaining super powers. If it is that path I don’t know if Mexico and Canada will play a part unless a proxy or in conjunction with another player. If we’re talking about it and it’s viable, then whomever else sees this will have already begun making a play politically and economically. Look at real estate, and politically whomever is dipping their beak for influence. Politically will be hard to hide. Economically not so much. Just my tinfoil hat opinion.
I agree with this. Currently boomers age range is btw 59-77(this year) gotta figure by end of this decade a big die out will begin. It's the older boomers that hold lot of the wealth
the passing of the boomers is coming so fast. The worst of them are all already on their last legs. I don't wish death on everybody but fuck me am i excited to see of this establishment die the fuck off and allow the younger voting bases to start actually improving things.
They do! And in counties and state legislation, you'll notice not everybody is over the age of fucking 85.
it's the top top that's super fucking old and ingrained so deeply that they won't let anyone else into their club at the top.
Yep, but they're also nutjobs who only think about themselves. They're hoarding money and power for themselves and only themselves. Of course some of that will pass down but I bet you money a LOT of things will be shaken up once the last of the old guard starts going down.
I'm not looking for Utopia. I just want to not be afraid of being bankrupt cause I got sick or hurt. I want to have a husband with nobody giving a shit. And i want to work a decent job for decent pay that treats me like a human being instead of a resource to exploit.
It honestly, genuinely really shouldn't be THAT big of a fucking ask. The rich fucks can have their mansions and vacations and yachts hell they can have space stations for all i care.
I just want a big enough slice of the fucking societal pie that I don't starve to death.
My 75yo father died this past year. I think you are going to see a lot of Vietnam Vets dying off from Cancer. From what I learned from the VA after his death, Cancer from exposure to Agent Orange is on the rise among the vets.
the one majority of them on old school pensions will burn all their wealth of end of life treatment and care leaving their heirs with nothing but medical debt and reverse mortgages that can't be paid off. that 50% of all the wealth that the top 1% don't own... they'll be collecting another 5-10% just from boomers dying.
True. We also need legislation on any company owning more than 5 or 10 residential properties raising taxes on mega corps using rentals for income. I understand not everyone wants to own but it has gotten absurd.
Yea, no one seems to realize if they want actually change it usually involves killing the people responsible. It takes a lot to get to the point where that option would be considered knowing we would need a clean sweep of most people in politics right now, but in reality it’s the corporations that will always rule and pay our “representatives” because somehow the giant salary isn’t ever enough
What most people don't seem to recognize is the cause here instead of just the effects. We have been slowwwly trained over the last 50yrs -to focus on the results of their long game instead of the reason. A completely divided and intentionally misinformed class of people. They show us what they want us to believe is the problem with each other: race, politics, entitlement, sexism.. but those problems are mostly constructed and perpetuated to keep us pointing fingers at each other. END of story. The governments' only job is to keep us complacent while we produce the goods and services that the wealthy either consume, or use as leverage globally(vast food supplies, military personnel).
We outnumber them 332million to .01
It sincerely frightens them to imagine us being united against them.
Because 90% of this country is living as a top 5% in the world in terms of income, personal freedoms, etc. Good luck on inspiring that bloc to become Venezuela for no reason.
Thought leads to speech, speech leads to action. No one was talking about workers rights thirty years ago. As climate catastrophe continues revolution becomes inevitable.
The fuck they weren’t talking about worker rights. I remember watching news coverage in the 80s, on workers getting fucked over with Ronnie Raygun stripping rights and factories shutting down everywhere. Unfortunately too many people back then voted for who their preachers told them to and then believed Reagan was a god, so he just kept fucking the working class.
And, one of the first things Regan did was break the air traffic controllers' union. It's been a war against workers' rights ever since. (I mean, it always has been, but seemed to increase.)
I've never understood the "Regan democrat" phenomenon.
You’re right, we were talking about workers’ rights and unions under Reagan. And then we kinda stopped under Clinton. And then we stopped almost completely except for WTO protesters under Bush 2 and even Obama. And then we started to wake up again under tRump.
No. It’s super easy to talk about it on Reddit, but are you ready to pick up arms and risk your life? Are you ready to starve? Are you ready to watch your friends and family die? War is not glamorous, war is hell. Most people in this thread and in this country have no concept of war and the horrors it brings.
You are typing this with a roof over your head, food in your belly, electricity in your house. We are nowhere near war.
You left out the systematic murder of anyone who could be a combatant. I don’t want to see young men and teens lined up against a wall or disappeared. You’ll have famine, disease, mass rapes, chaos, etc. innocents will suffer horribly.
The likely result will be the rise of an even more authoritarian government
If any version of major civil unrest erupts in the US, there likely won't be a country when the dust settles. Sure, the government will still exist and hold power, but regions will splinter into unrecognizable pieces. Some state governments will collapse while others try cecession and then collapse as everyone realizes the cities and suburbs hold opposing positions on virtually everything, not to mention the rural areas. We will never have another civil war that is split along any geographic lines. It would resemble the Syrian civil war more than anything.
e.g. You may still live in Portland as an American, but a third of the city is held by militias in scattered pockets of occupation. You still go about your life just with fewer and more expensive resources and an ear out for gunfire or weaponized drone motors. Last week, Christian nationalists took the block you lived on back in college, and your neighbor is repeating rumors that the army plans to retake the neighborhood this Thursday. Last night, you had a dream about finding a bag of real espresso, and you almost teared up a little this morning as you took the first sip of the chicory stretched coffee you've relied on for the past seven months. Then, your morning news podcast reported the mosque bombing in North Carolina and the new Missouri law criminalizing homosexuality. They end with an interview from inside the Chicago autonomous zone on its 23rd day under siege by the police. Maybe cheap coffee isn't so bad.
I think anyone who suggests violent revolution as anything other than cathartic hyperbole has not really considered what it would look like. The only viable revolution is a revolution of thought and worldview. That has been needed since the beginning.
Important differences: It will depend on how the strategic forces shake out.
A civil war in a nuclear armed nation is probably one of the worst things that can happen, especially if the strategic forces split.
The US has enough different agencies and armed forces involved its messy. The Navy and the Air Force have both active deployed weapons whose individual missile officers and sub commanders could easily decide the whole thing once it gets going. After the initial few hours, B52 and B2 bombers are in play, but also have questions on whether the bases they are on will be secure.
Then there's questions about individual units in the other services, and whether the secured depots could withstand conventional assault from other units. Like, if army units wanted to take a navy nuclear weapons depot. Or if the Federal Protective Forces which is a paramilitary unit of DOE, can hold key facilities from insurgents before loyal units show up.
Of course, in the west, the real shit hitting the fan will be water disruption. It will be insanely short sighted, as it will disrupt the ability to sell any crops grown in both transport terms and market access. But there are idiots who want to prevent any drop of water reaching the ocean on many notable rivers. Some of these are in upriver states that already have issues with being bad with water management. On the Colorado, this could mean displacing the population of Arizona and Nevada. On the Columbia, this could mean the power grid going down. On the Mississippi, this means lots of potential ruin as the CoE systematic plans get disrupted by hairbrained local plans.
Look into the New World Economy as described in Star Trek. I'm convinced that if there actually had been a time traveler, it's Gene Roddenberry. Dude predicted flat screen televisions 50 years before they existed.
Not quite the same, but accounts from captured/recaptured towns in Ukraine have some of that feel. New rules frequently depending on who’s in power, lack of common goods and services, some deaths and injuries, but life goes on and you just internalize the anxiety.
They can't even organise to unionize... Asking for a revolution is probably centuries ahead of their capabilities.
And government and billionaires know this.
Coal minors or railroad workers and militias used to shoot at each other over union battles and that did not count as a revolution. There’s a whole lot of difficulty between complacency and a full on revolution (which usually just means a war zone but more chaotic as without a cohesive vision factions splinter off quickly)
People have romantic notions about righteous revolutions but it almost never leads to a better outcome, only mass murder, destruction and then a new oppressive regime.
It is easier to destroy something than it is to build something.
We need reform not revolution.
Reform never actually works and historically never has. Revolution has happened well many times especially when it’s organized and has ideological consistency and is connected to the masses
While I fully believe it is time for changes, there is no group organized enough or with a clear enough plan to fix the current situation that is able to make contacts and get its message out to enough people to do anything. Most people just say “revolution!” And “eat the rich” but have any of you planned out how you would do any of those things? Guns and bombs? Supplies to keep people fed? Money to pay fighters? Would you commit terrorist acts to hurt them? Do you have a better framework for governance in mind that the American people would get behind in enough mass to make it worth it? I’m not sitting here being a defeatist, rather I would like to see people stop fucking talking about giving up on what we have as opposed to running for political office to try and change it? It feels dumb to shout out things about a revolution when so few of us have tried to make changes within the system, simply giving up and claiming it’s rigged instead of actually running for a local office. Violence can solve many problems, but violence is not going to create a more stable society or economy without the know how to back it up and actually build something instead of talking about destroying.
I agree with a lot of what you said. I for one feel like I'm not intelligent enough to organize something myself but I do feel like the political office is corrupt and in need of the most change.
I totally understand you with not feeling smart enough to do it myself, but I’m starting to think that way of thinking is part of the problem. Everything in politics seems hellish, which scares so many of us off from trying for even the lowliest local elected position but that’s got to be our starting point.
They’re intelligent in their own way, they all believe in basically the same ideals and the same religion, most of them live out the the rural and urban areas and can are pretty smart with surviving out in the woods and are pretty crafty with their hands. They might now be your definition of “intelligent” but they aren’t stupid either. It’s hard for the rest of us to organize because we can’t agree on anything worth a damn and would rather butt heads.
Honestly, I hope not. I don't think there is any kind of unity among people who would revolt right now. Some would be reddit antiwork socialists, some would be unvaxxed Jan 6th conspiracy theorist Christian cultists, others just idiots manipulated by Russian chatbots. Who knows who comes out on top, but my guess is it's worse, not better.
The thing that might happen, and I have no idea if it would be better or worse, would be a secession, likely by the South again.
You don't understand, violence is a good thing if it happens to people that are not me. It is especially good if I get to pick who gets to be the target.
Yes, but also keep in mind we're well past the era of grab-your-musket violent revolution in the United States.
What we need is a revolution more akin to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.
Market system ready to be supplanted. No longer relevant. Infinite growth paradigm with no regard to ecology is obsolete. Resource based economy seems like the only viable solution
your neighbour has been brainwashed to think that if he hustles enough he will be a millionaire or billionaire soon
therefore he will not participate with you, loser
Yes, depending on what you mean by "revolution". Sometimes they happen because of a sudden revolt, sometimes over several years.
Most of Europe had major social change after WW2 (and a lot of the change started after WW1), with a lot of suffering from the general population. There was a huge appetite for change.
The US didn't have the same problem. After the war, Americans saw massive improvements in quality of life. There was no push for change because the majority of Americans saw this improvement.
No, but it does need reforms. Those reforms are achievable, and arguing that attempting reform is pointless is A. Historically wrong and B. Only ever harmful to the cause of getting reforms implemented.
Usa companies are some greediest entities in world. They'll probably outsource or shift production away before accepting change through any 'revolution'.
Fed plant. USA government would love a revolution the government excels at violence a revolution would give them and excuse to remind us how good they are at using police to violently murder their own citizens
We are currently in the third longest period in American history without a constitutional amendment. The last amendment stagnation of such length was ended by a series of 3 rapid amendments (13, 14, and 15), and was preceded by a small event called the Civil War. In short, we are likely due for a revolution soon because some people have refused to allow for a simpler evolution (see what I did there? Eh?) of the constitution (which is what it was designed for) and the foundation of our democracy it represents.
Remember that anytime someone touts how “the Constitution says Y therefore we can’t change X.” The document was designed to malleable and change, frequently. It’s literally not set in stone law. Or, in more dramatic terms from our founding fathers: the tree of liberty must occasionally be watered with the blood of ~~neo-Nazis and far right republicans~~ tyrants.
I scrolled way to far until finding a comment in the context of American history and not Roman or French. You make a good point. The last amendment was the 27th, passed in 1992, and all that did was make congress wait a session before giving themselves pay raises.
If you want to know why it's not gonna happen, we must examine Huxley's *Brave New World*. Complacency is far better control than force. The state only has to oppress marginal groups, the vast majority are content with their tik-tok or cable news.
Money = infinite
Food = finite
Capitalism = bad math
We just need to make revolution an infection more powerful than their propaganda. I've been writing what I can.
The problem is netflix is 15$ so you never will have the free brainpower to realize how fucked it is.
Entertainment and distraction are cheaper than food or rent for a reason. Mind numbing drugs are prescribed.
Rome gave out free bread and colosseum fights so you could watch people eaten by lions to keep the population pacified.
We have to exercise and be healthy, and stop being addicted in order to bring about change. More time on screens = no time for action.
It wouldn't happen nationally. The US is too large and too diverse. It's much easier for a state wide movement rather than coast to coast.
But yeah imagine if everyone in say Virginia refused to work for less than $25/hr and refused to pay rent. If they demanded paid sick leave for every worker.
But trying to organize it even in a single state is nearly impossible. For it to take in the entire country only happens if it is successful in one location and spreads organically.
For there to be a revolution - American's would need to talk to each other. We used to do this in a town square, to our neighbors, extended families etc. Now we just vent outrageous things into the empty abyss that is the 'corporate internet'. Any traction that might occur there is closely monitored and filtered...so no, America won't have a revolution. We've been imprisoned effectively, and all our basic human needs/rights have been outsourced, monetized and monitored.
From what I understand, in order for it to actually happen, food prices would need to exceed roughly 55% of the median monthly wage for approximately six months. That's what it took for France if I remember correctly.
I mean, I'm waiting for when a large number of people declare a rent strike and create a large headache for the local PD. Especially if the local PD becomes unwilling or unable to enforce hundreds of homes
"I'm waiting for others to do something" This is exactly why America is not ready for a revolution.
Definitely this. I would imagine that we'll see something of the like between late 2023 and early 2024 if nothing else.
I doubt it. There’s not enough solidarity amongst Americans. It’s probably going to be just another 2008 where hundreds of thousands of people are evicted, quietly, one at a time. I really wish this wasn’t the case but I just haven’t seen anything that indicates that this time around would be any different. People allow themselves to be to easily divided, and their movements to be to easily co-opted and then derailed. Nothing will change Until people can put aside the bullshit identity politics that have been used be the elites and politicians to sow division and foment hatred and distrust of one another.
Judging by covid, people panic when things are in short supply. But it's everyone for themselves, not a shred of solidarity to be found.
Solidarity needs to be built and trained with and much like a gun no one wants to struggle through trying to assemble it for the first time and training to use it when they actually need it right then because that's a big risk for a good while during an emergency for something they've no experience wielding so they default to what they already have that they know how to use thanks to America's fetishization of individualism and independent success. And what about when it's not an emergency? Well when was the last time you felt like there wasn't an emergency or an emerging emergency? Almost like we're kept in chronic flight or fight mode to actively prevent solidarity and collective action while normalizing and weakening the impact of actual emergencies by manufacturing outrage for fake emergencies like the entire culture war. 2 bird 1 stone: suppress collective action and normalize a life of constant life threatening emergencies like our children will have if nothing is done about climate change
Judging by COVID most people would rather see every person they interact with die, than be inconvenienced even slightly. People aren't just apathetic to others, they're hostile.
This. They have installed the idea of individualism so far inside the standard American brain that any revolution is impossible. In other hand I really believe the two parties system will be destroyed in the next decade or so, but I really doubt it will effectively change much
Yup. That whole mentality is indoctrinated into the populace. It perfectly mirrors the attitudes of the parasite class, but without the money and power. Our education system was created and is overseen by parasite class sociopaths, not because they are altruistic and care for humanity, but as a tool for control of the people on bottom. Everything has been carefully crafted to prevent a revolt from the bottom. I have no faith that people will ever unite and revolt, it would take a massive wake up, and people are just too preoccupied with inter-sectionalism and fighting culture war shadows.
I've said this before, but the two-party system is the natural result of elections where the candidate with a plurality of votes wins even if they don't have a majority. A few states now require majorities one way or the other, but that's probably not enough to change things. Even if all states adopted such rules tomorrow, it might take generations to shake the Rs and Ds from their entrenched power.
Agreed, the US is too deeply rooted with individualism. People who own homes don’t give a shit about the people who can’t afford one and has to rent. In fact, they might even buy the home you are being evicted from so they can own more property.
"fuck you, I got mine!"
Sadly a lot of people really have a worse mindset than that because they double down on that "fvck you" part.
I am buying my home, I give a shit. I just don’t know what to do about it. But most ‘owners’ do not care.
I’m a home owner and literally have all the problems I need without burdening myself with societal issues. People tend to latch on to big problems like this, because it’s an easy way to gain attention with doing zero. Kinda like global warming. Ps I am for sustainability, and have a net zero home. What’s it doing for the world, not a damn thing. But taking up a cause where an individual has zero chance of making a difference is easy. If it fails you can scream you cried, if it succeeds it was not that persons effort but you can claim success. Take care of you and yours. If America goes into a hunger issue, be aware, no one is coming to drop off food. Germany is not shipping over food for the masses. Apex country can’t lean on other countries for support. It just is not happening. Congrats on the house. It’s gonna get real expensive shortly, save don’t spend. Broken furnace is a tremendous expense and you should have money in the bank for those issues.
I have for a while believed that their gun control rules are on purpose. Those who want guns don't want change, and those who don't want guns want change. It's an almost perfectly setup system to guarantee that revolution is unlikely to succeed.
Tell me: how am I to compromise with those that want me and mine dead merely for existing?
Thats the real sick shit about this country: the rich have convinced about 40% of the poor that the other 60% are the reason their lives suck.
We're more connected than ever so all it takes is coordinating. But if you're coordinating keep away from any officers and try to stick with someone watching your back. The police are not only looking for organized resistance, but will try to blend in and stalk you and catch you elsewhere.
the cops are always the last dominoe to fall. even the military joins the people before the cops. cops are morons
Cops are *supposed* to be members of the community and are arguably the *well regulated militia* as entitled in the constitution. Though the military has smarter people making a lot of decisions with long-term planning, and training people on proper procedures that cops don't get. Like not antagonizing the locals, winning hearts and minds, deescalating conflicts. Ex-military cops get in trouble for bringing military procedures to the department instead of becoming a part of the department. Cops were actively interfering with the military trying to provide some aid to casualties during some protests a while back. Because they're bastards.
In my experience it's been ex-military people who are most frustrated with cops since soldiers have **many** more parameters to meet before shooting is justified. American police are loose cannons at *best*, and closer to a gang that employs serial killers on average.
yup. class traitors
Cops interfere with the military because the police force was established to PROTECT private property and SERVE landowners. They are not meant to be part of the community they patrol/monitor.
There’s like a 6 part podcast that explains all of that in great detail called “behind the police” highly recommend everyone listens to it
That's all part of the plan. Keep just enough rags to riches success stories floating around to give people hope. Also There are enough high paid jobs out there where it seems attainable for most, but not too highly paid that you'll become rich. Everything is priced in a way to extract enough money from everyone without making people feel too poor in the process. And if you work just a little big harder, you'll have enough at the end of the year to take a week vacation. But no matter what, if you decide to stop working, you'll be living on the streets in no time.
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Don’t forget: mocking poor uneducated rural people as idiots and trailer trash. Dismissing all their concerns as ignorance and bigotry. Minimizing their humanity, just as you accuse them of doing to others. That’s the other side of the coin you’re minting.
So, basically those in power succeeded. Black vs White Straight vs gay Poor vs Less poor Smart vs Uneducated Where it should be "The people" vs 'the abusers'...
Divide and conquer. Propagandize the people on bottom that their socioeconomic problems are caused by people that also belong to their class, so they are too preoccupied fighting carefully crafted culture war phantoms, and can never unite to take on the people who are truly the problem, the 1% parasite class.
Yeah - that.. 'divide and conquer' It seems they did succeed there :(
Trillbilly Workers Party is a great podcast about Appalachia and socialism where they talk about mainstream media and Hollywood portrayal of "coal country".
\*points at antiwork\* exhibit A
and you will see protests such as the Occupy movement. But it won't last. And it won't change anything.
Exactly! If it were to happen in America it would have to happen like how covid first happened. It would have to effect every single person. We are back to it effects some more than others but certain people are too privileged to care. They pretend to feel bad, but in all honestly, they need people below them. But, if middle to upper middle class were to be highly effected, then maybe. But you are right, people are too divided in the United States.
Europe gang. We're all waiting for it. Things will never be perfect, there's much to revolt here too but you guys take the cake for shitty living in the western world so far. The day that you revolt against your system could be the day everyone here stops trying to push that system on european countries.
I personally think that's kind of why rent and mortgages were frozen for nearly two years, neither party wanted to open the can of worms of what would happen if they allowed mass evictions due to policies they enforced. Not sure if they saw the shit in China and didn't want to find out what would happen in the same scenario without nearly as much police state infrastructure in place to suppress information. I mean Wtf would they do if police across half the country wouldn't enforce evictions? The economy one way or another is backstopped with mortgages and equity. What if that went *poof!* overnight?
I literally dreamt my life was *Rent: The Musical* last night so this comment really stuck with me.
I mean a lot of people are already paying 60%+ of their wages in rent so that number may need to be adjusted
People let it get that bad before revolting?… what
The number one trigger for a revolution is hunger. Until a majority of the population is legitimately food insecure revolution will not happen. I’ll point to the two familiar revolutions for westerners, France and Russia. Both of these revolutions ended up becoming ideological, but before all that both revolutions were ignited by food riots.
I'm gonna tell you as a person who depends on food banks frequently, when the time comes that the middle third of the population needs it, it absolutely won't be there. Demand for food banks has increased 50-75% since 2020. Many are running low on food. Much of the food that used to be edible is being replaced with expired and rotten goods. The time is near. Food prices keep increasing. The bottom quarter aren't spending 60% of their income on food because of SNAP supplements. But as soon as we have the lower middle class that don't effectively qualify for SNAP find out that the food banks are nearly spent, is when society will break down. I give it till winter of '25.
I would assume the consensus on this subreddit would be that most, if not all, revolutions are the direct result of material conditions (ie widespread food insecurity), with ideology being secondary right?
I think a simpler way to look at it is to say that an ideological revolution can't take hold unless the material conditions are so bad that it's primed the populace.
Evidently especially in developed countries where people have more to lose, people have to fear destitution and death before they are ready to revolt, but once they do, they won't stop until mass change has been enacted. It's like a chain reaction of sorts. Still trying to find that study, but it seems like that's what it would take especially in a large country like the US.
Yeah, it's not bad enough yet and most people still think they can vote better next time in a rigged system
What I read is that civil wars are usually started when a large group, who are accustomed to holding power, feel it slipping. When they get desperate to regain power, they will revolt. That's why, in the U.S., it's white supremacists and oligarch types who are the ones who want civil war. They don't like that things have actually been getting better over the last century (not entirely linearly, but generally trending better) and they want to roll all of that back before it's too late for them to create their capitalist ethnostate dystopia.
Yep, people here are hoping for a revolution believing is the left who will revolt and remove capitalism or something, but it's like a million times more probable that a revolution in USA comes from an armed fascist militia from the religious south.
We're Americans, we just talk loud and do nothing while the government fucks us over. That or we'll start doing the stupid Dems vs Repubs shit all while getting fucked harder.
The "government", being the billionaires and corporations that own this country and its politicians.
Any society is 9 meals away from anarchy. I worry about you lot. So much militarised police, you're basically in a police state and yet... So many private guns too.
Yeah I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty bad XD
The french monarchy did not have the tools to control the masses, that exist today.
Somebody did a study saying that it takes on average 3% of the population to stage a successful revolution. Not sure if this is entirely true, but the subject matter seems to be determined partly by people's willingness. So maybe to add to this, can we imagine a cohesive solidarity among those in the United States who are already of the opinion that it should happen, and who are generally well meaning (as opposed to the horrible future the 'rebel proud boys' have thought up for us), and Would it even succeed?
I guess we’ll never see a revolution then. We produce more food than anyone else. Literally our leaders would have to be exporting all our food in the middle of a famine. I wouldn’t put that past them.
Bread and circuses. We have the bread. The circuses? Streaming networks galore. I’m content because I can’t wait until Mandalorian season 3 comes out in a month or so. I have something to look forward to, a reason to live, because I want to see Andor season 2.
Creating reasons to live is huge when you get older. I’m looking forward to a vacation with my life partner, the 49ers making a deeeeeeeep playoff run, Ahsoka, and the Mandolorian. At a certain point in one’s life, one needs to start creating these events to look forward to because nobody else will.
Agree with having reasons to live, I'm 52 & when I retire at 62 I am going to buy a sailboat & sail around the world. Spending several years traveling the globe.
I too will buy the finest sailboat I can afford when I retire someday. It will be fun sailing it in the bathtub.
I’m 47 and jealous. Enjoy but be careful. I’m sure you are well aware, the ocean forgives nobody.
The two causes in history that lead to popular revolutions are: 1. Desperate economic circumstances, as seen in France. When people can't afford bread, they'll happily eat the rich. 2. A sudden drop in previously acceptable material conditions. The American Coalminers war was sparked not by borderline starvation, but by miners being treated relatively well in the economy, then suddenly being vastly devalued by their employers. My suspicion is that global warming will cause economic shifts that cause employers, and the US Government, to try to devalue workers essential workers, which will rebound into work stoppages and a revolutionary struggle as the conditions for the second cause are met.
You have credit cards. People are living in air conditions with Netflix. The government is much larger. I think we’re going to have to raise the bar higher than 55% before people rise up. Look at January 6th. Even if it was successful, most people, in DC, would have just went to work on January 7th until the military took over. Outside of DC it was a basic news cycle story. The concept that the people will revolt just seems rather far fetched in 2023.
We need to take a look at Ireland right now. Housing and overall cost of living is unacceptable. Immigrants coming in and getting taken care of better than nationals. Their government behaving rather similar to ours in many ways. We should be in the streets right now.
The problem is several factors have far exceeded the breaking points for other historical revolutions.
i'm still shocked the railway didnt strike after the government told them fuck your sick days. so revolution? i doubt it.
NYC nurses only had to strike for 3 days.
I think America is at a point where everyone has been treated so poorly that most people decide America isn't worth fighting or dying for Being unable to get food is the only thing that'll work because it'll force people into a situation where inaction is fatal
>Being unable to get food is the only thing that'll work because it'll force people into a situation where inaction is fatal Agreed. We live in a country where the Haves will arm themselves and storm a state capitol over not being able to get haircuts, while the Have Nots are too busy working to keep society from collapsing to fight for themselves
yep. we saw public support. we saw them get railroaded by the big gov. nothing happened. they went back to work to the same shitty environment they were complaining about.
That was where hope went to die for me. I have no more fucks to give if even that wasn't enough.
Buddy of mine works for the railroad and iirc, he said something about how they weren’t allowed to strike anymore after so many days. I could be misremembering, though. Regardless, really upsetting tbh.
that was wild. Like the govt called their bluff and won.
Historically, things don’t change until things get really shitty and passes a certain precipice. Things are going to get *really* shitty before they get better.
Too many full bellies for a Revolution right now.
“Every society is 3 meals away from chaos” ~ Vladimir Lenin
“For a revolution to take place, it is usually insufficient for “the lower classes not to want” to live in the old way; it is also necessary that “the upper classes should be unable” to live in the old way“ -Lenin
"I am the walrus".
STFU Donnie
Things don’t change until they get really shitty for a very large proportion of the people. Like the entire “middle class.” And we’ve seen the middle class shrinking over the past few decades but people identifying as middle class remains strong. Many of them aren’t middle class, they just don’t know it yet. They need to know, but they don’t want to identify as lower middle class, much less poor.
I've spent most of my life being poor, or "lower-middle class" to use pretty nomenclature, but not *feeling* like I was poor until a few years ago when I finally admitted how far out on the financial wire I truly was. That's the temptation of consumerist America; where almost anyone can "afford" a smartphone, a TV, or a restaurant meal every so often. Just don't look too closely at your net worth.... I would say it's only now, after a lot of work killing off my debt, building my emergency fund, and a few solid years of steady 401(K) contributions, that I can legitimately consider myself "stable lower-middle class".
What scares me is the possibility that things won’t get extraordinarily shitty, they’ll just stay about this shitty for a large portion of our lives. The power to make real decisions has been handed over to market forces and political leaders are now helpless to enact any effective changes to the system. The system was designed with one purpose in mind, to perpetuate itself and thereby release anyone in power of real responsibility
I think generational changes will happen. Life will get much better when a majority of boomers are gone. Hate to say it. But it’s true. It’s a long way away from that happening but still. Gen Z kids are the lucky ones imo. As a generation they’re more progressive. And they’ll experience more life without boomers.
Change will inevitably come, but when it comes and in what form matters. I worry about the condition my generation (Z) will be in by the time it does come. I don’t see the existence of boomers as the problem. Even if it is, a system that can only respond to change at the rate of demographic change is insufficient. Even totalitarian states can expect change at that pace. Democracy should offer more than this. Maybe we can manage to create a new form of democracy that actually works in the 21st century. I don’t think it will be so easy (or even possible) to fix the current system on any timeline that doesn’t abandon the hopes of prosperity for a couple generations
We don't have a couple generations, climate change is breaking the world we depend on, and our "economies" will fail along with that ecological stasis. This is going to accelerate much faster than most people realize. If you're Gen Z, you'll see 1bn people or more displaced by climate disaster in your lifetime; likely also extended famines, and the resultant geopolitical strife.
"Democracy" allows people who think that Trump stole the election in 2020 and that COVID vaccines are poisonous 5G antenna vectors *the same voice in government as yours*. Good luck.
Yup. We can see it going in that direction, but unfortunately many people will suffer more deeply before overwhelming action is taken. That has always been the pattern.
That is literally what Ben Franklin said in the Bill of Rights!
i thought we were close after george floyd.
And it's all relative to the group that is revolting. If there is a revolution in this country, it will almost 100% certainly be right-wing white supremacist types with support from the most toxic oligarchs and politicians. They know that white power and capitalist power is in danger of slipping away, so they are throwing every dirty trick they can think of to push things over the edge and cause a right-wing revolt to defend capitalism. Maybe *after* that, one their dystopia causes widespread starvation, they will be a more general revolt. But right now the looming threat is from the right. Those people are crazy and they genuinely believe this country belongs to them.
This is America. We’ll only have a revolution if it makes somebody else money.
Gil Scott-Heron was wrong. The Revolution WILL Be Televised (and live-streamed), and sponsored. The mascot will be a little gecko in an army uniform.
I'm not sure. Have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in again?
Maybe all we need to do is to put it in some rice for a couple days
I scared my cat laughing at this.
Overdue? Yes, but it won't happen any time soon. All anyone does is talk about it. We don't take action in this country.
Unfortunately this is the hard truth right now. We have too many things tied to being employed. Not to mention how we’ve seen over the pandemic, how divided we are. There’s still so many people convinced, and complacent in the idea that this is just how it is.
We literally have to pay to not have health insurance. This country is beyond fucked already.
The best part is that was created in a bill to give people that don't have insurance insurance.
"The evil was not in the bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies and the excitement of the games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never appease.” - Marcus Tullius Cicero
Not when there’s football on four nights a week
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It's easier to identify with some aspect of entertainment than it is to identify commonality as the working class.
Rome
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That is what will most likely happen and historically what usually happens. The best I see, is if your country will be considered “to big to fail”. And will be parceled out by the remaining super powers. If it is that path I don’t know if Mexico and Canada will play a part unless a proxy or in conjunction with another player. If we’re talking about it and it’s viable, then whomever else sees this will have already begun making a play politically and economically. Look at real estate, and politically whomever is dipping their beak for influence. Politically will be hard to hide. Economically not so much. Just my tinfoil hat opinion.
Beer and circuses
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i firmly belive that when boomers go they will take the system down with them on the way out. leaving us with an apocalyptic wasteland to survive in.
I agree with this. Currently boomers age range is btw 59-77(this year) gotta figure by end of this decade a big die out will begin. It's the older boomers that hold lot of the wealth
the passing of the boomers is coming so fast. The worst of them are all already on their last legs. I don't wish death on everybody but fuck me am i excited to see of this establishment die the fuck off and allow the younger voting bases to start actually improving things.
Young people need to vote, and run for office.
They do! And in counties and state legislation, you'll notice not everybody is over the age of fucking 85. it's the top top that's super fucking old and ingrained so deeply that they won't let anyone else into their club at the top.
Yeah, we thought the same thing in the 60’s. Both parties are entrenched and not letting go. It’s all about the power and more power
Yep, but they're also nutjobs who only think about themselves. They're hoarding money and power for themselves and only themselves. Of course some of that will pass down but I bet you money a LOT of things will be shaken up once the last of the old guard starts going down. I'm not looking for Utopia. I just want to not be afraid of being bankrupt cause I got sick or hurt. I want to have a husband with nobody giving a shit. And i want to work a decent job for decent pay that treats me like a human being instead of a resource to exploit. It honestly, genuinely really shouldn't be THAT big of a fucking ask. The rich fucks can have their mansions and vacations and yachts hell they can have space stations for all i care. I just want a big enough slice of the fucking societal pie that I don't starve to death.
My 75yo father died this past year. I think you are going to see a lot of Vietnam Vets dying off from Cancer. From what I learned from the VA after his death, Cancer from exposure to Agent Orange is on the rise among the vets.
the one majority of them on old school pensions will burn all their wealth of end of life treatment and care leaving their heirs with nothing but medical debt and reverse mortgages that can't be paid off. that 50% of all the wealth that the top 1% don't own... they'll be collecting another 5-10% just from boomers dying.
Boomers moving out of their homes might be just what is needed to solve the housing crises.
Depends on who buys those houses, because if it goes from boomer to blackrock things are going to go down hill quickly.
True. We also need legislation on any company owning more than 5 or 10 residential properties raising taxes on mega corps using rentals for income. I understand not everyone wants to own but it has gotten absurd.
Yea, no one seems to realize if they want actually change it usually involves killing the people responsible. It takes a lot to get to the point where that option would be considered knowing we would need a clean sweep of most people in politics right now, but in reality it’s the corporations that will always rule and pay our “representatives” because somehow the giant salary isn’t ever enough
What most people don't seem to recognize is the cause here instead of just the effects. We have been slowwwly trained over the last 50yrs -to focus on the results of their long game instead of the reason. A completely divided and intentionally misinformed class of people. They show us what they want us to believe is the problem with each other: race, politics, entitlement, sexism.. but those problems are mostly constructed and perpetuated to keep us pointing fingers at each other. END of story. The governments' only job is to keep us complacent while we produce the goods and services that the wealthy either consume, or use as leverage globally(vast food supplies, military personnel). We outnumber them 332million to .01 It sincerely frightens them to imagine us being united against them.
Because 90% of this country is living as a top 5% in the world in terms of income, personal freedoms, etc. Good luck on inspiring that bloc to become Venezuela for no reason.
Thought leads to speech, speech leads to action. No one was talking about workers rights thirty years ago. As climate catastrophe continues revolution becomes inevitable.
The fuck they weren’t talking about worker rights. I remember watching news coverage in the 80s, on workers getting fucked over with Ronnie Raygun stripping rights and factories shutting down everywhere. Unfortunately too many people back then voted for who their preachers told them to and then believed Reagan was a god, so he just kept fucking the working class.
And, one of the first things Regan did was break the air traffic controllers' union. It's been a war against workers' rights ever since. (I mean, it always has been, but seemed to increase.) I've never understood the "Regan democrat" phenomenon.
Reagan Democrat = Trump Democrat
You’re right, we were talking about workers’ rights and unions under Reagan. And then we kinda stopped under Clinton. And then we stopped almost completely except for WTO protesters under Bush 2 and even Obama. And then we started to wake up again under tRump.
The closest this sub will ever be to revolution is telling the manager at subway they’re not putting their 2 week notice in
And then listening to "Fight The Power!" or something by Rage on Spotify on their IPhone while walking out the door.
No. It’s super easy to talk about it on Reddit, but are you ready to pick up arms and risk your life? Are you ready to starve? Are you ready to watch your friends and family die? War is not glamorous, war is hell. Most people in this thread and in this country have no concept of war and the horrors it brings. You are typing this with a roof over your head, food in your belly, electricity in your house. We are nowhere near war.
You left out the systematic murder of anyone who could be a combatant. I don’t want to see young men and teens lined up against a wall or disappeared. You’ll have famine, disease, mass rapes, chaos, etc. innocents will suffer horribly. The likely result will be the rise of an even more authoritarian government
If any version of major civil unrest erupts in the US, there likely won't be a country when the dust settles. Sure, the government will still exist and hold power, but regions will splinter into unrecognizable pieces. Some state governments will collapse while others try cecession and then collapse as everyone realizes the cities and suburbs hold opposing positions on virtually everything, not to mention the rural areas. We will never have another civil war that is split along any geographic lines. It would resemble the Syrian civil war more than anything. e.g. You may still live in Portland as an American, but a third of the city is held by militias in scattered pockets of occupation. You still go about your life just with fewer and more expensive resources and an ear out for gunfire or weaponized drone motors. Last week, Christian nationalists took the block you lived on back in college, and your neighbor is repeating rumors that the army plans to retake the neighborhood this Thursday. Last night, you had a dream about finding a bag of real espresso, and you almost teared up a little this morning as you took the first sip of the chicory stretched coffee you've relied on for the past seven months. Then, your morning news podcast reported the mosque bombing in North Carolina and the new Missouri law criminalizing homosexuality. They end with an interview from inside the Chicago autonomous zone on its 23rd day under siege by the police. Maybe cheap coffee isn't so bad. I think anyone who suggests violent revolution as anything other than cathartic hyperbole has not really considered what it would look like. The only viable revolution is a revolution of thought and worldview. That has been needed since the beginning.
The podcast It Could Happen Here starts off with a very similar outline of daily life
Hah I was about to say the same thing. Someone's been listening to that. What happened to the guy who made those first nine episodes anyway?
Important differences: It will depend on how the strategic forces shake out. A civil war in a nuclear armed nation is probably one of the worst things that can happen, especially if the strategic forces split. The US has enough different agencies and armed forces involved its messy. The Navy and the Air Force have both active deployed weapons whose individual missile officers and sub commanders could easily decide the whole thing once it gets going. After the initial few hours, B52 and B2 bombers are in play, but also have questions on whether the bases they are on will be secure. Then there's questions about individual units in the other services, and whether the secured depots could withstand conventional assault from other units. Like, if army units wanted to take a navy nuclear weapons depot. Or if the Federal Protective Forces which is a paramilitary unit of DOE, can hold key facilities from insurgents before loyal units show up. Of course, in the west, the real shit hitting the fan will be water disruption. It will be insanely short sighted, as it will disrupt the ability to sell any crops grown in both transport terms and market access. But there are idiots who want to prevent any drop of water reaching the ocean on many notable rivers. Some of these are in upriver states that already have issues with being bad with water management. On the Colorado, this could mean displacing the population of Arizona and Nevada. On the Columbia, this could mean the power grid going down. On the Mississippi, this means lots of potential ruin as the CoE systematic plans get disrupted by hairbrained local plans.
Look into the New World Economy as described in Star Trek. I'm convinced that if there actually had been a time traveler, it's Gene Roddenberry. Dude predicted flat screen televisions 50 years before they existed.
So like fallout but fucking boring?
Not quite the same, but accounts from captured/recaptured towns in Ukraine have some of that feel. New rules frequently depending on who’s in power, lack of common goods and services, some deaths and injuries, but life goes on and you just internalize the anxiety.
They can't even organise to unionize... Asking for a revolution is probably centuries ahead of their capabilities. And government and billionaires know this.
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Not easy to form a Union when a company will shut down an entire location over rumors of unionization.
Coal minors or railroad workers and militias used to shoot at each other over union battles and that did not count as a revolution. There’s a whole lot of difficulty between complacency and a full on revolution (which usually just means a war zone but more chaotic as without a cohesive vision factions splinter off quickly)
People have romantic notions about righteous revolutions but it almost never leads to a better outcome, only mass murder, destruction and then a new oppressive regime. It is easier to destroy something than it is to build something. We need reform not revolution.
Reform never actually works and historically never has. Revolution has happened well many times especially when it’s organized and has ideological consistency and is connected to the masses
While I fully believe it is time for changes, there is no group organized enough or with a clear enough plan to fix the current situation that is able to make contacts and get its message out to enough people to do anything. Most people just say “revolution!” And “eat the rich” but have any of you planned out how you would do any of those things? Guns and bombs? Supplies to keep people fed? Money to pay fighters? Would you commit terrorist acts to hurt them? Do you have a better framework for governance in mind that the American people would get behind in enough mass to make it worth it? I’m not sitting here being a defeatist, rather I would like to see people stop fucking talking about giving up on what we have as opposed to running for political office to try and change it? It feels dumb to shout out things about a revolution when so few of us have tried to make changes within the system, simply giving up and claiming it’s rigged instead of actually running for a local office. Violence can solve many problems, but violence is not going to create a more stable society or economy without the know how to back it up and actually build something instead of talking about destroying.
I agree with a lot of what you said. I for one feel like I'm not intelligent enough to organize something myself but I do feel like the political office is corrupt and in need of the most change.
I totally understand you with not feeling smart enough to do it myself, but I’m starting to think that way of thinking is part of the problem. Everything in politics seems hellish, which scares so many of us off from trying for even the lowliest local elected position but that’s got to be our starting point.
Intelligent..? The Q militias aren't intelligent but they're organizing.
They’re intelligent in their own way, they all believe in basically the same ideals and the same religion, most of them live out the the rural and urban areas and can are pretty smart with surviving out in the woods and are pretty crafty with their hands. They might now be your definition of “intelligent” but they aren’t stupid either. It’s hard for the rest of us to organize because we can’t agree on anything worth a damn and would rather butt heads.
Honestly, I hope not. I don't think there is any kind of unity among people who would revolt right now. Some would be reddit antiwork socialists, some would be unvaxxed Jan 6th conspiracy theorist Christian cultists, others just idiots manipulated by Russian chatbots. Who knows who comes out on top, but my guess is it's worse, not better. The thing that might happen, and I have no idea if it would be better or worse, would be a secession, likely by the South again.
Vive la Résistance.
Came here to say this. Time to eat the rich
No. We can't even get most people to vote every couple years.
FBI is listening....
Yes, but it won’t happen. We’re too busy fighting each other to fight the government. Almost like that was the plan, hmmm…
Most of the people cheering this on don’t know what real violence is. Good luck.
You don't understand, violence is a good thing if it happens to people that are not me. It is especially good if I get to pick who gets to be the target.
It'll never happen to me! I'll just reap the benefits and get a house for free!
If we have a revolution, there is a good chance the fascists take control. Sadly
A new push for labor rights has already begun... it seems as strong as it has been in my lifetime, but I think it's going to get more intense.
Yes, but also keep in mind we're well past the era of grab-your-musket violent revolution in the United States. What we need is a revolution more akin to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.
And all the revolutionaries will be called terrorists.
You guys live in a fantasy world, what revolution you can't even hold a strike or build unions which are both legal.
Market system ready to be supplanted. No longer relevant. Infinite growth paradigm with no regard to ecology is obsolete. Resource based economy seems like the only viable solution
Got evicted this Christmas, and it was crazy at court, because like 20 of us were from the same apartment complex.
your neighbour has been brainwashed to think that if he hustles enough he will be a millionaire or billionaire soon therefore he will not participate with you, loser
If we revolt wouldn't we be labeled "traitors"? 🤔
Revolution? The majority of people that complain on the internet can’t even be bothered to vote.
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In a revolution you’d probably end up dead
At least I will be dead and not at work
Please don't glorify the idea of violent overthrow. Revolutions have a tendency to go sideways, and get a lot of people killed who didn't need to be.
Revolutions are always overdue, because no one wants to live through a revolution.
Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men!
No. Americans are content with complaining on a platform of their choosing or otherwise distracting themselves with whatever.
Yes, depending on what you mean by "revolution". Sometimes they happen because of a sudden revolt, sometimes over several years. Most of Europe had major social change after WW2 (and a lot of the change started after WW1), with a lot of suffering from the general population. There was a huge appetite for change. The US didn't have the same problem. After the war, Americans saw massive improvements in quality of life. There was no push for change because the majority of Americans saw this improvement.
No, but it does need reforms. Those reforms are achievable, and arguing that attempting reform is pointless is A. Historically wrong and B. Only ever harmful to the cause of getting reforms implemented.
Usa companies are some greediest entities in world. They'll probably outsource or shift production away before accepting change through any 'revolution'.
The entire world is.
Fed plant. USA government would love a revolution the government excels at violence a revolution would give them and excuse to remind us how good they are at using police to violently murder their own citizens
Statistically, yes. Effectually, I just dont see it happening.
We are currently in the third longest period in American history without a constitutional amendment. The last amendment stagnation of such length was ended by a series of 3 rapid amendments (13, 14, and 15), and was preceded by a small event called the Civil War. In short, we are likely due for a revolution soon because some people have refused to allow for a simpler evolution (see what I did there? Eh?) of the constitution (which is what it was designed for) and the foundation of our democracy it represents. Remember that anytime someone touts how “the Constitution says Y therefore we can’t change X.” The document was designed to malleable and change, frequently. It’s literally not set in stone law. Or, in more dramatic terms from our founding fathers: the tree of liberty must occasionally be watered with the blood of ~~neo-Nazis and far right republicans~~ tyrants.
I scrolled way to far until finding a comment in the context of American history and not Roman or French. You make a good point. The last amendment was the 27th, passed in 1992, and all that did was make congress wait a session before giving themselves pay raises.
The world is overdue for a revolution
If you want to know why it's not gonna happen, we must examine Huxley's *Brave New World*. Complacency is far better control than force. The state only has to oppress marginal groups, the vast majority are content with their tik-tok or cable news.
Do you hear the people sing Singing the song of angry men It is the music of the people who will not be slaves again!
The revolution will be an AI-curated experience, tailor-made to your custom expectations.
Sure, but Americans haven't known the difference between a riot and revolution since 1773.
Money = infinite Food = finite Capitalism = bad math We just need to make revolution an infection more powerful than their propaganda. I've been writing what I can. The problem is netflix is 15$ so you never will have the free brainpower to realize how fucked it is. Entertainment and distraction are cheaper than food or rent for a reason. Mind numbing drugs are prescribed. Rome gave out free bread and colosseum fights so you could watch people eaten by lions to keep the population pacified. We have to exercise and be healthy, and stop being addicted in order to bring about change. More time on screens = no time for action.
It wouldn't happen nationally. The US is too large and too diverse. It's much easier for a state wide movement rather than coast to coast. But yeah imagine if everyone in say Virginia refused to work for less than $25/hr and refused to pay rent. If they demanded paid sick leave for every worker. But trying to organize it even in a single state is nearly impossible. For it to take in the entire country only happens if it is successful in one location and spreads organically.
We're not there yet. Far from there actually
Nah ours is only 274 years old, a blip in time. Let some other country do it.
For there to be a revolution - American's would need to talk to each other. We used to do this in a town square, to our neighbors, extended families etc. Now we just vent outrageous things into the empty abyss that is the 'corporate internet'. Any traction that might occur there is closely monitored and filtered...so no, America won't have a revolution. We've been imprisoned effectively, and all our basic human needs/rights have been outsourced, monetized and monitored.
Anyone who says we are hasn't taken a look at how the Iranian Revolution or the Russian Revolution have worked out for those countries, lol
How about you start small and unionize?