Like, sorry for obviously doomer posting. Sorry if this sounds like a fed-post to deter people from protesting/organizing - which I don't mean to do by any means. But like... honestly, how is anything going to change? Materially. Logistically.

We're living in a country and a time where you can literally have your life ruined for simply taking your phone with you to a protest. Sentenced with fines or imprisonment. Or at the very least charged with all that shit, and having your life completely fucked over by it. Idk about the rest of you, but I don't think my job would keep me around if I didn't show up one morning because I was arrested at a protest, much less because of the stigma of "unprofessional behavior" that has. And it took months to get the job in my field I have now, and I'm just barely getting by - and this is as someone privileged to have some help from parents and no dependents.

On a larger scale, how the fuck is any protest or action by anyone gonna change things? Anything that ideally would be influential enough to change things (ie [REDACTED] style things) would probably be prevented the moment anyone even considered it, the feds descending on those involved the moment any email sent or plan spoken aloud. How the hell can anything change in this country short of an all out intervention by China or some sort of a unified South American socialist coalition? How can any movement on the ground in the US change shit at this point from inside the oppressive police state we live in? How is any sort of "organizing" or protesting done right now any more effective than electoralism? I mean, remember 2020? Literally shit all came from that.

I just feel so hopeless and conflicted. Is it really worth it going on on the street to a protest and getting my shit rocked by a cop in the fucking juggernaut's armor with a metal baton and bean bag gun, or run over by a pickup truck chud plowing through an intersection if nothing will change like it didn't with 2020 or Ferguson? Is it wrong to have thoughts in my head worrying about the conflict of wanting to have some sort of successful artistic career VS abandoning any sense of bourgeois societal participation and spending my time and what little money I have solely focused on "revolutionary" organization in a country that will ruin me if I do anything besides silently hold a sign, alone, in a public park between the hours of 9am and 5pm?

How do we/I find hope of winning when we live in a literal country-wide panopticon?

I wish this was a fed post. I wish I was getting paid for this. I wish I didn't feel hopeless. I wish I was one of those evil, ghoulish fuckers toasting champagne rn over their hegemonic control as they repress us more and more each day. Instead this is a cry for help from someone who literally doesn't know what they should be doing or risking as we sink deeper in the shit.

    • ANTI_MAGE [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Unnecessarily pessimistic. Why and by who? Do you think the 500 chapters of warring fash offshoots are going to do it? Because from what I remember from the last 6 years, they didn't spend any time ingratiating themselves to impoverished communities. Whenever they showed up to demonstrate past Charlottesville (which was a total failure), they've required police escort and were always vastly outnumbered. Their actions and support and in many ways their recruitment is dependent on the state. Jan 6th was organized by an FBI informant and allowed to happen because they knew the right wouldn't actually do anything other than tailgate.

      The fash you have to worry about will be the remnants the state that you'll have to fight anyways if you want a fucking house. You should be much more afraid of Mormon G-Men than some dude named Odin who has spent the last five years posting slurs on Idaho dialup. The left isn't prepared for the collapse because we never get any sort of institutional experience, anyone who's kinda effective gets brutally murdered or imprisoned. The right operates with total impunity from the law, and they're so ineffective they left the fucking front door open for them and the Hunters and Kaitlyns of this country were too fucking useless to walk through. They're just as beholden to capital as the main political parties, and even if they could properly organize the day of the rope (they can't), it isn't going to get you a fucking meal.

        • ANTI_MAGE [none/use name]
          ·
          2 years ago

          But those groups will still continue to infight against each other, and those affectations are ones they can afford because politics don't fucking matter to them. They can still afford to pretend that their camp of the saints shit matters because they can get their goods. They'll freak out and there will be violence, I would prefer this not to happen and there is a good possibility I will be on the receiving end of whatever violence happens, but their basic operations are tied to the state and while they'll be used against whatever manifests itself in the coming years, they're still just American libs. They want to speak to the manager just like every other Karen. They'll complain and whine and there will be those of them that will fight, but they'll blink and we will overcome them. Besides, cop gangs already exist in most major cities, and if our success really was dependent on the support of every Elgin, OK in the country over the collective working class, we never had a chance to begin with.

          I'm sorry, their moment has come multiple times and they've whiffed it harder than the left ever has. It won't be their last failure.

          • PrideBoy [he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            The right will be integrated into and organized by the police state when they need them to retire social movements. Learn the history of the rise of the Nazis that’s what they did.

        • 20000bannedposters [love/loves]
          ·
          2 years ago

          The country by numbers is in the cities and burbs.

          Rural areas are a small percentage of the actual population

    • SoyViking [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      And the thing that will convert liberals to communists is also going to fuel a fascist surge. Even if there are enough communists to do something it is by no means certain they will win or that they'll win soon. History is littered with failed uprisings and even the ones that won only did so through immense horrors. The Chinese revolution lasted decades for god's sake.