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.

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

    Like Rosa said "Before a revolution happens, it is perceived as impossible; after it happens, it is seen as having been inevitable"

    If you read the history of and leading up to the Russian, Chinese ,Cuban etc revolutions without knowing the outcome you would 100% have said "this is impossible ! No way a working class revolution succeeds or even positive overthrow of the old order happens" . If Vegas odds for betting was a thing back then the Russian Revolution happenening would be at 500 to 1 lets say 5-10 years before 1917 and still at 100 to 1 to survive for the next 10 years after 1917. You could pick points in the 30s where the CPC coming out on top would be at a 2000 to 1 odds or even worse.

    Every revolution was against their own insourmountable odds and required a huge stream of luck and correct decisions at every junction point to happen. Thats why dozens and dozens have failed and never took off. But some happened no matter how batshit unlikely it was . And they will happen again. And the conditions and chances to overcomed those hundreds to 1 odds will present themselves again in many countries and not just once . The only important work we have to do is to organize , with history as our guide, the best we can in order to even remotely be in a position to attempt that flipping of odds when the time comes and excert any influence on those revolutionary junction points. The American left due to its sorry state has missed the last half dozen of them and will miss more but they wont stop happening and will only become more frequent. It only has to get it right once (even if it fails again later)