I don't disagree with any of your analysis but I personally believe that the history of places like China, and of revolutions in general, show us that even the most powerful and successfully repressive of governments are only a bad winter, a drought, or a military defeat away from being overthrown.
Of course, but... replaced by what? Many revolutions don't actually change the class relationships, they just throw off the current iteration and then ideologically collapse in on themselves because the conditions weren't there to challenge the fundamentals of classes. The US has a much stronger right wing than left and if revolution happened now me and mine would just get murdered. Like in Indonesia, but there are even fewer of us and liberalism is popular within "the left", meaning they won't arm or organize. Hell, a ton, possibly majority, of anyone that would call themselves leftist here promote gun control and abhor weapons. And the military is very much on the liberal side of the equation.
The conditions for revolution are coming, but the question is: how will we navigate them? How big do we need to be to survive? How do we recruit? How do we overcome overriding, deeply ingrained anticommunism? On the current course, the two most likely outcomes are (1) the extermination of the American left by a neofascist resurge or (2) a prolonged civil war in which we lose a ton but do does everyone else, and we only stand a chance of emerging alive after decades of widespread death and political realignment by necessity. Both of these events follow a general, long economic downtown with no coherent reasons to actually subscribe to for liberals or conservatives, which is all but inevitable unless neoliberalism part 2 gets a chance to kick in (this only happens if China does, for some reason, collapse, which I don't think it will). When spending most of your wage on food returns to the norm, we will see the true expression of the cult of capital.
I don't disagree with any of your analysis but I personally believe that the history of places like China, and of revolutions in general, show us that even the most powerful and successfully repressive of governments are only a bad winter, a drought, or a military defeat away from being overthrown.
I know exactly what you mean by this but the pedant in me wants to point out that we had all 3 of those things almost back to back
you also need people who hope for something better and are guided by revolutionary theory
Of course, but... replaced by what? Many revolutions don't actually change the class relationships, they just throw off the current iteration and then ideologically collapse in on themselves because the conditions weren't there to challenge the fundamentals of classes. The US has a much stronger right wing than left and if revolution happened now me and mine would just get murdered. Like in Indonesia, but there are even fewer of us and liberalism is popular within "the left", meaning they won't arm or organize. Hell, a ton, possibly majority, of anyone that would call themselves leftist here promote gun control and abhor weapons. And the military is very much on the liberal side of the equation.
The conditions for revolution are coming, but the question is: how will we navigate them? How big do we need to be to survive? How do we recruit? How do we overcome overriding, deeply ingrained anticommunism? On the current course, the two most likely outcomes are (1) the extermination of the American left by a neofascist resurge or (2) a prolonged civil war in which we lose a ton but do does everyone else, and we only stand a chance of emerging alive after decades of widespread death and political realignment by necessity. Both of these events follow a general, long economic downtown with no coherent reasons to actually subscribe to for liberals or conservatives, which is all but inevitable unless neoliberalism part 2 gets a chance to kick in (this only happens if China does, for some reason, collapse, which I don't think it will). When spending most of your wage on food returns to the norm, we will see the true expression of the cult of capital.