It’s a slope that increases without notice. Former President George W. Bush’s started a secret assassination by drone program, run by the CIA. These were overseas, extrajudicial murders of people of color who were never [...]
Well, there's electoralism - get someone like Sanders in office who's at least honest enough and committed enough to a social program to freeze the growth of the security state, who might appoint enough honest people that the culture of the permanent bureaucracy (i.e., the deep state) will begin to change.
Then mass movements that are willing to commit more civil disobedience and suffer more casualties, which could destroy the reputation of a sitting government and again allow for someone like Sanders (or better) to get swept into power.
Either way that requires leftists to organize aggressively, build structures of popular power.
A violent uprising won't work in the US. The security state is too effective and the middle class too well-fed and complacent (and too trusting of media and authority). A successful guerrilla war needs a weak enough state and a strong enough people, a united enough people. Getting armed and thus presenting a passive threat/being harder for right-wingers to kill might be part of the greater strategy, but it's not enough by itself. If you get a group the size of the Black Panthers together, they'll just false flag and murder you and put you on TV and say you were terrorists - well before you're an actual threat.
I think one of the principle problems with engaging in electoralism is that it rapidly takes over the entire movement. Opposition to it is coming from a place of trying to get people away from the electoralism that is the obsession of liberals and into the much more effective actions of organising.
That's not to say that I disagree. I do agree that some electoralism plays a role in an overall movement. But active opposition to it is a healthy way of repeatedly keeping the movement separate from liberalism and focused on growth through organising.
Well, there's electoralism - get someone like Sanders in office who's at least honest enough and committed enough to a social program to freeze the growth of the security state, who might appoint enough honest people that the culture of the permanent bureaucracy (i.e., the deep state) will begin to change.
Then mass movements that are willing to commit more civil disobedience and suffer more casualties, which could destroy the reputation of a sitting government and again allow for someone like Sanders (or better) to get swept into power.
Either way that requires leftists to organize aggressively, build structures of popular power.
A violent uprising won't work in the US. The security state is too effective and the middle class too well-fed and complacent (and too trusting of media and authority). A successful guerrilla war needs a weak enough state and a strong enough people, a united enough people. Getting armed and thus presenting a passive threat/being harder for right-wingers to kill might be part of the greater strategy, but it's not enough by itself. If you get a group the size of the Black Panthers together, they'll just false flag and murder you and put you on TV and say you were terrorists - well before you're an actual threat.
You lost me at electoralism didn't read the rest
That's cool, electoralism is not everyone's cup of tea =). It's one of the options though. Please elaborate on the options you consider superior.
I think one of the principle problems with engaging in electoralism is that it rapidly takes over the entire movement. Opposition to it is coming from a place of trying to get people away from the electoralism that is the obsession of liberals and into the much more effective actions of organising.
That's not to say that I disagree. I do agree that some electoralism plays a role in an overall movement. But active opposition to it is a healthy way of repeatedly keeping the movement separate from liberalism and focused on growth through organising.
That's fair!