How bad do we let things get? Should we wait until the planet can’t sustain life anymore? Should we wait until it’s 100 degrees F in the Artic? Until wildfires blanket entire continents or the last glacier is gone? Should we wait until fascist billionaires take even more from us? Until there are Flock cameras at every mail box? Maybe we should wait until the wells run dry or the tornadoes never stop. When is it going to be enough? I’m so tired of seeing things getting worse. Every. Single. Day. I’m ready. I’ve been ready. How about you?
How do we coordinate? How do we look after each other? What is the signal? If we don’t work together then we are just continuing our slow march to destruction to the drum of the parasitic billionaires. Please, for us, for the cats, the dogs, the birds and trees. The fish and the whales, the beatles and the centipedes. Please tell me it’s worth it to you, that you’re willing to get uncomfortable, that you’re willing to fight. There are more of us than them, and we are rapidly running out of time to make that mean something.
Its when people have nothing to lose.
I tell people all of the time
“I won’t throw the first brick, but when the bricks start flying give me a call”
The thing that broke me wasn’t data centers or hot weather, it was when I had to pay $7 for hot dog buns
The business men who put a $7 price tag on hot dog buns during the 4th of July are not nearly as afraid of the public as they should be.
It’s fucking bread. Bread!
When stealing bread to feed your family is almost a felony… burn it down.
Problem is, if it happened, you would need to choose your targets wisely for it to be effective. Looting a Target isn’t the answer. The point is not to get yourself a new TV; it’s to advocate for real change. Don’t burn down your own place of business, don’t burn down your own neighborhood… burn theirs
Find the motherfuckers in the Epstein Files, sink yachts, tear down the walls surrounding billionaire neighborhoods, etc…
You’re spot on with identifying “bread” as the general problem. The issue with your perspective though is that people are burning things down in order to get bread. They know where the bread is in their neighborhoods, and “their” businesses. At the point they’re burning and looting why not grab a circus(new TV) on your way out?
Do you know where the bread is on a megayacht? I don’t! It’s not where the rioting is going to start. It will start at where there is know bread. If you have the understanding that that the fires need to reach the billionaire enclaves you can’t be shaming people for getting their bread however they can and then burning the evidence after. That will always be the initial spark.
I’m not rioting for bread, I’m rioting to tear down a broken system
If I want bread, I’ll just steal it. I don’t have to burn down Target to steal bread now, why would that change?
I do need to remind the people in charge who they work for though… and if they’re not willing to share what they have, then I’ll take it from THEM. If they’re not willing to get rid of their shit to save the environment then I’ll get rid of it for THEM
I don’t want to steal a TV from Target, I want to steal the TVs from the CEO who decided bread costs $7
The rioting needs to target the capitols and in my opinion, not the grocery stores. Down with the parasites!
The grocery stores are capitAls too.
Grocery stores are also a parasite who’s entire existence is in order to ration food/supplies/materials at the barrel of a gun to see how much extraction people will put up with.
However, I agree. Killing the canary doesn’t close down the coal mine. Ideally the canary wouldn’t be harmed but you’re going to need to dramatically change your relationship with the canary first, starting with setting it free.
Part of the problem is that there’s a thing called “Co-opting the Revolution” that’s been figured out, that you can neatly repackage dissent as a product to sell.
Like how you get Che Gueverra as merch now.
And it’s done an incredible job at making people feel like they’re doing something, whilst actually doing nothing.
I’ve done my part! I wear a ACAB pin that I purchased from Hot Topic
Or
I’ve done my part! I participated in the Reddit Blackout, and then bought the memorabilia
And the sad thing is, IT FUCKING WORKS
Psychologically, for many people, it silences the parts of the brain that are like “FIX THIS! DO SOMETHING!” for quite a lot of people
The technical term often used is “recuperation”. Any innovation in radical evolution of culture is seen as a threat to the status quo, so recuperation comes in to co-opt the radical impulse and funnel it back into the status quo in a manner that is not destabilizing to exist structural power.
The classic example is media piracy like napster, bit-torrent, etc being co-opted into streaming services, itunes, etc. Service the desire that animated the radical impulse while reinforcing the existing power structures, foreclosing the potential threat. Enshittification often follows shortly after the enclosure has been successful.
Ooh neat!
this is not an argument against the need to fight. just giving up the future because the enemy will be underhanded in how it fights back.
Part of the issue is that everyone I know that wants to do something is terrified that it’s going to place targets on vulnerable members of their larger communities. A lot of trans people, queer people, black and brown people, disabled people, immigrants, and indigenous folks I know want to DO something. They’re just scared that if they do, then it’s going to only accelerate violence against their marginalized communities and the greater population isn’t going to fight for them.
Nothing is going to happen until we weaponize the cishet white dudes and get them on our side.
This 100%. It’s the only demographic that can do any heavy lifting if we’re talking raw manpower, and they’re currently being heavily courted by fascists and death cults. That tide needs to turn.
I get that, for sure, as one cishet white dude.
When death is no longer the worst alternative, there will be revolution.
- my favorite high school history teacher
climate change can be stopped with solar energy, and the amount of installed solar power has grown exponentially in the last few years. so that’s something positive.
All renewables will help here. And new storage options. And nuclear as a base power.
We can’t stop the current impact but we can reduce it and start turning the tide around.
This shit has gone on for way too long.
Best way to start it off is with a symbolic figure. Some greedy CEO, board of directors member, police chief, or corrupt politician. Whatever is done has to involve being publicly displayed.
I find myself being pushed closer and closer everyday to jumpstarting it myself, but the reality is, it is highly unlikely that one person is going to accomplish it. Coordination with others is key.
…or so I’ve heard.
It’s simultaneously mindblowing and completely believable that no major action has been taken yet. So many sheep heading to slaughter.
Its less about starting to riot and more about stopping to buy. Cancel your accounts, throw away your credit cards, stop paying taxes, start a fucking garden ( now is perfect btw) and build a network of friends and neighbours.
We all want to have a good life lets just live it.
I have pulled back from consumerism as much as possible, anything I can buy used I do, and I have been gardening and planting fruit trees since before covid. It’s not enough, not in the face of the problems before us, and the greed that has brought it about. Everyone should start a garden if able, if nothing else to find out just how hard it is to get viable crops thanks to our erratic climate.
The problem is that we still want to live through it.
In our imaginations it’s everyone rising up against tyranny and oligarchy and demanding a better world. It’s us seeing the change happen and getting to that better world. We want the world to be better because we want better. We want a fair chance to own a nice home and live a decent life without constant worry. We want to be able to afford basic health care. To not be forced to pay thousands of dollars for ‘health insurance’ and then still be hit with hundreds of thousands in bills if we actually have a serious medical issue. To be able to go to a hospital for one night to give birth to a child without ending up $10k in debt for doing it. We want to know that justice exists and the people in power aren’t raping and murdering kids and then laughing when we demand justice. That they aren’t throwing poor people who can’t afford to defend themselves in for-profit prisons for crimes they didn’t commit so they can be used for slave labor.
We want to live, and to have life be something we enjoy and love instead of endless struggle and stress. We want to see the change happen, to experience how amazing and different things can be.
We want to live through it.
Most of us aren’t willing to die for it. To walk away from every thing you have, right now. Every belonging, every relationship. To stand up and walk away from all of it expecting to never see any of it again. Expecting to die. But willing to do that to make the world a better place for other people. For your children, or their children.
It’s common to hear people saying they don’t have or want kids because of the state of things we all hate so much. Making the world a better place for your children is one of the biggest reasons people are motivated to give up their own lives to force a rotten system to change.
We want deaths like Alex Pretti and Renee Good suffered to stop. We don’t want to be the next people at the wrong end of the gun.
Revolutions aren’t without cost. Usually very high cost. It takes a lot of people being willing to die, expecting to die, planning to die, and deciding that it’s worth it just for the chance to make things better for the future.
No revolution ever fixes everything. There are still problems and injustices and wrongs after every one of them. There is no guarantee that you standing up and walking out of your entire life, to go fight the system and die, will change anything at all. It might not work. Enough other people might not stand up for it to make even a tiny difference. Even if enough people do, it might not end up in a very big difference in the end. There’s a chance that it could cause big changes. That a lot of the worst parts of today would actually improve. But that’s only a chance, while there’s a complete guarantee that it would never lead to some idyllic utopia where everything is all batter.
You will almost definitely die. You won’t even know if it makes any difference in the end. All you’ll have is that hope that maybe it will, and maybe things will really be better for future generations.
Are you actually ready? Are you standing up, moncharleskey? It’s easy to type. It’s not easy to do. The answer to what you’re waiting for it simple. You’re waiting for you to decide that the mere chance, the hope, that in rising up and almost certainly dying for it you will manage to make a difference and make the world a better place is worth walking away from your entire life and expecting to die.
Until you hit that point inside, until you’re willing to stand up on the spot and give away your own life, you will keep sitting.
I am ready, I’ve been ready, but I’m not going to pull some lone wolf bullshit that gets me killed and leave my wife and kids to deal with the fallout. The bigger question here is are you ready? I need allies. Are you one, or are you another complacent?
No, not at any initial stage. Primarily because I have two dogs who need me to take care of them and make sure they have the best life possible. While that remains the case I’d definitely be willing to join up with a large movement that was happening and assist in ways that seemed unlikely to end in my death.
Holding on to my life for the moment in order to give my girls the best life I can is more important to me than exchanging it for the chance to help other humans. I like them more than I like most people. They are furry balls of pure love, and deserve to have a life where that’s returned to them. Humans are more hit or miss. We’re harder to deal with and it’s never as free from drama and baggage.
Before they were abandoned with me it would have been a different situation, with a different answer. I’ve certainly considered things that would end in me dead or in prison for life and had them be the main reason I knew I couldn’t do those things.
In a lot of ways being in prison isn’t nearly as bad as people imagine. If you’re not a total sack of shit and you’re willing to stand up for yourself and show that if necessary then that test only comes once for most people. After that it’s mainly boredom and lack of possessions and good food.
If you go to prison a hero, one most people inside would see that way too, it’s a much different situation. People on the outside can send in care packages of food and clothing and a TV, tablet, etc. If you have money you can rent movies on the tablet, or subscribe to a lower end monthly streaming service (think paying $20/mo to access Pluto.tv), have nice head phones and streaming music, sometimes even have access to video game systems and games.
You can only get so many packages sent in under your name per year… but if tons of people on the outside want to send you things it’s simple to have them send them in the names of other inmates who don’t have anyone sending them packages. You hook them up with some stuff and the bulk of it is yours. If you go down for the sort of thing Luigi is down for where everyone inside respects the fuck out of it and plenty of people on the outside support you and you’re never going to be hurting for good food and entertainment and any books you’d like to read, and any drugs you’d like to take.
For instance if someone took out a fat old racist child rapist and managed to survive their capture and make it to prison? Absolute celebrity. You’d probably never even get tested to defend yourself, because plenty of people on the inside watch the news. Nothing much to do. You’d be known as soon as you walked in, and there’d already be a lot of people who would beat the ass of anyone who tried to touch you or take from you.
But… puppies are love, and they deserve that back. Plus puppy kisses, long walks to sniff things, tug-of-war, and treats, and wrastlin’, and cuddles. My family can’t feed itself without me, and sending them to a shelter near here would likely be a death sentence. I’m fine with sacrificing me, but not them.
deleted by creator
This topic is well covered in The Alt-Right Playbook: The South Bank of the Rubicon:
Rioting won’t help anymore. The time for action was 40 years ago. We could maybe save humanity by killing almost everyone and subsisting the few remaining on a clean energy, no-fossil fuel burning, aggressive carbon recapture society. Beyond that, we are fucked.
Treat your continued existence like terminal cancer and try to live with purpose.
Fuck that, I’m not going down without a fight!
Then fight already, you’re still going down.
Sounds like you already gave up, just like the billionaire fucks want you to do.
You need focus, leadership, communication, and action planning.
Focus: You will have to choose climate change, flock surveillence, or social equality.
Communication: Dm people that seem like they could help, or believe as you do. Grow your organization.
Leadership: Choose or elect organizers by region or city so the people in your movement stay engaged. You need a central leader with impeccable morals/values. Dr. King is a good example to follow.
Action: Non violent protests, legal cases, and constitutional amendments come within reach when you have people power behind you. Plan and deliberatere internally to form a solid plan before going public; then don’t back down.
Communication: Dm people that seem like they could help, or believe as you do. Grow your organization.
You need REAL LIFE communication. Not just dms, you need to TALK to people. Build a community in real life.
Focus: Abolish capitalism
Communication: Done
Leadership: Fuck that, leaders are assassinated and co-opted. You need to develop your own agency and spread the protagonist virus.
Action: Everything you listed is performative, not action. Define clear goals and steps that directly achieve them. You won’t remove a single flock camera by waving a “SHAME!” sign in front of it, you can with an angle grinder though.
One point,
When do we riot?
Riot?
That’s the solution?
I thought that was the problem they attempt to provoke in some of us to have more of us react in favour of their solution of more police, and better armed police, and more unaccountable police, and more rules and censorship.
There are more of us than them
This is no concern to those who can steer minds of masses. [Speaking as an ex-“one of those”.]
How
Know anyone in the compartmentalised super secret special projects groups who have access to the emancipatory technology that would obsolete the enshitifying fake economy and all the manufactured scarcity and dependence on rentiers abusing us at expense of the healthiness of the environment, if released, and who could let that genie out of the bottle, eliminating the economic duress that impedes freedom, restoring each our ability to be worldly astute polymaths in the making, rather than slaves in training? Know anyone like that? Maybe they could help expedite mends. If you do not know that you know anyone like that, you could just meditate, and emit that kind of radical loving bold kindness, perchance that works, like the Chicago experiment (where meditators supposedly managed to produce a marked reduction in crime in the city), and through some kind of morphic resonance or psychic entrainment or quantum entanglement or luck or whatever, maybe those in the positions of power, will pick up that wave shape of goodness aimed at them, and it will cut through the loud chorus of most else aiming judgements at them that only reaffirm our worst fears about what they’re like.
… Could work. At least as one easy ongoing part of a broader approach.
Maybe helping people stop being poisoned by mercury (madness), aluminium (apathy), fluoride (incompetence that has you eager to obey authority), excitotoxins (lowered cognitive fidelity, more stubborn and emotionally volatile), and so on, may help nudge things in an easier direction mendwards. May even push past some healthy tipping points… that may even help us sublimate from kali yuga to satya yuga. Many eyes make all bugs shallow.
Best part… No matter how dire any prognosis, defy it. Defy the dire prognosis. We can still mend this.
[Speaking as an ex-“one of those”.] You’re not as ex as you think you are. post is still dripping with it
Are you sure?
Or is it more about dispelling it?
Even just the preceding omitted portion of the line that you replied to on the same line as (~ lol. oh boy), showed:
This is no concern to those who can steer minds of masses.
This is vastly distinct from how when I was “Just Doing My Job”[TM], and the intent would be to have you completely oblivious to ploys afoot, and to have you believe without question, just presume as normal, all the associations we’d be implanting without your awareness, to shift your perceptions, your preferences, your prejudices, and of course, ultimately, your purchases.
It’s the difference between Penn&Teller showing you not only there is a trick, but how it’s being done to you [or at least, so goes the pedagogical aspiration], and a conman not even pretending to be a magician, just tricking you out of your wealth, and having you be so tricked, you’re even thankful for it. A really effective conman, an advertiser, who was really “good” at their job, may even manage to have you attack anyone who tries to get you out of the con, because they got you so identified with it, any critique, any questioning, gets seen as an existential threat.
The ignorance that dies, is not you.
^Is a great line to help remember, and to return to curiosity any time slipping to a place where different perspectives seem threatening and in need of being attacked again.
It’s an ongoing “eternal vigilance” kind of thing, here in a sea of misinformation, where everybody’s a shill.
So, yeah. I’m ex-advertiser, in so far as I’ve utterly relinquished any aspect of a career in it, since that first (and last) TV advert, that while I was making, I watched a Bill Hicks VHS over and over (the one with that “anybody here work in advertising or marketing” bit I linked above), wearing it out to snow, getting maybe a dozen doses a day of that bit. But not at all deluded to think that’s it. It’s a constant presence… that miasma that we’re all swimming in, that normalises the hard sell, the con, the grift, … the convincing. Now, I mmmmmuch much much more prefer the idea we all get epistemologically astute, wise to the con. It’s easier to con, than to de-con. But ever worth striving for a world where people are honest, can spot tricks and psychological maladies, and can even then offer remedies… and then we can expedite mending this world, far easier, without the total abandon to corruption as is and have been for too long.
nah i’m sure.
That’s an awful lot of explanation to answer
“You’re not as ex as you think you are. post is still dripping with it”
first off all floride is for the public good. the fact the republicans have been talking about removing it should be more then enough to show it’s not out there for graft
second, the argument against direct action for fear of justifying the actions already being done against us is, and always have been absolute bull shit
if they for some reason feel they needed to justify any of this, they would just manufacture that justification. but we are currently past the point the government needs justification for any of this.
if we had it your way there would never be a time or event that would justify fighting back and as such your opinion is worthless
the argument against direct action for fear of justifying the actions already being done against us
… ? Implying I’ve made such an argument, in your interpretation of what I wrote?
Whooh. That’s so far a mess in fallacies so far removed from what I wrote, that will be a brandolini’s burden and a half to tidy up. Where did you pick up that idea from? It’s so contrary to what I was saying, this implicit accusation seems like some kind of abuse of cunningham’s law, in its nonsequitur, its strawman.
If that’s not the intended implication, then, I agree. (And just wonder why it was raised there like that.)
But okay, lets go back to…
first off all floride is for the public good
Fluoride, has many studies done on it and its effects. I’m wondering, to make such a simple one-sided blanket statement, are you rejecting the evidence of effects to the contrary? Or are you using “public good” in a way that betrays each individual for “the greater good” where it’s good that people are chemically lobotomised to be easier to be controlled by a centralised government? Or maybe you have seen some study that is so compelling it undermines the claims of effects observed elsewhere? And what of the various historical documents showing plans and intents to use fluoride as I’ve described its effects? … Who’s defining this “public good”, that contravenes what doctors, other healers (e.g. nurses) and communities were noticing? Weston A Price springs to mind for one. A book or two on that, past the name-calling that gatekeepers do to try to keep you away from such “quacks”, can be quite an eye opener. Among the many surprising things, are how there’s not evidence for a dental benefit, evidence of a dental harm, and how the industry just wrangled itself another market to keep itself alive. Mercury’s story’s similar. Along with a lot of big pharma. Interestingly the regulatory body for the pharmaceutical industry in USA is a chemistry regulatory body that was a front set up by the chemistry industry. When you become aware of things like that, it’s hard to let statements slip by without a thousand questions springing to mind. Because what if that’s not said as a satire mocking the absurdity… … I guess it gets worse depending on the interpretation beyond the poor punctuation (~ and spelling ~ not important)… “First off all, fluoride is for the public good”, or, “First off, all fluoride is for the public good”?
the fact the republicans have been talking about removing it should be more then enough to show it’s not out there for graft
idgaf what those crooks are up to, as far as pertains to my own epistemology; my own ability to figure out what’s going on. With puppets of either side, they can terrorise people in groupthink, terrified of not being sufficiently in their in-group, desperate not to be “the other”, and so they accept the package deal of the entire groupthink, and run from anything [even suggested to be] of the other groupthink. And so the psyop keeps everybody who’s still susceptable enough in the tyranny-tacking totalitarian-tiptoe, with one side loudly offered 1 freedom they care about while two they don’t care so much about are taken away, then the same’s done on the other side, 1 placation personal freedom for 2 economic freedoms, 1 placation economic freedom for 2 personal freedoms, and up we ratchet to the top of the political compass. I’m done falling for that.
if they for some reason feel they needed to justify any of this, they would just manufacture that justification. but we are currently past the point the government needs justification for any of this.
I’d say we’re past the point of getting snagged by that, and we’re at the point where the op asks the questions it asks. This is radical mends o’clock. We’ve left it rather late to mend the worsening situation, and so now more desperate and likely ill-conceived efforts to attain remedy will be sought, especially as more extents of the corruption are seen and there are repeated hopes dashed as avenues of remedy in the system are revealed hijacked and corrupted too.
It’s glorious, that the awareness is now so much more widespread and normal everyday, like it’s no grand proclamation now. Now we generally all just know, they manufacture their justifications. … This is not what democracy looks like. This is what the result looks like from letting government suspend democracy for an emergency. Every colour of false flag catastrophic emergency. The psychopathic circlejerk clique who crave power, the well meaning who get corrupted by the process of getting “power”, have no empathy, no ethical moral quandry to hold them back. At all. And … Let’s see if I can remember how it goes… as one middling insider was caught on camera in (irrc) the [20]00s [even before Rockerfella’s 2010 planning document that mentioned operation lockstep] saying “when the terrorist thing wears off, we’re going to have people running scared of a disease without symptoms”, and then there was the pandemic thing, and also in the list of contingency plans of mass distraction to run along side the PNAC global hegemony plan (“7 countries in 5 years” hah!, that was their “two weeks” future-faking bread-crumbing dog-whistle ~ nice to be able to name the ploys), there’s economic collapse (always a classic), environmental disaster (weather warfare tech, banned in the 1970s, hah), … I think I’m forgetting a couple… And then the big two… the penultimate, nuclear war, and the finale, alien invasion. … So now this knowledge is out, and we’ve observed them incrementing through the plan… we won’t fall for it this next time, huh? … Easy to be deluded more people are astute to the issues, from inside an echo chamber. It’s surprising how many people not only do not know, they do not want to know, such is the shape of the conditioning, that it’s a horror too much to face. Your carer, is your abuser.
if we had it your way there would never be a time or event that would justify fighting back and as such your opinion is worthless
BWHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA. XD
CONSTANTLY! NOW! ALWAYS! NEVER RELENTING!
I do not know where you got the idea that A, you need wait for a time or event, B any implication of no justification for fighting back was made, C, fighting’s only in one form (riot) or, D, that fighting itself is the only solution, E that any of that made sense and wasn’t just succumbing to pointless infighting.
This is no time for falling for pitchforks vs torches.
And what would a riot serve?
I know it’s murky at the “top”, but that’s no reason to turn on those who’ve a cookie more, when someone’s hoarding the cookie making machine and the billions of cookies they make from it.
What’s left of small businesses? They’ll be pushed towards siding with the corrupt state, for protection, from a riot.
The corporations? They’re already usurping states and their police. Will they be harmed by a riot? I doubt it. Have a go. See how well they’ve planned for it, and even promoted it and provoked it…
Maybe there are more tools available to us, to our toolboxes, than just the immediate reflexive cathartic futility.
But sure… if we all naruto run together…
It will of course, hurt, and that’s a fantasy, that if ever achieved, would be redundant to attempt.
We will get better ideas how to remedy this, when we stop taking their poison that makes us dumb and reactive, so we’re no longer easily controlled and easily pointed to as the problem.
(And… I thought I mentioned this in the comment being replied to there, but I guess it was in another recent post of mine somewhere… )
As I recall, in Nichiren Buddhism, of all the lower states of being, it’s only anger that can be used for good. So if in a lower state of being, maybe anger can help. Wield it well.
… not like
and as such your opinion is worthless
shooting yourself in the foot, sowing division, conjuring enemies among allies, opposaming yourself into being the oppressor, undemocratically devaluing your fellow human kind…
Maybe we could turn mendwards?
… Might be handy to get some tools of mending, in that toolbox… otherwise, you’ll just be hammering your allies any time they’ve an issue, until you’ve no allies left but the psychopathic circlejerk who had you frog-boil yourself, killed you with your compassion, contorted while your cognition was disabled in the moments of fear they managed to induce in you. It’s so handy knowing about these ploys they do. From this more nuanced and nasty stuff, to the easier stuff to get, like “association”. First step to recognising a trap, is awareness of its existence. “It must be a trap.” “Then why are you still going!?” “I want to find out what kind of a trap it is.”
Some say fight, in the broad sense, like in the broader sense of struggle against oppression. Some say it more acutely. Some get one thrown out with the other. Beware Embrace Extend Extinguish ploys. Beware inducements against your better principles. They invest billions and trillions in perverting your mind. So, oh yeah, I’m never not in the fight. But fight? I’d never let myself get played like that again. Also… It’s way more powerful when you refuse to use their means, no longer affirming the validity of their means, now they’re the ass-hole, attacking the innocant, and the whole crowd turns on them. Back into the pub. My exp.
Flouride skepticism? stops listening
The Kali Yuga shit is also a code word for alt right accelerationist shit.
Flouride skepticism? stops listening
XD Yeah… wouldn’t want to listen to skepticism, huh. XD
You know, that’s right. I’m skeptical about your comment being valid at all. That means you have to listen to me.
