Just need to vent, I swear to god the revolutionary potential in America is just not there. So many people just have zero ideological conviction and because we’re not subject to the worst of the empire’s violence many feel no constant need to fight it, an encampment can end and so many people just go to brunch. The constant need to fight against the empire’s propaganda, infiltrated orgs, and most of all the powerful combination of privilege and individualism is so incredibly exhausting. All that feels good to do is sit home, read theory and talk with my closest comrades, I can’t be led into another unprepared police raid by people who had just collaborated with the kops, or in an org led ultimately by some undemocratically elected leader, or talk to another “ML” or anarchist white boy that can’t even admit racism and imperialism still fuckin exists.
I’m not even going to go that deep. I’m not American so after moving here, Americans are way harder to reach than I thought. Just the general complete arrogance, overconfidence, American exceptionalism/chauvinism that didn’t exist nearly as much even in other Anglo countries I’ve lived in
Also people are so proud about being un-empathetic here lol. Like literally everybody is like “yea New Yorkers are just so nonchalant and chill that they’ll ignore somebody bleeding out or having a psychotic episode on the subway”. Like it’s literally cool to completely ignore human suffering/crises happening in a public crowded place because caring about others is literally cringe, especially on public transit for whatever reason
Also people are so proud about being un-empathetic here lol. Like literally everybody is like “yea New Yorkers are just so nonchalant and chill that they’ll ignore somebody bleeding out or having a psychotic episode on the subway”. Like it’s literally cool to completely ignore human suffering/crises happening in a public crowded place because caring about others is literally cringe, especially on public transit for whatever reason
At the same time they’ll see a video of something similar happening in a foreign country and go “this is proof those ethnics are uncaring bug-people devoid of human empathy. which is why we have to exterminate them”
“They’re way too overpopulated which is why lives of people are worth less than they are in Europe or here, they just have so many people it doesn’t matter that much if a person dies every day in front of them”
They’re projecting so hard about how little they care about non-Westerners and how supply-demand brained they view humanity
It’s insanity, like men who can’t make cereal think they’re shepards leading sheep because they’re so daring as to believe american propaganda and there’s literally millions of people to tell them they’re correct
men who can’t make cereal think they’re shepards leading sheep
Hard.
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I’ve tried for four years to emphasize exactly why I gave up on Amerikans, why I just let myself bitter into genuine hatred. You’ve nailed every single point. The Amerikan ethos has never been “give me your poor, your shunned, and your throwaways”-- it has always been "this is mine, hands off it or die." Fuck it. Let them wallow in their own blood and shit like the pigs they are. My energy is better saved and better spent just looking for a way out. I’ve got nothing and no one to preserve here.
“Dr. King’s policy was that nonviolence would achieve the gains for black people in the United States. His major assumption was that if you are nonviolent, if you suffer, your opponent will see your suffering and will be moved to change his heart. That’s very good. He only made one fallacious assumption: In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.” – Kwame Ture
didn’t exist nearly as much even in other Anglo countries I’ve lived in
the other anglo countries experience regular humiliation by their political class being complete toadies for the US.
It’s not just America. All of the capitalist nations have this vibe, everywhere you go. It’s like the moment the USSR collapsed, everyone just gave up
It isn’t just America, no, but America is the worst of it. Of course it is - it’s the core.
I visit family in America every few years… Americans simply exasperate me in most interactions. It’s completely surreal. There is a gulf in politics even between the UK and US. Completely deranged country of total anti-intellectualism.
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America makes it hard to distinguish innate/early-contracted mental illness from chronically-indiced mental illness.
I fucking hate it, for most of the population, we all act like we’re permanently stuck in the 90s.
Take HSR for example, technology that dates in the 60s but a good number of Americans still scoff at it, saying it’s technologically impossible.
EDIT: removed a paragraph, this is someone else’s rant, not mine.
People who saw the George Floyd protests do absolutely nothing:
I’m normally a pessimist, but I’m gonna go against the grain a bit here. The George Floyd protests didn’t result in a revolution, but that doesn’t mean they did nothing. As someone who’s maybe a little older than a lot of people here, the George Floyd protests were the largest sustained protest movement in the US I think I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, and compared to how events in the 90’s (like the Rodney King beating/trial) were treated, there was a world of difference in the response, and especially coming from young people. Also, let’s look at the Gaza protests going right now. I would have never in a million years imagined I’d see so much support for Palestinians in the US, and this is especially true when compared to the early days of the “War on Terror”.
So yeah, these movements aren’t turning into revolutions. I don’t think anything has a remote chance of turning into a revolution unless things get really bad. However, I do think these movements are laying better groundwork for what happens when things do reach that point. Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like each time a movement like this comes up, the people pushing back get a little more bold, a little more organized, and a little more aware that something more radical needs to happen in order to fix these problems.
somewhere between the 60s and now western states have realized you can just ignore protests. protesters sadly haven’t come to that realization yet.
Not coincidentally, this is the same period where the western left takes a turn for a disintegrated, spontaneist approach, with plenty of encouragement from Gladio, COINTELPRO and the like. Protests work as a prong of a greater strategy.
Protests are the compromise, and if they don’t get the compromise they’re supposed to blossom into revolution.
The Western powers have so thoroughly defanged the left though that the second stage of protest is basically never a threat.
A protest is meant to be brandishing a weapon, but our weapon is a banana.
A protest is meant to be brandishing a weapon
I didn’t know why protests were sometimes called demonstrations until I’d learned a bit about military strategy
politics is NOT a banana!
Is this sorta calling for a nonviolent form of protest like the situationalists?
It’s deliberately unclear. Nihilists have extensive debates about this text and many others, ACs like myself fold it into an exhortation to get serious about attaching ourselves to an accumulating counterpower.
Gonna be real with you chief. The reason why the encampments closing up don’t really affect me because I never believed they would work. I only believed they would work for propaganda purposes and pissing off zionists, which succeeded. But had I believed that camping on the lawn would end Raytheon investments, I would also be depressed when they went belly up.
I don’t fault the protestors. Those who had an understanding of material reality should’ve made sure the participants understand that this is another chapter of imperialism, not a case of bad apples. Without that, they are doomed to repeat the same mistakes. Instead - while well intentioned and fine - the calls for ceasefires and making Biden and Netanyahu the center of attention gives me the impression many protestors think it’s a temporary problem and not a feature of capitalism. I don’t really have a solution to this, by the way. I don’t lead anything. But having your narrative hijacked or overshadowed is how the wrong expectations are set.
Of course many people learn the truth, but if it’s too late and they didn’t adjust their expectations before/during the actions, then that truth will lead to doomerism instead of further tactics and planning.
There is one thing I do believe they will do in the long term. Since a lot of those are Ivy League colleges, the students there will go on to be business executives and work in the government. And they’re probably not going to suddenly like Israel when they start those careers, so it’s not going to be a given that Israel will have blank checks from the United States and its corporations.
Australia’s current prime minister used to be a vocal supporter of Palestine. It was milquetoast lib support, but it was support all the same.
To paraphrase Kwame Ture, expecting this to be simply a matter of conscience is a fallacious assumption because the structural forces at play have no conscience.
But it’s not because anyone “wants” these things that they happen, these things happen because of a system of incentives which we call capitalism. This is the exact same as wanting better cops, they’re still cops in the same system that they’ll then be beholdened to! Nothing will change because of hearts and minds, the working class doesn’t beg, we organize and win with force.
this isn’t a problem of the wrong individuals. them personally disliking Israel won’t change jack shit, the driver of the car cares little for the opinions of cogs - and the car is headed in a very particular direction
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America is so cooked
let them cook
— Joe Biden, on migrants fleeing record heat waves
Yeah, I believe in American exceptionalism: I don’t believe accelerationism is good, but I make an exception for America.
I sympathize with your feelings. In my admittedly somewhat vibes-based estimation, the role of the US in the coming decades – probably for the rest of my life – is simply to decline and give way to a new world. Or nuke everybody like an asshole.
Our only meaningful job as western leftists – historically the shittiest, least accomplished leftists – is basically harm reduction to try and ensure that as many working class people survive into whatever world awaits.
vote
because we’re not subject to the worst of the empire’s violence many feel no constant need to fight it.
Oh, it’s worse. We have a large majority of the population that is begging to bring some of the empire’s violence onto us so we can suffer and “look tough” to impress some imaginary observer, and that isn’t to mention the absolute brutality that the country does to minorities to the point where you will suffer social consequences from most of the population for saying it’s wrong. Sadomasochism is ridiculous here.
Some politician called the student encampments “little Gazas” they’re building cop cities while our actual cities crumble. They are widening the gap between haves and have nots. I never thought I’d see anything like this in America. Its only a glimmer, but in many ways what we’re seeing today is aftershocks from the civil rights era. Desegregation and breaking the south African apartheid did some damage. The potential is on the periphery of the imperial core. Marginalized and downtrodden people, the homeless, the enslaved. Whatever happens in America to change things, will start from caring for and about the “dregs of society” and finding ways to guard against increasing fascist violence. ¡Viva LA انتافضة!
I share some of the pessimism, but I direct most of it towards the privileged classes and white people because they’re the big impediment here.
We’re not going to be able to get a real majority mass movement going within a generation. But we can still build up institutions and connections, and take actions that sting the belly of the beast, or maybe even put a band around the stomach.
