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 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
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.
The issue is that the powers that be did learn their lesson and they learned it well. If you keep the masses JUST sufficient enough that they still have something “to lose” they’ll be to busy chasing that to be able to mount any kind of resistance to their exploitation. It’s the splash and dash mentality. It’s also why they are so against abortion. they frame it as a moral issue, but it’s really about ensuring a good crop of fresh people to exploit when the current crop wears out. It’s a common fascist tactic: Concentration Camps were usually billed as “work” camps where people would be set to menial or meaningless tasks, so they would waste away on purpose, and the deaths could be logged as “by natural causes” and not murder. (only what the regime defined as “undesirables” were sent to be euthanized.)
Competing Lords owned the land and extracted labor from the peasants, and this was feudalism. Then peasants overthrew the lords so they could seek ownership of those lands, but that only benefited those who already had the means to fill the vacuum left by the lords. Capitalism only shuffles the deck of Feudalism. it doesn’t solve the underlying flaw in the game, namely that there will always be someone with more means than you extracting value from people whose only asset to sell is their labor and time. Eventually a group of gentrified individuals will emerge that fill the rolls that the old lords did, and given that nepotism is rampant in industry, it’s not even really that different at all from feudalism. The idea that a CEO should be president of a democracy is such a perversion of the idea of public rule that it is anathema to it. Extreme wealth should be disenfranchising in of itself, as if you are that wealthy, you no longer need the protections of a popular government, but rather, you are what that kind of governance is supposed to be protecting against.
For years I’ve held the view that slavery never ended, they just made the entire country and most of the world of the plantation, with the illusion of mobility and free choice. All you are really free to do is choose what cog to be in their machine, and as soon as you are used up you are replaced with another. I agree with you on abortion, but I think it also goes deeper. Parents have even more to lose, and are more likely to be good little wage slaves to protect their children in the short term, unable to see the long term.
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 second paragraph answers the first. We wait until we’re coordinated.
If you want to speed up the process, get out there and coordinate. You might be ready, the people here might be ready, but a few thousand geographically isolated people on a left-leaning niche forum aren’t gonna do it. Getting out into the community and getting active, that could actually shift sentiment.
Find a local organization with at least a hundred members. Even if you don’t align 100% with the DSA, join and go to meetings. That’s where you’re going to find people to coordinate with. Network with people, find out who has which skills, and volunteer your own. Participate in mutual aid. Canvas for leftist politicians. Even if you only care about revolution, going to these events and interacting with these causes will bring you in contact with the people who will coordinate with you.
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.
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.
Historically speaking, the riots start when the bread runs out.
9 meals away
Which IMO is going to happen in the USA before 2028. Their dependance on food imports and climate change interrupting the food supply is only half of it. The other half is that they’ve isolated themselves economically both trade and labour wise.
The US is one of the biggest exporters of food in the world and while it would definitely change what we eat and when, the idea that the bread runs out anytime soon is actually insane nonsense. 2038, fucking maybe. But in a little over a year? We’d need multiple blights and animal plagues that sweep across the country killing everything, and that’s more of a “global apocalypse” scenario. And yes global warming bad but also, the US has a lot of land and like 90% of it is not in use. There will be places to farm, even if the place changes.
I think a more realistic prediction is like… 2045-2060 and honestly, I’m not sure it’ll matter much.
Actually you just need 3 years of back to back major crop failures… And then the cannibalism starts.
90% is not in use for a reason. Even if 5% can still be started for agriculture, nature doesn’t instant-produce food. Field cultivation often takes multiple years.
You’re forgetting the US is no longer a democracy. This is the last emperor on the throne right now, running a kleptocracy to the tune of billions. To keep control he installed the certifiable most incompetent people in his ‘cabinet’. None of these care about the country or its people.
They were installed by a foreign influence and their job is to dismantle the country. This level of burocratic incompetence will reign till the end of the nation, probably in less than 10 years.
2045 is bad for the entire world, the US will be far sooner.
They are an insanely divided nation in the middle of an empire level collapse. They are a violent people. Their civil war which has started with ICE wil only get worse, their oilgargy only making life less tennable for so many.
You will have riots and strikes, and essentially just people shooting each other. It’s already happening but tuned out of the media for now. But it’ll get worse, and at some point a prolific tiktoker or youtuber will livestream something nearby and that will be an accelerator.
There are already thousands of americans that have to choose between getting medical care or food. Thousands more that have to choose between feeding themselves or their children.
There is no scenario in which the USA survives the next 10 years.
I’m sorry but, this is all so fucking unrealistic and doomer its unreal.
First of all, I live in the US. I have seen ICE and how communities comes together first hand. Fuck off with this “Americans are violent people” rhetoric.
I’m not saying its gonna be sunshine and roses, but the scenarios you are describing are functionally impossible to occur without genuine global cataclysm and then we have bigger things to worry about.
“There’s no scenario in which the us survives the next 10 years.”
democracy in the us? sure, maybe, arguably its already gone.
the us itself? Of course it’ll be around in ten years lmfao?? Things would have to get so much worse in the next 10 years it would break records on how fast nations collapse.
These are insane predictions that have no historical or factual basis for why they would happen at the speed you suggest.
Yeah my guy can’t even spell bureaucrat or oligarchy, I don’t think political science is their forte.
The two often overlap. An oligarchy can become a kleptocracy if the ruling elite uses its power to systematically steal wealth. But they’re not the same thing. A country can have an oligarchic government without widespread theft, and in theory a kleptocracy could exist even if power is concentrated in a single dictator rather than a small group.
But billions? That’s really low balling it. 40 trillion debt… Kleptomania! Watch and see it grow.
I think you responded to the wrong person.
Being in the US isn’t giving you better data, if anything it makes you emotionally attached and blind to the obvious. Humans are the same. We often know our friends a lot better than they know themselves. I understand you don’t want this to happen, but not wanting it doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
There is massive historic precedence. The roman empire to name one. Except never before has an empire collapse overlapped with the fastest recorded ecocide and environmental collapse.
You may not be aware of all the datasets I’m aware of. It sounds like doomer, but it is data based so it unfortunately just is doom. Hard to grasp, I know, it’s why people with terminal illnesses also stay around as long as possible.
The USA will be there in 10 years, but it won’t be called that, and won’t have any of the respect and glory it still has some of today. It’s not a country. It’s more like a european union that falls apart as soon as things start getting tough. Your very demented pedophile president is personally directing FEMA to withhold disaster relief to blue states. That can’t last another 10 years, let alone 5. Not with the disasters scheduled in the next 3 years. States will simple secede from the union, and as resources will be scarce, war will be inevitable.
Never before in history has the ruling empire by both capital and military might waged a war against it’s own people, whilst very carelessly trying to light a match to the middle east and south america and soon parts of europe, whilst also diplomatically and economically alienate all its former allies with erratic tariffs, whilst ignoring both its own domestic rule of law as well as the international one. Smarter dictators started wars with foreign nations as a way to unify their people and bolster nationalism, this regime is only trying to make the oligarchs who installed it wealthier.
10 years is a short time for a nation to collapse, true. But you didn’t start collapsing today either, my American friend. I wish you all the best.
Dependence on food imports? The US is a large net food exporter. And will remain so for a long time. Especially in wheat, corn and soy beans. Harvesting grains is incredibly labour efficient. The labour crisis is mostly in fruits and vegetables which are very labor intensive. Even if soy and grain yields would be unexpectedly badly impacted by climate change it will first impact the exports and lastly animal feed and agro ethanol. The yields would have to be unrealistically devastated for it to lead to shortages in human food like bread. So at worst we are looking at a shortage of meat, fruits and vegetables but we are extremely far away from any situation involving starvation. This also includes Canada, the EU and Australia. And it’s not all vegetables either. Potatoes, carrots, peas and onions are machine harvested and won’t get affected by a farm labour crisis and will continue to be available. No one is gonna starve for having to substitute broccoli and asparagus with carrots and peas. No one is going to starve when fruits gets expensive either, they are healthy but you can live without them.
It’s the part of the third world which currently relies on western food exports that will have food insecurity in a worsening climate crisis. The west is at worst facing a more boring and monotone diet.
The west is at worst facing a more boring and monotone diet.
That sounds like plenty of reason to start a riot!
As if half of us don’t survive on cheerios and chicken nuggies
I’ve been ready to riot since 2004. That’s when they changed the fries at McDonalds. Now they suck.
pitchfork ready
Hot take: McDonald’s fries are trash. Sure, I’ll eat them, but every other fast food place has better fries.
I think you underestimate how much some countries are willing to support having a positive relationship with the US in spite of it being in their best interest to do otherwise.
Only as long as the US has something to offer in return, but the Chinese are gaining ground in a lot of countries
I agree. But it’ll come due to drought and the fact that Trump screwed over farmers with soy exports, which is an important cover crop for crop rotation.
If farmers can’t make money on soy, they’ll take shortcuts, which will rob the soil of nutrients. That with drought will lead to another dust bowl that will be devastating.
Soy fixes nitrogen and doesn’t affect the rest of the nutrients. Without soy in the crop rotation you have to simply buy more nitrogen fertilizer for the subsequent crop, which will make it more expensive to grow. Soy is good but it’s not a looming disaster without it. The EU barely grows soy and is doing fine. And regarding dust bowl. Those areas of the US have already switched from plowing to no-till decades ago. Another dust bowl is unlikely even with drought because of it.
But they could eat cake…?
The cake is a lie.
Why don’t they just eat cake then?
@RobotToaster @moncharleskey Which is why we used to have “the dollar menu,” to keep the plebes bellies just full enough.
Someone, however, seems to have either forgotten that lesson or decided they have enough power to ignore it.
I’m hear it’s popular to go to spain if that happens.
if you are ml it’s a constant riot
I don’t think the memes and internet arguments count as rioting.
Rioting is illegal and usually it’s poor people smashing the windows of other poor people’s shops.
The word you’re looking for is “uprising” or “revolution”
I see where you’re coming from, but that’s why we need targeted action and leadership. An uprising or revolution would be just as illegal.
Any group with a serious leader gets co-opted and the leader killed or imprisoned. Small underground groups of 10-20 people or fewer can do a lot. Many components of things like Patriot missiles are made in average workshops and factories with relatively little security. With a little know-how a small drone is relatively easy to construct as well.
No one REALLY feels the threat posed by the polycrisis. It’s all complex, intellectual worries about things that FEEL like they’re still just a little ways out, not quite here. People are mostly focused on the here and now and the very near future. The riots happen when people literally can’t feed their kids in the here and now. As long as it’s just difficult, and not impossible, people will struggle on with their nose to the grindstone. Watch for rises in unemployment. CoViD showed what can happen when millions if people find themselves with mountains of free time to use on political action. When enough people are hungry and have no job to distract them, the fires will come.
