Doesn’t mean they like US style gun culture or obsessed with them. But the system leftists oppose is armed and has/will use those arms upon leftists that gain any significant amount of power.
This quote applies to Marx’s time though. When armed workers would have had nearly the same arsenal as a professional military. When horse carriages and trains were the only way to move soldiers at all.
In the age of tanks, jets and missiles, do you seriously believe workers have the slightest chance against a military? It takes a single nuke to crush a revolution that is not supported by the military.
Nukes are, like, the worst example for counter insurgency (COIN). Any government that vaporizes a city of their own people will quickly have the rest of their population in open revolt as well.
And, as proven again and again, classical militaries are horrendously bad at fighting insurgencies that have popular support. There are no front lines, only fighters. Every attempt at suppressing a movement harms bystanders much more than militants, driving more people away from the government.
Nukes can be used in various ways though, vaporizing a city would be quite the way up the escalation ladder.
I don’t have a study to cite, obviously, but I believe military threats can be extremely effective.
Start with detonating a nuke in the middle of nowhere as threat. If that doesn’t have the desired result, an EMP blast above a target city could be the next step. And so on and so forth.
Whenever guns are mentioned, I’m just reminded of how the US usually acts in case a single cop is killed:
After Matthews stumbled out of the house, a SWAT team – unaware that Kahl was dead – began firing thousands of rounds at the house, eventually setting it ablaze by pouring diesel fuel down the house’s chimney. Kahl’s burned remains were found the following day.
Sure, he was a far right extremist and his death has probably bettered the world. Yet it proves that the amount of firepower usually determines the result.
They can do that to individuals, or even small, localized organizations (MOVE bombing comes to mind). But overwhelming force fails to work once the enemy is organized, can change locations and hide with comrades, etc. That’s why for any reasonable leftists guns are important, but not the be-all end-all. That’s organization. Repression and COIN has many faces, and open mass violence is but the last of them.
Modern COIN (when done right) is all about eroding popular support for the revolution. As long as the majority of civilians sympathize with the cause, it’s next to impossible to militarily defeat an insurrection. And bigger guns are of limited use for that, what matters is who you aim them at
Nukes didn’t help that CEO. Asymmetric warfare is a thing. I want to think there is a totally peaceful solution, and maybe there is. But even peaceful solutions only work with a silent threat of armed revolt in the background.
Who won the Vietnam War? It is not at all clear that the US military could defeat a committed domestic guerrilla force. Especially if the military was split on the nature of the conflict. A bloodless political revolution is possible and there’s historical precedent for it wrt socialist movements, although expect a civil war of some kind. The fallacy that socialists just want to wage a bloody civil war in order to get free healthcare is so tired and fake and divorced from anything but liberal delusions.
Also the arms are needed to defend the political and social revolution, which will be directly attacked by armed thugs and reactionaries if it managed to gain traction toward actually upending the capitalist system. Look up The Deacons of Defense and the history of defending civil rights orgs and leaders, while kicking the Klan out of southern mainstream political life. Its not optional. However individuals armed is meaningless, there needs to be civil defense groups and left wing militias to be able to actually protect the people that need protected when they become targets of attack.
I wouldn’t really call the NVA a guerilla force. They used those tactics somewhat, but the guerilla force was the Vietcong and they got wiped in the Tet offensive. It was the NVA that won the war.
The best thing I would say is the NVA wanted to position itself where US ground forces had to engage with it directly and have a war of attrition, which the US could not politically do while similarly the south was an illegitimate corrupt state that nobody was interested in dying for in a war of attrition so pushing their conscripts to go die would just lead to defections. They did that by going into the jugle to make US air power and artillery less effective while also using Soviet air defense and jets. Guerilla tactics usually avoids massed fighting against your enemy, but that’s actually what the NVA wanted.
If the US could march into North Vietnam that’d be a different story but they were entirely unwilling to do anything like that because it would’ve taken incredible manpower and casualties and the US public was not for it.
I hear this argument a lot and it rings hollow to me. State violence is mainly through police, not military campaigns. The Black Panthers were openly armed as a show of force against police. As a result, Ronald Reagan (while California governor, with support from the NRA) put some of the strictest gun control laws on the books to disarm them. If an openly armed group popped up today, you can’t send in tanks and jets against them. They don’t have command centers and bases to target. Even for our high level of state violence, it would be a huge escalation (and unconstitutional) to involve the military. Even with actual military campaigns, an armed population doesn’t just get steamrolled. Look at the decade of insurgency fighting that took place in Iraq. Gun control means cops are the only ones with guns.
Another example: during the George Floyd protests, there were often armed counter protesters and police were brutalizing the protesters while leaving the counter protesters unharmed. A lot of ink was spilled about how this showed how the police were on the side of the counter protesters. That’s almost certainly true. However, there was also a protest in Texas where they showed up openly armed and the police didn’t touch them. They didn’t need to have enough firepower to win a battle. They just had to make it not worth it.
Leftists maintain that Revolution is necessary, and the past century has shown countless guerilla victories over Imperialists with better technology using asymetrical warfare tactics. War is evolving.
A fascist has a gun and your minority neighbor doesn’t. The fascist will get their gun illegally if necessary to spread fascism. Do you trust law enforcement to be the shield for minorities against gun-wielding fascists?
Kinda have to, since none of the “leftist” ideologies has any chance of hell of being bought into action without revolution.
Since revolution requires some degree of violence, and established states have access to not just man portable firearms, but bigger guns as well, then attempting to use violence to change said state without access to firearms is what you might call dumb. You might call it suicidal. You might call it a form of Darwinism whereby the truly stupid leftists get killed off by whatever government they’re going at so that the non-stupid leftists that are left breed smarter babies that will then realize that without equal access to arms, no populace can revolt.
I guess you don’t have to like guns. It is possible to dislike something immensely and still use it as a tool. Like toothpaste. It tastes weird, it’s not fun to use, but without it, you have no teeth eventually. Guns are like toothpaste, your squeeze them and weird things come out, but at least your teeth are clean.
To make a revolution you need the people on your side, not guns specifically. The bastille was torn down by hand. Just look at the USA 6 jan. They didn’t need guns, and thats fu-king USA!
If you needed guns to make a revolution, you’d probably need RPGs and tanks too.
They didn’t need guns on Jan 6 because there were traitors in major government offices - namely the White House and the Pentagon - who withheld the National Guard from mobilizing and reduced the number of police in the area that day.
There were soldiers ready and waiting, guns in hand, who were told to standby.
If they had had guns, they probably would’ve succeeded. What kept them from executing Senators was basically a single locked door in a hallway and one or two police officers holding it while the politicians were evacuated through the tunnels.
I don’t think you understand how a military police state works. The government’s monopoly on violence keeps the population in line. It wasn’t until after MLK was killed and over 2 billion dollars worth of damage was done by rioters burning down entire sections of cities that civil rights laws were passed. Years of protests led to nothing. A week of riots had the laws written, drafted, and signed into law. Look at what’s happening right now over the death of a certain CEO of a major health insurance company.
I don’t think that was a revolution, neither that the USA is a dictatorship or a “military police state”.
And yes, dictatorships use violence to stay in place, and revolutions doesn’t bring that down, it’s more the other way around, the dictatorship starts to become weak and actors move in to take power (can be the population, another country, …).
Which wasn’t a revolution, Jan 6th or the Civil Rights Movement? The Jan 6th was definitely an attempted coup (unless you ask the MAGA cultists), but the Civil Rights was definitely a revolution of some form. And the Kent State Massacre is just an example of the violent suppression often used by the US government (though we usually prefer it to be in other countries).
The US isn’t a dictatorship (yet, who knows where we’ll be in 2 years time), but you look at how militarized our police force is and how many US citizens are gunned down by them every year and tell me we that we aren’t a militarized police state. Our cops are buying surplus IFVs from the army to drive around in. Palestinian protesters at colleges were having their belongings seized and thrown out by police and administration both - including things like medications. During Bush Jr’s administration, you could only legally protest against the Iraq war in areas cordoned off with concrete barriers and fences (sometimes with barbed wire on them). Several studies were done years back by some Ivy League schools looking at laws that were passed or not and their popularity with the 1% vs the majority of Americans, and their conclusion was that the US cannot be considered a democracy and is in fact an oligarchy.
Dictatorships are usually brought down by their own incompetence, but resistance groups speed that up and help keep people from dying. The point isn’t open warfare against guys with tanks and beyond visual range missiles, but asymmetric warfare meant to cripple the government’s operational capacity for oppression and community support for the population. Like in Myanmar, where resistance groups are fighting against the ethnic cleansing being done by the military using 3d printed guns because not a single nation in the world cares enough to send them aid. They can’t get guns, but they can get hobby 3d printers and bullets, and that’s good enough to kill a soldier and take his gun.
Like George Washington said when he opposed the Second Amendment, “Farmers with guns will never win against a professional army.” But you don’t need to, you just need to be annoying enough that the government falls on their own knife trying to catch you. Rambo getting gunned down in a blaze of glory will be remembered as an idiot. The black militia put together and trained by a black WW2 veteran who put down sandbags and machine gun emplacements on people’s porches to protect them from retaliation by the KKK are remembered as heroes. Just like the people who showed up for MLK’s show of force in D.C. that we call The Million Man March today. That wasn’t just a protest. It was a threat that terrified every white suburbanite across the country. If he could mobilize a million people to the capital just to march, what else could he do?
Yep, you can have your own personal armory. You’ll be limited by what you can hold, and more importantly wield. Worse what was won by a small group of armed insurgents. Can be lost just as easily.
If you have the people on your side, you may never have to fire a shot. And it will be generations before what was gained is forgotten and becomes vulnerable again. If they’re constantly having to look over their shoulders. Wondering if that janitor will come for them. If they can trust the people that cook and bring their food. It simply will not be worth it to them.
They’re sociopaths. They’ll take advantage of anything society allows them to. It’s also why they want AI and robots so badly. Then they won’t need societies permission anymore.
I’ve been fighting for a political solution to income inequality for decades now and, at the moment, we are further than ever from any kind of success. Even so, I am still hopeful that we might get a backlash to the second Trump presidency that moves things in the right direction. However, I’m more convinced than ever that were we to start making serious gains that the economic establishment would abandon politics in favor of kinetic solutions. An armed populis is the only deterrence we have.
As a leftist who grew up with guns, I’m neutral on guns. individual gun ownership is historically meaningless. Only organized defense and resistance stands a chance against state violence. Our hobbies and consumer identities aren’t radical, and political struggle, which will need to be defended by organized armed resistance, is the only way to get to socialism, unless you’re a fan of that lib Stalin.
Well… recently some guy (definetly Hunter Biden and no-one else) hurt someone else real bad. now a lot of 'murricans are suddenly able to get treatment for things, where they previously couldn’t. So there is a possibility for limited change through single people with single weapons.
Though on the other hand, there previously was a daily quota of two americans being able to be shot, whithout anyone being interested even a slight bit.
There is a reason why 90% of politically active socialists are against adventurism. Maybe this one flies under the radar, it wouldn’t surprise me if the ruling class was as desensitized toward gun violence as the rest of us. It would also give us excellent ammunition if, over the killing of one CEO, there was suddenly all this social change called for by the capitalist class and outcry from the media, especially as our children practice active shooter drills at school. This guy was like the head of a company that is part of a much larger company that owns a bunch of insurance companies, and that CEO is still doing just fine. The insurance company is anecdotally approving more claims, but the system remains. We can’t say what changes will be, but they won’t be meaningful but in the short term, and they won’t last.
“All these revolutions only served to make the state stronger,” is arguably the most important quote of Marx because it addressed how class concessions are just subsumed by the body politic and become part of the apparatus of oppression itself. Don’t be a sucker, get organized if you want to create lasting change
organization may however also lead to infighting, disorganization, insubordination and treason, look no further than the reform! party in the usa at the end of the last century. when one knows what one has to do, one has the means to do it, then doing it and only telling a minimal amount of people (at best 0) will always be a preferable outcome for achieving a small, personal victory.
If one has a plan they should DO IT! JUST… DO IT!talking to others will a) improve the plan against certain unthought factors b) expose the plan to scrutiny, leading to longer planning thymes, leading to less action, c) expose the plan to exposure, resulting in arrests, resulting in failure
Somethymes a movement needs some early victories to get going. Afterwards however it will need to cut itself loose from its beginnings and change tactics, yes.
Partly, because, as you’ve said, the system adapts to the earlier strategies.
but in my mind making the big evil afraid and making it flail around untill it fails is a preferable alternative to having it be able to play one as a chess piece in the big game of strife.
Make it be afraid. Make it suffer under its own delusions. While it suffers from itself and focusses down the ghouls of its past, organize, enforce the ghouls, remember who the ghouls are. gain power. destroy power.
Once humans are in power they corrupt. Not everyone to the same extent, but the longer the more is at least a strongly indicated tendency. Soo…
That’s just it, they aren’t afraid. Also encouraging other people to do adventurism and potentially throw their life away is a disgusting, shameful thing to try and do. “Organizing can be inconvenient” so can prison and execution, not to mention the cascade of negative repercussions for the left, in addition to many others, that always come from widespread adventurism. I’m afraid you don’t know enough about the history of class resistance to see why you’re just pinning some hopes on a dream.
Hoping someone else will solve your problem, someone else will pull the trigger, is wrong headed. Don’t pull the trigger yourself, create the conditions for a new way of living. There is no one who could be executed whose death will result in everyone getting free, high quality, gender affirming healthcare. Your first step isnt a step forward its a step back. But in the end we won’t know for sure until the history is decided stay tuned, and in the mean time educate yourself!
Once humans are in power they corrupt.
Corrupt what? Are you religious, because this is some christian mythology. This is why our movements must be democratic. Get a grip
Why aren’t they afraid? Because the system keeps everything JUST stable enough, year after year, while slowly eroding the good from the many. They needn’t be afraid, because they have protection, from each other, from below and from above. What happens when the realization hits, that their protection is only limited and easily ripped off?
Yes, call me stupid will surely put YOU on a good pedestal.
Organization is the only way to keep this amount of people on our planet living. getting truely rid of organization would be culling BILLIONS of people. Thats not what I’m arguing for, currently. If one wants an adventure, to borrow your words, one can certainly have some friends, but in every story of friends taking down the bad guy, there is one that does, or nearly does, betray the group. Singular hereos do not have to worry about that, at least.
If one is in prison, one at leat has a roof above their head and daily slop. if one has already lost everything, what is there to loose in execution? one can keep their honor, reaching glory in the afterlife. Yes it wont help them with anything (*actually, thinking about it, if they are in pain, cant afford help, living being a fate worse than death…), especially not their loss, but there is hope for others at the end.
I myself cannot do adventures rather well. There arw reasons for that. So the only way for me to change things is through getting others to do the adventure isn’t it? I help them on their quest, and I don’t betray them to certain forces. In the end I will have little gained and little lost, in most cases. However, betting on faraway dreams keeps the demons away. Just as gamblers do, one bets on the big win and ignores the big loss. Yes One can also set on the small wins and try to evade the small losses. Thats why I’m not yet completely out of the game.
There needs to be certain chaos for revolution to win out. Revolution in a place and thyme of steady tracks will achieve nought. Creating the uncertainties needed is essential for eventual betterment. One has to pull the arrow back for it to fly forwards doesnt one? Taking a few steps backwards is essential in taking a few good steps forward.
To hammer it home: as long as the capitalists are driving the carriage forwards, without looking scared, nothing will scare those beneath them. and if nothing is able to scare those beneath the top layer, and any layers below, the whole thing is steadily doing what it is.
Now I ask you. what is easier: convincing all of the bottom rung of the hierarchy together or to shake up the very top? Surely focusing ones efforts on the very top achieves the most? In the USA hundreds of people are killed steadily, yet the system seems undisturbed. Is that not a disgusting state of affairs? is that how it should continue to be? In the USA hundreds, thousands of people are unable to afford education, treatment, a good life, their small, or their big dream, is that how it ought to be?
What would happen if those at the top had their services denied? had their life denied? they’d push for change just as much. but lifes always been unfair and they’ve got the advantage. As such they have already taken care of every inconveniance, bare one.
Yes executing one will not make the whole system fixed overnight. But where does that change? 30%? thirty percent of what? this list: https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#6230f1ae3d78 maybe? the next bigger list? some other list of evil, slightly more hidden people?
All in all barely a few hundred people? just how can one measure suffering? I dont know, but I know, but i know that a few hundred people is easier changed out than a few million. But one is casually and repeatedly done the other is not.
“changing out the cleaner…”
changing out the h-vac-repair man, chaging out the sewage-plant-worker, changing out the miners, changing out he poor people. Letting them die and replacing them. letting them fail and replacing them, because their nose doesnt suit you. truely a dream of might. the king is the king, the kings advisors are exchangeable. The kings cooks are easily exchangeable. The beggars in front of the kings castle are good for target-practice.
Once humans are in power they corrupt. The whole system has changed because those on top have been exchanged? Nope, thats why one has to destroy any power one has willingly.
You are right. There are no benevolent beings. no gods, no perfect people (Also no perfectly evil/bad ones). Some are worse, some are less bad, maybe the better ones are resistant, maybe they havent had the chance, mayve one doesnt see the bad, maybe they aren’t bad to you, maybe there are checks and balances keeping them in, well, check (which just means they havent gotten to show their full potential, since those checks are limits on power and corruptability).
This is why we need to remove the currently “bad”, powerfull and corrupt ones, and replace them with new ones. So that they may tear down the hierarchy of power, so that it may be replaced by a new system. truely a revolution worth dying for.
Where did I call you stupid? What is this, a reverse ad hominem? A passive aggressive strawman? I criticized harshly the action of encouraging adventurism, and the “are you religious” question was to point out confusion, not stupidity. I wish you wouldn’t assume I think the worst of you because we disagree. Even if I criticize you doesn’t mean I believe there is something inherent, some “stupid” quality that you have and I don’t. That’s a phenomenological fallacy. I don’t believe that things are, I believe that everything is becoming something else. So I am hopeful that you will learn from this event, and it pushes you to develop beyond your current limitations, which have led to my harsher criticisms. I used to have a lot of very confused ideas myself but I pushed myself to learn more and refine my ideas and ideals. Even in my confused notions, I can see the nugget of truth that I was clinging to, and I’ve learned to refine it and communicate it better. I’m sure there is some nugget of truth for you as well that remains unrefined, and if you learn to separate the bad ideas that form your base assumptions and warp your perspective, from the truth, then that will become your unique perspective and communicating it well will help others to find their unique perspectives. Everything is one thing. Obsessing about individualism is one of the main weapons wielded in the class war.
But to your points I think your reasoning is purely idealistic and divorced from history and what is possible. As if Luigi was the first person to invent adventurism. Its good to be able to formulate your own reasoning, but you’re missing the step where you check your conclusions against the material world. Hopefully in your process of self actualization you learn to apply this step and improve your ability to draw meaningful conclusions from facts and not just rearrange them to suit your fancy.
I hope you are never approached to help any adventurist, as you will surely have been targeted by a federal informant.
I am caught in an eternal strife between one thing and another. I like the position of not being locked into one “correct” way, having the ability to pivot. I too believe to be superiour to other people. I do however not think of my ideas as fully formed perfections. I dont quite yet know if you do think that way, but just pointing it out.
What wonders can or can’t a single individual achieve?
Theres just so much, but I’ll boill myself down to us prioritizing different things. I am advocating for a certain needed level of chaos, for the system to be able to be shook and subsequently changed, preferably by those who will improve the lives of all. While you, I think, try to protect each and every valuable ally and even extend your grace to your opponents. You value stability, even in the interim period, and prefer a slow, methodical way to get through change by using the proven systems. I however believe that these proven systems may need to be looked at regularely, maybe taken out a bit, given a scrub, some new oil… and then be put back into place with sone nice words and a comfy blanky.
As for adventurism, or the more comertial form of adventourism, it really is just one of my more horrible idea-obsessions. I have several of these and discussing them is much more fun than not discussing them. I would rather like to do some once again, though I think it rather unlikely to get a good chance anyhow. And I think I am quite capable of evaluating the possible consequences to my actions. Or do you want to even forbid myself this capability? Surely not. Its more fun not thinking it through anyways.
Often when talking to certain people in my personal life, they seem to adhere to the concept of truth, you seem to invoke said concept too. What is truth, is it measurable? absolutely not. I have done many-a-thing and not a single once have I stumbled over the truth just next to some Roots in the forrest floor. Truth is something made up. I forget which philosopher I am badly paraphrasing: Truth/power is a sort of currency, the powerful use their truth to create more specific truths, bending the world to their will in a certain sense. Most of the thyme one subordinates oneself to said truths, just because denying it is more destructive than helpful. I’m sorry, I can’t seem to quite get the edge of his arguments again.
You personally seem to think that the material world holds the truth and that history can predict ones success or failure. You are not wrong, just to have said that, but you are also not right. There often is more than a Yes and a No in the world, so any “binary” approach to the “truth” will lead to “failure”. (So far I feel you and I are on a similar page) There however is also no ternary way of truths in this world. The Daoists call these the Daos, the ways of the world. Any finite number of ways of truth will inevitably reach an edge-case not fitting the previous models.
You surely have heard of Descartes saying “I think, therefore I am.” that is an acceptable baseline for most of philosphy, that at least ones mind must exist, because at least that is currently doing a thunk. However there are acceptable versions of the world way into either direction. One says that a stone falls down, when let go, so that is a fact. and thus it is true. another says there is no way for anything to even provably exist, and thus nothing can be true. Where on (or off) this spectrum you want to place yourself is actually not for me to judge (though it would interest me). An important Condition one can apply is the contradiction. When ones theory of truth calls for stones to always fall down, one can just remove the down. Out there in outer space, where gravity is weak, possibly cancelling itself through multiple mass-bodies, a let-go stone and the hand which has let it go will hover next to each other till near eternity. Thusly having disproven one extreme? On the other side where nothing is provable nothing becomes disprovable, thus losing any meaning and many dislike that. dunno why. As to my personal oppinion, I usually are near Descartes, until I am driven into a corner, where I will revel in the simplicity of the undisprovable corner of inexistance. And if the other person has a better grasp of such far out ideas, then I can always mimic those blessed souls not burdened by constant overthinking and go feed some cats and touch grass.
The discussions of this world truely are kept fun by the misunderstanding :) ~Paul Watzlawick said something similar
There cannot be a truth, and there cannot be an untruth. thinking someone is right or wrong just requires infinitly less energy than finding each and every instance they’re wrong. THAN FINDING EACH INSTANCE THE’RE RIGHT. Being truthful in ones statements is quite the easy feat, but expecting others to do the same will only lead to sadness, or is that a generalization integrated by a worldview of generations-old half-truths. Half-truths which crumble under the slightest scrutiny, under the most mere of merecats, the slightest of slight edge-cases. And as a result of merecat-induced sleepiness I am only able of thinking about sleep and merecats. Thus the truth has become irrelevant. Since it wouldnt be helpful, even if it existed.
Foregive my ramblings: any kind of truth can only be useful if another party has at least achieved a similar level of truth, all else is wasted. What can even be discribed, be helped by the truth? I cannot feed something with truth. I cannot heal. I cannot protect. I cannot do anything with a sufficiently pure truth. It would help ne to know which pill allieviates suffering, tough it wont help without knowledge of the underlying issue causing the pains, the possible negative co-effects with other pills, or longterm side-effects.
What ridiculous truths people have held on over the years, all in favour of the end-goal, abandoned by future generations, recognizing the futility of truth in face of other factors.
how many Self-Contradictions do I contain? How many do you? I can only ever ask questions, because there are no answers. I am so sorry.
One of the most settled questions on the Left that applies to both Marxists and Anarchists is the belief that Revolution is necessary and Reform does not work.
we like guns?
Most leftists, generally yes.
Doesn’t mean they like US style gun culture or obsessed with them. But the system leftists oppose is armed and has/will use those arms upon leftists that gain any significant amount of power.
Arm the oppressed.
We also know the difference between liberals and conservatives.
Liberals are formerly conservatives. Conservatives are now extremist/fascists.
As opposed to those moderate fascists?
I dropped a / I guess. I meant either or.
Honestly, the “likes guns” part doesn’t work anywhere outside the US, if that. And that includes conservatives.
Internationally I’m pretty sure “hates Trump” would absolutely be in the center, too.
“Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary” - Karl Marx
This quote applies to Marx’s time though. When armed workers would have had nearly the same arsenal as a professional military. When horse carriages and trains were the only way to move soldiers at all.
In the age of tanks, jets and missiles, do you seriously believe workers have the slightest chance against a military? It takes a single nuke to crush a revolution that is not supported by the military.
Nukes are, like, the worst example for counter insurgency (COIN). Any government that vaporizes a city of their own people will quickly have the rest of their population in open revolt as well.
And, as proven again and again, classical militaries are horrendously bad at fighting insurgencies that have popular support. There are no front lines, only fighters. Every attempt at suppressing a movement harms bystanders much more than militants, driving more people away from the government.
Nukes can be used in various ways though, vaporizing a city would be quite the way up the escalation ladder.
I don’t have a study to cite, obviously, but I believe military threats can be extremely effective.
Start with detonating a nuke in the middle of nowhere as threat. If that doesn’t have the desired result, an EMP blast above a target city could be the next step. And so on and so forth.
Whenever guns are mentioned, I’m just reminded of how the US usually acts in case a single cop is killed:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Kahl
Sure, he was a far right extremist and his death has probably bettered the world. Yet it proves that the amount of firepower usually determines the result.
They can do that to individuals, or even small, localized organizations (MOVE bombing comes to mind). But overwhelming force fails to work once the enemy is organized, can change locations and hide with comrades, etc. That’s why for any reasonable leftists guns are important, but not the be-all end-all. That’s organization. Repression and COIN has many faces, and open mass violence is but the last of them.
Modern COIN (when done right) is all about eroding popular support for the revolution. As long as the majority of civilians sympathize with the cause, it’s next to impossible to militarily defeat an insurrection. And bigger guns are of limited use for that, what matters is who you aim them at
Nukes didn’t help that CEO. Asymmetric warfare is a thing. I want to think there is a totally peaceful solution, and maybe there is. But even peaceful solutions only work with a silent threat of armed revolt in the background.
Who won the Vietnam War? It is not at all clear that the US military could defeat a committed domestic guerrilla force. Especially if the military was split on the nature of the conflict. A bloodless political revolution is possible and there’s historical precedent for it wrt socialist movements, although expect a civil war of some kind. The fallacy that socialists just want to wage a bloody civil war in order to get free healthcare is so tired and fake and divorced from anything but liberal delusions.
Also the arms are needed to defend the political and social revolution, which will be directly attacked by armed thugs and reactionaries if it managed to gain traction toward actually upending the capitalist system. Look up The Deacons of Defense and the history of defending civil rights orgs and leaders, while kicking the Klan out of southern mainstream political life. Its not optional. However individuals armed is meaningless, there needs to be civil defense groups and left wing militias to be able to actually protect the people that need protected when they become targets of attack.
I wouldn’t really call the NVA a guerilla force. They used those tactics somewhat, but the guerilla force was the Vietcong and they got wiped in the Tet offensive. It was the NVA that won the war.
Thanks for the correction, I hope to start studying the socialist history of Vietnam much more
The best thing I would say is the NVA wanted to position itself where US ground forces had to engage with it directly and have a war of attrition, which the US could not politically do while similarly the south was an illegitimate corrupt state that nobody was interested in dying for in a war of attrition so pushing their conscripts to go die would just lead to defections. They did that by going into the jugle to make US air power and artillery less effective while also using Soviet air defense and jets. Guerilla tactics usually avoids massed fighting against your enemy, but that’s actually what the NVA wanted.
If the US could march into North Vietnam that’d be a different story but they were entirely unwilling to do anything like that because it would’ve taken incredible manpower and casualties and the US public was not for it.
I hear this argument a lot and it rings hollow to me. State violence is mainly through police, not military campaigns. The Black Panthers were openly armed as a show of force against police. As a result, Ronald Reagan (while California governor, with support from the NRA) put some of the strictest gun control laws on the books to disarm them. If an openly armed group popped up today, you can’t send in tanks and jets against them. They don’t have command centers and bases to target. Even for our high level of state violence, it would be a huge escalation (and unconstitutional) to involve the military. Even with actual military campaigns, an armed population doesn’t just get steamrolled. Look at the decade of insurgency fighting that took place in Iraq. Gun control means cops are the only ones with guns.
Another example: during the George Floyd protests, there were often armed counter protesters and police were brutalizing the protesters while leaving the counter protesters unharmed. A lot of ink was spilled about how this showed how the police were on the side of the counter protesters. That’s almost certainly true. However, there was also a protest in Texas where they showed up openly armed and the police didn’t touch them. They didn’t need to have enough firepower to win a battle. They just had to make it not worth it.
Leftists maintain that Revolution is necessary, and the past century has shown countless guerilla victories over Imperialists with better technology using asymetrical warfare tactics. War is evolving.
If that’s your opinion then why bother worrying at all? Just put the slave collar on yourself.
Oh, you don’t want to get biblical with 19th century political theory quotes or none of this chart makes sense, in the US or otherwise.
Huh?
Bro thinks the proletariat doesn’t need to be armed because capitalists respect democracy.
Maybe English didn’t their first language but damn that’s just gibberish
Im not sure about your experience, but Trump is liked by a lot of people i have seen in Romania
A fascist has a gun and your minority neighbor doesn’t. The fascist will get their gun illegally if necessary to spread fascism. Do you trust law enforcement to be the shield for minorities against gun-wielding fascists?
Kinda have to, since none of the “leftist” ideologies has any chance of hell of being bought into action without revolution.
Since revolution requires some degree of violence, and established states have access to not just man portable firearms, but bigger guns as well, then attempting to use violence to change said state without access to firearms is what you might call dumb. You might call it suicidal. You might call it a form of Darwinism whereby the truly stupid leftists get killed off by whatever government they’re going at so that the non-stupid leftists that are left breed smarter babies that will then realize that without equal access to arms, no populace can revolt.
I guess you don’t have to like guns. It is possible to dislike something immensely and still use it as a tool. Like toothpaste. It tastes weird, it’s not fun to use, but without it, you have no teeth eventually. Guns are like toothpaste, your squeeze them and weird things come out, but at least your teeth are clean.
To make a revolution you need the people on your side, not guns specifically. The bastille was torn down by hand. Just look at the USA 6 jan. They didn’t need guns, and thats fu-king USA!
If you needed guns to make a revolution, you’d probably need RPGs and tanks too.
They didn’t need guns on Jan 6 because there were traitors in major government offices - namely the White House and the Pentagon - who withheld the National Guard from mobilizing and reduced the number of police in the area that day.
There were soldiers ready and waiting, guns in hand, who were told to standby.
Well guns wouldn’t have changed that.
Also, if the whole population is in on it, the national guard will probably stand down too.
If they had had guns, they probably would’ve succeeded. What kept them from executing Senators was basically a single locked door in a hallway and one or two police officers holding it while the politicians were evacuated through the tunnels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
I don’t think you understand how a military police state works. The government’s monopoly on violence keeps the population in line. It wasn’t until after MLK was killed and over 2 billion dollars worth of damage was done by rioters burning down entire sections of cities that civil rights laws were passed. Years of protests led to nothing. A week of riots had the laws written, drafted, and signed into law. Look at what’s happening right now over the death of a certain CEO of a major health insurance company.
I don’t think that was a revolution, neither that the USA is a dictatorship or a “military police state”.
And yes, dictatorships use violence to stay in place, and revolutions doesn’t bring that down, it’s more the other way around, the dictatorship starts to become weak and actors move in to take power (can be the population, another country, …).
Like Syria. Hopefully Russia in 2025.
Which wasn’t a revolution, Jan 6th or the Civil Rights Movement? The Jan 6th was definitely an attempted coup (unless you ask the MAGA cultists), but the Civil Rights was definitely a revolution of some form. And the Kent State Massacre is just an example of the violent suppression often used by the US government (though we usually prefer it to be in other countries).
The US isn’t a dictatorship (yet, who knows where we’ll be in 2 years time), but you look at how militarized our police force is and how many US citizens are gunned down by them every year and tell me we that we aren’t a militarized police state. Our cops are buying surplus IFVs from the army to drive around in. Palestinian protesters at colleges were having their belongings seized and thrown out by police and administration both - including things like medications. During Bush Jr’s administration, you could only legally protest against the Iraq war in areas cordoned off with concrete barriers and fences (sometimes with barbed wire on them). Several studies were done years back by some Ivy League schools looking at laws that were passed or not and their popularity with the 1% vs the majority of Americans, and their conclusion was that the US cannot be considered a democracy and is in fact an oligarchy.
Dictatorships are usually brought down by their own incompetence, but resistance groups speed that up and help keep people from dying. The point isn’t open warfare against guys with tanks and beyond visual range missiles, but asymmetric warfare meant to cripple the government’s operational capacity for oppression and community support for the population. Like in Myanmar, where resistance groups are fighting against the ethnic cleansing being done by the military using 3d printed guns because not a single nation in the world cares enough to send them aid. They can’t get guns, but they can get hobby 3d printers and bullets, and that’s good enough to kill a soldier and take his gun.
Like George Washington said when he opposed the Second Amendment, “Farmers with guns will never win against a professional army.” But you don’t need to, you just need to be annoying enough that the government falls on their own knife trying to catch you. Rambo getting gunned down in a blaze of glory will be remembered as an idiot. The black militia put together and trained by a black WW2 veteran who put down sandbags and machine gun emplacements on people’s porches to protect them from retaliation by the KKK are remembered as heroes. Just like the people who showed up for MLK’s show of force in D.C. that we call The Million Man March today. That wasn’t just a protest. It was a threat that terrified every white suburbanite across the country. If he could mobilize a million people to the capital just to march, what else could he do?
A revolution is not one event, the French Revolution didn’t end with the storming of the bastile. The french people were armed for the revolution
Jan 6 failed. The Bastille was in 1789.
I think my point still stand, which is it’s not about the weapons.
Yep, you can have your own personal armory. You’ll be limited by what you can hold, and more importantly wield. Worse what was won by a small group of armed insurgents. Can be lost just as easily.
If you have the people on your side, you may never have to fire a shot. And it will be generations before what was gained is forgotten and becomes vulnerable again. If they’re constantly having to look over their shoulders. Wondering if that janitor will come for them. If they can trust the people that cook and bring their food. It simply will not be worth it to them.
They’re sociopaths. They’ll take advantage of anything society allows them to. It’s also why they want AI and robots so badly. Then they won’t need societies permission anymore.
Tell that to the United Healthcare CEO.
I’ve been fighting for a political solution to income inequality for decades now and, at the moment, we are further than ever from any kind of success. Even so, I am still hopeful that we might get a backlash to the second Trump presidency that moves things in the right direction. However, I’m more convinced than ever that were we to start making serious gains that the economic establishment would abandon politics in favor of kinetic solutions. An armed populis is the only deterrence we have.
Not a revolution
Who said anything about a revolution?
Well I did, that’s what we’re discussing here. Read the thread again and don’t just answer a singled out post, it doesn’t make sens.
Your point is indeed unchanged, whether it was standing in the first place is a different question.
Did a gun company write this? 🤣
checks user name
Ummmm, maybe?
As a leftist who grew up with guns, I’m neutral on guns. individual gun ownership is historically meaningless. Only organized defense and resistance stands a chance against state violence. Our hobbies and consumer identities aren’t radical, and political struggle, which will need to be defended by organized armed resistance, is the only way to get to socialism, unless you’re a fan of that lib Stalin.
Well… recently some guy (definetly Hunter Biden and no-one else) hurt someone else real bad. now a lot of 'murricans are suddenly able to get treatment for things, where they previously couldn’t. So there is a possibility for limited change through single people with single weapons.
Though on the other hand, there previously was a daily quota of two americans being able to be shot, whithout anyone being interested even a slight bit.
There is a reason why 90% of politically active socialists are against adventurism. Maybe this one flies under the radar, it wouldn’t surprise me if the ruling class was as desensitized toward gun violence as the rest of us. It would also give us excellent ammunition if, over the killing of one CEO, there was suddenly all this social change called for by the capitalist class and outcry from the media, especially as our children practice active shooter drills at school. This guy was like the head of a company that is part of a much larger company that owns a bunch of insurance companies, and that CEO is still doing just fine. The insurance company is anecdotally approving more claims, but the system remains. We can’t say what changes will be, but they won’t be meaningful but in the short term, and they won’t last.
“All these revolutions only served to make the state stronger,” is arguably the most important quote of Marx because it addressed how class concessions are just subsumed by the body politic and become part of the apparatus of oppression itself. Don’t be a sucker, get organized if you want to create lasting change
organization may however also lead to infighting, disorganization, insubordination and treason, look no further than the reform! party in the usa at the end of the last century. when one knows what one has to do, one has the means to do it, then doing it and only telling a minimal amount of people (at best 0) will always be a preferable outcome for achieving a small, personal victory.
If one has a plan they should DO IT! JUST… DO IT!talking to others will a) improve the plan against certain unthought factors b) expose the plan to scrutiny, leading to longer planning thymes, leading to less action, c) expose the plan to exposure, resulting in arrests, resulting in failure
Somethymes a movement needs some early victories to get going. Afterwards however it will need to cut itself loose from its beginnings and change tactics, yes. Partly, because, as you’ve said, the system adapts to the earlier strategies.
but in my mind making the big evil afraid and making it flail around untill it fails is a preferable alternative to having it be able to play one as a chess piece in the big game of strife.
Make it be afraid. Make it suffer under its own delusions. While it suffers from itself and focusses down the ghouls of its past, organize, enforce the ghouls, remember who the ghouls are. gain power. destroy power.
Once humans are in power they corrupt. Not everyone to the same extent, but the longer the more is at least a strongly indicated tendency. Soo…
That’s just it, they aren’t afraid. Also encouraging other people to do adventurism and potentially throw their life away is a disgusting, shameful thing to try and do. “Organizing can be inconvenient” so can prison and execution, not to mention the cascade of negative repercussions for the left, in addition to many others, that always come from widespread adventurism. I’m afraid you don’t know enough about the history of class resistance to see why you’re just pinning some hopes on a dream.
Hoping someone else will solve your problem, someone else will pull the trigger, is wrong headed. Don’t pull the trigger yourself, create the conditions for a new way of living. There is no one who could be executed whose death will result in everyone getting free, high quality, gender affirming healthcare. Your first step isnt a step forward its a step back. But in the end we won’t know for sure until the history is decided stay tuned, and in the mean time educate yourself!
Corrupt what? Are you religious, because this is some christian mythology. This is why our movements must be democratic. Get a grip
Why aren’t they afraid? Because the system keeps everything JUST stable enough, year after year, while slowly eroding the good from the many. They needn’t be afraid, because they have protection, from each other, from below and from above. What happens when the realization hits, that their protection is only limited and easily ripped off?
Yes, call me stupid will surely put YOU on a good pedestal.
Organization is the only way to keep this amount of people on our planet living. getting truely rid of organization would be culling BILLIONS of people. Thats not what I’m arguing for, currently. If one wants an adventure, to borrow your words, one can certainly have some friends, but in every story of friends taking down the bad guy, there is one that does, or nearly does, betray the group. Singular hereos do not have to worry about that, at least.
If one is in prison, one at leat has a roof above their head and daily slop. if one has already lost everything, what is there to loose in execution? one can keep their honor, reaching glory in the afterlife. Yes it wont help them with anything (*actually, thinking about it, if they are in pain, cant afford help, living being a fate worse than death…), especially not their loss, but there is hope for others at the end.
I myself cannot do adventures rather well. There arw reasons for that. So the only way for me to change things is through getting others to do the adventure isn’t it? I help them on their quest, and I don’t betray them to certain forces. In the end I will have little gained and little lost, in most cases. However, betting on faraway dreams keeps the demons away. Just as gamblers do, one bets on the big win and ignores the big loss. Yes One can also set on the small wins and try to evade the small losses. Thats why I’m not yet completely out of the game.
There needs to be certain chaos for revolution to win out. Revolution in a place and thyme of steady tracks will achieve nought. Creating the uncertainties needed is essential for eventual betterment. One has to pull the arrow back for it to fly forwards doesnt one? Taking a few steps backwards is essential in taking a few good steps forward.
To hammer it home: as long as the capitalists are driving the carriage forwards, without looking scared, nothing will scare those beneath them. and if nothing is able to scare those beneath the top layer, and any layers below, the whole thing is steadily doing what it is.
Now I ask you. what is easier: convincing all of the bottom rung of the hierarchy together or to shake up the very top? Surely focusing ones efforts on the very top achieves the most? In the USA hundreds of people are killed steadily, yet the system seems undisturbed. Is that not a disgusting state of affairs? is that how it should continue to be? In the USA hundreds, thousands of people are unable to afford education, treatment, a good life, their small, or their big dream, is that how it ought to be?
What would happen if those at the top had their services denied? had their life denied? they’d push for change just as much. but lifes always been unfair and they’ve got the advantage. As such they have already taken care of every inconveniance, bare one.
Yes executing one will not make the whole system fixed overnight. But where does that change? 30%? thirty percent of what? this list: https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#6230f1ae3d78 maybe? the next bigger list? some other list of evil, slightly more hidden people?
All in all barely a few hundred people? just how can one measure suffering? I dont know, but I know, but i know that a few hundred people is easier changed out than a few million. But one is casually and repeatedly done the other is not.
“changing out the cleaner…”
changing out the h-vac-repair man, chaging out the sewage-plant-worker, changing out the miners, changing out he poor people. Letting them die and replacing them. letting them fail and replacing them, because their nose doesnt suit you. truely a dream of might. the king is the king, the kings advisors are exchangeable. The kings cooks are easily exchangeable. The beggars in front of the kings castle are good for target-practice.
Once humans are in power they corrupt. The whole system has changed because those on top have been exchanged? Nope, thats why one has to destroy any power one has willingly.
You are right. There are no benevolent beings. no gods, no perfect people (Also no perfectly evil/bad ones). Some are worse, some are less bad, maybe the better ones are resistant, maybe they havent had the chance, mayve one doesnt see the bad, maybe they aren’t bad to you, maybe there are checks and balances keeping them in, well, check (which just means they havent gotten to show their full potential, since those checks are limits on power and corruptability).
This is why we need to remove the currently “bad”, powerfull and corrupt ones, and replace them with new ones. So that they may tear down the hierarchy of power, so that it may be replaced by a new system. truely a revolution worth dying for.
Where did I call you stupid? What is this, a reverse ad hominem? A passive aggressive strawman? I criticized harshly the action of encouraging adventurism, and the “are you religious” question was to point out confusion, not stupidity. I wish you wouldn’t assume I think the worst of you because we disagree. Even if I criticize you doesn’t mean I believe there is something inherent, some “stupid” quality that you have and I don’t. That’s a phenomenological fallacy. I don’t believe that things are, I believe that everything is becoming something else. So I am hopeful that you will learn from this event, and it pushes you to develop beyond your current limitations, which have led to my harsher criticisms. I used to have a lot of very confused ideas myself but I pushed myself to learn more and refine my ideas and ideals. Even in my confused notions, I can see the nugget of truth that I was clinging to, and I’ve learned to refine it and communicate it better. I’m sure there is some nugget of truth for you as well that remains unrefined, and if you learn to separate the bad ideas that form your base assumptions and warp your perspective, from the truth, then that will become your unique perspective and communicating it well will help others to find their unique perspectives. Everything is one thing. Obsessing about individualism is one of the main weapons wielded in the class war.
But to your points I think your reasoning is purely idealistic and divorced from history and what is possible. As if Luigi was the first person to invent adventurism. Its good to be able to formulate your own reasoning, but you’re missing the step where you check your conclusions against the material world. Hopefully in your process of self actualization you learn to apply this step and improve your ability to draw meaningful conclusions from facts and not just rearrange them to suit your fancy.
I hope you are never approached to help any adventurist, as you will surely have been targeted by a federal informant.
I am caught in an eternal strife between one thing and another. I like the position of not being locked into one “correct” way, having the ability to pivot. I too believe to be superiour to other people. I do however not think of my ideas as fully formed perfections. I dont quite yet know if you do think that way, but just pointing it out.
What wonders can or can’t a single individual achieve?
Theres just so much, but I’ll boill myself down to us prioritizing different things. I am advocating for a certain needed level of chaos, for the system to be able to be shook and subsequently changed, preferably by those who will improve the lives of all. While you, I think, try to protect each and every valuable ally and even extend your grace to your opponents. You value stability, even in the interim period, and prefer a slow, methodical way to get through change by using the proven systems. I however believe that these proven systems may need to be looked at regularely, maybe taken out a bit, given a scrub, some new oil… and then be put back into place with sone nice words and a comfy blanky.
As for adventurism, or the more comertial form of adventourism, it really is just one of my more horrible idea-obsessions. I have several of these and discussing them is much more fun than not discussing them. I would rather like to do some once again, though I think it rather unlikely to get a good chance anyhow. And I think I am quite capable of evaluating the possible consequences to my actions. Or do you want to even forbid myself this capability? Surely not. Its more fun not thinking it through anyways.
Often when talking to certain people in my personal life, they seem to adhere to the concept of truth, you seem to invoke said concept too. What is truth, is it measurable? absolutely not. I have done many-a-thing and not a single once have I stumbled over the truth just next to some Roots in the forrest floor. Truth is something made up. I forget which philosopher I am badly paraphrasing: Truth/power is a sort of currency, the powerful use their truth to create more specific truths, bending the world to their will in a certain sense. Most of the thyme one subordinates oneself to said truths, just because denying it is more destructive than helpful. I’m sorry, I can’t seem to quite get the edge of his arguments again.
You personally seem to think that the material world holds the truth and that history can predict ones success or failure. You are not wrong, just to have said that, but you are also not right. There often is more than a Yes and a No in the world, so any “binary” approach to the “truth” will lead to “failure”. (So far I feel you and I are on a similar page) There however is also no ternary way of truths in this world. The Daoists call these the Daos, the ways of the world. Any finite number of ways of truth will inevitably reach an edge-case not fitting the previous models.
You surely have heard of Descartes saying “I think, therefore I am.” that is an acceptable baseline for most of philosphy, that at least ones mind must exist, because at least that is currently doing a thunk. However there are acceptable versions of the world way into either direction. One says that a stone falls down, when let go, so that is a fact. and thus it is true. another says there is no way for anything to even provably exist, and thus nothing can be true. Where on (or off) this spectrum you want to place yourself is actually not for me to judge (though it would interest me). An important Condition one can apply is the contradiction. When ones theory of truth calls for stones to always fall down, one can just remove the down. Out there in outer space, where gravity is weak, possibly cancelling itself through multiple mass-bodies, a let-go stone and the hand which has let it go will hover next to each other till near eternity. Thusly having disproven one extreme? On the other side where nothing is provable nothing becomes disprovable, thus losing any meaning and many dislike that. dunno why. As to my personal oppinion, I usually are near Descartes, until I am driven into a corner, where I will revel in the simplicity of the undisprovable corner of inexistance. And if the other person has a better grasp of such far out ideas, then I can always mimic those blessed souls not burdened by constant overthinking and go feed some cats and touch grass.
The discussions of this world truely are kept fun by the misunderstanding :) ~Paul Watzlawick said something similar
There cannot be a truth, and there cannot be an untruth. thinking someone is right or wrong just requires infinitly less energy than finding each and every instance they’re wrong. THAN FINDING EACH INSTANCE THE’RE RIGHT. Being truthful in ones statements is quite the easy feat, but expecting others to do the same will only lead to sadness, or is that a generalization integrated by a worldview of generations-old half-truths. Half-truths which crumble under the slightest scrutiny, under the most mere of merecats, the slightest of slight edge-cases. And as a result of merecat-induced sleepiness I am only able of thinking about sleep and merecats. Thus the truth has become irrelevant. Since it wouldnt be helpful, even if it existed.
Foregive my ramblings: any kind of truth can only be useful if another party has at least achieved a similar level of truth, all else is wasted. What can even be discribed, be helped by the truth? I cannot feed something with truth. I cannot heal. I cannot protect. I cannot do anything with a sufficiently pure truth. It would help ne to know which pill allieviates suffering, tough it wont help without knowledge of the underlying issue causing the pains, the possible negative co-effects with other pills, or longterm side-effects.
What ridiculous truths people have held on over the years, all in favour of the end-goal, abandoned by future generations, recognizing the futility of truth in face of other factors.
how many Self-Contradictions do I contain? How many do you? I can only ever ask questions, because there are no answers. I am so sorry.
One of the most settled questions on the Left that applies to both Marxists and Anarchists is the belief that Revolution is necessary and Reform does not work.
If you don’t then you’re a class traitor and I hate you furiously and I’m now going to split off and start my own party for us true lefties!
/s
Depends on the circumstance…
guns are a beautiful opinion enhancer.