When will the revolution come?

when the following conditions are met (please list)

widespread starvation in the first world

Fascistic (i.e non- or anti-democratic) revolution far more likely than anything from the left.

Given current technology trends.

idk about that, just look at the attempts to choke off tiktok, or the way twitter was censored in the Arab Spring

I am having a hard time voting in my own poll because I suspect the answer is "never" but I would prefer at minimum "someday"

depends on the nation.

I feel like, speaking only about the US (not because of navel-gazing but because it's the only place I've lived and have any experience with, so all I'm fit to comment on), 2020 was a good opportunity for sustained activism across the country because of the pandemic. Charlottesville definitely primed the pump, got people involved that had typically been on the sidelines, as well as the BLM's continued growth over that decade.

in 2020, many were out of work, weren't going places to do anything other than essential needs or protest for the most part, and could easily channel their focus into that for months on end, and show up at a moment's notice. once a wee bit of normalcy of life returned, it ain't like street level activism stopped or anything, and of course one can't make umbrella statements about a country that has pockets that operate very differently...but it definitely seemed harder to get the same numbers and sustain them in many areas.

as map said in another thread, worker strikes really carry the heaviest weight, i.e. what France is doing rn - nobody showing up to work and the trains not running on time moves mountains. just like the time the Federal shutdown ended because no planes could take off one day due to no staff.

lacking that, the protests would have to have some level of escalation, not necessarily violence (though stuff burning always seems to move the needle), but a sheer volume of numbers in the street and constant disruption that absolutely makes every day functions impossible, shuts down roads and buildings, and makes politicians nervous. there's enough people in this country that even w/ out a work strike, you COULD have enough people to do that, but of course with any major successful revolution comes a lot of death on all sides and I think people seeing/hearing about deaths due to unrest up close and personal on cell phone cam videos in stark, unfiltered realism scares the shit out of a lot of people in ways that reading about it in the newspaper or seeing it on tv or hearing on the radio didn't.

(do not take this to mean I'm an activist throwing sticks cos I am not like those on this board who have successfully organized and done things - I've been more of a donater, letter writer type, just my theory of what would have to happen to ....not even bring upon socialism, but bring about any major social change that fundamentally changed the government that wasn't actual fascism and benefitted people)

*Charlottesville in 2017

xxxp

The fact that nearly everyone in the West carries a device that allows their whereabouts to be tracked at any time, I don't know, seems bad.

Plus, when resources become scarce, everyone is going to run to their daddy.

some revolution will happen somewhere someday

-the hit song from Annie Part 3

next Tuesday

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkqcy_D5u20

assuming the US - yes, undoubtedly, all empires fall eventually. Maybe not in my life but at some point.

Why could be any number of reasons, sleeve OTM re: starvation, a Jan. 6 coup is successful and the military either steps in to support the rightful winner or the coup

Wasn’t it Christopher Lasch pointed out that the nuclear bomb pretty much made the question of armed Revolution irrelevant in any nation-state that had it?

Also, it’s entirely possible that any future revolution does not look like the short, explosive moments that those attempted in the 19th Century did.

wanted to make a 'going to georgia' joke here but it wasn't funny at all

i get "stop cop city" stuck in my head to the tune of JAMC "kill surf city"

Yes [and we will jail you]

Fuck, so no abolition of the carceral state then?

Hardened my beliefs after the last 24 hrs here

Where the mass of the people find existing conditions intolerable there will be a great political movement; where the social conditions are not so abnormally acute no amount of political oratory can produce a movement.

— James Connolly (@ConnollyEbooks) March 24, 2023

Yeah. Myles Horton, the founder of the Highlander Center in East Tennessee, a civil rights school, always said "true change comes from hope, not fear" but I'm not sure if that's true

Not that I would gainsay him, and I expect there might be just a LITTLE more nuance to it than that, but I always wonder about the tug of war between hope and fear.

Depends on the degree of penetration (or at least tacit support) the revolutionary actors have in either the military or the police forces, depending on which country we're talking about.

Either that it collapses of its own contradictions in which case there might not really need to be any revolutionary actors (end of Soviet Union?). Not sure if that counts as a revolution or not, probably not in the traditional sense

I seem to remember Mike Duncan of the revolutions podcast seems to think the US is fulfilling a majority of the requirements, but I think thats more in regard to civil war than revolution, though I suppose they are the same thing

In England they amounted to the same thing, but in the US the Southern states ended up seceding rather than trying to transform the entire country so that seems pretty different.

But yes getting the army on your side has been a pretty crucial ingredient for what, hundreds of years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p8DV5Sd0SA

Gros camouflet pour Emmanuel Macron. La visite du roi Charles reportée, annonce l’Elysée pic.twitter.com/bFE5D1PbhV

— JeanBaptiste Daoulas (@jbdaoulas) March 24, 2023

I was thinking of that Kinks song, and this one by the Pretty Things:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3dqYCJwseU

Neither of them sound too cheerful about impending revolution, they must have needed re-education.

no matter when the revolution starts, all you'll probably do is snitch

next Tuesday

― Pierre Delecto

same, it's been on the calendar for years

everybody should pack a little go bag and have it ready

i think never is most likely, that fascism will be the order of the day for large political organization but i do think there will be small, scattered revolutionary movements as in the parable of the sower. that book felt like a realistic reading of the tea leaves to me in a lot of ways.

I do believe that revolutions will come, but I suspect that they’ll come too late

if it only comes after we're dead does that mean we should vote never?

i voted "someday" even though i think it will be after i'm dead

maybe AI will become sentient and revolt, does that count? no idea what that would look like but I'd hope for something like the Rudy Rucker "-Ware" series of books

I do not think there will ever be a revolution in the US, because the US is not 1 country it is 50 countries and the dream that one can pack up and move to a state more to one's liking is eternal. (Speaking as someone who just this month moved from New Jersey to Montana.) Also you can't discount the soporific/narcotic effect of modern technology. "The revolution" will always be about the fifth or sixth most interesting thing on TV. There will definitely never be a left-wing revolution in the US, because the US is a fundamentally conservative (usually small-c, occasionally large-C) country. Conservative in the bourgeois sense — everybody wants to live in a nice house, nobody wants to crouch in a forest with a rifle or hide in a basement making bombs.

If you want to live life according to your political ideals, you're only ever gonna be able to do it on a small-scale, almost entirely personal level. Donate to your local food bank. Help your neighbors when they need help. Minimize your participation in the parts of "the system" that you find odious. Vote for the best possible candidates, even if they suck. (Of course they suck; they're politicians.) And feel free to hector others online about the wrongness of their choices.

nobody wants to crouch in a forest with a rifle or hide in a basement making bombs

tbf there's a whole swathe of US culture dedicated to doing this shit

tbf there's a whole swathe of US culture dedicated to doing this shit

Yeah, but it's mostly an excuse to hang out with their bros. At the end of Militia Weekend, they all go back home in their giant pickup trucks and watch football on TVs that take up half a wall.

My first day here I came out of Starbucks and there was a pickup truck in the lot covered in right-wing bumper stickers — Fuck Joe Biden, No Vaccination - I Have An Immune System, etc., etc. — and all I could think was, Yeah, buddy, but you still came to Starbucks just like the rest of us.

oh yeah i recognise that, just couldn't resist observing that there are plenty of cosplay revolutionaries

when prince makes them

damn

I voted "following conditions met" because obviously it's all conditional. In the current U.S. it's hard to imagine any kind of real revolution, for lots of reasons but the biggest one is that the median standard of living is basically "pretty good," certainly by global and historical standards. Cosplaying militia types can create some chaos and violence for sure, but not any kind of mass movement (because most people think they're nuts). Leftist groups, more or less the same situation. I think some kind of right-wing coup situation is more likely than a mass revolution — basically if high-ranking fascists in the military take control, with support from state national guards and local police departments.

And fwiw I'm very skeptical of revolutions in general. The historical track record isn't good.

The revolution always consumes its children.

"what's the freedom of us all against the suffering of the few?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0ddOmzQlgY

Crass otm

In the current U.S. it's hard to imagine any kind of real revolution

In the USA I have a similar difficulty, if one defines a revolution as purposeful rising of the people to install a new structure of government, as distinguished from a military coup d'etat. A proletarian seizing of the means of production just isn't in the cards afaics. It is much easier to imagine civil anger, social fragmentation & riots to the point where social order is so gravely and widely disturbed that the government's forceful responses to those civil disturbances are overwhelmed and only marginally effective.

A breakdown of civil order is not a revolution, but social chaos could conceivably produce a sort of vigilante reaction, eventually giving rise to a more brutal and repressive form of government.

A breakdown of civil order is not a revolution

― more difficult than I look (Aimless)

then what the hell _is_?

what a weird interpretation after I specifically coupled the idea with rioting

― more difficult than I look (Aimless)

look, no fucking around. whose side are you on, the rioters, or the cops who show up to maintain civil order?

that's the only question. if you aren't willing to answer it, well, i'm just gonna have to assume you're on the side of the cops. understandable. a lot of people are. and if enough people are on the side of the cops, well, i guess i die in a death camp. because that's where "civil order" is headed at this particular moment in time.

"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the White moderate who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice."

My assumption is that the form the revolution will take in the US is a whittling away of the authority of the federal government by conservative courts and governments until we're functionally back to '50 sovereign states' mode then they start fighting each other for resources.

https://jacobin.com/2011/12/four-futures/

Poll possibility (not really worth reading the book that this was expanded into, the essay gets the point across)

I think the whole red state/blue state dichotomy has been really destructive - not sure who started it, but it hasn't helped things at all imo

Dan Rather

I reject your views on this topic entirely

ok. I'd love to hear more about what you think the revolution triggered by widespread starvation in the first world would look like.

Not to harsh the convo, but if you are defining "moderate" as "anyone who does not support violent revolution and/or rioting", you will be severely disappointed in the political views of 95+% of nearly every demographic (race/ethnicity/age/gender) within the US.

you will be severely disappointed in the political views of 95+% of nearly every demographic (race/ethnicity/age/gender) within the US

...yes

look, no fucking around. whose side are you on, the rioters, or the cops who show up to maintain civil order? if you aren't willing to answer it, well, i'm just gonna have to assume you're on the side of the cops

because recent history includes the Jan. 6, 2021 riot and the past century of history includes numerous other instances of 'white riots', such as the infamous Tulsa riots or the "Kristallnacht" in Germany, I can't make the assumption that every rioter is automatically on the side of fairness, justice and equality. So, I find your question very tricky to answer. I guess in your view I'm just fucking around and you're going to make whatever assumptions you're going to make.

if it makes any difference to you, if trans people took to the streets to protest the sort of violence some state legislators are perpetrating against them and their anger and defiance spilled over into massive property damage or assaults against fascist counter-demonstrators or the cops, I'd be on the side of the trans people.

Not to harsh the convo, but if you are defining "moderate" as "anyone who does not support violent revolution and/or rioting", you will be severely disappointed in the political views of 95+% of nearly every demographic (race/ethnicity/age/gender) within the US.

Where are you factoring in the stop the steal / jan 6 folks in on this? 95% seems pretty high

Where are you factoring in the stop the steal / jan 6 folks in on this? 95% seems pretty high

I was describing the views of people who support liberal democracy or consider themselves as opposition to Trump. We know that the far-right has support for violence. I am not saying that we should never resort to violence to counter them, but I can safely guess that 95% of the non-right would rather have the state crush the righty violence than to be relegated to having to do it ourselves.

tbf it does say "nearly every demographic"

A decade ago, some of the people on this board might not have been as amenable to revolution/riots. My views weren't quite so evolved on it, mostly due to, well, complacency

I was describing the views of people who support liberal democracy or consider themselves as opposition to Trump. We know that the far-right has support for violence.

Thanks for the clarification, makes sense now!

if it makes any difference to you, if trans people took to the streets to protest the sort of violence some state legislators are perpetrating against them and their anger and defiance spilled over into massive property damage or assaults against fascist counter-demonstrators or the cops, I'd be on the side of the trans people.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless)

it does, actually! all the difference in the world! this is kind of what makes theoretical discussions frustrating to me, because all this stuff you're talking about _isn't theoretical for me_. i mean, i'm scared right now, i'm really fucking scared. the shit trans people are going through now, it's not rock and roll, if you know what i mean. i don't know how far this is going to go, how many of us are going to be killed, if we're _all_ going to be killed, if the majority are going to change their minds and look the other way or make empty speeches _strongly disapproving_.

in a northern suburb of PDX on sunday, there's going to be a drag show. the bar has already all its windows smashed out, a couple weeks ago. the word is out - anybody going to that show should come with friends and come ready to fight.

next friday is trans day of visibility. trans day of remembrance last year someone shot up a bunch of us somewhere. it's a week from now and i'm trying to stay positive, trying not to worry about how many of us are gonna be killed _next_ friday, how many _places_ people are gonna try to kill us next friday.

i'm not around to start shit. for reasons of my own, i neither own a firearm nor am i trained to use a firearm. my chief survival tactic is my hypervigilance - if something doesn't feel right to me, i ghost. i have friends who _are_ ready and able to fight, though, and i'm really, really glad to have them. sometimes a lot of us will get together in one place, and when we do, you know, we make a pretty tempting target... and when violence goes down, what's "self-defense" and what's "insurrectionary violence" seems to be a matter of opinion. tucker carlson is already _very very very upset_ that trans people are arming themselves. i mean people are already calling us groomers, how long before they start calling us terrorists too?

so yes, it makes a difference. we're getting killed, we're getting killed _now_, and it helps me out a _real real lot_ to know that when shit goes down, you have my back. thank you.

A decade ago, some of the people on this board might not have been as amenable to revolution/riots. My views weren't quite so evolved on it, mostly due to, well, complacency

― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal)

"some people on this board", haha, fuck i was _so fucking liberal_ ten years ago, _so_ into respectability and _decency_ and _rule of law_. my theoretical beliefs haven't really changed; all that's really changed is my _situation_.

you want to know what revolution looks like? david byrne, i think, comes closer than most people. "life during wartime". the genius lyrics to the song have this annotation, from a weird little max bell profile* from the NME in '79:

"There will be chronic food shortages and gas shortages and people will live in hovels. Paradoxically, they’ll be surrounded by computers the size of wrist watches. Calculators will be cheap. It’ll be as easy to hook up your computer with a central television bank as it is to get the week’s groceries. I think we’ll be cushioned by amazing technological development and sitting on Salvation Army furniture. Everything else will be crumbling. Government surveillance becomes inevitable because there’s this dilemma when you have an increase in information storage. A lot of it is for your convenience – but as more information gets on file it’s bound to be misused."

that's what revolution looks like.

* from earlier in the piece:

"Two people, one of indeterminate sex, have got their hooks onto David Byrne. There's a momentary flare-up, a lovers' tiff, and whoosh, the girl partner sulks off to watch porn movies through the hole in the wall.

Her friend stays put by the green inviting pool. "She is a transvestite, n'est ce pas" whispers my companion loudly. Maybe it's the Jack Danny, but I'd swear she just hitched her top down. A breast pops out and is casually tucked in again. Byrne decides this is all too much and departs for the hotel to play his tapes."

oh my. the _debauchery_ of it all.

And fwiw I'm very skeptical of revolutions in general. The historical track record isn't good.

RIP to your countries but I'm Portuguese so I'm built different.

The American revolution did tbf have disastrous consequences for the world at large in the long term.

one advantage the Russian revolution had in successfully getting a majority of the lower orders of the army onside was that hundreds of thousands of them were being sent onto the killing fields of the first big 20th century industrial era war, barely even adequately equipped to survive, never mind fight, frequently without shoes on their feet or often even without any bullets and equipped with antiquated firearms. But I say fuck armies.

Burning things down is all the leverage we will have. Get used to it.

"I never pass up the opportunity to post this..."

I love that film.

i love that speech

reading a page of unrelentingly bloodthirsty St Juste quotes is a good way to start the day

And fwiw I'm very skeptical of revolutions in general. The historical track record isn't good.

RIP to your countries but I'm Portuguese so I'm built different.

Yeah I'd say that overall, revolutions are too distinct to have a one-size-fits-all track record either good or bad. Plus it depends on what counts as a revolution, and who decides that

In addition to military penetration/support I think another factor is how concentrated power is, whether you need to take over one thing or multiple things

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Yeah I'd say that overall, revolutions are too distinct to have a one-size-fits-all track record either good or bad. Plus it depends on what counts as a revolution, and who decides that

I mean, I'm happy to extend my skepticism to civil wars, if that helps. I mostly think organized violence is bad and has bad effects. And the people who end up in charge at the end are often bad too. And most kinds of disruption, destruction and instability end up hurting vulnerable people the most.

Well for example I'd say the Carnation Revolution, the Christmas Revolution, Euromaidan, and other examples that led to the removal of dictatorial or colonial regimes were net positives and are too numerous for us to say their overall track record is bad

I agree with you on the negatives of violence but we have to stack that up against the violence that was already present in pre-revolutionary regimes (and often a contributory factor in creating a revolution). If we want to say their record is mixed I could agree with that, but I think there are probably too many exceptions to the rule to say they are overall bad

Or if there were to be a revolution in Iran tomorrow, would that be good or bad? For me it would depend on what happens and how it happens, but I wouldn't say it would be obviously be a negative (although it could be! it wouldn't be an obvious positive either depending what it leads to)

Or if there were to be a revolution in Iran tomorrow, would that be good or bad?

― anvil

i mean, how is that even a meaningful question? if there's a revolution in Iran tomorrow, I can't see how any opinions i might have about its moral virtue or lack thereof would possibly be relevant.

And most kinds of disruption, destruction and instability end up hurting vulnerable people the most.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra)

this, on the other hand, is relevant to me. like yes, i'm not wholly ignorant, i know that if there's a revolution i'm exponentially more likely to die in it than a white cis man is. it's a gamble, for sure... but that gamble depends, above all, on the reactions of those who _aren't_ the sort of people most likely to be hurt by destruction, disruption, and instability. when marginalized people revolt, it's... frequently because we've concluded that we're not being terribly well-served by the existing order. maybe we're wrong in that! but for people who aren't particularly vulnerable to act like we don't know that it could wind up hurting us... i don't know, it seems kind of condescending to me!

I do believe that revolutions will come, but I suspect that they’ll come too late

agree. also that said revolutionaries will be violently put down as shirkers/deviants, and that ultimately everyone who is not rich/well-armed will be deemed surplus to the Paramount Task of Keeping Humanity Alive

agree. also that said revolutionaries will be violently put down as shirkers/deviants, and that ultimately everyone who is not rich/well-armed will be deemed surplus to the Paramount Task of Keeping Humanity Alive

― mookieproof

i suppose i should be horrified by the prospect of such a thing, but mostly the idea that people in power would really set out to create that sort of a world just seems to me to be really fucking miserable and pathetic.

i mean, how is that even a meaningful question? if there's a revolution in Iran tomorrow, I can't see how any opinions i might have about its moral virtue or lack thereof would possibly be relevant.

I think this comes back to the earlier question about whether revolutions overall have a good, bad, or mixed track record, and who is doing the deciding. I think revolutions are so distinct its difficult to say something as definitive as "they are good" or "they are bad"

I mean, I'm happy to extend my skepticism to civil wars, if that helps. I mostly think organized violence is bad and has bad effects. And the people who end up in charge at the end are often bad too. And most kinds of disruption, destruction and instability end up hurting vulnerable people the most.

Yes, the six people killed by the former head of the secret service are a tragedy, but considering the amount of ppl tortured and killed by them before, not to mention the casualties of the colonial war, I think you're wrong - continuity would have been far more violent than revolution was. As for the people who ended up in charge being bad, well, you'll get no argument from me, but that's liberal democracy for you, and they were preferable to Salazar.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

A majority of people think no more revolutions will never come, despite multiple revolutions occurring in recent years

I guess a singular rather than plural was used so was maybe talking about a particular revolution but it doesn't say where

I voted someday, I don't expect anything big any time soon, but nothing lasts forever.

need a poll with specific revolutions ppl are awaiting

separate poll for items ppl have ever burnt down prob

I once set fire to a curtain with an aerosol "flame thrower" at a hotel in Salzburg. I ripped the curtain off threw it safely off the balcony and then it set fire to a wooden trap-door below! I got perma-banned from all school trips after that!

its a start, you're in

The sun is behind me.
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.

The vast majority of bored office workers on the internet don't think there will ever be a revolution.

Ok

I'm not bored.

I'm bored, but I'm not an office worker.

25 over 22 not really a vast majority

A majority of people think no more revolutions will never come, despite multiple revolutions occurring in recent years

― anvil

i mean what result would you _expect_ from a _vote_ about the revolution lol

if you anticipate a revolution with overall positive results for society then 'someday' is so equivocal an answer that it is almost as dispiriting as 'never' and may not have seemed worth clicking on.

if you anticipate a revolution with overall negative results for society (e.g. civil war, famine, chaos, or autocracy) then 'never' might reflect one's having a glimmer of hope that most current problems of society can be adequately addressed through less drastic means.

iow, no matter how people voted it's impossible to accurately interpret the raw numbers in terms of real opinions. in still other words, it's an ilx poll.

Focusing on just the results and ignoring the 100+ posts elaborating people's actual positions a bit weird

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