this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2024
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chapotraphouse

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166
Fuck Amerikkka. Genuine question, how bad does it need to get before people rise up? (hexbear.net)
submitted 1 week ago by heatenconsumerist@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net
43 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Need to vent, just ignore this. If you don't want to listen to a grown man whine, please just answer the title.

RantThis country sucks. Everything here sucks. Leaving is too expensive, living is 5x more expensive.

  • We can't rent because our credit is too shitty, and we can't get jobs because they want us to live somewhere to get mail. The place we WERE getting mail said they wouldn't keep delivering the mail even though the owner is okay with it.
  • We can't afford food, but some food banks are now SO busy they're a 3 hour wait. It's gotten 30x worse this winter; we have started seeing some NICE-ass cars here. Some even say we're too well off for free food because we have a car to sleep in (wow thanks)
  • We're "too well off" for state assistance, and somehow not disabled enough for fed assistance (rare spine fusing disorder, I look like a pretzel)

USA is giving hundreds of billions of dollars to Ukraine. USA is giving hundreds of billions of dollars to Israel.

  • Republicans want us to take some imaginary fairy jobs with our super-bootstraps and buy the nearest $12,000 house.
  • Democrats want to suck off the establishment regardless of what they do to us (please don't protest unless they're "legal protests!" You have to vote for the man who made homelessness illegal or the scary orange fuher will win!)

If a 3rd party couldn't win THIS election of all fucking elections, it's never happening without intense violence.

  • The good thing is that the surveillance state would never let that happen, whew! Really glad we don't have the gulag here unlike that shitty "communist" country that houses everybody /s.

If we didn't get healthcare reform after Trump's covid party, it's NEVER happening.

  • Two of our best friends have severe Huntington's disease and their insurance doesn't cover their meds. But at least their insurance company made $90,100,000,000 in profits this year! WooHoo!!

At least stocks are up biggly!

  • I'm sure that has nothing to do with inflation and the collapsing USD!

Meanwhile; in burger-fuck-town, our dumbass citizens weren't educated enough to do anything other than guzzle sugar and argue about their side of the culture-war.

  • Maybe it's the 3,000 people who own half of the worlds wealth's problem? Nah, it's gotta be trans people!
  • Maybe the 1% is the problem? Nah, it's gotta be those dumbass racist white folk in Alabama's fault!
  • Maybe corporations are to blame? No, I'm pretty sure it's the student protestors! They should have known better than to break the law!

Our homelessness is ILLEGAL where we live, and fucking SLAVERY is legal for anybody who had the misfortune of being stuck in housing limbo.

  • It's very clear the establishment is pushing people into labor camps and torturing anybody who refuses the labor (I mean who gives a fuck if prisoners kill themselves in solitary confinement, AMIRIGHT?)
all 44 comments
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[–] iridaniotter@hexbear.net 64 points 1 week ago

The British working class failed to create a socialist republic when their children were getting dismembered during their twelve hour work days, so.

Revolutionary conditions are not simply a matter of "things being bad"

[–] SorosFootSoldier@hexbear.net 56 points 1 week ago

Me as each day of hell increases.

[–] Parzivus@hexbear.net 48 points 1 week ago

Way, way worse. Like "the average person is literally starving" bad. Where a majority of the military would side with you over the government bad.

[–] ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net 45 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Oh buddy it can get a lot worse

Like, we’re not even at Great Depression level of immiseration yet, and that didn’t quite spark an overthrow. Serious threat of one, plus the Russian Revolution had just happened, which is why we got the New Deal. But no overthrow.

[–] glimmer_twin@hexbear.net 41 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Just look how bad things had to get in china and the Russian empire before their revolutions. And they weren’t fighting 100 years of Cold War propaganda. And they actually had functional working class parties.

[–] ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net 33 points 1 week ago (1 children)

My only hope for a brighter future is the East Germany route: Lose a war and be occupied by a socialist superpower (China this time)

Fuck I want to live in Chinese occupied North America that sounds like such an improvement

[–] heatenconsumerist@hexbear.net 21 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Easier to tell people it's all fine with print media being the only way to know what the rest of the country is doing.

These days you see >90% home ownership countries regularly on the internet.

They can't just "oh it'll be fine" the next great depression (which is realistically right around the corner)

[–] anarchoilluminati@hexbear.net 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think the basic minimum requirement is that the US loses its position as the home of the labor aristocracy. Every country and context is different so just looking to past countries' revolutions and trying to impose the formula won't work, but it also can't happen if the US is still top dollar (pun intended) and USians still have actual hope that "it'll be fine". Things would probably have to get to Great Depression levels at least and also be in a situation where the US Empire as such has already collapsed.

Revolution within the Empire, I think, is just an idealistic dream. Another reason why the US is doing everything it can, and will sacrifice anything, not to lose that position to anyone. It's still good to be well-organized already for when the moment happens, but I think anyone who thinks is coming sooner than that is puffing some strong hopium.

[–] ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Like, something might be on the table when we hit like 10% homelessness and another 20% on the verge, as well as widespread food insecurity.

If Trump actually does the tariffs he’s talked about and we get hit by a couple bad climate-change-related-events though, that could happen sooner than we think.

[–] anarchoilluminati@hexbear.net 4 points 1 week ago

I honestly think we are either already at or close to those numbers.

[–] ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net 8 points 1 week ago

I do tend to think the bar for uprising/revolutuon/collapse is lower than it was 100-150 years ago, but we still have a long way to go. And if things do pop off it’ll get much worse for a long time before it gets better.

My bet for where the US will be in 30 years is basically Syria with more guns

[–] SupFBI@hexbear.net 39 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Nothing short of an apocalyptic event(s).

The rot.

The propaganda.

It runs too deep.

[–] GnastyGnuts@hexbear.net 35 points 1 week ago

Things need to be bad enough that the risk of being killed by the government / right wing street gangs is less scary than dealing with the status quo.

[–] Assian_Candor@hexbear.net 35 points 1 week ago (2 children)

US won't change without outside intervention imo

Even if you formed a people's vanguard you would be fighting against patriots militias or whatever. Just a deeply brain poisoned, cursed and cruel place.

[–] Self_Sealing_Stem_Bolt@hexbear.net 26 points 1 week ago

Yeah, the only uprising in amerika will be a reactionary one not a revolutionary one.

[–] stigsbandit34z@hexbear.net 2 points 1 week ago

I think the only thing you can hope for is a town in the middle of nowhere being taken over and made marginally better

[–] Jabril@hexbear.net 30 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The majority of the world is living in much worse conditions than the US and we don't see revolutions popping off. It takes organizing for that to happen, it isn't a spontaneous thing that occurs once a certain threshold of suffering is reached.

[–] woodenghost@hexbear.net 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yes and this also means it can happen given an economic crisis or crisis of legitimacy, proper organizing and the right balance of power between classes.

it isn't a spontaneous thing that occurs once a certain threshold of suffering is reached.

Absolutely! It's weird how often this simplistic "threshold of suffering" view of revolutions is just assumed without any theoretical basis. It explicitly goes against Lenin who rejected spontaneity and insisted on organizing.

A historic materialist analysis of revolutions does not rely on anything as subjective as suffering. It is concerned with objective contradictions inherent in the mode of production, class analysis, class consciousness and organizing. And no, suffering alone does not suffice to create class consciousness. Without organizing it can lead to despair, passivity or fragmented resistance.

In a successful revolution, seeds of class consciousness lead to political action which leads to more class consciousness which leads to more action and so on.

And those seeds are planted right now in the boring everyday struggle. In every strike, protest and action. And organizing them builds structures and alliances from which a revolutionary potential might someday emerge.

Capitalism is not sustainable and keeps producing crisis and moments that can be captured. History is full of those moments when the ruling class seemed invincible - right up until they were overthrown.

[–] Jabril@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago

Agreed, although I'd go as far as to say that even organizing itself isn't enough to sow the seeds of revolution if not tied to explicitly revolutionary theories of change. Labor unions have organized for over a century and many have mostly fought for better gains for themselves without having an understanding of their part in the greater class of workers. In the US most organizing spaces are dominated by people who explicitly follow counter revolutionary ideologies, and those people will push out those with revolutionary lines while building coalition with overt reactionaries.

Of course, without there being material conditions worse enough to push people to want to organize over maintaining the status quo, they won't do it. So it's not that the threshold of suffering isn't real, it's just that it isn't the mechanism of triggering revolution in and of itself. People who have nothing to lose will be more willing to fight against a seemingly insurmountable foe, and people who are relatively comfortable and have a lot of treats to keep their dopamine levels high aren't going to go out of their way to do much of anything, especially something that seems impossible at first glance. Without some understanding of how and why change happens, and how people have historically succeeded and failed in attempting to change the world for the better, people can spend lifetimes organizing to no avail.

[–] BountifulEggnog@hexbear.net 25 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I honestly have no idea how people aren't fully doomer, given the situation. How am I supposed to have hope smoking-fish

[–] Assian_Candor@hexbear.net 17 points 1 week ago (2 children)

The good guys are winning. China is ascendant, having proper multipolarity will do a lot of good for a lot of people

[–] Aradina@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 week ago

Yeah but there's the non-zero possibility that the US will take the rest of the world down with it, seeing as they have nukes

[–] barrbaric@hexbear.net 9 points 1 week ago

If we had infinite time, sure, but climate change exists. Can China destroy America and establish global communism in like 5 years?

[–] LocalOaf@hexbear.net 16 points 1 week ago

something something everything under heaven is in utter chaos, the situation is excellentplease-wake-up

[–] duderium@hexbear.net 25 points 1 week ago

I mean, there was a popular uprising in 2020. The biggest protests in American history. For a few weeks or months, things actually felt hopeful? Its only real achievement was burning shit down and getting George Floyd’s murderer put in prison. But Smeagol did it once…

[–] MayoPete@hexbear.net 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Capitalism is dumb

[–] LocalOaf@hexbear.net 13 points 1 week ago

More like crapitalism

kelly

[–] john_brown@hexbear.net 17 points 1 week ago

The imperial core will never have a revolution until after (probably long after) the empire has fully collapsed in on itself.

[–] DragonBallZinn@hexbear.net 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Ah, a rant eh? Mind if I join you. I've had a really shit year.

This country sucks. Everything here sucks. Leaving is too expensive, living is 5x more expensive.

Tell me about it, it fucking pisses me off because how the hell is any of this worth MORE!?

USA is giving hundreds of billions of dollars to Ukraine. USA is giving hundreds of billions of dollars to Israel

This is what I point to a lot. It's never been about "financial feasibility" it's been about literally humoring spoiled billionaires and their delusions of grandeur

Republicans want us to take some imaginary fairy jobs with our super-bootstraps and buy the nearest $12,000 house.

LMAO same. I try to tell people no one is fucking hiring in this piece of shit country and no one believes me. The real kicker is that I have been told "You should look into starting your own business. hire yourself!" on more than one occasion. I fucking hate it here and too many MFs are stuck in Lalaland

At least stocks are up biggly!

Every day when someone goes on about "muh stonks" I have to resist the urge of going postal. Sure, being thrown in jail might be an improvement: I finally get a job and housing. Bro, at this point the stock market being up is a BAD THING!

Fuck this country. "Land of opportunity" my fat fucking ass.

[–] godlessworm@hexbear.net 14 points 1 week ago

death to amerikkka and fuck all these ignorant ass treatlers who are fucking it up for the rest of us because they're brainwashed to work 90 hours a week just to be in mass amounts of debt to pay for their ugly ass suburban hellhouse and lifted emotional support trucks and they think their "grind" makes them somehow kin with the billionaires who are making them literally work themselves to death to obtain what someone like elon musk wipes his ass with or blows in one hour on drugs and children at epstein island

you're right, nothing will change without intense violence. the supposed "middle class" have even been turned into a boot licking militia for capital. if any group ever actually tried to do anything brave, it would be chuds with their tens of thousands of dollars of guns they bought on credit who will be the first ones to lay their lives on the line defending the banks.

[–] barrbaric@hexbear.net 14 points 1 week ago

CW: Doomer

spoilerImo just "things getting worse" will drive people to fascism, because there's a multi-billion dollar propaganda network blasting fascism and anti-communism directly into the typical american's every orifice 24/7. The main form of "rising up" that a deeply alienated settler-colonial state like this will have will be stochastic terrorism. Remember after hurricane Helene when FEMA staff were threatened with being shot? That's what "anti-government" americans "rising up" will look like.

I legitimately don't know if a revolution is possible here. We should obviously do our best to make it happen, but I don't know.

[–] iByteABit@hexbear.net 13 points 1 week ago

When capitalists can literally destroy our planet, fuck up our health, rob us, take every one of our needs and make them unattainable, send us off to die in wars that no logical person can find the reason to fight in, but people somehow care more about how "authoritarian" China is, or how many people the gulags are said to have had, things are going to get incredibly worse.

The brainworms run so deep all over the western world that I really fear that revolution will take miracles to happen anywhere inside it.

You have to give it to the imperialists, they have mastered propaganda for a very long time now, it takes some extreme mental blindfolds to be fucked by capitalism so hard yet being completely unaware of it.

Times and conditions do change though, so maybe I'm just being a doomer and venting

[–] glimmer_twin@hexbear.net 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Word. I feel the pressure of capitalism every day but I at least live in a country where I can go to the doctor for free…. Mostly. Dentists cost money, like “I haven’t been in five years cos I’m scared of how much it might cost” money… and I’ve had to change GP 3 times in the last couple of years because more and more are going private because the government hasn’t raised what they pay out for a public consultation in like 10 years….. and I get subsidised therapy but only ten sessions a year and it isn’t even much of a discount…..

What was I saying? Oh yeh death to capitalism

[–] CocteauChameleons@hexbear.net 12 points 1 week ago

Probably when a big bag of off brand cheese puffs exceeds 2 dollars

[–] Lemmygradwontallowme@hexbear.net 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

We have, many times, rose up, the actual question is, when will it actually make changes, let alone revolution?

A rant to complement youYou know, there are many working class uprisings in many countries like the U.S and Britain, especially in the early 20th century, with the Coal labor strikes and anti-war demos during WW1, but due to strong liberal capitalist imperialist organization and the disorganization and spontaneity of these uprisings, most of them were snuffed off, with a few exceptions of countries like USSR and China.

Thus, we need the uprising to be precise, to be dominating, for that to do so, we need a revolutionary movement, and an embryo for new potential burgeoning economic mode of production.

While the revolutionary movement, of governing superstructure, that is the new liberation army, the newly-established state, and its militias, suppresses the capitalist state and mode of production, we need its protection to make time and effort for that embryo to grow into a socialist mode of production

However, Amerikkkan economic base/mode of production is the strongest, at its heart, and so its governing superstructure... let alone its imperial hegemony that challenges the national liberation and sovereignty of many other states

[–] MrPiss@hexbear.net 9 points 1 week ago

I see major political change of any kind as 5 years away at minimum. No organization inside or outside of government really wants major change. At most they want to twist a few nobs and dials on the machines to increase the pain at a faster or slower rate.

Americans are pretty far from the level of suffering that will produce violent revolutionary conditions. We barely have any solid reform movements since everything gets coopted by either political party and defanged. There are no independent centers of power and many people are too alienated or disconnected to create a movement.

I'd like to think something has to happen soon with how the financiers are sucking the life out of the country's and world's economy but all of the carefully crafted systems of control seem ascendant. Even with both political parties being filled with incompetent losers they can still bumble their way through maintaining the system.

This is a country where cops can kill people in broad daylight and get away with it when it's on video. The American psyche has to change but I feel like it will only get worse with the conditions.

[–] jack@hexbear.net 8 points 1 week ago

The revolution is not an apple that falls from the tree when it's ripe. You have to shake the tree. You have to make it fall.

Revolutionary organization is a necessary antecedent to a revolution. Join a party and build the revolutionary movement.

[–] NotLuigi@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago

(I mean who gives a fuck if prisoners kill themselves in solitary confinement, AMIRIGHT?)

Look at Robert Brooks. They don’t even need to rely on solitary confinement when they can just torture and murder you on camera and not even be prosecuted

[–] stigsbandit34z@hexbear.net 3 points 1 week ago

Tell me about. The main challenge, I believe, is the placating performed by our treat and consumption economy. No idea how you go up against something as ubiquitous as that