So how would you calculate this?

So has anybody considered like trying to get a job at ice, but never doing the job just eating up as much time as possible? Just like showing up and asking a lot of questions, telling stories, etc., and then if you do get hired you just continue to take up as much time and energy as possible? I think if you could organize a bunch of people to do it, or just one at first, you could probably learn a lot. Like they’re desperate for people to hire, there’s gotta be a way to further mess with that

We are the terrorists now, for caring about people’s suffering.

The 3.5% theory is extremely questionable. The first paragraph of this article is problematic if you know like 3 things about Philippine politics.

I’ve dug deeper into the data and it is very opinionated how it defines “success” and violence/nonviolence.

I’m not a pro-violence guy, i defend liberation struggles, buv work to create educational/political/cultural revolution. Also the 3.5% mobilized population would be rad AF in USAmerica.

I haven’t read the whole book the study is based on, though I was working on it for a while. But IMO it misrepresents historical fact to make a nice-sounding abstraction, and I’m not sure how people will react to its failure, which would be based on a faulty premise.

We need to be more focused on what we will do with the power that will come from mobilizing like 12 million Americans rather than hoping some members of the political class notice and decide to fix things. The actual problem is that power is kept out of the hands of workers. The thought of building that power and giving it away would be a catastrophic blow to our movements.

The political system is empowered to fix problems, but not equipped. As far as I can tell, the only people who have ever created or fixed a goddamn thing in all of history have been workers.

rivals

I don’t remember spending $1.5T destroying 200,000 acres of farmland to build data centers for pets.com and GeoCities.

You say so knowingly, without elaborating, like a true sage /jk

The constitution is a social contract. Since such a contract can serve as the basis for all society, then the legitimacy of all contractual obligations are linked to the legitimacy of this one, that ensure we have rights and freedom in order to enter into contractual obligations.

Since the representatives of the state founded on the constitution have broken the social contract, then all contracts are null and void.

I bought my son a cheap little computer, basically a windows version of a Chromebook. When windows needed an update there wasn’t enough memory to perform it, and the computer would no longer connect to WiFi. I thought this was very dumb so I figured out how to remove windows and install Mint. Was impressed by how well it worked.

When I needed a new computer I bought a $150 thinkpad and installed Fedora. Been a fedora main ever since

I’m right there with you. Even if it is lost for a little while, these things have a way of coming back around stronger than before.

But I agree 1000%, we need decisive collective action to meet this moment.

For a lot of people, staying alive, keeping hope, is what you are doing. Just educating ourselves in a way that helps us see the world and the people in it more clearly, to recognize the connections between us and society, is itself a revolutionary act.

I had the privilege of being elected by my city’s DSA chapter to attend the national convention this year. And believe me, we are building that infrastructure. The sense of connectedness and shared mission along with about 1200 socialist organizers, not just online weirdos but actual wonderful, committed, very busy and diverse people, it has been an incredible feeling each time I was sent.

But there is a cost. I’ve been doxxed, I have my own KeyWiki page. I’m in several databases, I’ve written articles in my own name. But at a certain point I just started to see people as having a target on their back because of nothing they did, it came down to the color of their skin, their gender, who they love, what they believe or where they came from. As an middle age dude I just figured if they have a target on their back then I should do something to put one on mine too.

I’m not a fraction of the man’s measure, but Eugene Debbs, who got a million votes for president from prison in 1920, said at his trial for sedition in 1918, “As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”

When you’re ready and able to join the movement, I’ll have saved a place for you in it.

We have no way of carrying out a general strike right now. GSUSA is a pretty good group trying to build capacity, and UAW President Shawn Fain is pushing for unions to renegotiate their contracts so that they all end on May 1st 2028, obvs including UAW.

General Strikes are illegal in the USA, a union can’t call a legal solidarity strike, thanks to Taft-Hartley. I’m not a legalism guy, I think legalism is an illusion the workers need to overcome. But the fact is, we haven’t overcome it. Even a lot of pretty militant leftist groups in the US have a “new constitutional convention” fetish, it’s even in the old DSA program.

There is no infrastructure for it. A few dozen Americans on Lemmy not showing up for work isn’t gonna do shit. The best chance we got is 2028, which will be badass if Trump is still in office.

There is so much work to do and frankly its frustrating when people are like “just do impossible thing”. Stand up and help us we need help so badly. I think a lot of people in USamerica who say this kind of shit have absolutely no fucking clue what they’re talking about. No one wants to give up a fraction of their quality of life to have a political discussion about real shit. People just want someone else to come along and save them, and then even if someone does come along, complain if we don’t have our butt kissed just the way we like it. The only thing we know how to do is speak to a manager. We are a nation of Karens. We are not ready.

Its ironic that the strategies that America used to terrorize Europeans into accepting NATO, are being used to terrorize Americans while dismantling NATO. That old imperial boomerang keeps coming back around

As completely innocent people are wont to do