Most of you upvoting this would need to go to Wikipedia before you could have a remotely intelligent conversation about revolutionary violence.
I have no problem saying that if I woke up in a country where political change was brought about by killing elected officials, I’d leave. Fuck that noise and fuck political murder.
You already live in a country where the domination of the rich is maintained by social violence.
Based on what? Exactly what violence is taking place that if it ended the rich would lose their “domination”?
Nearly every aspect of modern life is backed up by the law. Law is nothing more than codified coercion. As I noted elsewhere, this is not inherently bad - but every legal protection fundamentally springs from, and is enforced by, violence. This is one the main things discussed in sociology with regards to governments. It’s very basic.
As those with outsized influence are the ones who, well, have the most influence on the laws, as a demographic or class, such laws are naturally made to benefit the influential. As I mentioned before, this is not inherently a bad thing - many laws benefit ordinary people as well. But the vast corpus of private property and contract law, beneficial though it may sometimes be, has the primary and highest purpose of protecting the influence (ie the wealth) of the powerful.
The use of these laws to protect their interests, even while others starve, go deep into medical debt, or otherwise end up physically or mentally destroyed in the process of participating within the legal structures created by these laws, is a form of violence. It’s just a form of violence that people are willing to accept - some without even considering it, it would seem.
Unfortunately, with political bribery fully legalized, there really isn’t another recourse that will effect the status quo. You can always count on the kind of people who seek power in the first place to be greedy and corruptable, and when the wealthy can just “donate” to their Pacs to mandate their will, no amount of shaming, protest, or honorable vibes can overcome that.
So either all the peasants who own almost nothing relative to the owners…
…can start GoFundMes in a hopeless attempt to out-bribe our elected officials, or we can revolt, that thing that’s too unseemly for you to consider. And reminder, sanctioned “protest,” with a permit from the bribed politicians, at a designated non-disruptive protest location, at designated protest times, isn’t protest at all, it’s as productive as masturbation.
Or third choice and the one we’ll almost certainly choose: jack shit nothing as the circumstances for most continues to decline until societal collapse in a generation or two due to greed driven ecological collapse.
I do think you’re a bit pessimistic here - great change is still possible through a combination of leverage and the iron law of institutions. Just as the implicit threat of violence caused the creation of the modern welfare state, and the destruction of explicitly racial laws during the Civil Rights movement, so too can this be defeated. All it takes is growing discontent and disorder, combined with the ambitious, to restructure a society, even radically so.
Of course, such is also a game of chicken, with each side daring the other to swerve first, and the best way to win a game of chicken is to prefer collision to swerving…
I don’t think violence is the answer we really need to be getting everyone to vote! 2024 is going to be the most important election of our lives 😼
Violence is unironically an important part of any discussion with governing powers. The powers that be use violence to maintain their power - this is not actually inherently bad, but it does mean that from time to time the governing powers must be reminded that peaceful acquiescence to their use of violence is conditional. If they do not believe it is, then they will not respect any agreement with the people - such is the nature of all power imbalance in negotiations with institutions.
This is so general as to be incoherent and meaningless.
Conditional on what? You don’t offer anything. Why aren’t elections enough? Nothing offered on this point.
The theory, if it can be called that, is what? Dumb memes glorifying political murder serve to remind those in power that violence is delegated to them by the people?
Or is political murder itself the reminder? You think killing politicians and government employees is going to moderate government violence? Now that is funny.
Take a deep breath. Calm down. There’s no conversation to be had when you’re creating points for yourself to argue against.
Yes, vote for the fascist or the liberal. Things will change this time, bro. I swear. Just one more election bro.
Time for voting is over. You can’t vote our way out of this. Unfortunately it is to late and definitely can’t fix it under a two party system, especially when both parties are captured and serve the rich.
I also feel it is too late to come together and show the government, who is really in charge, because 46% of our country wants and likes the boot on their neck.
Nah we definitely can vote our way out of it. It’s just going to take way longer and we’d need to convince people who the real enemy is. But we’d need to do that with a violent revolution too. When a lot of people, who own a lot of guns are drinking the capitalist Kool aid, a revolution just ends up being poor people fighting other poor people. Then the elites win in the end anyways.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m on board with the need to drastically change and if the guillotine is the way then cool but it’s just not at the moment. Voting is the least effective form of civic engagement so it would take the longest and we’re running out of time. If we can get leftists to run and win in lots of local government races then there is absolutely a path to change things from the ground up. Politicians, wealthy elite and corporations really really want you to think that you have no options. The options just involve hard work so a lot of people think that murdering the wealthy is the easy way out. I agree that it’s a way but I’m skeptical that it’s as easy or cut and dry as many leftists want us to think it is.
Mass violence is the ugliest and least reliable way of effecting change. But damn if a little Reign of Terror, as a treat, doesn’t sound nice sometimes when I read the news.
