On Monday, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to use racial profiling in its militarized immigration raids across Los Angeles, halting an injunction that had barred officers from targeting Latinos based on ethnicity. The court did not explain the reason for its shadow docket order, which appeared to split 6–3 along ideological lines. In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that the decision was “unconscionably irreconcilable with our nation’s constitutional guarantees,” opening the door to violent persecution of Latinos—including American citizens—by “masked agents with guns.” The majority did not respond to this extraordinary charge, perhaps because it is so obviously true.
If we could organize, we wouldn’t need a violent revolution.
Have no fear, organizing to oppose the establishment is quite violent. The labor movement had a lot of fights. From beating the shit out of the police in Minneapolis in the 1920s to the coal miners of Appalachia to the UAW.
That is why I think Sean Fain would be a good presidential candidate. He is willing to fight and honestly.
I thought we were talking about violently overthrowing a government, not violent protest.
Also, violence in protests is only helpful when the common perception is that the violence was instigated by the state. That’s why states use agent provocateurs to incite violence. They know it works to their advantage.
Call it what you want, the only way to improve our lot is to organize and work cooperatively on what we agree on, and that would be opposed by the state, and the oligarchs that control the state, and we would have to defend ourselves in our rights to exercise our constitutionally protected freedoms as we are allowed to by law. As the unions did when the corrupt power of the state at the behest of the bosses tried to crush their organization.
A revolution without any organization would just be an animal farm situation where the new boss would be like the old boss. And we should not want a revolution but rather a restoration. The system is generally good, the system is Dishonored and ignored.
Oh, I’m completely on board with organizing and being prepared to defend ourselves. It’s the only way forward. All it would take is a short general strike, but we need to take into account that a whole lot of American workers like what’s going on, and even more just want to return to the same neoliberal consensus that got us here. Those fractures are the biggest problem to solve.
Americans only like what is going on because they have been misled to blame the wrong people for our decline. They trust the wrong people, we all do to different degrees, the sheep of the dem party especially.
If a strong reformer faction ran a true populist campaign, channeling anger towards it’s actual source, half of those people would join us. They want to attack the people screwing us. Without strong populist opposition to this plutocracy they will continue to be misguided.
That does not hold for evangelicals and some of the religious right perhaps they are fucked in the head and want to see the earth drown in lakes of blood and fire for the rapture.
I’m entirely in agreement there. I’m not optimistic enough to say “half” but I think it would be enough. The suburban NIMBY types are the most difficult to reach. Those are the ones who just want to return to the neo-liberal consensus. They are just as hateful and deluded as the white supremacists, and even more bigoted in their own way.
Half may be too high. At least in those that would be pulled over right away with a populist alternative Reform Party. A lot of these True Believers, which I do believe are about half of the Republican electorate, that believe more than not of the bullshit, can be pulled, look at Marjorie Taylor green and her base. She opposed the war with iran, she called out and opposes the genocide in palestine, she is opposed to go engineering such as spring sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere to block the Sun, and she is for releasing all of the Epstein documents. As delusional as they are, with a better alternative they would support something other than what they do now.
But the cynical ones, which includes a lot of the business oriented republicans, comfortable people making good money that want to fuck the poor just out of General principle and continue to increase their lot would not support that reform alternative unless it was clear they were going to win which would not be when it would be most needed, the first time around.
A lot of religious people would support a popular reform but so many are so misguided by their religious leaders they will not. I would not Hazard a percentage guess. Negligible amounts of evangelicals and Calvinists, a significant number of Catholics would support it but the Nationwide Catholic leadership is pretty hard right the pope notwithstanding.
The methodists and others may even support it in the majority.
But with current leadership and strategies we will never find out. It was hard enough to win a more honest election, now we need a more commanding majority to overcome all of the election rigging they will be doing on every level, as well as controlling at least one house of Congress so they cannot vote their guy in any way even if they cannot rig enough states to take it outright.
Also we need a very muscular approach to fighting election rigging and answering it. Meekly asking the courts is not enough. Voters decide elections, not courts. Should be the rallying cry on that.