Liberal incrementalism is killing us. If you support incrementalism, get out of the way
What is it you wanted me to reconcile myself to? I was born here almost 60 years ago, I'm not gonna live another 60 years. You always told me it takes time. It's taken my father's time, my mother's time. My uncle's time. My brother's and my sister's time. My nieces' and my nephews' time. How much time do you want? For your progress.
James Baldwin, 1989
31 replies
Status quo incrementalism led to where we are now.
This is evidently a very leftist focused space. The rules and about make it clear, there isn't tolerance for liberalism here. You can discuss and understand more about leftist ideology if you ask here, but don't come here, defecate on the carpet, and tell us to clean it up.
Mao called them Paper Tigers.
This is a huge strawman argument I see quite frequently. I agree change happens with force, but without collective action, one person burning down a warehouse might have effect, but how much? Wouldn't it be better to plan, gather together and act collectively? Why does this argument that you have to prove your metal and burn something down, alone or you just aren't hard core enough and therefore a fake, come up so much? All it does is detract and dismis from the important points. Do you really feel like the answer is all people who feel they're "real" leftists, should go do some severe property damage and then bam, everything solved? I'm doing the same thing, by even asking you, but I see it so often. I don't see that as the answer at all, I don't see how that helps, but you do, I'm genuinely curious what you see as a result of burning down an amazon warehouse, and therefore proving "leftism", what changes do you feel that makes? They just get to sit in jail and wear a badge of honour they know about? Or do you see actual change occurring from these actions?
I mean, violent revolutions always tend to backfire, so.... what's the alternative to that? What's the third option?
That's completely ahistorical. Violent revolution in China doubled life expectancy within a generation; violent revolution in Russia led to industrialization and the transformation of a fuedal backwater into a global superpower capable of stopping the Nazis; violent revolution in Vietnam led to the expulsion of violent exploitative colonial rule and establishing autonomy to this day, as well as allowing them to stop the Cambodian genocide; violent revolution in Cuba expelled the oppressive gangster state and led to Cuba having one of the highest numbers of doctors per capita in the world, which have been sent around the world to assist in humanitarian crises.
The claim that violent revolutions "always backfire" is just propaganda you were told to encourage complacency. The negative aspects of revolutionary countries are always highlighted and pushed to the forefront, while any positive accomplishments are ignored or written off.
Rather than looking at it in terms of just going out and trying to overthrow the government, look at it this way. The system is failing, and if it cannot correct itself with significant changes, then it will collapse. And currently, the right is better prepared for that collapse and more likely to take advantage of it. That's a part of why they can be so obstructionist and not care if the system actually functions. What we need is to become better prepared, so that if an when shit hits the fan, we at least have a fighting chance. And in the meantime, if there's any way to actually make the system work, then it's through giving the powers that be something to be afraid of.
What we can do currently is to participate in other non-electoral tactics, such as strikes and demonstrations, while making preparations and building dual power structures. Again, rather than thinking in terms of, "How do we overthrow the government," think in terms of, "If there's a breakdown in order, and a fascist militia shows up to my community, what can we do about it?"
Currently, for example, there are masked fascist thugs raiding workplaces and dragging people away, claiming to be government agents, and we may not currently have the capacity to fight them and win, but what we can do is track their movements and give people early warnings to get to safety, and we can pressure workplaces to refuse to open their doors to them, and we can do whatever we can to make their jobs harder and make their lives hell while preparing for the day that we can kick them off our streets.
You’re 100% right about everything you just said. None of that involves rioting or armed fighting of any kind. That’s the thing I’m getting at.
Having ideological predelictions for or against violence are both liabilities. You have to evaluate the material conditions to determine which tactics are more effective and make the determination based on those conditions.
Abandoning any possibility of armed fighting, just because you evaluate it to be non-viable under the current conditions, is a mistake. The current conditions will not last forever, for better or for worse.
During the years of the Weimar Republic, the conditions weren't there for the left to overthrow the government through armed fighting (the failed Spartacist Uprising demonstrates this), but one of the ways the Nazis secured power was through street-fighting, expanding their practical, physical control block-by-block, while the left failed to mount an effective resistance to them. While the Nazis controlled the streets, there was no real possibility of making a legal or political challenge to Hitler's seizure of power (it would have been unenforceable). Had the left been better organized and better equipped militarily, they might have been able to remove the Nazis' de facto control of the streets and better challenge their power. It could happen here.
History is full of examples that prove that armed fighting can be an effective tactic, and in many cases, is the only viable tactic.
Which I have done, and my determination is that rioting and larger-impact violence (like, say Weather Underground) tend to backfire and turn the public against the cause you're fighting for. With very few exceptions (Luigi being one of them).
That's a strawman. I've never once said that nor implied it. I made general statements about violence in general. I guess I should have been more specific. See above.
Stop living in the past. Those people are dead, and so is their worldview and culture. We live in different times now with different standards of behavior.
Yeah, that's not happening now. Stop living in the past. The far-right in America is VASTLY outnumbered by those who oppose them. If it came down to it, and say, all the MAGAs in the South and in rural areas of blue states "rose again" and tried to take the streets by force, they would soon get a wake up call, because even the vast majority of police wouldn't join their ranks (as crazy as that may sound to those of us on the left - there are "good" cops out there who believe in the myth that we were taught growing up about what cops should be - to serve and protect the public).
I'm not saying violence is NEVER the answer. I'm saying we don't and shouldn't treat violence as the only true answer.
You readily conflate adventurism with revolution.
To quote Castro: it is not the revolutionary's choice to be violent. It is a path imposed to us by oppressors. So people have two choices: to give up, or fight.
If you've chosen to ignore the advice given to you in this very thread regarding the historical importance of violence, you've chosen to give up.
I agree with all of you that in the past, violence was necessary. But that was the distant past. A different generation is living now and we don’t need to kill anyone to have a revolution. And every time we do, except in VERY rare cases, it backfires.
Stop living in the past. Those people are dead, and so is their worldview and culture. So there's really no telling what could happen from a violent revolution today.
Or, we could not arbitrarily write off historical examples and actually study and learn from history.
Lol, if you had opened with, "We don't need to worry about defending our communities because we can always just rely on the cops to protect us" then I would've just laughed in your face.
I would have too. That would be fucking absurd. Can you please top whacking at straw men and actually address my points?
How are these two statements meaningfully different?
Every single one of your rights was won via violence..
Everyone hopes someone else will be the first to charge the hill. Then they have second thoughts when they have to climb over the corpses.
What actions are you personally taking that others should be "getting out of the way of"? What actions are these liberal incrementalists blocking you from doing?
This is never a question that's asked in good faith. This is always a question that was asked to stop a conversation. Your mind is colonized with individualism.
It's not - I'm curious what you advocate for as a solution, and I'm curious about how liberals are preventing you (or others) from doing them.
I don’t think so. The issue may have been made mainstream by violence getting the news out, but the violence itself did not write any laws.
Read a history book then
Which ones would you recommend?
Start with “A People’s History of The United States” by Howard Zinn
Read that one in college. Maybe it’s time for a re-read. Must have forgotten the section where violent revolutions led to world acceptance of socialism.
I never said the whole world.
You might remember the chapter on the second Civil War? The one that’s never talked about?
You might remember a guy named FDR, who was wise enough to recognize that if he did not give the people a little socialism that they would ask for a lot, I believe is his quote.
The wealthy have spent the last 100 years clawing back everything we’ve gained, and we put up no resistance. People literally fought and died for the rights we have now, we deserve more than we have now, and they are not going to give it to us without another fight, or many more fights.
All it took was one Luigi and all of a sudden several health companies are backtracking on a lot of their policies
No they're not. They're just doing the bare minimum to give the impression that they're changing. The fundamental injustice of their existence in the first place is what needs to be fixed. And that won't get fixed just by more Luigis.