Why don't they go shoot up Beverly hills/Wall Street/police stations/court room/federal agencies etc.? Rich and powerful people rarely get hurt.

  • YoungBelden [any]
    ·
    1 year ago

    and these institutions don't blip into existence out of a vacuum, they have costs: economically, socially, politically. dismissing adventurism simply because "revolutionary actions only lead to counter-revolutionary reactions" is too idealistic.

    not that all actions are good because reactions have costs. but we have to do a comprehensive material analysis when examining violent actions and the state's reactions. repression in response to revolution can be a good or bad thing depending on the details.

    • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      as much as i sicko-wistful for some new righteous john brown to emerge in the imperial core and run where

      Show william-van-spronsen
      crawled, i don't see how that would actually lead to anything besides a crackdown that hogs would cheer enthusiastically, conservative democrats would quietly approve of, and the capitalist media would reinforce.

      • YoungBelden [any]
        ·
        1 year ago

        i'm of the same opinion, we just can't pretend the crackdown doesn't come at a cost. everything is interconnected, and pulling resources from, say, imperial repression to focus on domestic repression could in some contexts be a useful outcome. or if repression is the straw that radicalizes the masses it may be useful. it's an equation looking at how many resources can be extracted from people compared to the cost of controlling them through entertainment/treats/violence. violent repression is more expensive than cultural control, and parasitic to it.

        but we don't have an organized left to seize opportunities on a macro scale, so i'm not convinced individual acts of violence can be expected to do anything productive at that scale yet.

        • mazdak
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          deleted by creator

          • YoungBelden [any]
            ·
            1 year ago

            yeah that's worth keeping in mind, violence for the sake of terrorism or propaganda of the deed doesn't seem likely to have much revolutionary potential. unfortunately it seems to have a lot of reactionary potential in the form of mass shootings