• redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    I don’t have a coherent plan for you, but here are some thoughts:

    • Don’t talk online.
    • Not sure how much you can achieve if you’re so far away that you need the internet to communicate, tbh.
    • The internet is a tool that has certain applications. Organising the revolution probably isn’t one of them. It’s good for education. It’s maybe good for emergency messaging (‘so and so got arrested; send the lawyer to precinct X’). It’s good for news and keeping up with other struggles. That’s probably it.
    • I hear about the internet being used to organise protests. But I’ve yet to see a protest achieve much. Probably because they’re are infiltrated because they’re organised in public, but if you want loads of people to show up, you’ve got to forget about secrecy and just tell people.
    • Same applies to organising a workplace. Some secrecy is necessary but beyond that it needs democracy, publicity, and transparency. There’s always a balance to strike.
    • A revolution requires organisation. To start with, we/you need to organise with other workers in some way. This will invite bad actors/spies, which will undermine any technical security measures: no password or encryption will help you if you can’t spot the agent in the room.
    • It depends on where you live (you mention the CIA and NSA so I assume the US but can’t be certain because they’re everywhere). You must analyse local conditions and local threats.
    • If you’re in the States, you’re not going to be having anything like a Cuban or Chinese revolution. You simply will not be able to keep the organisation of an armed force secret for long enough to be prepared enough to take down the US militarily. You have to consider what a revolution might look like in your country, then work out what tools and steps you need to take to bring it about.
    • We did a reading group on a book called Revolution in the Revolution by Debray, which you might find interesting (search this site for NEBulae). You can’t transplant whatever worked in one country to another country without modification.
    • All reactionaries are paper tigers. They only have power because workers do as they’re told. They don’t have the strength to resist revolution on their own. But you won’t reveal their papery core unless you organise workers. Until then, their teeth and claws are sharp enough.
    • The problem in the west is that the majority of people are labour aristocrats without any class consciousness. They will defend capitalism long before you have to worry about the NSA and CIA. Westerners need to figure out that problem before they need to worry about going head-to-head with the state in a ‘revolution’.
    • Beat_da_Rich@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      Your last point 100%.

      Revolution in the West is hopeless unless Westerners can get tf over their chauvanism. As long as Westerners believe all the bullshit they are fed about other political and economic systems in the Global South then their rage will always be able to redirected away from their own ruling class.

      I do think it’s possible but it’s gonna take a long while.