No.495211
Alright, my friend - it's me from the other thread. These are my thoughts:
2. Arm. Get guns, get bullets, stockpile. If you can afford to go to the range, go to the range, learn to shoot well. Novicetip if you're starting off: it doesn't matter if you close one eye when aiming.
Guns are fairly affordable and easy to get in most of the US, so there's no excuse not to get one. If you're unemployed and unarmed, my recommendation is that you try finding employment in order to arm, and I can try to give you tips on that to the best of my ability if needed.
Look into fireworks, too. Learn the chemistry, and if you are blessed with somewhere safe to store volatile chemicals away from heat, you should take it upon yourself to gather ingredients. Don't tell anybody, and keep it all out of sight.
What we are in today is a severe state of war, it's only that the American workers are, gradually, waking up to the fact that the American state is at war with them! That's why it gasses Americans with chemical weapons, surveils Americans, disappears Americans, beats Americans, kills Americans with the same impunity that it kills Palestinians, Syrians, Iraqis, Libyans, Venezuelans, etc.; the US is at war, a one-sided war, with the American people.
Like with the Geneva Convention and international law, the American state disregards its own laws at home; so what if the president is a pedophile? So what if Brett Ratner raped little girls? So what if Rubio is a coke fiend, or if Biden was too senile to legally hold office, or if all of congress takes bribes? So what if the cops are committing murders and illegal searches? There is one law for them, the oligarchs, and a different law for you. For them, the law is "do what thou wilt," for you, the law is "do what they wilt."
And so, if you are aware of all this, what that really means is that you can't wait for everyone else to wake up. You need to be using what resources are available to you, whatever they may be, to prepare for the ugly days when the few who still don't understand the urgency have finally realized how blind they were. You need to spread the word, but, more importantly, you need to get ready for war on a material level.
3. The propaganda is bad, but many would understand what is really going on with a little help. You can't obsess over those who don't.
4. I sympathize with the other anon's reply about orgs, but I'm not sure if I recommend joining one formally. You can volunteer for most orgs without putting your name on a members list AFAIK, and I recommend doing that just for experience, and to avoid paying dues. This way you can help with things like general strikes and protests without having to toe a party line, too.
I'm somewhat skeptical of all visible American socialist orgs, because I think that, even if they are not ops (and I fon't rule out any or all of them being fed ops), they end up with a vested interest in doing everything through legal avenues. These legal avenues have been carefully carved by the powers-that-be in order to prevent any real threats to the existing extortive imperialist order. Above-board orgs must set out to preserve their own threatened existences as socialist orgs, and in the interest of self-preservation, the leadership becomes ineffective at mounting any necessary revolutionary challenge against the state. They promote political programmes, but they can never enact these without revolution, and so there need to be invisible organizations which are not under their control, and which are less aimed at self-preservation and messaging than at revolution.
So I say participate in orgs to better understand them and help with legal activities, but do not formally become a member.
5. You're right to say elections don't work. American elections are a sham.
The first, least troublesome, hurdle is, funnily enough, the electoral bureaucracy - meeting the criteria to receive votes in an election is the easiest part. Getting on the ballot is much more difficult, but can be done. The biggest impasse actually comes from the media, who will ignore valid candidates entirely at will if they come from outside the duopoly, the NGOs (which exist largely to funnel voters into the DNC/GOP even if they pretend to advocate for something else), and the "campaign finance" (bribing) industry which decides policy and electoral outcomes.
Even having cleared the 1st hurdle is not assurance of having cleared the first hurdle, now, btw - in 2024, the DNC spent millions just suing third party candidates, who had made it onto state ballots by gathering thousands of signatures, off of ballots. In GA this absurd chicanery ultimately resulted in an outcome where Claudia de La Cruz (PSL) and Cornel West (ind) were on the ballot, but votes for them were discarded. In any country but the USA, they would call it an undemocratic sham, but here you're lucky if anyone even hears of it!
What's more, both Bush, Jr. and Trump (2016) were elected without the popular vote; Bush, Jr. even had his Brooks Brothers-wearing thugs physically attack a polling station in Florida to prevent a state-level recount! A coup, anywhere else!
So yes, US elections are BS. I'm old enough to remember when Trump ran on being "anti-war" and "anti-neocon!" Power grows out of the barrel of a gun, and the American state already knows that. Everyone else will, too, it's just a matter of time. Get ready.