#the great revolt

[tilbageidanmark]

Credit to Edward J. Cabral, who says: Seasons greetings from my family to yours

[thatsbelievable]

[bunabi]

I wanna believe things will get better in our lifetime but this shit is a mess with literally no end in sight 🧍🏾‍♀️

[naffeclipse]

Thank you so much for all the kind birthday wishes! I'll try and respond to them soon! You guys are so sweet and I love all of you <3

[mostlyghostlyy]

I can't stop thinking about Dale Kobble desperately dry humping my leg while I stare down at him with a repulsed sneer on my face.

[swordmaid]

think cannibalism should be a thing in menzoberranzan actually, or maybe it is and I haven’t known about it, but it should be a thing amongst the nobles where they eat rival lolth priestesses since they’re lolth’s fave sacrifices anyway. like if we’re all constantly vying for lolth’s approval, and you have these people who actually has her blessing (which is rare) why not….eat them….😳. like eating the priestess of a rival house would be a ritual after you’ve succeeded in bringing their house down as a way to consume lolth’s blessing, and its def an intimidation tactic and def one of the plenty weird shit nobles have done for the sake of playing their power games. maybe they eat males who are in power too if they’ve overstepped their position to remind them of their place in the hierarchy, or maybe matriarchs/nobles eat their favourite bed mate/partner so no one else can have them, kind of like actual spiders. anyway. if menzoberranzan is this immoral lethal and ruthless place cannibalism should def be a thing lol

[cid5]

World War I. Arab Revolt of 1916-1918. Dhari ibn Tawala of the Aslam Shammar and his Tribesmen on Horseback.

[clandestinegardenias]

Look, I understand the desire for a revolution. I do. And it’s possible I might be convinced that we need one, at some point. I am open to the idea that I might be wrong!

But…literal Marxist theory posits that the way you get to a communist society is by working your way through a democracy. That’s the first STEP. Then you move to democratic socialism, then socialism, then communism. Anything that moves us away from a democracy (as I’m concerned another Trump presidency would, that man wants to be a dictator so bad) is a step AWAY from a leftist agenda. Because sure, maybe you get your ‘glorious revolution’ if Trump is president because he literally makes living conditions so unbearable that it triggers widespread revolt but from a critical Marxist standpoint you’d be revolting to get back to a democracy so you can start at that step all over again! This is a big reason theorists posit socialism/communism in the Soviet Union fell apart; too big a change too quickly and skipping steps in between.

We also have to consider that getting to the point of full blown revolution would mean catastrophic levels of suffering for people with lower socioeconomic power—POC, the queer community, folks in poverty, people with disabilities, etc.

AND any US dictatorship or similar government has an entire industrial military complex to back it up. A successful revolution would necessitate either getting that military complex on board, in which case you often end up with a military dictatorship (you can imagine how well THAT goes) or beating it which…I’m sorry, even the entire civilian population of the US cannot do. The military is light years more advanced than it was in Marx’s time, rebellion is so so so so much more complicated. It also sets a precedent for violent exchanges of power that tend to set countries up for a decades/centuries long tailspin of military coups in which the people with the most gun power (again…usually not vulnerable groups) win control.

I’m not trying to be a fatalist, here. I actually think fatalism is a tool of the oppressor and we have to fight against it tooth and nail. I’m just trying to logic out what will happen if Kamala/Walz lose and Trump/Vance win. What does that really look like? What is the next step, the next outcome that will lead us to a better place? And I just cannot, for those reasons above, see a Trump presidency leading us anywhere good. That IS what we will get if people hold out on voting for Harris as a form of protest. I’m all for protest!!!!! But it needs to be in a different avenue, because you have to consider the real life repercussions not voting will have.

I mean, what are the options? What happens if people protest by not voting? (...this assumes you don't start from the position that Harris and Trump will be literally NO different in office, which, well, that's another post)

1. Harris wins regardless, but a signal is sent that people to the left aren’t appeased and democrats need to do more. How effective this would be in moving actual policy is debateable, and it also puts the moral onus/responsibility conveniently on others just so you can feel like your hands are clean while simultaneously risking a worse outcome. Not cool.

2. Trump wins. Far more likely because, as we saw in 2020, the country was nearly evenly split on Trump vs. Biden. Current polling shows more or less the same with Trump vs. Harris. If the left stays home, the likelihood Trump wins skyrockets. So, what happens next?

2.A. Trump wins, but the world doesn’t end. He doesn’t do anything too terribly awful. The left has ideally signaled they will only vote for a Dem if they are liberal enough. I seriously doubt Trump won’t do anything too terribly awful though—look at what his first presidency did!!! Look at Project 2025!!!!! So. Other option.

2.B. Trump wins and the world is on fire. He strips away womens’ rights, queer rights, he tanks the working class and worker protections, starts a war, starts a dictatorship, whatever. He already started a lot of this during his first presidency. In this case, either…

2.B.1. This is still not enough to trigger a revolution. Vulnerable people are hurt and die at a far greater pace than under a Democratic presidency. We go on as before, fighting to regain key protections. Perhaps the Dems put forward a more liberal candidate to try and beat him next time, if democracy still exists, but likely? We end up with a conservative centrist anyway.

2.B.2. Trump does trigger a revolution. All I can see is how many vulnerable people would suffer and die. The military HAS to be involved and either takes control of government (terrible start to socialism!!!!!) or kills revolutionaries en masse and the rebellion fails. If civilians somehow defeated the US military, which is an astronomically low possibility, then we set up a more liberal democracy...how, exactly? With all the conservatives and moderates still in our country? Honestly, HOW. Kill them? Try and make them ‘see the light’? That happens via education, not a civil war. We could try and go straight to communism but theory and history show us that doesn’t work—you have to work your way towards it through democracy.

It is SO much more efficient and would put so many fewer vulnerable people in grave danger to start by keeping the democracy we already have by voting in Harris and THEN working on our protests to shift the needle towards democratic socialism. We’ve seen that these protests CAN WORK!!!!! They got us Biden dropping out!!!!! Harris picked a VP far more appealing to a liberal mindset than many of her other top options! WE ARE ALREADY SHIFTING THE NEEDLE. Keep it shifting, don’t give in to fatalism, and remember that you have to go through the steps to have an actual, stable, reliable socialist or communist republic. Vote.

[havaniero]

"Бег созвездий. Мороз. Светящимся мелом Обведенные выси. Мерзлой грязи кайма. Пар над тощей верблюдицей, галоп оголтелый, Иа-Оренс. Аравия. Полночь. Зима.

Узкий шорох полыни. Холмов вереницы. Сон в седле. Почернелых сугробов разбег. И с разлета верблюдица мордой ложится, Зарывая наездника по уши в снег.

Он встает и верблюдицу тянет. Над ними Одиночество ночи. Стальная луна. Шесть мешков до отказа полны золотыми В кровь изранены ноги. Пустыня. Война.

Одиночество! Что перед ним непогоды? В неизвестной стране, в неизвестном году Как во сне видит крепость, бойницы и своды, Босиком он идет по звенящему льду."

Н.Тихонов "Лоуренс Аравийский" 1935-1936

[flopsy-art]

[bedlamsbard]

the 2010 film Centurion is deeply frustrating to me because it desperately wants to be about the Varian Disaster, every single beat in this movie would fit near-perfectly for the Varian Disaster, you could relocate this film temporally and geographically to Germania and not change literally anything except some of the names, and yet because Hollywood considers Britannia way sexier and more exotic than Germania it is set in Britain. this movie should be about the Varian Disaster! in every way but geographically including the drawback of the frontiers this movie is about the Varian Disaster! and yet. it is not about the Varian Disaster.

(the movie itself is fine. like, it's Agricola slander and Tacitus is rolling over in his grave, but my tolerance for historical inaccuracy is pretty high these days. don't go out of your way to watch it, but like, it's fine. if I had a nickel for every time Olga Kurylenko has played a Roman-hating British woman warrior I'd have two nickels, which is not a lot but it's weird it's happened twice etc.)

[vessels-for-good-intent]

stop making nick carraway some innocent little twink he’s clearly NOT

[techramonic]

marxism is a neat theory and all since even after more than 167 years, it is still influential because the social realities that were portrayed are still prevalent, making it a critical voice against forms of oppression relating to economics and power and a philosophy that influenced many—but when the practical implementation of it in politics emerges into communism, yea. that's where everything gets complicated.

how can you ensure equality if you lead under an authoritarian rule and trample on human rights? i thought you were fighting to achieve the opposite.

how can your bridge the divide by making everyone more divided? trying to convince the people to snap out of their false conciousness of being controlled, then you follow the footsteps of becoming the controller? it's like saying that the ruling class oppresses laborers, and those laborers will eventually and inevitably turn themselves into the same opressors they despise. that's insane

plus, marx’s idea of historical materialism is pretty limiting. some critics argue that societal development takes place not only through material changes but also through ideas, culture, and other aspects of society. the main proponent of change is not strictly confined to economic progress but through the entirety of human experience

[fruitcage]

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Boy Clad in Hospital "Nightie" Hitch-Hikes Home in Zero Cold," Toronto Star. March 26, 1934. Page 1. --- Ottawa, March 26. - Billy McCormick is 12 years old and dislikes hospitals, but he is back in a hospital cot to-day, apparently none the worse for a midnight adventure which alarmed his parents and nurses.

All alone, the lad slipped out of the hospital late Saturday night clad in his nightshirt and hitchhiked to his home, two miles away. The temperature was just above zero and he was almost frozen when he reached his mother's bedside and awakened her with the words: "How are you? I am fine."

Billy had wrapped a hospital blanket around his body and swathed his feet in pieces of cloth he found in his room before setting out on his chilly jaunt. He picked up a ride part way with a motorist and, finding the door of his home unlocked, walked in. The frightened mother called an ambulance and had him rushed back to the hospital, where he had had his tonsils removed a few days previously.

[houseofpurplestars]

I believe aaron bushnell’s actions were meant to spark a wildfire controversy among his peers in the active military, leading to mass internal revolt. though an imperial core foot soldier can never be a liberator, his uniform purposefully sent a message we should not ignore

@ redpomgranat