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hex
@Hex@kolektiva.social  ·  activity timestamp 10 months ago

The US is not a democracy. Some, such as myself, might point out that it has never actually been one either. The US is an oligarchy, as the oft-cited research study suggests. Successful movements have always targeted capital rather than political power. Capital controls political, so targeting political power is largely useless. Target capital if you want to change anything.

There are two types of capital that support fascism: opportunistic and mandatory.

Opportunistic do not need fascism to continue to exist, but believe that they will profit from fascism. They also may believe that if they do not conform to fascism, they will be sanctioned by the state and their profits will suffer. Tech is a big example of this. Government contracts are highly profitable. Resisting the state risks such contracts, so they benefit from ingratiating themselves to fascism. However, if it becomes unprofitable to continue to support fascism (or profitable to resist) then they will withdraw support and could even switch sides.

Big tech is critical to the modern military industrial complex. Google, Microsoft, and Amazon all vie for military contracts. But they also sell other things, and it's unlikely that any of them could transition to government contracts entirely without causing a shareholder revolt. Boycotts, protests, occupations of offices, and other actions can create an economic disincentive that can split them away from the fascist core. Capital seeks stability, and may do so even over short-term profits. Fascism is not stable. Tariffs and trade wars significantly increase operating costs and may even sink some companies. If these rifts can be exploited and widened, capital will force the political system to comply with any demands that allow it to go back to making money.

The mandatory set is a different beast. Fossil fuels and the auto industry will either be killed or make complex human society impossible. This is a zero-sum game. We exist or they do. Grifts like cryptocurrency and (most) GenAI products would collapse without massive financialization. They will never be self-sustaining. As such, they attach themselves to fascism (which is itself a type of grift) in order to get what they need to survive as long as possible. These industries must be destroyed.

Oil is not profitable, even at this point. It requires massive government subsidies to stay afloat. Anything that increases the cost of operation or decreases the investment takes us one step closer to the collapse of this industry. There will be no "electric transition" of the auto-industry. It is not possible from a resource or grid perspective. In that way, the auto industry (even with electric cars) is an extension of the oil industry. It's no coincidence that used car dealers are one of Trump's big funding blocks.

Push for mass transit, protest all highway spending, occupy car dealerships, protest gas station construction, protest all drilling and pipeline construction, protest fossil fuel extraction shareholder meetings, block roads and occupy highways. Shut this industry down by making it too expensive to operate and by making alternatives viable. Destroy oil or die. #JustStopOil

Attack grifts by calling them out. We have mounting evidence that GenAI cannot possibly fulfill its promises. Larger models become less secure, but the smaller the model the less useful it is. We've been promised that more data will lead to exponential improvement, but instead data shows us that there is an exponential drop-off in effecacy as data grows. Anyone investing in GenAI is either a grifter or a mark.

We've seen the same with cryptocurrencies. The cryptocurrency bubble has become a mechanism for fascists to loot the treasury under the guise of legality. Divest from these, call out those who do invest, make involvement in these industries unprofitable. Pop the #GenAI bubble (or help it finish popping) and pop the cryptocurrency bubble every time it starts to inflate again. Demand GenAI safety and security regulation (which will be impossible to meet because GenAI cannot be safe or secure). In this case, sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Force opportunistic capital to shed grifts like GenAI and cryptocurrency in order to maintain investment. Split them from oil in order to salvage what they can of capitalism. Make them choose between supporting fascism or continuing to make money.

Companies love money more than any political ideology.

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hex
@Hex@kolektiva.social replied  ·  activity timestamp 10 months ago

Successful social movements must *both* scale *and* escalate.

A movement that escalates without scaling gets crushed by the state without popular resistance. This is what happened to the Left in the 70's and early 80's. Small groups radicalized and escalated without popular support, and they were all arrested or killed.

A movement that scales without escalating can simply be ignored. This is what happened to the hesitance to the second US/Iraq war. The largest protests formed against the Iraq war. Bush knew they could be safely ignored because there was no escalation path or clear intention of escalation. They had no impact and the war was devastating for everyone involved, it created ISIS, achieved none of it's stated goals, and absolutely destroyed and terrorized an entire country.

Today the #50501movement is following the same path. More protests are unlikely to do anything unless it becomes clear that they will have an escalating economic impact. This means they must also transition in to boycotts, strikes, perhaps even a general strike.

One of this movements weaknesses is that, as a grass roots movement, it is hard to gain legitimacy within a culture whose history of self-organization has largely been erased. Americans are used to leaders, and there are no leaders here. But that weakness, of being leaderless, is also it's greatest strength.

Without central leadership it is highly unpredictable, which allows for dynamic escalation in completely unpredictable ways. If the movement can be sustained and grown without escalating beyond popular support, it will quickly become *incredibly* threatening to capital.

Those strategies won't come from the top. They will come from everyone involved. Your ideas, if you are involved, will shape what happens next. You will determine how long this will be sustained, quickly capital caves, and how far this will go.

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hex
@Hex@kolektiva.social replied  ·  activity timestamp 10 months ago

What is the role of anarchists in all of this?

As the self-appointed dictator of anarchy, I'm clearly the most appropriate person to speak to this point. ;)

I believe that anarchists should support the (mostly liberal and centrist, if I'm reading this correctly) folks who are organizing this. They are accidentally practicing some anarchist ideas like autonomous self-organization. Let's show them that it works, and help them hone those skills.

Even if this achieves nothing more than return to the status quo, the status quo is easier to build from than fascism. We can also build off the institutional memory of resistance. A victory for this movement is a nominal victory for us.

Anarchists understand the limits of reformism/incrementalism, and have very strong critiques of the concept. I think it's important to share these critiques in a way that is supportive ("You can change some things, but you will have to take other paths if you want to achieve something even better") rather than alienating ("whatever you do, it won't actually change anything in the long run").

We have an opportunity to welcome people in to our movement, introduce "normal" people to our ideas, and demonstrate how they actually work in practice. Anarchists did this with Occupy, demonstrating how direct democracy works and autonomously organizing the infrastructure of resistance (such as FNB feeding occupiers).

We also have a responsibility to keep pushing. We should explain how removing Trump and Musk is good, but that we need more change to keep it from happening again immediately... and even more radical change if we want to build a society where fascism is impossible.

So that's my like... 2 cents, but in Euros so it's actually a bit more. Take it all with a big grain of salt since I got myself and my family out of the US just in time.

I hope y'all can turn this around. It would be nice to be able to visit my family in a country that isn't a dictatorship. Good luck.

/🧵

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