askchapo

23002 readers

55 users here now

Ask Hexbear is the place to ask and answer ~~thought-provoking~~ questions.

Rules:

Posts must ask a question.
If the question asked is serious, answer seriously.
Questions where you want to learn more about socialism are allowed, but questions in bad faith are not.
Try [email protected] if you're having questions about regarding moderation, site policy, the site itself, development, volunteering or the mod team.

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Is it wrong that I think the American public would side with the police even if they started openly gunning down protestors? (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

44 comments fedilink hide all child comments

"What do you mean 'started'?"

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I want to clarify that I'm talking about open mass-killings in the vein of Sharpeville or Bloody Sunday.

Reading and seeing the public's reactions to things like the gassings and beatings at pro-Palestine encampments, BLM protestors getting run over, Kyle Rittenhouse's victims, etc. it seems like the American people take an open and ghoulish delight in protestors getting brutalized, maimed, and killed. Go to any video or article about these things happening, and the comments section is an endless parade of the worst people imaginable cheering and hollering for it with extremely little or no pushback. It's depressingly consistent.

It just gives me this horrible feeling that one day the police are going to unload into a crowd of protestors and leave a mass of bodies in their wake, the American people will hoot and clap and cheer about how the victims got what they deserved, and that'll become the new MO. The only reason they aren't already doing this is fear it might make them look bad, and if it doesn't end up making them look bad in the eyes of the public, then there isn't a single thing stopping them.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

Most people in any society are fundamentally apolitical and don't really give a shit about the holders or application of power so long as they're relatively comfortable. Seizing power is and has always been a process of building a core group of ideologically committed revolutionaries, overthrowing the existing power structures, beating out competitors to filling that power vacuum, and then providing well enough for everyone else that nobody turns around and does the same to you.

If US comrades manage to build the infrastructure and framework of revolution and connect with enough of the average populace, they will win. This is as true in the US now as it was in Russia in 1917 or vast swaths of southeast Asia in the 40s/50s.