Look already to history and modern day: asymmetric warfare has NEVER gone in America’s favor. A few ragtag communist or fascist guerrillas can fluster the bloated, lumbering, and incredibly expensive American war machine, often until they simply throw in the towel as money is the only reason they fight in the first place, thus as it reveals itself to be too costly the eagerness to fight evaporates. For very cheap you can be a thorn in their side.
Another variable to consider is that we are assuming a warm/hot war on U.S. soil against its own civilians. While there would certainly be tremendous effort from the capitalists, the liberal and conservative media/society alike, and fascists to portray any communist revolutionaries as barbaric, butchering, senseless animals from hell, cockroaches to be squashed, the fact of the matter is it’d be a lot harder to manufacture consent to bomb American cities and kill American civilians than it is to convince The People™ to do the same to brown people in faraway, foreign lands.
Honestly I’m worried less about the seeming omnipotence of the American military, and more about the broad fascist tendency of the American People™. At this point, we would have no numbers, but our enemies would have plenty. I’d even be less concerned about a drone vaporizing me before I knew what hit me using sci-fi technology than the idea of being captured alive by American fascist militias eager to practice a lifetime buildup of depraved sadist curiosity against a victim unable to fight back.
Another issue is willpower. I already do not trust the ability of Americans of any political stripes to be willing to die or even to fight a hard, dirty war sans dying. To be frank this is definitely a part of the capitalist effort to inoculate the country against revolution: we here in America are infantilized, conditioned to be docile, fearful, content. We are showered with gory violence, pornography and ruthless cruelty in our media, yet the uglier parts of life are kept from us; many fellow Americans I know are barely capable of being confrontational, let alone getting physical. Many of us have never thrown nor recieved a punch, let alone a bullet. I’m speaking in generalities here, and I’m not speaking as “holier than thou” as many of these tendencies have been baked into my behavior as well and it’s taken most of my adult life to try and pry away from them. And of course these sort of things would change as cracks continue to form in the bubble and we are slowly introduced to an uglier life; revolution is probably not suddenly springing up tomorrow, and a hot war would likely have a reasonably long warmup period. But it’s definitely a variable to keep an eye on.
To be frank, at risk of sounding some type of way, another variable potentially in our favor is Latino migrants, who could potentially bolster our numbers and who do not suffer from the same lack of hard life experience as much as we do.
Another variable to consider is the Internet, and the fact that this is the imperial core. While the affects of technology on warfare have been foreshadowed to us, revolution in the imperial core has no real precedent. Knowledge of previous wars and lessons learned are imperative but at the same time there is absolutely no predicting how a revolution would pan out.
Important is also the state of the rest of the world. Who would be supporting us, who would be supporting America, and how? Who would abstain? How far has America and its remaining allies waned?–it’s important to remember America grows weaker year by year these days. What of technology–weapons, defenses, A.I.? What of climate change? These variables and many others will set the realm of possibility.
I doubt things will be easy, in fact they could be hellishly terrible, but they could also go surprisingly in our favor. It just really depends what life looks like over the next couple years.
Yes, if it becomes irreparably hopeless my official take is “grab what you can and let’s GTFO this sinking ship to hell.” Up until it reaches that point though, if we have any chance at all, we should fight. Either way savvy smarts, a mountain of resolve and a good splash of luck will be needed for each and every one of us.
spoiler
Look already to history and modern day: asymmetric warfare has NEVER gone in America’s favor. A few ragtag communist or fascist guerrillas can fluster the bloated, lumbering, and incredibly expensive American war machine, often until they simply throw in the towel as money is the only reason they fight in the first place, thus as it reveals itself to be too costly the eagerness to fight evaporates. For very cheap you can be a thorn in their side.
Another variable to consider is that we are assuming a warm/hot war on U.S. soil against its own civilians. While there would certainly be tremendous effort from the capitalists, the liberal and conservative media/society alike, and fascists to portray any communist revolutionaries as barbaric, butchering, senseless animals from hell, cockroaches to be squashed, the fact of the matter is it’d be a lot harder to manufacture consent to bomb American cities and kill American civilians than it is to convince The People™ to do the same to brown people in faraway, foreign lands.
Honestly I’m worried less about the seeming omnipotence of the American military, and more about the broad fascist tendency of the American People™. At this point, we would have no numbers, but our enemies would have plenty. I’d even be less concerned about a drone vaporizing me before I knew what hit me using sci-fi technology than the idea of being captured alive by American fascist militias eager to practice a lifetime buildup of depraved sadist curiosity against a victim unable to fight back.
Another issue is willpower. I already do not trust the ability of Americans of any political stripes to be willing to die or even to fight a hard, dirty war sans dying. To be frank this is definitely a part of the capitalist effort to inoculate the country against revolution: we here in America are infantilized, conditioned to be docile, fearful, content. We are showered with gory violence, pornography and ruthless cruelty in our media, yet the uglier parts of life are kept from us; many fellow Americans I know are barely capable of being confrontational, let alone getting physical. Many of us have never thrown nor recieved a punch, let alone a bullet. I’m speaking in generalities here, and I’m not speaking as “holier than thou” as many of these tendencies have been baked into my behavior as well and it’s taken most of my adult life to try and pry away from them. And of course these sort of things would change as cracks continue to form in the bubble and we are slowly introduced to an uglier life; revolution is probably not suddenly springing up tomorrow, and a hot war would likely have a reasonably long warmup period. But it’s definitely a variable to keep an eye on.
To be frank, at risk of sounding some type of way, another variable potentially in our favor is Latino migrants, who could potentially bolster our numbers and who do not suffer from the same lack of hard life experience as much as we do.
Another variable to consider is the Internet, and the fact that this is the imperial core. While the affects of technology on warfare have been foreshadowed to us, revolution in the imperial core has no real precedent. Knowledge of previous wars and lessons learned are imperative but at the same time there is absolutely no predicting how a revolution would pan out.
Important is also the state of the rest of the world. Who would be supporting us, who would be supporting America, and how? Who would abstain? How far has America and its remaining allies waned?–it’s important to remember America grows weaker year by year these days. What of technology–weapons, defenses, A.I.? What of climate change? These variables and many others will set the realm of possibility.
I doubt things will be easy, in fact they could be hellishly terrible, but they could also go surprisingly in our favor. It just really depends what life looks like over the next couple years.
well said. no mercy on the fascists and let’s take the help we can get, play it cool and smart. We don’t need to make martyrs of ourselves.
Yes, if it becomes irreparably hopeless my official take is “grab what you can and let’s GTFO this sinking ship to hell.” Up until it reaches that point though, if we have any chance at all, we should fight. Either way savvy smarts, a mountain of resolve and a good splash of luck will be needed for each and every one of us.