Comment by kulak_inspektor [comrade/them]@hexbear.net on The first and hardest step to socialism in America is to first of all get Americans to have coherent political views that make sense and are real

At this point I don’t know how feasible that is

Start by dismantling the empire. Then get everyone a real job instead of realty, “doing personal fitness”, or whatever fake jobs most people here have

Yeah, but what if we regulated who could give out health advice on Youtube

Youtube is an imperial mechanism

there actually are American companies that make essential goods for Americans. And we can rebuild old industry as well

Yeah I’m sure all 5 of them are a major hurdle to socialism.

Unfortunately three of those five are chud media trillionaires

This is like a chicken and egg thing isn’t it? Like do we need to get socialism to dismantle Empire or do we need to dismantle Empire to get socialism?

We need to get socialism first, because Americans are so ignorant/apathetic on foreign policy issues.

You can make Americans socialists, and socialism has all sorts of natural pathways to anti-imperialism. But trying to make non-socialist Americans anti-imperialists is much more difficult because for the most part people don’t know or care.

The problem here is, what’s more likely? The US left right now doesn’t inspire very much confidence. A large chunk of them even seem to be fanning the flames of war. On the anti-imperialist side, we see some promising developments in Latin America.

It depends on how you define “the left,” but I don’t see a lot of fanning the flames. There’s barely anything worth calling that from the Bernie/AOC crowd (you’ll get some “China Bad,” sure, but that’s a lot different from calling for war), and there’s less and less the further left you go.

As for the anti-imperialist developments in Latin America, they’re great, but they’re not a significant factor in U.S. politics.

OK, I’m not from or in the US, so I don’t have a complete or accurate idea of how the left looks nowadays. My knowledge comes from either people I know IRL who have been there or, most of the time, observing the various online interactions and media depictions. When I say fanning the flames, I don’t just mean a vague “China Bad” of course. I mean the types who go along with Empire and spread their propaganda, call others tankies, dengists, genocide deniers for expressing skepticism. This could be a common thing IRL, it could be an uncommon thing IRL, I don’t know. I am concerned though, that 45% of the US believes PRC is the greatest threat.

As for the anti-imperialist developments in Latin America, they’re great, but they’re not a significant factor in U.S. politics.

If the reason for the lack of revolutionary activity is due to the appeasement brought about by the exploitation of the global south, then it stands to reason that to achieve socialism in the imperial core the exploited have to break away first. My feeling is the exploited are more likely to break away before any socialist movement finds success in the US.

Online the attitude is generally good - solidarity with Palestine and new governments in Latin America, swatting down China b.s., etc. IRL, it’s hard to say. I don’t talk politics at work (they’re all right-wing anyway), and I have been to any sort of “Lefty” events irl, but I’m expecting a lot of both sides bullshit, “Xinjiang is sooooo bad” remarks, etc. from normies.

Well, you can’t expect the rest of the world to sit on their hands waiting for US socialists to get their act together. I’m not saying that you can’t build a strong socialist movement in the US before dismantling Empire (in fact I would welcome it since it’ll likely make it easier for all anti-imperialists), it’s just from what I’ve observed of the state of the left in the country, I think it’s unlikely to happen. It’s up to US comrades ultimately if the country gets taken over by right wing populists.

Pretty sure the empire will dismantle itself, like a helicopter that shakes itself apart. We just have to be there to take the empire-helicopter wreckage and make it into a socialism train before the fascists just make the wreck fly again by strapping rockets to it.

Maybe, but I’m of the mind that there’s no roadmap, clear or vague, to the dismantling of Empire right now. What the US is trending towards right now is fascism, priming the population for war by creating an external enemy. I have very little confidence in the US left to reverse this trend.

I have very little confidence in the US left to reverse this trend

Oh we absolutely won’t. The trillions of dollars of weapons the state has stockpiled will either be used in an external war or an internal violent suppression of dissent, maybe both, but one way or another they’re getting used. But with things trending the way they are now, I think that conflict will likely shake the empire apart.

With a lot of luck, the experience of living through it will also finally be enough to galvanize a tangible domestic socialist movement.

Protests, dual power, and even electoralism.

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The first and hardest step to socialism in America is to first of all get Americans to have coherent political views that make sense and are real

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