None of us want to live in a war-torn state. That’s why I and most others voted for harm reduction. What we’re facing now is terrorism. The USAmerican people are being terrorized by federal forces.
People are not calling for violence for a economic policy we don’t like, which is what the first USA Civil War was fought over. We’re dealing with federal forces who are hell-bent on terrorizing us. What politically-aware people have been calling for, for the better part of a year, is the next degree of harm reduction. Targeted political assassinations. Fighting ICE agents. Storming the capital, perhaps. With each month, this government gets more empowered and more violent.
War is awful. Violence terrorizes people. I have severe C-PTSD from the police response to the BLM riots in 2021, still. I have vivid nightmares, still. I understand, and I felt that when I saw Trump take office. I felt that watched that university student get abducted by ICE at the beginning of this mess. I felt that with every clip out of Minnesota.
We all know war is terrible. No one thinks the USA going through a Civil War will be exciting. People see violence and they want it to stop, and they see massive peaceful movements that have not worked, in the face of a government that shows no hesitation in threatening or attacking its people.
What is the alternative? We let federal agents keep shooting and abducting people until some magical aspect of Democracy manifests and pushes them out? How do we actually envision that happening? What do we do for the three years until our next presidential election? Every person who is killed, abducted, disappeared is a life permanently lost.
For those who talk about peaceful protests and voting the fascists out, how do you expect to win elections when your voters are being killed? It’s not just the ICE agents, either, though they certainly are violent. Consider: Layoffs, Homelessness, Imprisonment, Emigration, Suicide. The people here today are not going to be the same people here in three years.
The reality is, the people of the USA are under violent occupation. We are living the terrors of war. Violence does not require mutual-consent; and when only one side chooses to fight, you end with a massacre. That is what we have been living through – a slow-rolling massacre. No one knows what will stop this, but maybe, just maybe, ICE agents would think twice before going on deployment if half of the last three squads never made it home.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
While I generally agree with everything you’ve said…
This, what we have right now?
The early access alpha preview of what could potentially happen.
Try and imagine an actual artillery strike or JDAM strike on your neighborhood, or, all the water stops working safely due to either a treatment plant getting blown up or intentionally sabotaged and poisoned.
Oh you live in an enemy city, its could this winter, hot this summer?
Click, boom. No more power for ya’ll, have fun.
… it can get so, so much worse than what we are seeing right now.
KelvarCherry@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
This is all true, to which I ask, what is the alternative? I’m afraid that the future of the USA is one of two options: the authoritative oppression of fascism, or the chaotic hellscape of war. Both are intolerably violent. Fascism is targeted and ruthless; War is broad and destructive.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Oh I also don’t disagree with the implication(s) of your rhetorical question there.
This is a do or die moment, a hinge point or era of history.
I am just trying to make very clear that… now that we, collectively, have allowed the situation to get to the point it is now at?
Well now, instead of removing a small tumor or two, a bit of chemo maybe… now we’re at stage 4, its likely terminal, and none of the options are good, easy, muchless guaranteed to work.
Changing the situation, solving the problem… is now simply unavoidably going to be extremely costly, in ways that… probably most people who regularly post on internet forums think they understand, think they are or could be ready for… but in reality they likely are not.
Reading about the horrors of a civil war, watching a documentary or movie or reading a book about it, … that’s one thing.
Living it is quite another.
… do you really wanna live forever?
People are gonna actually have to answer that question, at least to themselves, honestly.
And our culture is primarily one of consumerist escapism… so this is going to cause even more existential crises and psychoses than we have seen so far.
We’re gonna see a lot of people’s true colors.
A lot of people simply will not be able to cope, they’ll implode, collapse in on themselves, or maybe explode outwardly.
And then, after that, we’ll have to see how many people are actually any kind of competent and effective, at living, at resisting… after all the toys and treats go away.
KelvarCherry@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
I completely agree. I’ve been swimming in these realizations for the last year. I knew Trump’s second term would be bad, but this has gone well beyond where I thought it would go.
I keep asking the question How did we get here? and Why?. None of those have any good answers. We’ve passed off-ramp after off-ramp over the last 20 years and now our nation is in a state of genuine peril, and yet so many people remain ignorant still. Even seeing fellow Leftists proclaim about the “Revolution” with joy makes my stomach churn. Masses of people are being disappeared. I get that these posts are probably a way to cope, but my mind tends toward the human side of things. I don’t care about figures or standards; I see pain and suffering. These are lives we’ll never get back. We’re going to lose tens of thousands of people in the next months and every one will leave an impact on the people around them.
You raise a good point about the aftershocks. I’ve been thinking of that same aspect. Millennials and Gen Z already show signs of severe trauma across the generation. Social withdrawal, clout-seeking, AI/Religious psychosis, anti-social behavior (like TikTok public nuisance content) – and that’s from the living conditions before Trump’s second term. Ironically, that trauma led Gen Z to become more conservative – see trad-wide/manosphere content – and to back the alt-right.
The USA population was already crumbling. Look at how many people are physically disabled, mentally disabled, emotionally over-burdened. Drug addictions incl. alcohol; Regular mental breakdowns; Compassion fatigue; Cyber harassment – Our population is profoundly sick.
I worry for what will remain when whatever uprisings happen, happen. We’re losing more people every day this regime holds power. 365 days. 365 days of suicides, mental breakdowns, psychosis, murders, new addictions. If standards continue to escalate, we’ll soon be seeing bombs; which kill some and injure many. Whoever remains will be left with the momentous task of rebuilding a functioning society while caring for a population in which the majority of people are disabled, many are delusional, and all require constant food, water, and maybe medical attention.
I’m not sure if I’d rather die before the action, burn as the USA turns in on itself, or cling through the hell that will unravel and be left sifting through the pieces… if there even is another end to this regime.