Gentle reminder to all

The problem with this is how stratified and disjointed American society is. Yeah, a lot of people in the US have something to lose. It's pretty common to have a fairly normal life with access to plumbing, clean water, and a high school education.

But for people like a homeless black family in a poor area of town, society has already collapsed. They already live in a fascist police state. Not to pull out the Stalin quote, but it's hard for me to imagine what freedoms are being enjoyed by those currently in extreme poverty.

Could it get worse? Yeah and it probably will.

If your position is, "bring on the US collapse; maybe it'll ease the boot off the Palestinians' necks," all I can say is that I hope you're right and I hope you're prepared.

If your position is, "bring on the US collapse; I mean how much worse can it actually get?" you probably have no clue what you're talking about unless you've personally spent time in a war zone or lived through Katrina or something like that.

One of the things that struck me while studying the Russian revolution is just how much of an academic relationship we communists have to major periods of historical change. From our position it's way easier to imagine ourselves in the room with Lenin trying to make a tough decision on agricultural policy than it is to imagine stretching your food store through a region-wide famine and crop failure, or watching your family all catch cholera, or getting shot by the white army...

Speaking of Katrina, does Houston have power yet?
- Yes finally, my family didn't have any for a fucking week in that heat
Yeah I was just trying to say the "how much worse can it get?" People are being myopic, coming from someone who has been to the poor parts of India, Nepal, and Mexico, and China pre economic surge.
- Lots of those places are bad because of American and western colonialism and imperialism in the first place. Focusing only on American domestic situation is chauvinism and is the actual privileged position, aping and pretending to be thinkin of the littlefolk when it's really just nativist masturbation
- Yeah, that's totally fair.
- coming from someone who has been to the poor parts of India, Nepal, and Mexico, and China
  Very interesting, could we know why?
Why does this imagination mind game mean anything at all? We're not "in an academic relationship" we are self-conscious proletariat aware of our world-historical role. It is our job to destroy the imperialist machine from within. The navel-gazing is irrelevant. One way or the other the only way forward for humanity is the destruction and implosion of the US.
- It means you have to tread carefully when organizing, and that it's important not to be callous about hardship.
- we are self-conscious proletariat aware of our world-historical role.
  We're a bunch of dorks on a tiny niche internet forum that's mostly goofy commie memes.
imagine stretching your food store through a region-wide famine and crop failure, or watching your family all catch cholera, or getting shot by the white army…
If hardship is necessary for a better future, it's necessary. But people should contemplate what that hardship will actually look like and understand what they're actually advocating.
Socialism is a mass project: educating the masses and gaining their support. People will endure hardship if it's necessary and they understand why it's necessary, but they'll fight if it's imposed from above with indifference or flippancy.
My position is that my hoping one way or another probably doesn't have much influence on the outcome.

Man I should really tone down my posting or it might actually cause the American state to collapse. Thanks, that was close one

Well you specifically are just that powerful sir
- It's true

It's not something you can ever be ready for. There's not much to do ruight now except organize where you can and try to find humor amidst the horror.

there will be no revolutionary potential until the conditions worsen, and their worsening is inevitable, so

it can always get worse

it can always get better

it's never profound to point this out

"it can always get worse" is usually being used to shut people up

so on the rare occasion that it's not, don't be surprised when people don't respond to it well

At some point worsening conditions just results in the US rehashing evil shit it's already turned into an art form. Roving bands of vigilantes rounding up undesirables and committing unspeakable violence against them? What little public safety nets exist being completely shredded in favor of a little more profit for some finance vampire? Living under constant threat of global nuclear war?

That's just us replaying our greatest hits. The victims of the last rounds are mostly still around, they can tell you all about how fascist this country has been for its entire existence. Rhetoric among the people reflects the conditions they live under, not the other way around.

I think the point is more that the house is not yet on fire. Currently for most Americans it's more like the house has a leaky roof and it smells of dead rats in the walls. We're nowhere near the house on fire yet.
- For white people
No but I probably still would not support any movement aiming to hasten collapse, because people with the indifference to bring about what that entails could not be trusted to lead in any humanistic way
- Who’s trying to make the collapse come faster? It’s not like accelerationism is a strategy or something, it’s just a reasonable accurate view that helps one cope.
- What movement are you talking about?
- Do you know what the words “revolutionary defeatism” means and do you believe it is your duty as a socialist?

the rallying cry of the reformist lib. yawn.

Good night

I mean the second poster isn’t wrong. Public schools in America are badly underfunded outside of select suburbs that lean more white. And I say select suburbs because I remember living in the US and even some of the whiter districts had iffy funding. The white and rich districts had the top public schools.

Yes but right now the worst public schools are still where the kids can depend on for possibly their sole meal of the day, socialization, donated goods, free life enriching activities, daycare when parents are working, respite from abusive environments, etc. even if all of these are sub par. This completely collapsing would be manifold worse than it still running on fumes.
- Public schools have fired lunch room workers for giving kids with outstanding lunch bills food. What you're referencing is exactly as frogmanfromlake said it is - some schools do that , many already do not.
- socialization
  Maybe I just went to an especially awful school, but I can honestly say that my days in public school were easily the worst years of my childhood.
  We rarely did group projects, the teachers regularly encouraged us to be ‘quiet as a snowflake’, and when she came into a room full of talking students, she was unhappy. One student got me in serious trouble by falsely reporting me for swearing. The few friends that I made either moved away, lost interest in me, or turned out to be horrible people. There was one kid whom I mistook for a friend for a few weeks until his brother thought that it would be funny to squirt a lighter full of water at me and say that he was going to burn me. Then my ‘friend’ pushed me on the ground and told me not to even come near his house anymore. I was in such a state of shock that I hid myself in my room as soon as I got home, and I told nobody about it until years later. (I once mentioned in passing to my parents that my school kicked out somebody, and for some reason they would not leave me the fuck alone until I said more about that.)
  Admittedly, there were times when I acted shitty too, like throwing pebbles at others for fun, and I thoughtlessly told somebody that he was going to Hell just for disobeying the teacher, but at least I felt guilty about how I misbehaved. Whatever the case, I learned from my mistakes by acting more reticent.
  Then years later, when I said on a forum (the Penny Arcade one, in case somebody cares) that I didn’t consider socializing an important part of school, somebody responded by calling me “[insert ableist slur here]”… it should have been a sign that maybe something in my childhood went horribly wrong, but nope, he instantly concluded that I must have been the problem, which is so hideously lazy that I can’t even begin to describe it. Americans are very antisocial as a people.

Yeah, be quiet you whiners, it can always get worse.

/s

Wow, just wow. This post has entirely changed my view point on the United States. Thank you. I can now

for our supreme leader without thinking about the mutilated corpses of Palestinian children.

Well you said it not me

Still not doing the whole performative optimism thing

Damn, I wasn't aware we had a nag in our presence.

Sure, the US could have the Spanish Inquisition randomly torture people, yeah I guess that would actually be much worse

conversely, copers always seem to have some further pale perpetually unmet it's always impossible to analyze conditions as though they are legitimately bad because the rich parts of the country don't experience those, and somewhere else's poorest poor are poorer. do we not talk about poverty in afghanistan because some people there have nice conditions? should we ignore poverty in mexico because libya & palestine are worse? if it's ridiculous logic to apply elsewhere, there have to be limits on US exceptionalism-distortion of real analysis

some further pale perpetually unmet
I think all pales should be unmet
- i haven't met anyone in like 6 years

One of the things about life is that it’s never so bad that it can’t get worse.

It will always get worse. They is no point in pretending things will get better doing what has already not worked.

ok so are you getting ready or...

Yep...

vote for joe biden

Merica’s getting worse because you pricks keep complaining.

I find it weird how often people here blame American

on America's "awful education system".

Yes, compared to Euro Succ Dem countries our schools such, but on the global scale? Yes the way school funding is structured in America does mean that quality varies a lot by zip code but I feel like even poorer school in the US are still probably better off than most schools in the developing world, if kids in those countries even have access to school at all.

I think you severely overestimate the quality of schools in like, rural Alabama
- Also even if the schools are decent there's only so much they can do if students don't give a shit.
  I still see the dumbest 1/4 of my graduating class regularly posting how school should have taught them stuff that school taught me while I was sitting g next to them. They just thought they were too cool to pay attention so they snaked a headphone through their hoodie sleeve and nodded off in the back of class.
  It's always funny to go back and read the reviews people in my class leave.
  Here's one, copied verbatim.
  To be honest some teachers are b rated at best they will ignore your child's "needs" that the teachers claims they have then refuse to provide help then allow the teacher to fail the child unless the parent can work at the school I wouldn't submit my children to this place again a few good faculty dont outweigh the bad
  Or my personal favorite
  Go to school here. The faculty picks favorites (1 star)
  And that's in one of the most progressive states in the country
- Even in decent public schools, I think a good chunk of students can get shuffled along pretty easily.
I was repeatedly taught the south won the civil war and that we should regularly pray to the American flag
Like I did also get taught stuff like algebra and how to write an essay, sure. But every other second of the day was full of fundamentalist worship of America and the flag and blah blah
- At a local community college I took an American history course and the professor taught the civil war as The War of Northern Aggression
- Fucking how? I can get someone saying the south were in the right(it's called being a racist), but there is no confederate states anymore. If you try to secede and end up still part of the country, you did not win.
- Wait, European here. The south won?
Iunno my school was a jungle
- Well you are mokey

it's gonna get worse no matter what so just fucking pour the gas on it and lets light the bitch

That fire is gonna burn from the bottom up
- always does -- but once the foundation cracks the top crumbles to the bottom too

When I was just a little girl I asked my mother, what will I be Will I be pretty, will I be rich Here's what she said to me.

The collapse of society isn't bad for everyone. Things actually won't get worse for some people right before the collapse. Some people may have their lives turnaround. Some will be successful. The collapse will happen and they'll keep on going and be just fine in whatever comes after the collapse. Just like "a rising tide raises all ships" is wrong so is "a falling tide sinks all ships"

Depends heavily what is your definition of successful here. No serious leftist considers the excesses and psychopathic standards of the rich westerner as a "successful" way of life.
Sure from their own capitalist perspective you're not wrong, but in the long term these rich 20yo billionaires today wont make it to 50, hell dreaming of living like Buffet in his 93s out of question. There wont be billionaire bunkers in New Zealand. That is absolutely not how climate change works but that is splitting hairs I guess, American balkanization is not the worst thing they have to worry about lol.
- I think my real issue here is how I think it's going to end. I don't really believe that one day all the rich people will suddenly regret being rich because they realize them being rich caused oceans to boil and everyone to die. There's not a current 20 year old billionaire who will be killed by a mob of poor climate refugees in a mad max wasteland. That's the fantasy, and the desire of people like us. We want that catharsis and day of penance but it's about 90% sure not going to happen.
  It's not so much a statement that the wealthy can be protected by their own delusions (ie climate bunkers), just that I don't like this secular version of Rapture.

There has never been actual public education anywhere in the capitalist system

This is the kind of hyperbole the person in the picture is referring to. People do actually learn some stuff in school.

both options are worse