[Opinion] Only rebellion will prevent an ecological apocalypse - Polidicks

Time to get to work, then. We can't afford to wait for the majority's support to enact change, nor do we need it.

Political change already has come. What the fuck are you talking about. Why do you think establishment Democrats are so scared of AOC, Illhan Omar, and co, and are attempting to keep any more legitimate progressives like them from taking more seats away from old timers? They know they're fucked. They know the millennials and zommers - the two generations that are going to control American politics in the near future - don't want corrupt establishment Democrats representing them anymore. It's the same reason they did everything they could to thwart Bernie from getting the nomination in 2016. In fact, I'll argue that they were actually okay with a Trump win, because it was politically advantageous for them two years later in the midterm. What they didn't expect was that people like us would use it as an opportunity to push the DNC's politics to the left. And this is just the beginning. As soon as white baby boomers of all types start dying off - whether the majority that supports Trump, or the minority that supports establishment Democrats and wields an excessive amount of power in the DNC - things are going to start accelerating. (And Baby Boomers are going to be dying in record numbers. Just look at some of the statistics out there. It's not looking good for their generation at all.)

Do you realize that a lot of millenials have drank the kool aid on Climate Change? They're not all leftists. The left hasn't "won" anything in the US, even amongst the new generations. Don't kid yourself into thinking there's some large base of super like minded people who will get behind all of this the second they want to. Look at a Trump rally, do you see a total absence of "xoomers" and millenials? No. you don't. Because they believe in him too. We're not a "better generation" and relying on that is a cutesy but ultimately suicidal fault to make. Yes, you're absolutely right that the Democratic establishment is afraid of Sanders, AOC, or others. That doesn't mean that AOC or Sanders or any of the other outliers are going to completely take over the Democrats, because anything less than a total take over of the party will result in fracturing of the party, and the election of another Republican. No one ever wanted corrupt people representing them, but they voted them in anyways because the information they had access to lead them to believe certain things. We're no different, and we have access to a lot more information, but also a lot more misinformation. Nothing is going to get easier from here. Nor am I putting my head behind my heels. I'm acknowledging reality for what it is. Politics is complicated, and it's mostly a personality based field, and you've simplified it down to such a degree, that the results will likely end up surprising you because you aren't looking at enough of the problems here. Even if the "new" democrats take over power, they still operate in a democratically elected government, and must participate in it with a side of the country that has stepped up every aspect of it's extremism over the last 5 years, and will only increase on that front. I don't mean to be a dick, but don't be naive dude. It's never going to be this simple.

https://forum.facepunch.com/pd/buvaf/Generation-Z-is-on-track-to-become-more-liberal-and-progressive-than-Millennials/1/#postcwngle And Millennials are already more progressive than any previous generation. Did you really think I was saying that all millennials and zoomers are good people? Of course not. But on average they're better people than people in any previous generation.

Wouldn't be so quick to assume things will turn out for the best, the primary's not even close to being done and a second Trump term is a real possibility. Even in other countries where politics aren't remotely as insane and climate change is widely considered a threat, tackling it is at the bottom of the priority list. The French minister of ecology resigned around a year ago, for this exact reason. Climate change is just a political concern among many, and isn't seen as the immense threat it actually is. That has nothing to do with which party is in power, it is a systemic issue.

I'm Canadian, obviously, and my country is about to take a good stab at fucking up our efforts at Climate Change based on all evidence from our pre-election period. The US isn't going to magically just fix things in the time frame required either.

I never said I assumed anything. I assume nothing. Its people like HumanAbyss who are assuming everything about our supposed future.

You do seem to assume that a democratic solution to climate change is still on the table at this stage.

Ah yes, because anything you don't like is an assumption, but anything you do like isn't, and shouldn't be mentioned, kinda like how you "predicted"(read, fucking assumed) Right? Those aren't assumptions as to how the future will go? Those aren't your predictions? You have your predictions, and you're fine with that. But if I have mine, nope, that's just a step too far for you. our future is fucking depressing, and acting like it's going to be okay because we have AO Fucking C is stupid.

Depends on what you mean by democratic. The very article in the OP is talking about PEACEFUL disobedience on a mass scale. Not ecological terrorism. That isn't in opposition to democracy - that's democracy fundamentally at work. It's also part of our history, and has successfully brought change in the past. What we have right now as a political system is NOT democracy. Not even close. The people currently on capital hill, by and large, do not speak for most of us. They're there mostly for themselves. This has been the case through most of our history. Which is why organized demonstrations and civil disobedience have been so effective previously in our history.

Depends what you consider to be ecological terrorism and peaceful disobedience. Nobody here said people should be killed, and I wouldn't call sabotage terrorism. If you do, then I don't see how you could non-violently and efficiently fight climate change through civil disobedience, without some form of property damage or another.

Its not ecoterrorism if you strike at the means by which these companies profit. Ecoterrorism is a fun word bandied about at groups who do things like protect trees and etc; its a dirty word thats lost the majority of its meaning for a group that didn't do all that much damage as compared to the early counterparts; the Luddites; who were executed and tried for treason to put down because they gained popular support. The Luddites only started breaking machines when they realized that business and government weren't listening anymore. Sound familiar?

You're assuming that demographic changes mean a whole sale change to politics. Boomers aren't going anywhere soon. And there isn't even consensus about how big of an issue climate change is among the left. If you're allowed to slam me for making "assumptions", then I will do so to you whole heartedly. You have made, and continue to make more, but you're so focused on why mine are the problem.

I don't have anything else to say on that matter, except that I agree with Spazzi's take. Random, scattered acts of sabotage won't change a thing. And if you have enough people to actually take down the Oil industry in its entirety, you have a political base that can wield massive power. The Luddites only started breaking machines when they realized that business and government weren't listening anymore. Sound familiar? The Luddites also failed. Just as a small number of people sabotaging the oil industry will also fail.

Entropy is just a natural law of the universe. Eventually enough stupid people are going to do enough stupid things and the world will end. Could be in a million years, could be in a thousand, could be in fifty, could've been fifty years back. Finding meaning in things you know will disappear is what being alive is. Whether that's yourself, the people around you, or the world you live in. I can hardly blame HA for having problems coming to terms with that when most people cope by angrily shouting at anyone who brings it up.

The failed because the English Empire started shooting them; it'd be folly to expect it to go down the same away again.

If it's only scattered people, then yes, I do expect it to go down the same way. A small group of sabotagers will be crushed by the ruling powers. And if you have enough of them to actually take on the entire US government and army, then you have a political force big enough to singlehandedly change things without resorting to that kind of force.

Completely untrue. To wield "massive" political power, you need to have the support of a majority of the population. On the other hand, worker's strikes at refineries have crippled oil-dependent infrastructure in the past. That's a tiny subset of the population having an immense impact on the whole. You could take down the entire industry, or at least severely hinder it, with only a small part of the population. "How many" doesn't matter, what makes a difference is how it's done.

Hell, you don't even need to hit the oil industry to cause some pains. Imagine if retail workers and Amazon workers across the United States went on strike.

There is a reason I told people to listen to the podcast "It Could Happen Here" and it wasn't to inspire people to be ecoterrorists, but to dispel this myth. This isn't true. The US Infrastrcuture is basically held together with duct tape, glue, good will, and a fucking paperclip and any organized(not well trained, not well armed, JUST organized) group could dismantle vasts areas of american control over the USA. And guess what? The US groups are well armed, and often have some semblance of training, which makes organization the easy part. The podcast deals with all sides of the american civil war that the author predicts is entirely possible, if not likely. The author of the podcast has seen the Iraqi and Ukraine civil wars in person, and is merely comparing the american world to those very real civil wars. We'll see how true a lot of this is in 2 years anyways. If Trump isn't re-elected, there will be a civil war. That's an assumption, but not one made lightly.

Wait, so you're arguing for workers strikes? I literally said that I supported peaceful protests of all types. I was talking about using armed force to singlehandedly sabotage and dismantle the actual oil industry infanstructure. That won't work, because the second it becomes a serious threat, the US army will be called in. And if you can take on the entire army as well as the oil industry, you're not just a tiny portion of the population.

Can I ask you something? Do you remember Vietnam? Do you remember how untrained farmers, boys, men and women, were able to successfully withstand the force of the US army? Do you think, that the US army could just roll into say, the Appalachias, and just take control? Why? Again, if you're an expert on civil wars who feels comfortable making the assumption that there is nothing a minority could do, then okay. But that's your assumption, and it'll be proven wrong quickly enough if anything starts.

I mean, I agree. I think if you have a 5% chance of overcoming cancer, you should try to overcome it. You can believe things are almost certainly fucked and still live. It isn't like if HA is right we should all just shrug our shoulders and lie down in a ditch somewhere. You fight because you want to win, not because you know you'll win. Meaning doesn't come from success.

We left Vietnam because our people were tired of the war and wanted it to end. The Vietnamise didn't actually defeat us. They just lasted long enough that US citizens got tired of our soldiers dying for no good reason. You really think the same thing is going to go down with a civil war in the US itself? I don't buy it. Especially not with how much more technologically advanced the military is. If they know people in Appalalacia are opposing them, they don't need to roll in with tanks and soldiers. They'll bomb the shit out of it with unmanned drones.

The point wouldn't be to physically force people to stop using oil and gas. The point would be to artificially elevate its cost to the point where cleaner forms of energy generation become more competitive. It's similar in theory to the effect of a carbon tax, though it'd be way more inefficient. The other purpose would be to force compromises with other, comparatively more palatable voices and movements. There's no reason it couldn't work.

No. I'm talking about worker's strikes to point out that all you need to do to cripple the oil industry is to target critical points of its chain of production, which doesn't require much manpower. Doing so through a worker's strike would be ideal, but I sincerely doubt those who chose to work in oil will put the planet's fate over their own livelihood. It is, however, not the only way to achieve that goal. You don't even need to be armed to commit sabotage. And even a well-organised army can't curtail that. The resistance regularly damaged infrastructure under Nazi occupation, and doing so in conjunction with Allied efforts helped win the war. Sabotage and property damage was never about going in guns blazing and taking on the army. It's about striking where there's little to no resistance in the first place and forcing the opposition to spend so much resources in preventing it that it is longer viable to fight.

so you really think the US army could compel US citizens to murder other US citizens, without any drop in moral and the "desire to go home"? Really? really? Yeah, cause that works great to quell civil resistance. That would literally just create more people who want to fight the US government in the US.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/11/28/world/29border-legality2/merlin_147320661_c1bf34e6-6956-4af0-b5ce-7c57b0ddfe45-facebookJumbo.jpg Pictured here: US Agents disobeying immoral orders.

You just stated that the sabotage helped win the war when COMBINED with an actual army opposing Germany. It wouldn't have done shit if the US had stayed out of the war, which we were fine with doing until the moment Pearl Harbor got bomb? So what army is going to support the sabotagers when the US army comes in and starts protecting OIl infrastructure? It would have to be a whole bunch of citizens, not just a few. And even then, those civilians don't have access to UAVs that can turn an entire building into a crater without a single soldier getting anywhere near the area.

These are not US soldiers. But sure, we can go with your world view, where US citizens in the Army will be sent into the field, in America, to kill americans, and will have no problems with that. That's what you're saying, so sure, lets assume that.