Essentially he thinks that, because surveillance is so powerful, and because of 21st-century advancements in the military, there is no way that a socialist uprising could happen, if any at all. The news already does a good job of showing that the US has this new incredible surveillance tech!! and could send these brand new, ultra-powerful drones to bomb you!! and it’s all powered by really smart algorithms that can show all your history!!. They are very opaque about how to stop it, and it seems almost like a form of state-terrorism where the US shows its most freitening new technology to the media so that the people feel helpless, thus disinclined to start groups critical of the government. It seems that there is a strain where people like my friend see changing material conditions, and interpret the change as shutting off revolutionary potential once and for all.
I really want to know what you guys think. It really feeds into a lot of Anarchist notions to just leave alone the possibility of overthrow and tend to your own garden and write poems, or Liberal notions of simply voting because nothing else could possibly work.
Tech means dogshit if popular resistance gets their hands on that same equipment, learns its ins and outs, has the mass support of the working class, and has established organs of a new society. The thing is, a militant war against the imperialist regime isn’t feasible if there isn’t political, material, and principled support from the working masses. From within the foundation of the current capitalist order, workers movements and organizations need to be aligned and unified along a correct, revolutionary political line. This is the only way that material pressure can be put on the bourgeoisie’s economic system of profit upon profit, as well as resist attempts to be broken up by fascist/CIA operations. We need to have a thorough understanding of all the machinations, whether material or conscious, that keep this system intact, discover their weaknesses and contradictions, and actively struggle to overcome them. It’s very much doable, but this isn’t to say that it won’t be a protracted, bloody political endeavor. We’ve seen what revolution looks like throughout history, so we can expect a similar struggle, if not, one that the world has yet to bear witness to. It’s a tough and large task, but luckily, we don’t have to do it alone. Thinking that we as individuals are capable of overcoming a struggle that requires a unified, collective front is incorrect and we must combat this type of thought and treat it as unreasonable simply because it is.