Every time we chat, and the discussion turns towards capitalism, she’s the one who without any hesitation just says we should kill them all. Now, though, it’s gone further to torture. And she names names. In addition to people like Bezos and Musk, she includes Ben Shapiro, Andrew Tate and others.
I say we should force them to work and maybe learn the error of their ways (After the revolution of course. During it many of these fucks will die and I’ll be glad).
Her current jobs is extremely horrible. She’s being massively overworked, verbally abused and, of course, underpaid. So I get her frustration. But it’s also scary. I don’t want her to get in any trouble.
I don’t know if I should be gently turning her away from imagining a slow and painful torture of capitalists or not. Am I being a lib or is she too extreme?
She seems to be caught up in moralistic reasoning. Punishing people can’t undo the harm they’ve done, it can’t un-hurt her. Nicholas II was killed for representing a massive liability to the revolution, not because it would bring back the Jews he killed or be of any intrinsic benefit.
There is no use in what she describes, just emotional maladjustment.
also it was more of a ‘damn the white army is advancing through this area, tough luck nicky’ iirc
bezos and his ilk are also a massive liability, they are too dangerous to be left breathing after a revolution
Doesn’t make torturing them useful
agreed on the torture
I disagree, but not enough to be very loud about it. I think they’re largely indistinguishable and the way capitalist companies and power structures are organized, with each level of managers deliberately obscuring and diffusing responsibility, means they’re much less likely to command the loyalty of partisan fighters. They’re not kings or warlords. they’re CEOs, part of an entire class of useless MBAs who are almost completely interchangeable. Tsar Nicholaus and his family were powerful symbols of the Russian state and some people really would be willing to take great risks to secure them, even if they only viewed them as a symbol of legitimacy. I don’t think America has any partisans who would make a daring raid to rescue Zucc or Bezos (maybe Musk but the antique troll face mask and the convoy of exploding cars would reveal their plan before they could do much harm). In addition American capitalism is so ruthlessly individualistic that it doesn’t inspire that kind of selfless, courageous loyalty. Even Trump, the best demagogue America has going, can’t bring out any real number of fighters. The proud boys actually engaged in hand to hand street fighting never seem to have amounted to more than a few hundred people, and only seemed more prevalent because of media focus (and our own desire for riot porn). I don’t mean to say they’re not dangerous - One or two people with guns can cause enormous harm, but they’re mostly only dangerous to civilians. Unless the real US army is significantly more ideologically motivated than I think they are there’s no equivalent to the white army right now. That could certainly change, but I don’t think it exists right now and certainly not for tech billionaires.
But yeah, I don’t care about shooting them one way or the other. I’m opposed to torture because I don’t think it serves a purpose and because indulging in sadism harms the torturer and wounds the, god help me, purity of our cause. Violence is justifiable but there’s never any reason to torture and doing it will demoralize more people than it will inspire. It will also normalize torture. Seeing it done at the highest ranks will tell the rank and file that it is an acceptable behavior, and while we can clearly attribute massive suffering to Bezos or Musk, rank and file troops taking revenge on whoever they perceive to be an enemy will inevitable devolve in to massacres and death squads. Add in crowd psychology - Even a handful of sadists can dominate an entire group of people if they’re forceful and charismatic enough, and it often takes an exceptional person, like the Warrant Officer who stopped the killing at Mai Lai and ordered his crew cut down the American troops with miniguns if they tried to hurt the people he was rescuing, to intervene. There were many, many, many Mai Lais, but only at Mai Lai did someone force US troops to stop. Once it starts it’s almost impossible to stop. Even if you hang the perpetrators it’s just as likely other troops, already traumatized by combat, will blame their leaders and the massacre victims for the hanging of the convicted killers rather than take the lesson.
i’m not talking about them inspiring loyalty, i meant just using their money to fund counter-revolutionaries and other insurgents
they have money and assets all over the world, there is no way we could find it all, and a few million will go a good way into arming terrorist cells and the like
The issue with that killing them won’t kill their money. The individual billionaire isn’t special or even important; The reaction will be carried out by a vast array of military and intelligence officers from across the western world and beyond. Jeff Bezos might fund a few private armies, but anything he can do will pale in comparison to the funding and support put forth by the US, NATO, and other capitalist and fascist nations.
And if we kill Bezos his money will simply devolve to the next heir in line, who will share Bezo’s class interests. There is certainly propaganda value in killing or humiliating billionaires and oligarchs to shatter the perception that they are invulnerable and beyond harm or consequence, but I believe, and I am fully open to counter-arguments and willing to accept that I am wrong in this, that individual capitalists are not strategically significant. again, I don’t care if they get killed, i just don’t think it’s important one way or another.
I also think, even in the best case scenarios, even if Posada’s aliens show up with a communism ray tomorrow, we’re still going to face generations of insurgency and resistance from capitalist partisan forces. The USSR faced terrorism, infiltration, and armed threats for it’s entire existence and if we manage to subdue major countries we will face the same from within and without for a long, long time. Limiting the scope of reactionary terror is important, but I think a sober analysis suggests that any effort in that direction will be multigenerational.