One billionare showing up publicly lynched or drawn and quartered will get the rest in line. If not, two or three dozen more will do the trick.

I’m saying we need a civil war, but let’s not pretend we won our rights today without bloodshed.

Oh, I didn't mean it like that. More that using force as the tool of overthrow is fundamentally a mistake. Obviously in any sufficiently powerful labor movement there will, inevitably, be those who attempt to use both legal and illegal force to disperse them. Force is thus necessary to defend the other processes of labor solidarity - forming unions, protests, strikes, lockouts, etc.

Many people, not all of them unreasonably, will side with the system in the case of a violent revolution, though. When a shooting war starts, you can't un-shoot the bullet once you realize the death toll will reach the millions - it will be carried on to its gruesome end, and that may not be to a left-wing victory.

For those who think that a revolution would have overwhelming popular support, for God's sake, a third of the country still believes nonwhite and LGBT folk are inferior, and another third doesn't fucking care. Supporting a violent leftist overthrow is not gonna be on the agenda for them, no matter how much theory you've read and how solid your arguments about their exploitation are. The last third will be difficult to convince - not unreasonably, considering the value placed on democratic ideals and processes.

And the situation is similar, if less severe, in other developed countries at this time.

And they're definitely willing to use force to protect their entrenchment. If you've got a different way to get power back please start working on it now because we're running out of time to do anything other than kill them all.

Yeah it's like... they've got a boot on your neck and you're worried about you hurting them? Where's your worry about the people they're hurting right now?

Aside from that, revolutionary goals don't even require violence per se. If the people who set this shit up would recognize the will of the people and step aside there's no need for violence, but you know they're gonna fight to their last breath to keep the power to hurt and control others. The violence is starting with them.

If you think that happens without a civil war, you haven't been paying attention.

I mean, I actually believe that it won't be accomplished without bloodshed - but there's a world of difference between 'civil unrest' and 'civil war', and I see people fantasizing about the latter far too often. Force is the tool workers use to prevent the use of overwhelming force against the workers - but using it as a tool of overthrow itself is.... often strategically unsound, unless matters have already spiraled into chaos.