@thanatokephaloides @thanatokephaloides Our situation is definitely worse than the one Fidel Castro faced in Cuba in 1957-9.

True. Undeniable.

In Cuba, the vast majority of the people were furiously angry at their government

In the U.S., this anger has morphed into cynical disgust. But it's not like the disgust doesn't have its roots in anger. It's just that people feel powerless. The exceptions to that rule lie mainly in the populist far right.

and willing to support the insurrectionists in any way possible.

People here are much more frightened than those in Cuba (see your first point: this police state is much worse than theirs was.) Also, there is no insurrection for them to support; they would have to become the insurrection themselves. It is extremely difficult to become insurrectionists in this security state without being targeted and shut down almost immediately. Because, to become an insurrection, you have to have a modicum of privacy, and we don't. Then there's the question of what this insurrection would do once it formed, which I get into below.

Moreover, the insurrectionists had a major superpower, the USSR, behind them too.

This is crucial. It's one reason our situation is so much worse than theirs was: we don't have a source of power in the conventional sense. When revolutions are lucky, they have powerful allies at a considerable distance (Che and Fidel were lucky in this regard and so were the middle-class revolutionaries in the American colonies. France was a long way away.) Without a powerful ally, the power source traditionally used by the people in such situations is their bodies: they pick up guns, or machetes, or whatever, and kill people until the intolerable situation stops (or at least until somebody new is in charge). In doing so, they put their bodies on the line.

This is no longer a feasible primary tactic in the centers of the "developed" world, like the U.S. It would be a suicidal gesture with little or no impact--no oppositional impact anyway; it would have an impact in that it would provide the political/media machine with more terrorists to villify, more enemies. Their political machine runs on having horrible enemies to fear and hate. The main currency of today's politics is demonization. So in essence, a military uprising against this machine would provide them with fuel for the machine without impeding the machine in any way. It's clear the machine was built this way intentionally, because the only gesture the powerholders expect from the people when they can no longer effect change through the legal and political systems is armed rebellion, so they took care of that. This is a trap we're in, and a fairly well-built one.

Here in the USA, as yet, those who see a need to rebuild our economic and political systems from scratch are still a tiny minority,

See my comment to UltraValia. We don't know that, and have no way of knowing it. In fact, since the chances of us getting accurate info on this point are so small, it would perhaps be better to stop worrying about it. We don't know how many of "us" there are. That fact can only emerge over time through action.

If I were going to hazard a guess as to how many people there are that see a need to rebuild this economic and political system, I'd have to speculate based on other data, like this from Gallup:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Three in four Americans (75%) last year perceived corruption as widespread in the country's government. This figure is up from two in three in 2007 (67%) and 2009 (66%)....Americans still feel fairly free to criticize their government. This is not the case in some parts of the world. Questions about corruption are so sensitive in some countries that even if Gallup is allowed to ask them, the results may reflect residents' reluctance to disparage their government. This is particularly true in countries where media freedom is restricted.

This is why it is most appropriate to look at perceptions of corruption through such lenses as the Freedom House's Press Freedom rankings. Ratings vary among countries with a "free press," including the U.S., and range from a high of 90% in Lithuania to a low of 14% in Sweden. The U.S. does not make the top 10 list, but notably, it is not far from it.

The U.S. is 13th on the list.

http://news.gallup.com/poll/185759/widespread-government-corruption.aspx

Then there's this, from last year:

More than half of registered voters in the U.S. have unfavorable views of both GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, with the major party front-runners’ unfavorable ratings the highest at this point in the cycle since at least 1984, according to a new poll.

And this, from this year:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans' opinions of the two major political parties are now similar after the Democratic Party's ratings slipped to 40% -- from 45% last November -- while the Republican Party's image is essentially unchanged at 39%.

http://news.gallup.com/poll/210725/democratic-party-image-dips-gop-ratin...

Now maybe all these statistics are bullshit; like I said, there's always the possibility of compromised sources. But when the data presented benefits no one powerful, like these data, I tend to give them more credibility (it's probably not a lie because it would be a lie that benefits no one).

Then there's this, which could well be compromised because it can be used to support a lie that does benefit a lot of people, but I place it here anyway--take it with a grain of salt. If you ignore the bullshit AP spin (ain't Trump awful!) on this, the actual data is interesting; apparently only one in four Americans thinks the country is on the right track.

https://apnews.com/139a4415b7c14b368a79c997146099d2/AP-NORC-Poll:-Trump-...'s-view

with no outside backing and no access to much of anything.

And that is the problem. If we're going to do anything at all, our tactics must fit our resources and our situation. At least, assessing our resources and situation must be the first step toward devising tactics. After that, we can analyze costs and benefits and then make our decisions as to what, if anything, we're going to do.

#3

This is the war that cannot be won so long as they can keep enough of us pacified. What is the tipping point? Right now I have no idea but I feel very strongly that we won't reach it as long as this US empire continues.

Here, indeed, is where the "money point" lies. Our situation is definitely worse than the one Fidel Castro faced in Cuba in 1957-9.

In Cuba, the vast majority of the people were furiously angry at their government and willing to support the insurrectionists in any way possible. Moreover, the insurrectionists had a major superpower, the USSR, behind them too.

Here in the USA, as yet, those who see a need to rebuild our economic and political systems from scratch are still a tiny minority, with no outside backing and no access to much of anything. And the majority of those who do maintain that this need exists are right-wing pseudo-libertarians who would re-arrange things so as to make matters much worse for the 99%, which, in turn, is a lot of what keeps the "reform" politicians and movements in business.