Comic Strips

this is basically what I picture in my head whenever I hear people around here talking about taking on the government in a revolt it’s not that I don’t want to do that but this is what I imagine will happen

It's why you don't usually do revolts spontaneously and unorganised. Revolts and revolutions are carried by historical moments of general uprising, but those are then organised and directed by groups that enable people to do more than just, well, be killed, or burn down the neighbourhood. It also, depending on the circumstances, will include fucked up shit like this happening, and what happens next is then determined if the reaction to it is outrage, further organisation and potentially violence, or fear and disorganisation.

Vanquishing hope is often part of propaganda aims. And the idea that revolutions happen in some spontaneous "the people just standing up" way is part of that propaganda, because that usually only works for system changes with significant support already within the ruling class. To win a revolution, you need to be able to block logistics centres, sabotage infrastructure, take over communication channels, convince, outmanoeuvre or fight military and (militarised) police, organise international connections, have connections within status-quo power structures - and all that requires networking, organisation and varying degrees of concrete planning beyond spontaneous actions, with varying degrees of secrecy.

Not believing in that even as a possibility can also become a self-fulfilling prophecy - of course the ones going out will be shot if most people stay home in face of violent repression. Meanwhile, it is understandable to have doubts - truth is that a lot of revolutionary movements are grown through bloodshed and escalation - a whole lot easier to make the decision to organise, ironically, if you are already being persecuted and friends are in prison or dead and you feel like the system you are in has nothing to give you, besides the non-guaranteed mercy to be allowed to live if they allow you to.

So, if you do want to do that, don't go out on the street on your own, network with other people, accept that those organisations will not be perfect and that there will be setbacks and terror and hardships, but remind yourself that it is in fact historically proven for revolutions to not be an utterly lost cause.