Okay I’ll be blunt here: This is nothing and if this is Americans’ idea of resisting then y’all are never going to beat fascism. Historians will look at this period and say there was very little popular resistance to Trump’s regime.
I want you to understand what it is you’re talking about when you say things like this:
You are asking for what it’s the equivalent of all of Europe revolting against leadership that never leaves Prague.
America is really fucking big. I live in Seattle. I have been protesting. But my state officials are already more or less on my side
For me to protest in a way that actually causes a problem for the people in power I would need to drive no less than 41 hours if I didn’t sleep. Realistically it’s 3-4 days each way. Or hundreds of dollars in airfare or train tickets.
And of course I’d be fired for missing work.
I’m pissed as any American but what the fuck am I supposed to do? Asking America to revolt isn’t like asking England or France or Belgium. Our leaders are in a proverbial ivory tower and we’ve been stripped of any ability to effect change through anything but a national strike, which has not been successfully organized, largely due to the scale required.
We have 341m people on 10M km² of land. Compare that to somewhere like Germany with 84m people on 357k km²
It’s a much easier proposition getting 10% of Germans to their capital than getting 10% of Americans to ours
You should coordinate strikes countrywide and don’t stop striking until conditions are met. Like the writers of Hollywood did. They reached their goals.
Everyone who needs to strike is living paycheck to paycheck. Nobody wants to become homeless in order to strike. And our media and networking are largely controlled by compromised assets.
I’ve been in and out of politics as a personal interest since the early 2000a. We’re in a really bad situation right now.
Without a central voice to organize and lead people we’re not going to be able to coordinate enough people across the country
Unions also call for strikes as a centralized authority, which the US populace completely lacks. When France had those huge labor strikes a few years ago it was all called for by 5 or 6 unions.
I tell everyone I know to sign a strike card at https://generalstrikeus.com/ but that platform is fully decentralized. Right now it takes several days for another 10K signatures, and the critical mass we’re trying to achieve is 11 million. Yes, it’s the best option I’ve found, and YES that rate will increase exponentially the more people who get involved, but is it efficient and timely? No, but it’s the best we’ve got rn because the power of labor unions has been purposefully dismantled over decades.
Which is great except for all the people not in unions, and that most heavily unionized trade jobs in the US are somehow populated with people who both stand to lose a lot from Trump’s policies and who are among his staunchest supporters.
A lot of those unions are politically agnostic to partisan slant because they’re trying to navigate the current political climate, where they’re basically unilaterally hated and unprotected, but also a lot of big unions exist functionally as an extension of the HR department of these companies because of how popular support for them has been drained, membership has dwindled, labor power has dwindled amongst their lower members because of increased automation, and because they’ve just straight up slowly been dismantled over time and legally gimped.
They CAN let all paycheck to paycheck people die and will happily do it.
Why do you think they’re cutting medicaid and social security?
This country is fucked and the people who SHOULD be leading the resistance, the democrats, would rather whine helplessly because they are down 1-2 seats in congress.
Either get scabbers, or take advantage of increased automation, or a combination of the two. The only way to prevent those scabbers is with outright illegal militant action focused on targeting them, which would earn you the ire of the state, and which most people also don’t want to engage in due to moral qualms.
You can prevent a couple trucks from leaving an amazon warehouse for a couple days when you can organize a general strike where you’re paying everyone a full stipend after saving maybe years of union dues, and that’s the legal way to protest, which costs like, tens or maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenditure every day, and is basically a war of wealth attrition with a huge megacorporation.
You could do that, or you could get like one or two guys to slash tires, and then set those trucks back for about the same amount of time. Or slash the tires of the individual scabber’s home cars, which is maybe gonna be easier to pull off. How much of that militant action can you engage in, as an organization, though, before the feds just decide to completely crack down on you and deem you to be domestic terrorists, along the lines of what happened to the people engaged in the “stop cop city” movement? That’s a good example of what’s even a relatively low scale and low stakes operation, that’s not very militant, and they’re still getting slapped with rico charges and domestic terrorism.
They can’t just let all paycheck to paycheck people die.
Real question here - why not? If the powers that be are facing the potential of unrest in the face of their tyranny, why wouldn’t they let the protesters starve? Does this not only preemptively eliminate potential opposition? Do you think they simply care out of some hidden shred of dignity of something?
I think all of you black & white accelerationists are either ignorant or deceitful about the reality of the stakes in play here. I’m not saying revolution shouldn’t happen, won’t happen, can’t happen, or any of that, but I’m tired of listening to people acting like this choice is as casual as picking what sandwich to have and not the very real acceptance of potentially fatal or otherwise devastating consequences. Necessary action or not, that’s not the kind of thing to treat so cavalier.
If you live on enough land to grow crops. If you own the land you live on. Otherwise when you miss rent for long enough men with guns will come force you out.
Americans are struggling because of a lack of socialism, basically. They can’t do this and keep the hyper individualistic and selfish society they have now. Anyone reading this, look up libertarian socialism. Socialism can co-exist with capitalism and does so successfully in many countries. Make it happen in your state and who knows, you too could have the safety net needed to assert your democratic rights in a crisis.
Americans are struggling because of a lack of socialism, basically.
That’s one reason. Another is accelerationists intentionally supporting increased suffering with religious dedication, believing, despite all of the evidence otherwise, that if they throw enough LGBTQ+ and genocidees under the bus, it will stop, rather than just swerving to avoid the heap of corpses.
Your state officials are already on your side, but your senators and representatives are likely following the DNC’s ineffectual leadership and—among other things—confirming Trump’s nominations for office. If so that’s what you should be protesting. Make sure your state officials are also resisting Trump policies that affect the state (like California should have been doing when Trump started messing with their water reservoirs).
Our leaders are in a proverbial ivory tower and we’ve been stripped of any ability to effect change through anything but a national strike, which has not been successfully organized, largely due to the scale required.
Then organize one. Unionize, and if already unionized have your union leaders cooperate with other unions to prepare so when the time comes they can quickly organize a general strike.
Amusingly enough, there’s more. Because of Trump’s ineptitude at negotiation Mexico got him to police gun flow from America to them, and it seems his sheer presence will spare Canada of a conservative majority in the next election.
It’s easy to judge from the sidelines. We were suffering well before this guy was sworn in… Most of us are just trying to survive right now. We’re eating into our savings and retirements, and/or getting second/third jobs, and/or paying off medical bills. We’re just trying to get by and support our loved ones and friends after massive spikes in our cost of living, our housing costs, and out of control inflation.
You’re welcome to come raise some hell outside the capital if you can afford that trip, though. No need to wait for others and scoff - you do it. Be the change you want to see. And if you think it’s too expensive and far… Welcome to the same boat most of us are in here in America.
You’re welcome to come raise some hell outside the capital if you can afford that trip, though.
People don’t talk about it, but this is what jan 6th was. Not for a good cause, obviously, but basically everyone that was participating in that was either psychotic enough to willingly throw away their entire life based on a single ineffective and uncoordinated mass mob capital occupation on a single day, or they were small business owners who were able to afford to fly across the country first class and take several days off of work, and probably most of them were both of those things. A lot of these guys are getting arrested immediately after being pardoned because the prison system sucks and does not set you up for success, obviously, even for those wealthy people. There’s not an escape from the state, even for them, their lives will be irrevocably altered and made worse by their participation in a single ineffective day of high profile movement.
Obviously you could action a good amount of political change onto people by simply making them think they have nothing left to lose, as we see with that, but again, mass, uncoordinated movements are broadly ineffective. More organized and militant action is what you really only get when people start to collectively understand that the people around them, the things they actually do have left, are under immediate threat, and they need to do something to stop that. Maybe even more than that, you probably need a funding apparatus which is either gonna be foreign, or probably based on illegal domestic activities. So probably foreign.
I dunno at what point some of those criteria start to be filled. It’s not looking great.
This is why people need to band together. Yeah, its a kind of socialism. Here we have protests in the capital city and organisations run subsidised transport so you can get there very cheap or even free if you can’t afford anything. We’re suffering too, support each other.
I mean I’m not American so I can’t do much, but that aside you don’t need to go to the capital. You can raise some hell right in your backyard by—among other things—refusing to work. Organize protests not against Trump, but against your senators, representatives and (if applicable) state officials for not resisting Trump’s rampage more.
Finally I want to note that I’m not making a moral judgement here (it wouldn’t make sense to do that from the sidelines, as you said) but rather a statement. I’m not sure most Americans fully understand the implications here, but unless Americans en masse choose to change course y’all are on a one-way trip to fascismland. What responsibility you want to assign to whom here is up to you.
we judge cause our countries have stood against worse and understand this is the duty of the democratic citizen: to protect democracy.
You in your little baby aged country do not know how bad it gonna get if you don’t. Losing out on a day of work on your shitty job is going to seem like paradise in a few years.
lol I think this is my favorite crazy comment in here. You’ve literally taken on the persona of an old country and decreed you can judge because of your history. Not that you’re just a human being who probably hasn’t done shit-fuck for the country in your lifetime, but please keep taking credit for… I don’t even know what.
I’ll paraphrase to be less crazy as you are right.
“You dont need to wonder what happens next cause the history is full of peoples and countries who have gone through it. It is your choice to go online and convince others there’s nothing you can do and everyone who suggests otherwise is not to be listened to, to sit idle and hope you are not going to be the victim or do what is in your power and capability.”
Its just extremely ironic "the only land of the free!!! " democracy was only being held up by good faith.
But seriously, even your online attitude is enough to help one side or the other. You dont want to be in the find out phase of a dictatorship that is already setting up death camps in a country already built on genocide.
Unfortunately, data does say otherwise. For the last half-century in the US, political decisions have almost exclusively been the will of the ultra-wealthy, with following the desires of the populace being generally coincidental, statistically speaking.
It has been studied and published numerous times over the last decades. A good reference that I’ve been aware of, nearly since it was published is this one from Martin Gilens, a professor from Princeton University’s Politics Department. The study was published in 2004 and utilized data from between 1981 and 2002.
To be clear, I am not advocating violence, nor trying to convince anyone of futility. I think it’s all the more reason to call accelerationists out on their bullshit magical thinking that helped put us in this place and push for more engagement on political structures, supposing elections continue. If more than a tiny segment of the Left participated in primaries, instead of performative behavior and offering up vulnerable populations as blood sacrifices, we’d have universal healthcare several decades ago and actual consequences for genocide.
it would be difficult for you to be more wrong here.
“I think it’s all the more reason to call accelerationists out on their bullshit magical thinking…”
too bad you are doing the opposite of that.
those puppet-master elites you are complaining about have convinced you that asking protesters to calm down and stop fighting back Is the way to make change. it is the exact opposite.
" Don’t protest, nobody cares!"
obviously incorrect as mentioned in the uncountable examples above that have resulted in your civil rights.
" Don’t file a lawsuit, it won’t have any effect."
women’s healthcare is still accessible because of these lawsuits, the government is literally still running because of these lawsuits, Trump is now a felon and half a billion dollars poorer, Bannon and others in the Fake electric scheme went to jail.
“Americans are too litigious”
corporate safety overall Is primarily a result of civil lawsuits against harmful corporate practices.
“college kids are too sensitive”
college students are basically the front line against police brutality and the genocide in Palestine.
you are turned around, capitulating to the wrong paradigm, you are thinking how those controlling you want you to think despite the historical and factual contrary evidence that fighting back does make a change.
protests and protesters change policy.
you can support them or you can detract from their efforts, yowling at your shutteed window that change isn’t possible.
you think you are being “practical”, but you’re parroting the absorbed, objectively false strictures of your ruling class and screaming mindlessly at the people fighting for and preserving your rights.
I wrote a while big thing but my ADHD meds wore off part of the way through, leading to a less-than-cohesive stream of thought. My apologies for that.
My point overall is that protests change people, not policy in a government subjugated by oligarchy, which the US has, by the data, been for half of a century. This is why those in the current “bloodless” coup are so anxious to achieve the smallest government that they can, purged of anyone who is not a loyalist. If they succeed, there’s noone on the “inside” to impact any positive change with the existing levers of power. Protest and resist but do it from a place of knowledge. And, unfortunately, do it with awareness that you are likely putting your life and those of your loved ones on the line (please, no cellphones at protests, they are readily traceable).
Things are bad now and are likely, based upon recorded human history, to get worse for at least several generations. If your thesis is that uprisings by a populace subjected to domestic repression is likely, I’m going to need you to share your notes with the class because millennia of data imply otherwise.
It may seem defeatist to you, but, the reality is that the time to save the nation and prevent suffering of its vulnerable as well as genocide abroad and at home is done. The regulatory state is being rapidly dismantled by a billionaire, while none in power offer much more than performative resistance. November was the last “escape hatch”. Right now, it looks like accelerationists have handed the government over to people intent on speed-running a certain austrian’s rise to total power. Better to accept this now and get through the disillusionment so that you can effectively resist into the future.
Now, I absolutely hope that I’m wrong but, the camps being built and talks of international human slavery don’t make that hope very great. Resist as you can and help others as you’re able.
If you don’t believe in the civil Rights movement or literally the founding of the US having occurred, there’s not much that’s going to convince you.
You believe the stories that the puppet masters you’re so afraid of have told you.
rebellions, protests, change history constantly.
you can literally read any history book and find this out, especially in modern democratic societies.
in fact, I defy you to find a single history book that says rebellions don’t change history.
“…may seem defeatist to you…”
there’s no 'may seem" about it, you’re advocating for hiding and not doing anything because you, contrary to fact, don’t believe that the rights you have today are the result oh organized rebellion.
because the people you perceive as above you told you that resistance is futile, you are squawking out that same message.
You are parroting the empty words of those you fear, exhorting protesters to do what your masters tell them to.
you are definitively defeatist, full stop.
“Better to accept this now and get through the disillusionment so that you can effectively resist into the future.”
absurd.
this is not the same as Hitler’s rise to power, because Hitler already did it and civilians, lawyers and judges in the US are fighting against it.
You are parroting those ignorant parties you perceive as more authoritative than you.
If this authoritarian coup works, part of their victory will directly be your fault for expressing these false sentiments and encouraging others to stop protesting.
“I absolutely hope that I’m wrong…”
you are unequivocally, factually and historically wrong.
The very fact that you’re able to express your cowardly sentiments and I am able to express my practical encouragement are proof that protests work.
The US was literally successfully founded on protests.
“…don’t make that hope very great.”
what is happening in the world has zero effect on hope, your attitude and actions determine your hope.
you are nervously crawling down the path of least resistance, which is apparently tearing down the principles and people who gave you your rights and liberty today.
4,000 people gathered in front of Denver’s capital alone.
You make it seem like that’s a low or average number of protesters in each state, but it seems there are 100 to 200 protestors in most states and not many people even calling for boycotts to Google, Apple, or other companies which showed their full support to Trump’s dumb ideas, gave him launch money, and sucked him off.
Tesla and X have been getting a little more hate than usual, but not enough hate for it to actually matter for a president.
“You make it seem like that’s a low or average number of protesters in each state”
incorrect, but I understand your trouble:
me saying there were 4,000 The protesters in Denver means that in the city of Denver, there were 4,000 protesters.
that is a number. your inference is your own.
as for your 100 to 200 claim, it’s simply inaccurate and not supported by the website you provided.
those are the absolute lowest numbers in a couple of states, but not at all the mean or average.
go read the page you googled.
according to your source, 5051 has already organized close to 30,000 people Nationwide for a single protest on a single day, after barely a month of a shitty administration.
and you’re ignoring all of the other protests simultaneously happening.
but thanks for proving me right!
I know that everything is scary and your country sucks right now, but people are trying to help you by organizing political action in the most effective historical democratic way, and you should be appreciative and supportive, or at least informed of what is going and how political change happens in your own country.
Wait, you think MLK Jr talked America into making change and not the Black Panthers, Malcom X, or “Ghetto Riots”.
And you think it was Gandhi and not nearly a century of armed resistance?
These people represent the most palatable for the status quo. It’s propaganda to teach your citizens that waiting nicely and asking is the solution to not having basic human rights.
Real, mass protests can and do move national policy as you said. However, 50501 isn’t that. Look up the civil rights movement or the late 19th early 20th century labor movement for what you need to do to make politicians listen to you. You want millions of people (ideally 3.5%+ of the population) protesting for extended periods of time (the 1 part of 50501 is on its own a deal breaker) if you want any hope of getting anything done. Compare this to 50501 and tell me the latter isn’t simply not enough.
because I brought up one example out of many going on at the same time, the frightened among you insist that you have to have a particular percentage point or protests just won’t work.
but that simply isn’t true according to all of the protests that have worked in the past.
protests have worked, they are working, and they will continue to work.
Okay I’ll be blunt here: This is nothing and if this is Americans’ idea of resisting then y’all are never going to beat fascism. Historians will look at this period and say there was very little popular resistance to Trump’s regime.
I want you to understand what it is you’re talking about when you say things like this:
You are asking for what it’s the equivalent of all of Europe revolting against leadership that never leaves Prague.
America is really fucking big. I live in Seattle. I have been protesting. But my state officials are already more or less on my side
For me to protest in a way that actually causes a problem for the people in power I would need to drive no less than 41 hours if I didn’t sleep. Realistically it’s 3-4 days each way. Or hundreds of dollars in airfare or train tickets.
And of course I’d be fired for missing work.
I’m pissed as any American but what the fuck am I supposed to do? Asking America to revolt isn’t like asking England or France or Belgium. Our leaders are in a proverbial ivory tower and we’ve been stripped of any ability to effect change through anything but a national strike, which has not been successfully organized, largely due to the scale required.
We have 341m people on 10M km² of land. Compare that to somewhere like Germany with 84m people on 357k km²
It’s a much easier proposition getting 10% of Germans to their capital than getting 10% of Americans to ours
You should coordinate strikes countrywide and don’t stop striking until conditions are met. Like the writers of Hollywood did. They reached their goals.
generalstrikeus.com
Everyone who needs to strike is living paycheck to paycheck. Nobody wants to become homeless in order to strike. And our media and networking are largely controlled by compromised assets.
I’ve been in and out of politics as a personal interest since the early 2000a. We’re in a really bad situation right now.
Without a central voice to organize and lead people we’re not going to be able to coordinate enough people across the country
Union dues fund a strike fund that is used to pay workers while they strike, that’s why unions are so important to be able to strike.
Unions also call for strikes as a centralized authority, which the US populace completely lacks. When France had those huge labor strikes a few years ago it was all called for by 5 or 6 unions.
I tell everyone I know to sign a strike card at https://generalstrikeus.com/ but that platform is fully decentralized. Right now it takes several days for another 10K signatures, and the critical mass we’re trying to achieve is 11 million. Yes, it’s the best option I’ve found, and YES that rate will increase exponentially the more people who get involved, but is it efficient and timely? No, but it’s the best we’ve got rn because the power of labor unions has been purposefully dismantled over decades.
Which is great except for all the people not in unions, and that most heavily unionized trade jobs in the US are somehow populated with people who both stand to lose a lot from Trump’s policies and who are among his staunchest supporters.
One huge example:
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/18/teamsters-favor-trump-harris-endorsement-00179879
A lot of those unions are politically agnostic to partisan slant because they’re trying to navigate the current political climate, where they’re basically unilaterally hated and unprotected, but also a lot of big unions exist functionally as an extension of the HR department of these companies because of how popular support for them has been drained, membership has dwindled, labor power has dwindled amongst their lower members because of increased automation, and because they’ve just straight up slowly been dismantled over time and legally gimped.
Hopefully more workers in other industries and areas that traditionally aren’t unionized take the risk to unionize, perhaps with the IWW’s help.
They can’t just let all paycheck to paycheck people die. And you can try looking after yourself, since the government seems not to care anyway
Don’t sell your crops to megacorp but give it to fellow strikers for free, for example
Don’t code for fascists, but create tools to organise yourself in a save manner
Health care workers, don’t sell the medicines and your work, steal all medicines possible and give them to fellow strikers
Don’t clean any public properties
Use your skills for the good, not the evil
They CAN let all paycheck to paycheck people die and will happily do it.
Why do you think they’re cutting medicaid and social security?
This country is fucked and the people who SHOULD be leading the resistance, the democrats, would rather whine helplessly because they are down 1-2 seats in congress.
They would not earn any money if they can’t profit on the back of Workers, without getting to be workers themselves.
Most on them don’t ever need to earn another cent, and will still die with massive wealth.
Taking away their food, water and electricity is about the only thing that would help, but it would kill millions first.
Wait until you hear who owns most of our farms.
Crops don’t yield without workers… Plants don’t care who own them. What are they gonna do?
Either get scabbers, or take advantage of increased automation, or a combination of the two. The only way to prevent those scabbers is with outright illegal militant action focused on targeting them, which would earn you the ire of the state, and which most people also don’t want to engage in due to moral qualms.
You can prevent a couple trucks from leaving an amazon warehouse for a couple days when you can organize a general strike where you’re paying everyone a full stipend after saving maybe years of union dues, and that’s the legal way to protest, which costs like, tens or maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenditure every day, and is basically a war of wealth attrition with a huge megacorporation.
You could do that, or you could get like one or two guys to slash tires, and then set those trucks back for about the same amount of time. Or slash the tires of the individual scabber’s home cars, which is maybe gonna be easier to pull off. How much of that militant action can you engage in, as an organization, though, before the feds just decide to completely crack down on you and deem you to be domestic terrorists, along the lines of what happened to the people engaged in the “stop cop city” movement? That’s a good example of what’s even a relatively low scale and low stakes operation, that’s not very militant, and they’re still getting slapped with rico charges and domestic terrorism.
Fair point, but those megacorp owned farms aren’t going to be giving it away to strikers regardless of who is doing the picking.
Real question here - why not? If the powers that be are facing the potential of unrest in the face of their tyranny, why wouldn’t they let the protesters starve? Does this not only preemptively eliminate potential opposition? Do you think they simply care out of some hidden shred of dignity of something?
I think all of you black & white accelerationists are either ignorant or deceitful about the reality of the stakes in play here. I’m not saying revolution shouldn’t happen, won’t happen, can’t happen, or any of that, but I’m tired of listening to people acting like this choice is as casual as picking what sandwich to have and not the very real acceptance of potentially fatal or otherwise devastating consequences. Necessary action or not, that’s not the kind of thing to treat so cavalier.
First of all, you have chosen to read it as “black and white”, that generally does not exist, everything is a spectrum.
Secondly, the economy of America does not work without workers and rich don’t get richer anymore, which they seemingly don’t like
And yea maybe the way I wrote is making it look too easy, I see that, but I don’t plan the revolution, that is the job of the American people
I think we are having same or similar opinions, I just did manage to write it as good as I wanted. 🙊
The people who grow the crops are still hoping Trump works out. Because whatever he’s doing is better than respecting pronouns.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/21/trump-tariffs-farmers-trade-war-iowa/
You can start to grow crops yourself, if you don’t go to work.
If you live on enough land to grow crops. If you own the land you live on. Otherwise when you miss rent for long enough men with guns will come force you out.
Pretty sure they also don’t pause property taxes based on your income.
Americans are struggling because of a lack of socialism, basically. They can’t do this and keep the hyper individualistic and selfish society they have now. Anyone reading this, look up libertarian socialism. Socialism can co-exist with capitalism and does so successfully in many countries. Make it happen in your state and who knows, you too could have the safety net needed to assert your democratic rights in a crisis.
That’s one reason. Another is accelerationists intentionally supporting increased suffering with religious dedication, believing, despite all of the evidence otherwise, that if they throw enough LGBTQ+ and genocidees under the bus, it will stop, rather than just swerving to avoid the heap of corpses.
Agree!
Sign a strike card! https://generalstrikeus.com/
Your state officials are already on your side, but your senators and representatives are likely following the DNC’s ineffectual leadership and—among other things—confirming Trump’s nominations for office. If so that’s what you should be protesting. Make sure your state officials are also resisting Trump policies that affect the state (like California should have been doing when Trump started messing with their water reservoirs).
Then organize one. Unionize, and if already unionized have your union leaders cooperate with other unions to prepare so when the time comes they can quickly organize a general strike.
Europeans learning OpSec for the first time is the only redeeming part of 2025.
Amusingly enough, there’s more. Because of Trump’s ineptitude at negotiation Mexico got him to police gun flow from America to them, and it seems his sheer presence will spare Canada of a conservative majority in the next election.
Ride the wave. Have Denmark allow Greenland to enter a COFA with the US for a steep fee. The US already has that level of access.
Let Macron negotiate for the transfer of US bases and hardware at a discount as they leave. Use that to power Ukraine.
I don’t see why authoritarians are the only ones allowed to benefit from our hard fumble.
It’s pathetic.
It’s still cold yet. Just wait til summer.
It’s easy to judge from the sidelines. We were suffering well before this guy was sworn in… Most of us are just trying to survive right now. We’re eating into our savings and retirements, and/or getting second/third jobs, and/or paying off medical bills. We’re just trying to get by and support our loved ones and friends after massive spikes in our cost of living, our housing costs, and out of control inflation.
You’re welcome to come raise some hell outside the capital if you can afford that trip, though. No need to wait for others and scoff - you do it. Be the change you want to see. And if you think it’s too expensive and far… Welcome to the same boat most of us are in here in America.
People don’t talk about it, but this is what jan 6th was. Not for a good cause, obviously, but basically everyone that was participating in that was either psychotic enough to willingly throw away their entire life based on a single ineffective and uncoordinated mass mob capital occupation on a single day, or they were small business owners who were able to afford to fly across the country first class and take several days off of work, and probably most of them were both of those things. A lot of these guys are getting arrested immediately after being pardoned because the prison system sucks and does not set you up for success, obviously, even for those wealthy people. There’s not an escape from the state, even for them, their lives will be irrevocably altered and made worse by their participation in a single ineffective day of high profile movement.
Obviously you could action a good amount of political change onto people by simply making them think they have nothing left to lose, as we see with that, but again, mass, uncoordinated movements are broadly ineffective. More organized and militant action is what you really only get when people start to collectively understand that the people around them, the things they actually do have left, are under immediate threat, and they need to do something to stop that. Maybe even more than that, you probably need a funding apparatus which is either gonna be foreign, or probably based on illegal domestic activities. So probably foreign.
I dunno at what point some of those criteria start to be filled. It’s not looking great.
This is why people need to band together. Yeah, its a kind of socialism. Here we have protests in the capital city and organisations run subsidised transport so you can get there very cheap or even free if you can’t afford anything. We’re suffering too, support each other.
I mean I’m not American so I can’t do much, but that aside you don’t need to go to the capital. You can raise some hell right in your backyard by—among other things—refusing to work. Organize protests not against Trump, but against your senators, representatives and (if applicable) state officials for not resisting Trump’s rampage more.
Finally I want to note that I’m not making a moral judgement here (it wouldn’t make sense to do that from the sidelines, as you said) but rather a statement. I’m not sure most Americans fully understand the implications here, but unless Americans en masse choose to change course y’all are on a one-way trip to fascismland. What responsibility you want to assign to whom here is up to you.
we judge cause our countries have stood against worse and understand this is the duty of the democratic citizen: to protect democracy. You in your little baby aged country do not know how bad it gonna get if you don’t. Losing out on a day of work on your shitty job is going to seem like paradise in a few years.
It’s not just a day of work if you get fired and your family starves.
Well the camps trump is building gurantee work for the rest of you and your families life.
lol I think this is my favorite crazy comment in here. You’ve literally taken on the persona of an old country and decreed you can judge because of your history. Not that you’re just a human being who probably hasn’t done shit-fuck for the country in your lifetime, but please keep taking credit for… I don’t even know what.
I’ll paraphrase to be less crazy as you are right. “You dont need to wonder what happens next cause the history is full of peoples and countries who have gone through it. It is your choice to go online and convince others there’s nothing you can do and everyone who suggests otherwise is not to be listened to, to sit idle and hope you are not going to be the victim or do what is in your power and capability.” Its just extremely ironic "the only land of the free!!! " democracy was only being held up by good faith. But seriously, even your online attitude is enough to help one side or the other. You dont want to be in the find out phase of a dictatorship that is already setting up death camps in a country already built on genocide.
Relax , your anxious feelings are understandable but we will continue to provide the best television experience the world has ever seen.
protests are not “nothing”, protests are the reason Americans and citizens of other countries enjoy the civil rights they have.
protests are a primary mover of political policy.
Unfortunately, data does say otherwise. For the last half-century in the US, political decisions have almost exclusively been the will of the ultra-wealthy, with following the desires of the populace being generally coincidental, statistically speaking.
what a wealth of data you haven’t provided to support this claim.
It has been studied and published numerous times over the last decades. A good reference that I’ve been aware of, nearly since it was published is this one from Martin Gilens, a professor from Princeton University’s Politics Department. The study was published in 2004 and utilized data from between 1981 and 2002.
https://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/idr.pdf
To be clear, I am not advocating violence, nor trying to convince anyone of futility. I think it’s all the more reason to call accelerationists out on their bullshit magical thinking that helped put us in this place and push for more engagement on political structures, supposing elections continue. If more than a tiny segment of the Left participated in primaries, instead of performative behavior and offering up vulnerable populations as blood sacrifices, we’d have universal healthcare several decades ago and actual consequences for genocide.
it would be difficult for you to be more wrong here.
“I think it’s all the more reason to call accelerationists out on their bullshit magical thinking…”
too bad you are doing the opposite of that.
those puppet-master elites you are complaining about have convinced you that asking protesters to calm down and stop fighting back Is the way to make change. it is the exact opposite.
" Don’t protest, nobody cares!"
obviously incorrect as mentioned in the uncountable examples above that have resulted in your civil rights.
" Don’t file a lawsuit, it won’t have any effect."
women’s healthcare is still accessible because of these lawsuits, the government is literally still running because of these lawsuits, Trump is now a felon and half a billion dollars poorer, Bannon and others in the Fake electric scheme went to jail.
“Americans are too litigious”
corporate safety overall Is primarily a result of civil lawsuits against harmful corporate practices.
“college kids are too sensitive”
college students are basically the front line against police brutality and the genocide in Palestine.
you are turned around, capitulating to the wrong paradigm, you are thinking how those controlling you want you to think despite the historical and factual contrary evidence that fighting back does make a change.
protests and protesters change policy.
you can support them or you can detract from their efforts, yowling at your shutteed window that change isn’t possible.
you think you are being “practical”, but you’re parroting the absorbed, objectively false strictures of your ruling class and screaming mindlessly at the people fighting for and preserving your rights.
I wrote a while big thing but my ADHD meds wore off part of the way through, leading to a less-than-cohesive stream of thought. My apologies for that.
My point overall is that protests change people, not policy in a government subjugated by oligarchy, which the US has, by the data, been for half of a century. This is why those in the current “bloodless” coup are so anxious to achieve the smallest government that they can, purged of anyone who is not a loyalist. If they succeed, there’s noone on the “inside” to impact any positive change with the existing levers of power. Protest and resist but do it from a place of knowledge. And, unfortunately, do it with awareness that you are likely putting your life and those of your loved ones on the line (please, no cellphones at protests, they are readily traceable).
Things are bad now and are likely, based upon recorded human history, to get worse for at least several generations. If your thesis is that uprisings by a populace subjected to domestic repression is likely, I’m going to need you to share your notes with the class because millennia of data imply otherwise.
It may seem defeatist to you, but, the reality is that the time to save the nation and prevent suffering of its vulnerable as well as genocide abroad and at home is done. The regulatory state is being rapidly dismantled by a billionaire, while none in power offer much more than performative resistance. November was the last “escape hatch”. Right now, it looks like accelerationists have handed the government over to people intent on speed-running a certain austrian’s rise to total power. Better to accept this now and get through the disillusionment so that you can effectively resist into the future.
Now, I absolutely hope that I’m wrong but, the camps being built and talks of international human slavery don’t make that hope very great. Resist as you can and help others as you’re able.
“…millennia of data imply otherwise”
If you don’t believe in the civil Rights movement or literally the founding of the US having occurred, there’s not much that’s going to convince you.
You believe the stories that the puppet masters you’re so afraid of have told you.
rebellions, protests, change history constantly.
you can literally read any history book and find this out, especially in modern democratic societies.
in fact, I defy you to find a single history book that says rebellions don’t change history.
“…may seem defeatist to you…”
there’s no 'may seem" about it, you’re advocating for hiding and not doing anything because you, contrary to fact, don’t believe that the rights you have today are the result oh organized rebellion.
because the people you perceive as above you told you that resistance is futile, you are squawking out that same message.
You are parroting the empty words of those you fear, exhorting protesters to do what your masters tell them to.
you are definitively defeatist, full stop.
“Better to accept this now and get through the disillusionment so that you can effectively resist into the future.”
absurd.
this is not the same as Hitler’s rise to power, because Hitler already did it and civilians, lawyers and judges in the US are fighting against it.
You are parroting those ignorant parties you perceive as more authoritative than you.
If this authoritarian coup works, part of their victory will directly be your fault for expressing these false sentiments and encouraging others to stop protesting.
“I absolutely hope that I’m wrong…”
you are unequivocally, factually and historically wrong.
The very fact that you’re able to express your cowardly sentiments and I am able to express my practical encouragement are proof that protests work.
The US was literally successfully founded on protests.
“…don’t make that hope very great.”
what is happening in the world has zero effect on hope, your attitude and actions determine your hope.
you are nervously crawling down the path of least resistance, which is apparently tearing down the principles and people who gave you your rights and liberty today.
Lol. No they are not.
The primary movers of political policy are money or violence.
Public opinion is a part of it. Showing up supports others. It might not be what you want but it’s something visible
“No they are not.”
are you sure? it sounds like you’re going to agree with me in your next sentence.
“The primary movers of political policy are money or violence.”
organized protests like labor strikes (those influence “money”) change policies.
Glad you agree, I figured you’d get the eventually.
2 people and a horse chanting in front of some government building doesn’t change shit. That’s what the 50501 protests are.
Boycotts and strikes would be effective, those are not happening on a large enough scale.
“2 people and a horse chanting in front of some government building doesn’t change shit.”
phew, good thing that isn’t what’s happening.
it sounds like you’re completely ignorant of the protests?
“That’s what the 50501 protests are.”
ah, you are completely ignorant with these protests.
4,000 people gathered in front of Denver’s capital alone.
you are embarrassingly uninformed.
“Boycotts and strikes would be effective, those are not happening on a large enough scale.”
again, you are embarrassingly uninformed.
Why are you even making things up that are so obviously wrong?
like, just type any of those words into a search engine and you can see how wrong you are.
I promise that learning is not as scary as you think it is.
You make it seem like that’s a low or average number of protesters in each state, but it seems there are 100 to 200 protestors in most states and not many people even calling for boycotts to Google, Apple, or other companies which showed their full support to Trump’s dumb ideas, gave him launch money, and sucked him off.
Tesla and X have been getting a little more hate than usual, but not enough hate for it to actually matter for a president.
“You make it seem like that’s a low or average number of protesters in each state”
incorrect, but I understand your trouble:
me saying there were 4,000 The protesters in Denver means that in the city of Denver, there were 4,000 protesters.
that is a number. your inference is your own.
as for your 100 to 200 claim, it’s simply inaccurate and not supported by the website you provided.
those are the absolute lowest numbers in a couple of states, but not at all the mean or average.
go read the page you googled.
according to your source, 5051 has already organized close to 30,000 people Nationwide for a single protest on a single day, after barely a month of a shitty administration.
and you’re ignoring all of the other protests simultaneously happening.
but thanks for proving me right!
I know that everything is scary and your country sucks right now, but people are trying to help you by organizing political action in the most effective historical democratic way, and you should be appreciative and supportive, or at least informed of what is going and how political change happens in your own country.
Population of Denver: 715,522 (2020 census).
4,000 is 0.56% of 715,522.
Nope, it’s threat of violence behind every liberally acceptable method that motivates governments.
That’s naive but completely supports my argument anyway, so thanks.
Except it doesn’t.
You can enact change with no protest and use of force.
You cannot enact change with protest and no force.
Remove protest and refocus elsewhere.
Martin Luther King Jr disagrees with you, and has proved you wrong.
Gandhi disagrees with you, and has proved you wrong.
women as a gender, disagree and has proved you wrong.
they’ve all proved you wrong in the past, and they’re all going to prove you wrong again.
you are nervous, and that’s your right, but you are also wrong.
Wait, you think MLK Jr talked America into making change and not the Black Panthers, Malcom X, or “Ghetto Riots”.
And you think it was Gandhi and not nearly a century of armed resistance?
These people represent the most palatable for the status quo. It’s propaganda to teach your citizens that waiting nicely and asking is the solution to not having basic human rights.
“Wait, you think MLK Jr talked America into making change and not the Black Panthers, Malcom X…”
no but go ahead and try to prove that theory.
should be funny.
“And you think it was Gandhi and not nearly a century of armed resistance?”
this is a way sillier take, but you should try and prove it also, one way or the other.
“It’s propaganda to teach your citizens that waiting nicely and asking is the solution to not having basic human rights.”
You’re mistaking propaganda for your own anxiety.
protesting in the streets against your government is a brave political action.
your contention that sticking your head in the sand is the only thing to do is cowardly brainwashing that you don’t realize you are a victim of.
My contention is the only thing to do is to openly engage in violence. Sticking in one’s head in the sand is what protestors are doing.
Real, mass protests can and do move national policy as you said. However, 50501 isn’t that. Look up the civil rights movement or the late 19th early 20th century labor movement for what you need to do to make politicians listen to you. You want millions of people (ideally 3.5%+ of the population) protesting for extended periods of time (the 1 part of 50501 is on its own a deal breaker) if you want any hope of getting anything done. Compare this to 50501 and tell me the latter isn’t simply not enough.
because I brought up one example out of many going on at the same time, the frightened among you insist that you have to have a particular percentage point or protests just won’t work.
but that simply isn’t true according to all of the protests that have worked in the past.
protests have worked, they are working, and they will continue to work.
Give me an example.
we’re literally already talking about an example.
be more specific if you need help.