What’s the winning strategy? If violence is escalated until everybody is incarcerated not much will change.
how exactly are they going to incarcerate every single leftist?
The MAGAts have to be killed. It’s that simple. That means the politicians and the media talking heads and your dumbass drunk uncle who ruins Thanksgiving and your parents who never get off the couch. There’s shitloads of people standing around waving signs all day in huge mass gatherings but none flooding the halls and studios of their local Fox affiliate or Sinclair station or Salem Media Group broadcaster. They’re cheerleading chants and platitudes that will all be forgotten in a week because no e of them are armed up.
Alright you can start killing them instead of being a keyboard warrior
Oh wow the “you first!” defense; totally never heard that one before
People in this country have forgotten how to protest effectively. They have allowed themselves to be defanged and relegated to the sidelines where their actions will be inconsequential to the establishment they are protesting against.
Too concerned with “optics”, legalities, and trying to naively appease the opposition by asking nicely with a sternly worded letter.
Effective is the right word, doesn’t have to be violent like the other new account is trying to stir up.
Now that a crowd of people are tuned in more-or-less to the issues: If I were to lead these things (I don’t), I think the next stage would be to organize non-violent, less-destructive civil disobedience. It is already happening, for example like mass reporting the presence of ICE (which is legal btw).
Violence can be considered depending on the circumstance, but many who are voicing the need violent resistance aren’t really showing a coherent plan for what happens after. Sure, where guns show up first, the local police may stand down. But then the big guns are going to come out, and civilian blood in the streets will not get more than a passing look in the goal of clamping down on political enemies.
Democratic forces have the upper hand in the narrative. Why tarnish it? Encourage people instead to use it! Violence vs. Feeble Non-violence being the only two options, is accepting the framing of your oppressors!
people have forgotten that non-violent protests aren’t fucking effective.
So much energy expended on discussions of violence. Do not worry about if you should or should not do violence. Violence is merely a question of who has the power to allow or forbid it. And if you protest long enough to make political progress, violence will find you, doesn’t matter one bit how you personally feel about it.
we shouldn’t be waiting for violence to find us. it needs to find them.
question
I’ve been thinking today.
it’s illegal to block the road, you can get in trouble for a sit in, or by parking on the road.
but how about just driving on a road and respecting the speed limit?
how many drivers do you need to all agree to drive on a specific road, in circles to congest it and create a nightmarish traffic jam.
it’s better to be strategic and do so during rush hours. 50 protesters could easily halt the traffic of some main arteries. and really hurt the economy.
Stop giving a shit about what is illegal. It was made illegal because it was effective. The establishment doesn’t want you to be effective.
if I’m detained I’m not getting arrainged and released, im getting deported and never seeing my daughters again
or maybe end up in an Salvadorian prison
You forget the fact they are doing this to countless people regardless. They don’t get to make that choice to just sit this out.
It’s called having solidarity with those being targeted, accepting the same risks they are being subjected to by simply existing, in order to help defend them against oppression. Part of that oppression is how the State has designed its laws to inhibit the ability of people to fight back against it.
If you allow the opposition to dictate how you are allowed to resist, then you already lost because they will never just allow people to effectively resist their authority. Change requires mass civil disobedience.
Or, continue to follow the rules of the oppressors, fail to effectively resist, and when they are done coming for their current target, they will eventually get around to coming for you, except by then you won’t have anyone around to help defend against it.
I’m sorry, but I’m calling you bs
it’s not called having solidarity, I’m one of those at risk.
that’s like saying vulnerable people at risk of COVID need to have solidarity to other people and go out without masks.
I’m going to protests, I’m doing what i can, I volunteer in mutual aids, and I fear every moment that ICE will detain me and I’ll never see my daughters again.
I’m not your pawn, and I’m already doing whatever I can while keeping myself safe. It’s American voters who put me in this situation. and now they want me to put myself at risk even more?
Then you should already understand that keeping your actions “legal” doesn’t guarantee protection, and that forgoing effective means of resistance only helps the oppressors to have an easier time oppressing your fellow people.
The voters are not responsible for your oppression. The regime that is engaging in oppressive practices is.
Only doing things that are legal won’t protect you, us the point. If that were the case, this wouldn’t be such a big deal.
Not ‘you must do crimes’.
Isn’t that what truckers tried to do a few years ago?
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/04/us/trucker-convoy-protest-washington-dc/index.html
Um, a lot gets done without violence, including regime change. In fact, nothing swells the numbers of a movement like state brutality on peaceful protests, and that is amplified with the ubiquity of the cell-phone camera and the internet.
This is not to say a movement by violence is bad, just that it can detract sympathizers.
But don’t worry, when the regime has to choose between giving up (say in the face of a general strike) and sending out the goons, they’ll always choose the latter. No one tosses the One Ring into the fires of Mt. Doom. It’s the same paradigm that leaves us with senile geriatrics unwilling to relinquish the power of office until it is pried from their cold, dead hands.
Usually, by then, the military has realized the regime is illegal and as luney as Aerys II Targaryen (The Mad King, who Jamie slew, SoIaF) and is willing to do the wet-work. By artillery if necessary.
Then again, destruction of property like burning the Waymo cabs, is a common necessity. That wasn’t the act of rioters, but saboteurs. Waymos are snitches and have been reporting to ICE the location of targeted civilians.
in the grand scheme of world history, a hell of a lot more has gotten done with violence than without.
Non Violence only protects the state and state approved protest means nothing. The most violent people are police at protests. Dr. King’s character is always stripped down to the peaceful Black leader, and look how that went for him. He was still assassinated.
To be fair, so was Malcolm X
…after he turned away from violence
Perhaps, but I’d guess the risk of assassination rises with influence as opposed to their own views on violence
Ah yes, Marxist revolutionary larpers preaching for violence on Lemmy. Come back when you don’t freak out over funko pop collections.
Democrats drove away all the fighters by attacking anyone who was the slightest bit controversial or politically incorrect for the last 40 years. Basically the party was taken over by fools and cowards. This is our opposition party, and this is why we’re screwed. Ban Fox News.
I’ve seen lemmings both advocate for gun restrictions, then turn around and say we should use violence… I’m like: pick a side, you can’t hold both opinions
Nah, when someone says they’re against gun rights I prefer to at least give them the benefit of the doubt regarding ideological consistency and assume they’re against all protests that involve violence and are happy when protestors can’t defend themselves or deter against individual acts of state violence. I don’t like to just assume that a stranger is a hypocrite or critically underdeveloped merely because I disagree with them. Believe a person when they tell you who they are.
Someone finally gets it. But get this. All that gun control is literally helping the other side Dems are helping the auth regime and voters are too dumb to have that epiphany.
All WHAT “gun control”? My sibling in Christ, do you perceive there to be insufficient access to guns in america?! Really?
I agree that we have reached a point where things will only continue to get much, much worse without widespread and overwhelming violence against the authoritarians. Both those in power and those following them.
The problem is that authoritarians are primarily motivated by the irrational fear of violence. This fear justifies their violence, but nobody else’s. And they currently control the government, military, etc and therefore overwhelmingly more violent force than any resistance is likely to muster. On the other hand, authoritarian followers are predisposed to accept what they are told my the leaders of their in-groups, so when peaceful protests are called “violent riots” they will believe it unquestioningly and nothing whatsoever can or will change their minds. Hence, peaceful protest is no defense against the accusation of violence. This is why abortion is such an easy topic for social dominators to leverage when inciting their authoritarian followers: it’s “evidence” that their opponents are inherently violent, against babies. And again, reason and rationality have no part in this. The followers want to believe their out-group is violent and evil, they fear violence, so they will believe it because it reinforces their existing beliefs (a fear of violence, etc).
BTW, Democratic politicians in Missouri were assassinated this morning, and it’s not currently being widely covered by the news. So that take that how you like.
BTW, Democratic politicians in Missouri were assassinated this morning
By “someone dressed up like a cop” as the media put it. Which I guess is newspeak for just “a cop”.
the police conduct “an extensive manhunt involving hundreds and hundreds of assessors and SWAT teams,”
Wow.
That’s not a problem, that’s why it will work. They are scared to death, and we have not made an example of any of them. Yet.
I am a proud liberal, I am supportive and willing of violence against ICE if the prospects of winning are good.
However, there are those among us who want violence against state and federal congress and town halls. Who want to dismantle every police station. Thats not gonna happen.
Sounds lit tho
No to violence. I would prefer the union break apart peacefully, like the Czechs and Slovaks. The Blue States should be annexed by Canada and the Red Run Turd Holes can figure out their shit on their own.
And I wish for peace in the middle east. I’m sure it will happen if I just wish for it hard enough.
This has been such an upsetting week. I genuinely thought Trump was about to give us peace in the middle east through the power of openly taking bribes and getting his feelings hurt.
I was nearing the point of unironically supporting soup brained Trump, he’s united so much of the world against us, he genuinely seems to hate war, and it seemed like he was losing power. Hell, somehow he landed on degrowth as an economic policy
He even caved on bringing back Garcia, so it seemed like a matter of time before the courts put him back in his place.
I thought I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, but now? Such an upsetting week.
A violent revolution doesn’t lead to a peaceful society, all it does is put the most violent group in charge
If you see an oppressed people protesting against their opression, and your first instinct is to lecture them on the optics of their protest, you’re not really an ally. You’re just using “optics” as an excuse to not do anything to help out but still think of yourself as a good person. I don’t think anyone falls for it.
No one gets sympathy from protestors who fire the first killing shot on the authorities. Syrian peaceful demonstrators turned rebels have sympathy from the world because they were fired at first by Assad. Many people soured on the French Revolution at the time when The Terror occurred after the people started executing just about anyone deemed enemies of the revolution.
No one is against violence if it has to come to it, but on Lemmy it is the usual suspects (I probably don’t need to mention what political ideology they tend to be) who want to pull the trigger first on the army and police without ever thinking of consequences (they wilfully ignore the existence of Insurrection act). They are like the 2nd amendment right wingers, looking for any opportunities to fire their guns and live their fantasies, but on the opposite extreme end of the political aisle.
Or, it could be anti-Western actors stoking violence on Americans to maximise political divisions because it will tremendously help if US is thrown further into chaos.
May don’t use violence now, but when they start pulling a Tiananmen, you kinda have to.
I think Gene Sharp characterized it nicely in his essay, From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation. Notably, this essay has been cited as a major influence on the Arab Spring uprisings, so it’s especially relevant to the Syrian protests.
Whatever the merits of the violent option, however, one point is clear. By placing confidence in violent means, one has chosen the very type of struggle with which the oppressors nearly always have superiority. The dictators are equipped to apply violence overwhelmingly. However long or briefly these democrats can continue, eventually the harsh military realities usually become inescapable. The dictators almost always have superiority in military hardware, ammunition, transportation, and the size of military forces. Despite bravery, the democrats are (almost always) no match.
One additional point, he was adamant about the distinction between nonviolence and pacifism. For him, violence has to be on the table, but as a last resort. As the quote indicates, violence is where you’re at the biggest disadvantage, so why would you start there?
If violence is off the table, the state is free to apply violence.
Syrian rebels, the guys who ended up joining ISIS and Al Nusra, had your sympathy because the media told you they were angels fighting for freedom the right and proper way.
You do realise there are other Syrian rebel factions?
Except the kurds, they were insignificant.
It isn’t just the Kurds.
Here in America the police have already been shooting and killing us - without repercussions - for years. The weapons they’re using on protesters right now are called “less lethal” for good reason.
How many killing shots do the police need to take before we can take one? Should we just wait until the first murder at each city, or at each individual protest within each city, or until we see one personally?
The only time I can think of where the army and police killed protestors was during the Vietnam war, and those incidents further delegitimised US involvement in Vietnam.
The weapons they’re using on protesters right now are called “less lethal” for good reason.
They are being used for decades now. It is not unique to the current LA protests.
The only time you’ve heard of. Over a thousand people are murdered by US police annually using the 2020 protests as an example there were multiple instances of protesters being killed by police/national guard. Some of the more egregious ones: 1 2
Don’t forget the MOVE bombings where police literally bombed a residential area in Philadelphia.
In that case, there is only so much the public could tolerate. The military and policing action in LA to rightful protest against grievances to the government is the culminating point.
It’s not an either/or situation.
In the (supposed) words of Al Capone
You get a lot more from a kind word and a gun than from a kind word alone.
Critically however, a gun without the kind word is also far less effective. They are like the tip and shaft of a spear. The shaft has the range, but lacks the punch. The tip has the punch, but lacks the range. Together they are far more than the sum of their parts.
In terms of protest. A peaceful protest is like the kind word. It’s a polite but forceful delivery of a message. Radical action and violence are the gun. They work best as an implied threat. The target much know that you are willing to escalate, if required.
Too much violence, and you have a riot. These can be put down with force, and have little to no public backlash. (This is what trump currently wants to happen).
Too little violence, and the protest can be safely ignored.
The perfect balance has enough to keep the government on their toes, but not so much as to drive away supporters, and burn off the anger powering things.
Currently, Trump and co are trying to goad people into over reacting and justifying an aggressive crackdown. In light of that, a message of don’t take the bait, err towards passive over violence isn’t so bad.
