It’s amazing that so many people on Lemmy think so much about politics yet have such a poor understanding of how it actually works. I blame the education system. And memes like this one.
It’s because a lot of them haven’t taken that first step of getting out and taking action IRL. When you do it becomes obvious very quickly that peaceful protests and legal maneuvering are important parts of a larger resistance movement, and that they aren’t mutually exclusive with more direct action like obstruction, sabotage, and civil disobedience.
It’s amazing how much the left has bought into the same “everyone is trained to be a hero” cult of action shite that literal fascists peddle.
Just because brainrotted liberals peddle “NO VIOLENCE EVER FOR ANY REASON” doesn’t mean that the mirror fucking image is God’s honest truth, but trying to get online Very Serious Leftists to see this is an exercise in futility.
It’s so goddamn tiring.
I think it comes from a lack of organization. People are rightly angry so they want to act but they have no idea what is helpful so they just turn to whatever feels right. Usually something seeded in their mind from TV or movies.
I swear many people on lemmy seem to think only one way or another. no middle ground anymore.
There is a place for violent and non-vioent protest, and they can coexist. In fact they SHOULD coexist. Those engaged in violent protest however, should not be protesting openly in my opinion, and they should not be protesting in public, the forms of violent protest i think of is more assassination. Getting rid of maga cultists and maga cultist politicians that enable them. However i do not think assassination in terms of guns or bombs. i think poisons, viruses, fucking with maga cultist’s houses to make them less safe in a more invisible way (creating a gas leak or electrical issue). The reason i think this is that it is harder for these moron cultists to combat, most of them do not understand more subtle violence, yes i know this is fucked up. And i REALLY hope it’s not neccessary, but i feel we (america) and really most countries have a difficult time figuring out when actual guerilla warfare becomes neccessary.
Personally i would think of anyone who does such things to be about the same as luigi mangione who was obviously wrongfully imprisoned and thankfully there are others out there doing the real work. Also such things probably won’t be put in the media anymore, they will hide it because luigi mangione galvanized a lot of people, they don’t want martyrs, martyrs galvanize us all into resistance.
I am not saying you should do this. I am saying that there is room for both and for some reason both sides of this same fight are against eachother. Another way to do it would be to have backup protestors nearby in gear IN CASE things DO get violent. I think both of these are viable for “violent protest” the violent protesters in the latter case are backup for the peaceful protestors since if you dont have a weapon or any intention of committing violence on your oppressors then you will need someone else who is very willing to do so, and in my opinion, someone who enjoys it.
As “givessomefucks” said “We don’t have to like it, but it’s undeniable that cops treat protestors in plated vests with rifles different than they treat protestors in tshirts with signs…”
but this is why violent protest should be done subtly and NOT in large numbers, your goal as a “violent protestor” is more to support the peaceful protestors WITHOUT compromising their own goals of peaceful protest. So these two methods seem the most viable to me. They are right, you cant go into the protest with weapons and gear, that’s why you need to be a LOT more subtle than this.
If things spill over and peaceful protests stop working then yes, violent protest might become the only real option in public. until then do NOT compromise peaceful protestors.
Little known fact that the Nazis were at last turned back at Stalingrad by the wittiest picket sign made in the Soviet Union. The sign, which used a mock spelling of Hitler’s name, simply read “A doof, Hitler”. Many historians believe that the German military never fully recovered from this humiliation.
Was that in world revolution II? Or was that a different name? Can’t quite remember…
World day of protest II
Head cocked to the left.
Partial verbal wit in battle.
First point of attack.
Two. Eyes. Paralyse vocal cords with astute observation. Stop the speech centers.
Three. Got to be partially deaf. Shrewd retort to the ears.
Four. Finally, draw a facetious sign. Make it sharp.
Summary prognosis: Consciousness lost in 90 seconds
Martial efficacy: quarter of an hour at best.
Full faculty of recovery from psychological damage, unlikely.
Discombobulate
I love these posts. Americans couldn’t even be bothered to get off their asses and vote, but you expect them to coordinate a violent revolution against a goverent backed by the most powerful military the world has ever seen and a surveillance state with access to just about every movement and thought just about everyone has had for the last 10 years or so.
Good luck, hopefully you don’t get hit by a hellfire missile with swords strapped to it while you’re sitting on your porch that was fired from a reaper drone 50 miles away.
Americans couldn’t even be bothered to get off their asses and vote
People don’t not vote just because they’re lazy. Thats not how people or politics work. If the masses are not engaging with your political system it is because they do not feel engagement with it can be beneficial to them. It means are so disenfranchised that they do not see any reason to engage. It means overt fascism doesn’t scare them because their lives are already too miserable or busy to think about politics and the opposition doesn’t appeal to them because the only thing they offer is the status quo with the most minor of changes. People not voting should be the most obvious evidence that your political system is not working for the people.
Edit: also, no one chooses revolution. Revolutions are imposed on the people by those who make peaceful change impossible. Its gonna be fascism though to be clear. Our domestic petit bourgeois is far too strong and far too scared of losing their privileged positions.
There’s also the people that have to chose between feeding their kids and missing work to go vote, etc, or who are disenfranchised of their voting rights simply by how onerous it is to vote.
lol k
People don’t not vote just because they’re lazy.
lol
Can people learn about dictators that aren’t Adolf Hitler? Please?
Where does the meme reference hitler?
You mean like the father of fascism, Mussolini?
Or Franco or Pinochet or Marcos or Saddam. Hell, put Tito on that list. Or any number of countries that had been subjugated by colonial empires, like India or the Philippines.
There are so many ways that oppressive governments work and ways that protest movements can work effectively against them. Germany 1933 has parallels to today, but it’s by no means an exact match, or even a very good match.
And if you see someone being taken away by fascists, make sure you and everyone else watching dont do anything except film it to post on social media. Maybe if you’re feeling adventurous you can tell the brown shirts what theyre doing is bad, just make sure you dont do anything to actually stop them.
worked out for this guy:
although to be fair he did get shot to death right before.
We will see in four years (or less depending if anything horrifically dramatic happens). But when violence has to happen, get ready to exercise your second amendment rights.
How is people being disappeared to concentration camp not already horrifically dramatic?
How is elected officials being arrested for asking for a warrant, or asking questions not already horrifically dramatic?
How is sending our own military and arresting civilians in L.A. not already horrifically dramatic?
Where the fuck is your line?
Unfortunately, there is plausible deniability that allow the US government to do what they’re doing. In spite of some rulings which tell Trump administration that they are wrong, there are still some actions where they have legal backing, moral or not.
Legal =/= moral.
That’s just how the world works I’m afraid.
I’m sorry, I guess my initial reply was too many words to be understood fully. So I’ll be more succinct.
**Something horrifically dramatic has already happened, it’s already time for us to use our 2A rights for communal self defense. **
Otherwise I agree with what you just said, but I felt like you missed my point, so I wanted to say it in no uncertain terms.
I understand what you mean. What I am saying is that people are overlooking because any perceived red lines haven’t been crossed yet.
The fuck do you mean no perceived red lines have been crossed?
Ask the Americans what they perceive to be red lines.
Actual lines that they have codified into law have been crossed. Your statement is pointless.
Good luck using your hunting rifle against cluster bombs.
I have heard the statement before, and the US napalmed and bombed the crap out of North Vietnamese and Taliban, and yet in both instances the US military lost the wars. I think Americans forgot the art of guerilla warfare since the American revolution and think now in conventional terms.
I suppose the hope is that the military will fracture because a lot of soldiers won’t be happy to shoot at the civilians they’re supposedly sworn to protect. But that’s entirely dependent on how brainwashed they are, and how much information they’re able to get.
Why wait? Fascism is here, now! Punch a Nazi today!!
Ah yes war mobilized state of Germany with the support of majority of Germans behind it famously known to be stopped by violent protests.
Exactly, it was the peaceful protests that did it. 🙄
Bro thinks it’s a gun fight against the US military 💀
It is though. The rich don’t want their livestock exterminated but brought to heel. Occupation happens with boots on the ground, infantry. That means small arms, drones, and ground vehicles. Not nukes, missiles, or bombs.
Also the populace out numbers the military by HUGE margin. No force is strong enough in manpower to overcome a civilian population in a state of resistance. The US military also sucks at asynchronous warfare. Or have we already forgotten our last 20year war in the Middle East?
Why yes keep suggesting domestic terrorism as an acceptable alternative to voting
Fighting back is often the only choice you’re left with when Nazis gain power, but I do wish people would keep in mind there’s a difference between strategizing and being smart about how and when you fight back vs encouraging individuals to run full speed at the entire U.S. military with a bullseye on their forehead.
Also, if you’re bringing fascists and rule of law into this, hopefully you’re not wilfully ignoring how they gain power in the first place, or the fact that the Nazis literally used a legal expert that provided them with the legal shield they needed to carry out a genocide without ever breaking the law.
Or that one of Trump’s biggest defenders against the “crooked courts” that keep getting in his way, and leaving him with no choice but to act like a dictator, is a Harvard Constitutional Law professor who also just happens to be a Carl Schmitt fanboy.
Adrian Vermeule-OUR SCHMITTIAN ADMINISTRATIVE LAW
Common-Good Constitutionalism Is an Idea as Dangerous as They Come
We don’t have to like it, but it’s undeniable that cops treat protestors in plated vests with rifles different than they treat protestors in tshirts with signs…
Well, it mostly depends on what the protestors are protesting.
Armed minorities are harder to oppress.
The reason Cali has strict gun laws is ole Ronny Reagan got scared when he saw Black men with rifles marching in formation.
protestors in plated vests with rifles
that can be done peacefully, doesn’t really support OP’s point
Well, technically, the Germans could have voted in a majority party on the left in the early 1930s and when that did fail they still could have just not voted for literal nazis.
So, Yeah. That was an option.
The vote was taken under gunpoint, quite famously, actually. Even then, the leaders of two of the leftmost political parties made a point of voting against it, making the rather valid point that the nazis were going to kill them anyway.
Okay but before the nazis won the left failed to form a government on three separate elections. Because the left was splintered between the Communists, Social Dems, and Centrists while the Nazi Party swept the entire right.
Proof?
This reminds me of a discussion I was having with Hexbear members on Lemmy recently.
I was suggesting that perhaps it makes sense for the UK to have nukes, for self-defence against other nuclear countries like Russia, China, and potentially even the US, given their unpredictable behaviour. People from Hexbear got angry at this suggestion. One of them suggested that it’s immoral to have nukes because nukes are “threatening civilians”.
Maybe the OP image of this thread is right though: megalomaniacs are not deterred by words, but they are deterred by weapons (such as nukes). Ukraine was invaded because they didn’t have enough deterrents. Iran is currently being bombed because I suppose they also didn’t have enough deterrents.
All weapons of war threaten civilians.
Potentially. I think it depends on how they’re used. If a country decides to completely disarm itself though, then it’s entirely possible that other countries will seek to invade and subjugate.
Bet they also think Russia should have nukes to stave off western imperialism
Ukraine actually gave their nukes on the promise of future safety. We all saw how that worked out.
Exactly. If Ukraine had their own nukes by the time of 2014, or if they had been part of NATO, then maybe Russia wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine.
“More nukes” is never a good solution to any problem
You’d think so, but it worked out surprisingly well during the cold war.
The war that was caused by nuclear arsenals and ended with treaties to get rid of them? The fuck
The only reason it stayed cold the whole time is that both sides had nukes. Even the most adamant of chicken hawks hesitated to pull the trigger with the consequence of the world becoming uninhabitable hanging over our heads.
I’m not saying that MAD is not a thing, I’m just saying it’s a stupid thing. And that the cold war ended when both parties eventually realized that
I think ideally there would be no nukes in the world, because they are dangerous. But nukes do exist. If western countries got rid of their nukes, then the remaining nuclear countries would be able to do what they like. “Surrender to our demands or we will nuke your cities.”
what if your nuclear weapon collection is looking too small? How, other than getting more nukes, does on remedy this problem?
Perhaps not a good one, but still a solution, when a bear gets overly familiar.
Bear
Beets
Battlestar Galactica
Why, yes. Setting the precedent that taking power by force is acceptable has never led to anything bad.
The only problem happens if you let go of it, so clearly you need to keep it for life!
NGL with this thread comments as precedent, whatever Trump is doing makes TOTAL FUCKING SENSE
