Nonviolent protests work fine, great even, they just have to be disruptive. The Civil Rights movement was largely nonviolent and got results because they striked, took up commercial space so commerce couldn’t operate, and gummed up the works so productivity stalls. The suits won’t care about violence either if they have ways of escaping, they only care about direct impacts, be it directed violence or economic harm.
Comment on People dont believe protesting works if they will only do it on their day off.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Me personally, I believe protesting doesn’t work without mass violence against those in power against your protest.
You think 4 billion people sitting peacefully in a park with signs and chants affects trump at all? Fuck no.
You show up with 200,000 angry fuckers with guns on his doorstep, and NOW he’s thinking about doing some kind of change.
United Health Care was planning on ending it’s coverage for anestesia. Now you’d have to pay, and pay a LOT. The business plan was "Pay us shitloads of money that you can’t afford, or feel the knife cutting you open during surgury. Your call.
Then Brian Thompson gets shot. Literally the next day United Health Care announced they would not follow through on their previously announced ceasure of anestesia coverage. They would remain covering it. Why? Because the board of suits asked “Am I next?”
Now ask yourself. If Luigi just held a sign in a park, and Brian Thompson were still alive, would you be able to afford anastesia today?
noodles@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Mozingo@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yea, the way I see it, it’s most effective to focus on removing power, and in a capitalist society money is power. You could try enacting change through violence, but the remaining people in power will still have the money to better protect themselves from violence, which just escalates the violence. If protests focused more on economic disruption, they’d be directly affecting more of the people in power than killing any individual while simultaneously reducing what power they do have, pushing them to concede to demands.
monogram@feddit.nl 2 weeks ago
Every single attempt at that form of protest has been met with ridicule and harsh condemnation. Think just stop oil, XR. They literally tried to stop people from buying petrol or using it. Could you imagine what the economic impact would be if half a city stopped buying fuel.
Mr_Fish@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I think you can do a peaceful protest and still have it be effective, as long as it’s disruptive. Strikes are a good example. Rich people care about a protest as long as you can threaten their bottom line
Chozo@fedia.io 2 weeks ago
Then Brian Thompson gets shot. Literally the next day United Health Care announced they would not follow through on their previously announced ceasure of anestesia coverage. They would remain covering it. Why? Because the board of suits asked "Am I next?"
This is not an accurate description at all. It was delayed in only select states, but they still followed through with that change for a vast majority of states. The only policy change brought by Thompson's death was that UHC execs hired better security details.
ruekk@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Isn’t UHC being sued by its investors because they made policy changes that benefitted the insured instead of the investors after Brian Thompson’s death?
burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
The story I remember is that the people working for uhc weren’t denying cases that they should have been.
railway692@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
I generally agree, but how is that different from Jan 6?
That was 2,000 people showing up on Congress’ doorstep to do damage.
I’m ready to be a hypocrite when it’s for the working class, but I hope we have a better argument than “it’s good when my team does it.”
Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
I mean quite literally, yes. There’s a lot of things that are justifiable against an evil that aren’t against a good. Now people’s opinions on what is good differ, and that’s a dangerous thing that needs to be considered. But yeah, violence is acceptable against authoritarianism and not acceptable against democracy.
chosensilence@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
how is it different? it isn’t and that is fine. because you are treating leftists as some kind of side or team when in reality far left “extremism” is largely in response to authoritarian violence and fascism. it is a reaction to oppression, it isn’t an aimless violence or a way to enforce your ideology on to others.
it is different because we have the moral high ground here. have some respect for your beliefs and agree that you are right. we are on the right side of history and we have to act like it or we are going to fucking lose.
railway692@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t question/interrogate them.
History is full of people who’ve done horrible things because they were convinced of the Righteousness of their cause.
/points in MAGA’s general direction/
I show up to my local protests and do firearms training (just in case,) but that doesn’t mean I’m going stop thinking about where the line should be drawn.
calcopiritus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The difference between treason and a revolution is which side wins at the end.
Just make sure you’re enough people doing it.