You had me right up to the last word.
Comment on Would the United States actually risk a Tiananmen Square incident?
Objection@lemmy.ml 6 days ago
In 1970, the National Guard open fire on a crowd of peaceful, unarmed students, killing four and wounding nine more. A Gallup poll conducted a week after the shooting found that 58% of Americans blamed the students for the massacre, with only 11% blaming the guardsmen. Many students who were present at the massacre were shunned by their own families, some were even disowned, and some were told that even more students should have been killed to teach them a lesson.
The students, for their part, couldn’t even comprehend what was happening at first. Many of them thought the soldiers weapons were loaded with blanks, that they were just trying to intimidate them. After the massacre, many of the students wanted to reassemble and continue peacefully demonstrating, in defiance of the guard. One of the professors convinced them to disperse, by shouting at them that all of them would be killed.
How was this possible? Because of how the media spun it. Even before the massacre, they were saying that the protests were full of “outside agitators” and claiming that they had been doing things like lacing the water supply with LSD. Of course, it eventually “came out” that these claims were complete bullshit based on nothing. So, once the moment had passed, they quietly printed retractions.
All that shit still happens today. It happens every single time a cop murders someone, whether it’s Renee Good or George Floyd. The right wingers immediately start digging for any possible way to spin it and if they can’t then they simply lie, and if the lie falls apart it doesn’t matter, by that point people will have forgotten and moved on.
Yes they will kill you. They’ll put people down like dogs and worry about how to justify it later. People want to believe the world is just, and that often means blaming the victim.
Buy a gun.
the_mighty_kracken@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Objection@lemmy.ml 5 days ago
That nonviolent shit will get you killed.
the_mighty_kracken@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Tell that to Alex Pretti
Objection@lemmy.ml 5 days ago
The guy who got killed doing nonviolent shit?
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 4 days ago
LOL
Fedizen@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Lol buying a gun won’t fix anything. You need to train with it and connect with other people who know how to use guns or well, Luigi Mangione can tell you the other option.
Objection@lemmy.ml 4 days ago
How do you train with a gun if you don’t have one?
Fedizen@lemmy.world 4 days ago
You can get a gun without buying it.
Objection@lemmy.ml 4 days ago
Personally, I would rather not walk around with an object that would land me in prison if it were discovered.
BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 days ago
My question is, why do authoritarians try so hard to disarm a populace then? It seems every person thinks we’ll have a large formation of troops fighting it out and not turn this into any number of guerilla resistance movements against the USA and other countries throughout time.
Fedizen@lemmy.world 4 days ago
There’s 1.5 guns per person in the USA, but we also have the largest prison population per capita in the world.
I can’t name an authoritarian that started by disarming people. My guess would be there comes a point where disarming the populace happens in authoritarian process as part of “disarming the enemy”. When the enemy is the public, you disarm all of them.
So succesful authoritarians eventually just reach the point where the public is the enemy. They either get there by killing people or imprisoning them or starving them.
In the US they’re making housing unaffordable. You sell your gun to pay rent, problem solved for the wealthy. There’s much higher death rates for homeless people. There have been a number of stats that say the US has similar death rates to societies in civil wars.
If guns were used as a solution I think we’d see more sherriffs and deputies being shot during evictions.
Einskjaldi@lemmy.world 5 days ago
That was partially just a result of the NG having rifles but not the less than lethal tear gas and stuff now.
W98BSoD@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 days ago
SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world 5 days ago
Everyone calls it the Kent State shootings but all the shootings actually happened on the campus and none in the actual university.
K1nsey6@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Campus is the grounds and buildings of a university or college. If it’s on the campus it’s in the university.
Cowbee@lemmy.ml 4 days ago
It’s a sarcastic reference to communists correctly pointing out that the deaths on June 4th, 1989 were in and around Beijing, not on Tian’anmen square itself.
K1nsey6@lemmy.world 4 days ago
They weren’t being sarcastic, meaningless semantics is their MO
unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth 5 days ago
No, what the hell, don't buy a gun for that reason. That will only escalate the violence. And there's only so far that you can escalate as a civilian until they roll out the tanks, and your guns can't do shit against tanks.
You need power in numbers. That's how you can build a proper resistance.
agent_nycto@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Seems to be they are escalating the violence with or without us.
unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth 5 days ago
Except they can't escalate nearly as quickly if they don't have an excuse. They've been wanting to escalate way further than they have, but everytime they tried to paint protestors/... as violent mobs, reality betrayed them. So far that they're somewhat pulling back. That didn't happen because someone shot at ICE, quite the opposite.
agent_nycto@lemmy.world 5 days ago
They’re pulling back? Let’s see what happens in Springfield because last I checked, they were escalating even before Good died. I’m not convinced at all they are slowing down because people aren’t violent, not at all. I think they aren’t escalating as fast as they want because they’re worried people will turn violent and no jury would convict someone taking down an ice officer.
Objection@lemmy.ml 5 days ago
You need numbers and you need those numbers to have guns. They are not stopping, they do not care about right or wrong, and there is no telling how far they’re going to go. Without the threat of armed resistance, what is stopping them from open massacres?
Guns will not keep you safe, granted. But not having a gun obviously won’t keep you safe either. Think about what you’re saying, you’re relying on the fascists to act in good faith, out of the kindness of their hearts. That’s nonsense.
Nonviolence is a tactic, it can be an effective tactic, but it is only a tactic. If conditions reach a point where that tactic is not applicable or effective, then it will be time to change tactics. What’s the plan if they start firing up the gas chambers?
ThirdConsul@lemmy.zip 5 days ago
CIA would like to present you Simple Sabotage Field Manual solving all your needs in that department.
en.wikipedia.org/…/Simple_Sabotage_Field_Manual
Pat_Riot@lemmy.today 5 days ago
You’re a goddamn coward and you deserve to however they treat you. But let’s be honest, you won’t leave the “safety” of your home till they drag you out of it. You’re just going to sit on your ass and criticize those of us who do fight. Broke wristed pacifist, fuck you.
K1nsey6@lemmy.world 5 days ago
That peaceful bullshit only benefits the oligarchy. There’s not a single right you have that wasn’t won via violence.
BanMe@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Same sex marriage. Transgender rights. We are in a different age, wars are fought by information now. We are fighting the current war for America by information now. Not by bullets. I am all about Luigis rising up but that’s a lot different than “everyone grab semi and hope for the best.” This isn’t 1776.
K1nsey6@lemmy.world 5 days ago
You think gay rights came without violence? One of the first well documented events leading to where we are right now was called the Stonewall Riots
plyth@feddit.org 5 days ago
Could make you wonder how much power the elite had to shed for those.
EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
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You mean the rights that largely don’t exist in half of the US?
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Trans people were already reporting their identifying documents like passports, birth certificates, driver’s licenses, and social security cards were being confiscated in the period after the election and before Trump got into office.
We haven’t “won” trans rights, we’ve only had them because the fascists hadn’t yet gotten around to destroying them. Violence in one form or another is a requirement for successful change, whether that violence be economic or otherwise. The oppressor isn’t going to give you justice simply because you demand it. It wasn’t until after MLK was murdered and billions of dollars in property damage were done that Civil Rights were drafted, voted on, and signed into law - one week of rioting after his death.
Einskjaldi@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Ukraine has shown that Armour is heavily vulnerable. And tanks are too heavy for the road anyway, it would be wheeled vehicles only.
plyth@feddit.org 5 days ago
At some point that doesn’t matter.
BanMe@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Government has tens of thousands of troops and RPGs and tanks and riot gear and bulletproof shields and chemical warfare and fucking nuclear weapons but Lemmy among others are convinced arming up will save us somehow. It’s proof that the gun lobby has done their job.