Submitted 5 months ago by Daft_ish@lemmy.dbzer0.com to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
yeah but movements take time to build. BLM had almost a decade of build up before 2020.
Obviously we need to speed run this but also things start “somewhere”. The police assaults and response to the BLM protest of 2019 and 2020 did more to radicalize normies than anything has previously. Like, more people understand the contradictions of this country than ever before
People also believe the earth is flat. What’s your point?
I think the term “protest” is what throws people off. Protest can encompass a lot of different actions, including showing up to a park on the weekend. But when a lot of people hear “protest”, they imagine more direct action. They imagine people directly interfering with the fascist’s agenda.
These seem more like rallies to me. The point seems to be less about interfering with the fascist administration and more about stretching organizing muscles, building networks and strengthening the resolve of millions of people around the country. Reminding them that so many of their friends and neighbors care enough to show up too. These aren’t direct action in the same way but I think they still serve an important purpose.
We are building a web of trust and solidarity for the days ahead. Things will get worse, we are not even a year into this administration and I don’t think the gloves have really come off yet. These protest or rallies or whatever you want to call them will help us be ready. When the time comes there will be organizers and volunteers and millions of people ready to step together and fight for what we believe in. But first, this.
And while that slowly forms, the government is disappearing thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands. That’s not acceptable.
We need to stop them now, even if we have to get violent for them to listen to us
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.”
The difference between treason and a revolution is which side wins at the end.
Just make sure you’re enough people doing it.
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.
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.
Counterpoint: People need to eat and pay rent, and those things don’t go away just because you’re protesting the latest bullshit the government is up to.
People pay the beast that keeps them in chains.
Last I checked, under authority rule good and housing becomes pretty scarce.
I would tell you what courage means if I thought it might help you.
Someone offers a counterpoint and your first impulse is to insult?
garbagebagel@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Protesting is one part of a variety of anti-establishment responses. I’m tired of hearing people say it doesn’t work - obviously, on its own it doesn’t, but combine it with the many other aspects and there can be change. Of course, not everyone is fit to do every single one of the things required, but stop shitting on people who are trying to do even one of the things.
Protests are what get people fired up. Protests are part of what connect people and provide networking opportunities to organize other actions. Protests make people realize that they arenot alone, and that they CAN do something. Will they? Some of them will, and that’s the fucking point. Protests are a warning. Telling people “protests don’t work” only harms the fucking movement, so fucking stop it.
Daft_ish@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
Why does it have to be Im shitting on them? Why can you just take a truth for what it is?
Randomgal@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
No trust me bro one more protest and we defeat facism, just one more bro. The 3.5% bro trust they are losing for real bro.
Bristlecone@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Nah man, you are just engaging in free boot licking propaganda for absolutely no reason. World is what you frame it to be, and you sound like you’re on the side of sociopaths here, trying to frame your way out of your own shitty ass behavior and/or fatalism
garbagebagel@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I’ve met people at protests who have organized boycotts, advocacy campaigns, fundraisers, and many many more things that enact measurable change. These people often meet through these types of events and I can guarantee you, if it wasn’t for rallies, I wouldn’t have even known where to start or how to find people that are doing the work.
Your “truth” is only true if you (or whoever the fuck you’re talking about) isn’t benefiting from the protest/rally/event. So maybe you should go to a protest and find a network and do some work if you feel like you’re not getting what you need from protests.
And just to be clear, I’m not judging people who only go to protests and then go home. That’s fine too. The whole point of activism is to do the best you can, and if it just means showing up on a weekend for 2 hours, that’s fine. Other people will see you, they will feel your support, and they will feel motivated to keep working toward whatever they were advocating for in the first place. That is the real point of protests.