TIL No Kings Protests were the 3rd Largest in US History
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I keep seeing this, and I don't disagree, but what exactly is gonna change? Some rich people get slightly less rich, they'll still own most of our government. Our current admin clearly doesn't care about public opinion.
They care about money.
Day long general strikes have changed policy. A week would bring the government to the table on anything short of dissolving the government.
The US government is terrified of general strikes, and has gone to extraordinary measures to ensure they don't happen.
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And didn’t accomplish shit, by design. These types of protests are intended to channel frustration of the masses into feeling like they’ve done something, when really they’ve accomplished nothing.
That was more than enough people to overthrow the parasitic ruling class. Just do it already.
You first.
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looting will not be supported by the majority
Oligarchy is not supported by the majority. Yet it exists nonetheless
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Can you provide examples? From what I gather, 1 cops are still killing people, 2 we're still speeding towards climate catastrophe, 3 Trump is still in power, 4 Poverty and wealth disparity is getting worse, 5 Women in many walks of life are still second class citizens.
Unless the lasting impact you mean is one step forwards three steps backwards.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]They asked a question, were asked to guess, and now are being demanded proof for the answer they are still seeking.
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So your mad that protesters in other cities aren't being attacked by local police and federal agents, got it.
Pass the word everyone, if you're not getting hit with tear gas and rubber bullets your protest doesn't matter. Might as well not even try.
Law enforcement will only target protests that are a threat to the oligarchy.
If a planned public protest is not targeted by law enforcement then it has been determined to be a toothless protest
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Murdering ceos didnt do jack shit, real change only happens like this
wrote on last edited by [email protected]These protests, while better than nothing, will not produce real change.
Just as the George Floyd protests did not produce real change (Pelosi kneeling and raising a fist is not "real change")
UnitedHealth reduced claim denials following the murder. So at least that is some tangible positive result
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great job everyone!
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Good... now repeat it but as a General Strike
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Law enforcement will only target protests that are a threat to the oligarchy.
If a planned public protest is not targeted by law enforcement then it has been determined to be a toothless protest
I'm not sure if you forgot a /s or if you're being serious. If serious this is some ridiculous logic.
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By exactly using the MAGA the technique of, after ranting about blaming everybody else but yourself about all maner of problems, “asking” for others to provide solutions only to criticize them when given them, you’ve just proved what I suspected, so thanks for that.
You realize you're literally describing exactly what you did. You demanded details then couldn't come up with anything but a pipe dream.
And if I'm doing what MAGA did, what is the problem? Patton was the general the Germans feared the most, because he fought exactly the way they did.
And I love the last line. If I am the problem, what is the solution? Again, give me a lot of details.
Things like who is going to organize this general strike?
You're lying about what I wrote
Quote the exact words were I "blamed everybody" or even "asked for a solution".
Once again you're using a ploy straight out of the Fascist Manual of Argumentation: "When accused of something, accuse the other person of the same, lying if need be."
From the Fascist Manual of Argumentation you so far have:
- "Made broad claims about how everybody else is responsible for societal problems without providing any evidence at all of those claims. Demand that other do the work of disproving it when you yourself didn't do the work of trying to prove it"
- "When asked to back that theory with actual evidence, state a fact that is not logically linked to the theory you put forward, and hence cannot logically prove it".
- "When pointed out that there is no logical link between that event and your theory, counter-attack by demanding the impossible those pointing it out (in this case a "specific and detailed plan" for the problems of America as if that was easy) and when they naturally cannot deliver the impossible, use that to go down some "I win" rant whilst continuing to avoid the original point they made".
- "When they point out the nature of the argumentation ploys you're using to avoid addressing the original points they made, LIE about what they wrote to claimed that it was THEY who actually did it".
If you were arguing in good faith you would've either walked back on that theory, refined it some more, or tried to actually show there was a logical link between "Donald Trump winning the election in 2016 over Hilary Clinton" and "There are two sides. The Right and everyone else. The Right wins because they stay on topic and vote.".
You did not. Instead you went for the "Demand the impossible and when the impossible is not delivered claim that it proves the other person is not wrong" ploy, same as the MAGAs do.
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I'm not sure if you forgot a /s or if you're being serious. If serious this is some ridiculous logic.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]What I said would be true of Russia. This is because Russia is an oligarchy and this is how oligarchies operate.
The United States is an oligarchy as well.
Therefore what I said applies to the United States.
The goal of law enforcement is to preserve the existing social structure. American social structure is that of oligarchy. Therefore law enforcement exists to preserve oligarchy.
American law enforcement is immensely well funded. These protests did not all encounter law enforcement opposition. Therefore, law enforcement must have determined that these protests did not represent a threat to oligarchy. Therefore the protests were toothless because they did not represent a threat to the existing social structure
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We are the majority.
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🧑 Always have been. That's why conservatives constantly try to make it harder to vote - the more people vote, the more left wing politicians win. Because the majority of people agree with left wing ideals.If blue fucking showed up at the boxes more often. (Even just 25% of the people registered as blue) nearly all government seats would flip and change would actually happen for the better. Instead left is actually center and right is facist.
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This has changed. Look at the propensity switch. Low propensity voters back trump by higher margins than high propensity voters since 2020.
Hence why Democrats dominate low turnout special elections these days
A couple counterexamples doesn't mean the trend across all elections has changed. And that's what I'm talking about - the trend across all elections.
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And you're doing... what, exactly?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]I'm still trying to get a response to my original point that
"There are two sides. The Right and everyone else. The Right wins because they stay on topic and vote. Until the rest of us fall in line like they do, they’ll keep on winning."
does not logically follow from
"Donald Trump won the election in 2016 over Hilary Clinton"
and hence the latter does not prove the former.
The whole ploy of the other post in, when I pointed that out, demanding that I do the impossible and provide a "specific" and "detailed" plan to "get Trump out" (as if I'm some kind of omniscient divinity that can produce a specific and detailed plan for something as complex as that out of the top of my mind), followed by using my inability to do the impossible as evidence that I must be wrong about my earlier point, is just a common argumentation ploy to distract away from the point I made rather than address it, and specifically a ploy that the MAGAs constantly use.
Of course I don't have a "specific" and "detailed" plan to "get Trump out", and neither has the poster who demanded that I provided one in the full expectation that I couldn't - if it was that easy that even an internet rando could come up with a "specific and detailed plan" for it, it would've already happened.
If you read the thread back you will notice that I made a good faith attempt at providing at least some ideas, whilst the other poster has not put forward a single positive solutions oriented idea, only criticism, starting by criticizing everybody and later moving to criticizing my inability to do the impossible.
"Always criticism never solutions" is exactly the political strategy of populists. People who want to try and solve things, even if they think it's going to be hard as shit, don't spend their time in "criticize everybody" mode.
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Ok. I'm too chicken shit to actually show up in person to one of these protests.
What's the next best thing I can do to meaningfully help?
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What I said would be true of Russia. This is because Russia is an oligarchy and this is how oligarchies operate.
The United States is an oligarchy as well.
Therefore what I said applies to the United States.
The goal of law enforcement is to preserve the existing social structure. American social structure is that of oligarchy. Therefore law enforcement exists to preserve oligarchy.
American law enforcement is immensely well funded. These protests did not all encounter law enforcement opposition. Therefore, law enforcement must have determined that these protests did not represent a threat to oligarchy. Therefore the protests were toothless because they did not represent a threat to the existing social structure
Ah, now I understand your "logic". I didn't pay attention to the instance you are from at first.
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And yet here you are actively fighting against activism to enact change in the government.
Are you wearing a maga hat right now or something? What is the motivation here?Really? No one? Can’t even tell me what specific change they’re trying to enact?
Expecting a pat on the back, and can’t even articulate a specific policy goal. Absolutely wild and hilarious.
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You guys think that merely walking around in your own time holding up a board and shouting a bit, all focused on the mango puppet instead of the puppet masters, is going to change anything given that there is no single Historical event in the US ever of the lower classes rebelling against and deposit the upper classes (even the Revolution was literally the American plebs led by the American upper class fighting against the English plebs controlled by the English upper class)?!
The murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare had more impact, if only temporary because it wasn't followed by more similar murders.
Even millions of people marching and shouting a bit (and so polite that they do it in their own time) will cause no fear for the elites because that's in no way a warning that the heads of the elites will soon start getting separated from their shoulders if nothing changes.
You need at the very least a General Strike and/or targetting the economic and propaganda interests of the elites (trashing the TV studios of certain channels or certain newspapers would send a powerful message).
I mean, just notice the impact on police violence of the greatest demonstrations in the US - the George Floyd protests: nothing or even worse than nothing as the pigs have never been this violent.
Getting average people to the point that they are ready to do something like a general strike is a process.
Most people don't even want to have to go to a protest.
But going to a protests is like anteing up in poker -- it is mentally anchoring people as in the game and publicly taking a side.
And yeah - the fucks in power are going to say "bet".
So now millions of people who are not where we already are, who have not wrestles with this and avoided it as long as they can - they are starting to ask, "ok, what do we actually have to risk to change this? What am I willing to do?"
Will we get enough people actually engaged enough for a general strike? I have no idea.
But I know it won't happen without giving people a ramp-up that includes things like the protest this weekend.
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Protests aren't about the Political and Money "elites" as you put it because they don't care no matter what.
You think they'd give a shit if what is happening in LA is happening everywhere? They're like cockroaches that will skitter into hiding until it's safe to come out and monopolize on the ruin.
Protests are about galvanizing support and building unity among the populace. The US has been so divided for so long and that division has been manipulated and grown to benefits those "elites".
I do think a general strike may be effective but it's unrealistic. A nationwide general strike would require massive financial and material support. Where will that come from?
They work on a smaller, union scale because they're supported by the union and outside supporters that are not on strike. They work in other countries that have the social programs in place to support the people which is something the US does not have.
I keep seeing this repeated comparison to France but let's look at that. France is a country a little smaller than the state of Texas with an adult population only slightly more than the total population of California.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's a little easier to coordinate a general strike in a country with 1/6 the population of the US spread across an area 1/15 the size of the US.
Protests in the US are getting bigger and more widespread but it's like a slow wave, it takes time to build.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Look, it can totally seen how the protests give hope to others by showing them that "they're far from alone in their concerns" and doing so in a way which is independent of mainstream political parties (which is good, since in my experience when political parties capture protests, they use such movements for their own personal good, in the process weakening the original movement).
In fact I totally approve of the protests and (even though I'm not American) I'm happy with just how big they were because maybe American has enough good people to make it a better country in the World stage (plus, frankly, I have some American acquaintances from minorities and don't want to see them suffer).
What I fear is that people here in Lemmy are crazily over-celebrating the protest as some kind of ending in itself when it's at best a beginning, and not even the beginning of the end but the beginning of the beginning.
If these protests aren't leveraged to organize grassroots movements to start doing things like guerrilla (in the marketing sense, rather than violent sense) campaigns to oust the crooked politicians no matter what their party is and weaken the influence of Money in politics, they're worthless, same as the George Floyd protests ended up being worthless because they didn't led to any organized follow through to force politicians to restructure policing in America.
So my point is that people need to keep their eye on the long term solution for America's problems, and that doesn't stop with kicking Trump out, it requires a far deeper cleanup of the American political system and addressing the problems of common Americans so that another guy like Trump (or, more likely, worse) doesn't get eventually get in power after Trump is out.
Trump is not the disease, he's a symptom, so merely Trump out isn't going to cure it.
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Ok. I'm too chicken shit to actually show up in person to one of these protests.
What's the next best thing I can do to meaningfully help?
Grow a pair.
