TIL No Kings Protests were the 3rd Largest in US History
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Good... now repeat it but as a General Strike
A general strike would be devastating. But we ain't there yet.
Not that I don't love the idea. It requires a robust support network. Start building a small local community that can be self sufficient. Grow food. Make tools. Sell things to neighboring communities.
The owners will still expect rent during a general strike. We have the numbers, they have the funds to we wait us out. They'll do everything they can to make it hurt us more than them.
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Notice the merelly starting the very sentence sentence you quote from me about the George Floyd protests. The pigs are still often holding people down by putting their knee on that person's neck, so how exactly has the largest demonstration in America changed anything?!
Assuming you meant merelly as merely I saw it but your claim that no change occurred is wrong. The change that did occur was unsustained because people in the US got complacent. They protested and cared for a while but then they stopped paying attention and things started back the way the were, now worse in some areas.
Notice how I said sustained effort? The thing that didn't happen after George Floyd.
If all that people do is walk and shout with lots of other people and then at the end of it go home with a feeling of achievement and do nothing further
"Do nothing further"? You mean further than the protests 2 days ago that set record numbers? Or the ones that have been ongoing every weekend for months? That have been building and increasing to the No Kings day protest? Is that the do nothing further you're referring to?
People here are way over-celebrating something which means very little unless we see that it has led to many following it with getting involved in politics and/or grassroots movements
Are you in regular contact with the majority of the US population that you can say that hasn't been happening? I'm pretty sure the growing numbers of protesters is people getting "involved in politics and/or grassroots movements".
it's premature and it makes me suspect that for many who participated this one demonstration was it and they aren't following it through with next steps.
Oh, you're predicting the future 48 hours post protest. This is just the same bullshit "your protesting isn't good enough" sentiment everywhere else on Lemmy repackaged and with more words.
I think we're talking past each other here and we agree on objectives, just not on methods.
In response to public opinion outcry, Politicians will first make empty promises, then superficial changes which are easily reversible, and only beyond that actual structural changes which are hard to reverse hence are more permanent.
The latter ones is what I meant before with "permanent". What politicians did in response to the George Floyd demonstrations was all the way up to superficial changes, but not structural changes, hence it didn't take long for things to go back to roughly the way they were, and the underlying problem of police violence in the US of which the George Floyd killing was a symptom, is now the same or even worse.
The only peaceful march kind of demonstrations (so, not things like strikes) which I know of were politicians went all the way to structural changes are the kind which lasted months (and at times they weren't actually peaceful), and it's very hard for people to sustain that without organizing.
This demonstration, on the other hand, lasted a single day. I have never heard of any demonstration that lasted a single day and changed anything in a sustained way ever anywhere in the World. I'll be happy if you find me an example to prove me wrong (as that means there's hope).
I think we both agree on the need for sustained pressure and for people not to grow complacent, and as I see it that means that people have to get involved in grassroots efforts and civil society groups to force that change and keep up the pressure until the change is structural and hence deep and near-irreversible. Merely going to a one-day demonstration won't achieve sustained change, but if it acts as a step to joining said grassroots efforts and civil-society groups that keep working well beyond that demonstration then it's a means to an end.
My point is that loudly celebrating a single day peaceful demonstration without the caveat that "it must be a start not and end", risk making many if not most feel "mission accomplished", become complacent and not do anything further, exactly the opposite of your objective of "sustained push for change were people do not grow complacent".
As I see it, if you want the people to keep on pushing there should be a "what next" after the "good job everybody" in the celebrating of this demonstration, but that's not what I see in the countless threads here in Lemmy: all I see is people celebrating it as if "showing Trump he's not liked" was the whole objective of the thing and it was achieved by this demonstration, as if "showing Trump he's not liked" is anywhere close to enough to achieve a structural change of American politics.
If people were indeed getting into the kind of organizations that can deliver the sustained effort both of us think is required, we would be seeing "this is just the start" kind of statements, but I haven't seen any yet and this together with the historical track record of peaceful demonstrations in US leads me to believe this one isn't a beginning of something more, just a one-off.
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A general strike would be devastating. But we ain't there yet.
Not that I don't love the idea. It requires a robust support network. Start building a small local community that can be self sufficient. Grow food. Make tools. Sell things to neighboring communities.
The owners will still expect rent during a general strike. We have the numbers, they have the funds to we wait us out. They'll do everything they can to make it hurt us more than them.
But we ain't there yet.
Sorry but this line is how the USA fell off the wagon in the first place
nd not only that, you got there on Jan 6
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I think we're talking past each other here and we agree on objectives, just not on methods.
In response to public opinion outcry, Politicians will first make empty promises, then superficial changes which are easily reversible, and only beyond that actual structural changes which are hard to reverse hence are more permanent.
The latter ones is what I meant before with "permanent". What politicians did in response to the George Floyd demonstrations was all the way up to superficial changes, but not structural changes, hence it didn't take long for things to go back to roughly the way they were, and the underlying problem of police violence in the US of which the George Floyd killing was a symptom, is now the same or even worse.
The only peaceful march kind of demonstrations (so, not things like strikes) which I know of were politicians went all the way to structural changes are the kind which lasted months (and at times they weren't actually peaceful), and it's very hard for people to sustain that without organizing.
This demonstration, on the other hand, lasted a single day. I have never heard of any demonstration that lasted a single day and changed anything in a sustained way ever anywhere in the World. I'll be happy if you find me an example to prove me wrong (as that means there's hope).
I think we both agree on the need for sustained pressure and for people not to grow complacent, and as I see it that means that people have to get involved in grassroots efforts and civil society groups to force that change and keep up the pressure until the change is structural and hence deep and near-irreversible. Merely going to a one-day demonstration won't achieve sustained change, but if it acts as a step to joining said grassroots efforts and civil-society groups that keep working well beyond that demonstration then it's a means to an end.
My point is that loudly celebrating a single day peaceful demonstration without the caveat that "it must be a start not and end", risk making many if not most feel "mission accomplished", become complacent and not do anything further, exactly the opposite of your objective of "sustained push for change were people do not grow complacent".
As I see it, if you want the people to keep on pushing there should be a "what next" after the "good job everybody" in the celebrating of this demonstration, but that's not what I see in the countless threads here in Lemmy: all I see is people celebrating it as if "showing Trump he's not liked" was the whole objective of the thing and it was achieved by this demonstration, as if "showing Trump he's not liked" is anywhere close to enough to achieve a structural change of American politics.
If people were indeed getting into the kind of organizations that can deliver the sustained effort both of us think is required, we would be seeing "this is just the start" kind of statements, but I haven't seen any yet and this together with the historical track record of peaceful demonstrations in US leads me to believe this one isn't a beginning of something more, just a one-off.
that's not what I see in the countless threads here in Lemmy
Your sample size is Lemmy. No issue there, definitely representative of the US and its population as a whole.
Your premise is flawed and the Occupy movement demonstrates it. 5 years of sustained protesting to not achieve the kind of change you seem to expect to see.
Your under the misconception the sustained non-stop protesting is equivalent to sustained action and activism. I've already covered this and I'm not going to go over it again, I'll just copy and paste what I already wrote:
The problems in the US have been building and evolving for decades, if not longer, and they’ll take at least that long to get a handle on.
Non-stop protesting has the same hurdle as a nationwide general strike and is just as unrealistic, especially considering how long it would have to last.
Again, you're just repackaging the same bullshit sentiment as OP and all over everywhere else on Lemmy.
I'm not going to engage you any further as your agenda seems to be to argue in opposition of the movement occurring in the US.
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Looting may be warranted or unwarranted. But, because majority support is not relevant, we shouldn't evaluate the propriety of looting based on this metric
wrote last edited by [email protected]ah, maybe I should clarify when I said looting wouldn't have majority support, I was assuming a context where a populist movement (i.e. made up of the majority) was trying to find strategies to gain some economic independence such that they can afford a general strike- mutual aid might be a popular option (as well as how unions use their funds from dues to pay work on strike), but my point is only that looting is likely to be an unpopular option, and thus one that would harm the movement's reputation and ability to remain supported by the majority on which it depends.
I did not mean that in absolute terms anything must justify its existence through majority support, as you pointed out that's not how the world works.
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HEY EVERYBODY!..."you first" is absolutely NOT the flex you think it is.
Says you.
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What is more likely?: this billionaire is funding a nationwide rally against the president’s cut to benefits that directly contribute to her growing wealth, or this billionaire is doing this out of a sense of morality?
What was the call to action of this protest? What was the demand? Stop, and think it through.
It's got to be nice for some billionaire to donate what to them is pennies just to throw off any support from other semi-thoughtful idealogues and purity seekers.
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Oh, nuh-uh!
FOX News said it was a lightly attended failure. Who am I gonna believe, FOX:News or every local news sorce, that actually was there, in the country? -
Behead those who say No Kings is violent
wrote last edited by [email protected]I say the world must learn of our peaceful ways...
By force!
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A general strike would be devastating. But we ain't there yet.
Not that I don't love the idea. It requires a robust support network. Start building a small local community that can be self sufficient. Grow food. Make tools. Sell things to neighboring communities.
The owners will still expect rent during a general strike. We have the numbers, they have the funds to we wait us out. They'll do everything they can to make it hurt us more than them.
Defeatism has NO PLACE HERE. Pack your shit and leave, fucker! SERIOUSLY fuck off.
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- George Floyd (Police Brutality)
- Earth Day 1970 (Environmental Protection)
- No Kings (Trump)
- Hands Across America (Poverty)
- Women's March 2017 (Feminism)
- Hands Off (Trump)
- March for Our Lives (Gun Violence)
- Women's March 2018 (Feminism)
- #RickyRenuncia (Puerto Rico, Resignation of Ricardo Rosselló)
- Great American Boycott (Immigrant Rights)
Only #9 actually accomplished what they wanted.
Earth day did a lot of good
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The fact that you think the fight for our lives only was an issue under Trump is exactly why you’re a worthless ally.
I am profoundly well aware of how marginalized people have been victimized for the entire duration of this country's existence. I work in medicine, and most of my experience has been in emergency medicine. I have more experience than I ever wanted to have with trying to save people from the maw of poverty and destitution and I have been involved in social services in one way or another since childhood. My life is one of the ones on the line if shit goes sideways enough, but that doesn't stop me from standing up to my superiors to fight for the rights and humanity of my patients, especially those who are members of marginalized groups that face more structural barriers to health than others.
I am not just an ally. My head's on the chopping block too, and your assumption to the contrary is insulting.
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Ok but it's crazy that the George Floyd protests were 5x bigger than this, even with COVID in full swing.
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Your first source is about women working in Canada and your second is about poverty in Canada.
Unless I missed something, Canada still is a sovereign nation despite what Trump wants.
Great observation.
You asked for examples and sources - I gave examples and 2 sources. Maybe it's drastically different where you live?
My challenge to you is - what are you doing to change the narrative where you live?
Anyone can sit from the sideline and comment that nothing has changed since these protests took place - it's a lot harder to get out there and make the change happen. Maybe you're already making those changes already, in which case - keep going!
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Says you.
Amazing observation!
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Jeeeeesus
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Getting millions of Americans to go out and essentially shout "F U Donald" is a little bit more than a hang. And is potentially much more effective than a riot or occupy wall street.
America is still a democracy, in that all the roads to power require you to get folk to show up and vote for you.
Alright, so let's say trump is gone, what replaces him? Business as usual republicans who were all on board with his policies but didn't like how boisterous he was. Democrats are all too happy to play along, fellating war criminals like dick cheney and george bush. America is a representative democracy where you vote on which representative will represent billionaires for you.
I hope these protests develop into something more, but realistically I can only anticipate them being used as political points for democrats during their donation drives to raise tons of money to promote billionaire ass-kissers. Things will continue to get worse and then the next villain of the week will appear as the conduit to do all the bad things billionaires want. We'll be told again all we need to do is get rid of this next villain too and then things will be fine, but then the cycle repeats as things continue to just get worse.
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And if things won’t get better, why bother?
I’ve been voting as much as possible and doing the other things for a quarter century and we’ve always gotten further from what I’m hoping for.
I wasted all that time and money and stress and have nothing to show for it.
Politics is dumb and people are terrible. I want to leave the planet.
You've got extremely valid feelings. Mine are quite similar. I do find myself asking "what's the fucking point?" far more often than I'd like.
Rather like the classic "what's the meaning of life?", I don't think that anyone can answer that for anyone else. For me, it's a love of my fellow human beings and belief that, based upon historical evidence, authoritarianism's grip on society always crumbles. It might take a World War, or it may take centuries of insurgency, but it is inevitable. In order for that to happen, people need to experience kindness and empathy. And people need to be willing to be builders, rather than just violent fighters (every society founded in violence and bloodshed has been vulnerable to authoritarians coopting the movement). So, I keep pushing because it might help others when I'm gone. Hell, maybe it will help lead to the cultural and psychological changes necessary to approach the anarchic society of my ideals (I don't think I'll ever directly have that much influence or desire it but every small bit helps).
And there's also spite. Authoritarians of all flavors are fundamentally cruel douchebags and the current ones are exceptionally stupid to boot (and revel in their anti-intellectualism). Continued resistance and standing up for people and showing them kindness really gets under their skin and I'm a big fan of that.
Politics is dumb and people are terrible. I want to leave the planet.
Yup. Me too buddy. Me too.
I might suggest, if you're able, looking about for local (non-political) nonprofit orgs to see if there are any that really align with what you think is important. Helping others in a tangible manner can really help to stave off apathy.
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Ok but it's crazy that the George Floyd protests were 5x bigger than this, even with COVID in full swing.
Nobody had anything better to do back then
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A general strike would be devastating. But we ain't there yet.
Not that I don't love the idea. It requires a robust support network. Start building a small local community that can be self sufficient. Grow food. Make tools. Sell things to neighboring communities.
The owners will still expect rent during a general strike. We have the numbers, they have the funds to we wait us out. They'll do everything they can to make it hurt us more than them.
A 1-week strike ahead of the mid-terms would be enough to make the GOP turn on Trump.
But that's over a year out.
