Hoping to hell that’s an AI or a bot because this might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard
Before you get depressed, know that there are people who actually are calling this shit out and there are people who are suggesting actual helpful techniques in that sub. But damn, that particular post was wow.
Anyway, I’m not going back to the reddit mines for a while.
In the US you will have like 4? US History classes throughout your primary education, all will have a large section on civil rights, and all will focus almost exclusively on MLK and non-violent feminist activists. I think we spent a whole section in English class once about “Civil Disobediance” and most kids have a negative attitude towards guns due to yk, school shootings. I think Malcom X was mentioned in passing in high school? But essentially people grow up primed to the idea of non-violent protest as THE form of change. I don’t we ever even mentioned the coal wars
I’m sorry, but if ICE is genuinely caught on camera killing the frog, people (employees, in all walks of life) will stop what they’re doing, leave their offices and join the protests en masse. That is the kind of move that activates.
These people think the ending of the V for Vendetta movie, where thousands of random and unaffiliated people put on identical clothes and march in perfect unison to gather on a bridge and calmly observe as their government is toppled by blowing up one empty building, is a realistic and achievable goal.
Liberal protests are such a funny kind of cargo cult nonsense. They see color revolutions topple “dictators”, and want to replicate that. However, being unable and/or unwilling to see the hand of imperialism moving the pieces, they must believe in a kind of protest magic. If only they can do the correct kind of ritual performance, surely change will come.
GOOD post
I think the issue here really is that most Amerikkkans, libs especially, white libs especially frfr, are unwilling to die for anything. Truly, I believe very few of them would lay down their lives for their own family, either biological or chosen.
Nonviolent protest is very low risk, and thus very low reward. Any other form of protest is too high risk for these people. Most of them have likely never been confronted with their own mortality, and very few have likely been subject to true state violence. Moreover, they, up until very recently, almost refuse to believe state violence exists.
I’ve mentioned before around here that I spent a lot of time in various juvenile institutions. As a young 18/19-somethin’ and off paper for the first time in my life, I got a job in a very white, liberal community and eventually moved there. When I would explain to people there what I experienced as a child and teen they literally COULD NOT BELIEVE my experience, and several accused me of lying or exaggerating. Specifically it was a lot of the older, 40+ crowd that accused me of lying.
I truly believe shit has to get REAL BAD for almost EVERYONE before any real change can happen. And I mean it needs to get life threateningly bad for the majority of the working class. As long as they can go home to relative comfort, we’re all fucked.
there’s been a long and concerted effort to make us think Gandhi and King just did that and leaving out the actual violence from other liberatory factions or the violence implied by the alternative.
nobody ever made peace without war or the threat of one.
Even a lot of the peaceful protests they did were illegal or dangerous. Sit-ins in places they weren’t allowed to enter, voting in places they’d kill or arrest you for voting, boycotting, etc.
Boycotting seems like the only one liberals are okay with (unless it’s Israel apparently). No one even wants to get arrested, but it’s probably because it could cause you to get fired or hurt getting a future job when it’s notoriously difficult right now, so I get it.
What I went through was bad but not as bad as what you must have.
I remember telling friends in college who asked “hey we talk about our childhoods and you don’t, why’s that?” and then having them look absolutely shellshocked while I calmly gave a synopsis.
So yes, privileged white people, and sadly not just the boomers and gen xers
I’ve mentioned before around here that I spent a lot of time in various juvenile institutions. As a young 18/19-somethin’ and off paper for the first time in my life, I got a job in a very white, liberal community and eventually moved there. When I would explain to people there what I experienced as a child and teen they literally COULD NOT BELIEVE my experience, and several accused me of lying or exaggerating. Specifically it was a lot of the older, 40+ crowd that accused me of lying.
Probably haven’t had to go through shit nearly as awful as you, but I know that feeling of some people (especially older people) just thinking you are lying about your trauma.
Thanks, homie. I don’t really enjoy comparing traumas, and see little utility in comparative analysis of trauma, but it sure wasn’t great. My heart hurts hearing that you or anyone else has had their trauma and experience denied — especially when people then take the line of, “well, surely, you must have done something to have deserved such treatment.” Actually, the only thing I did was be born to a poor teenage woman who I’ve never known, who couldn’t afford to care for me, and, well, one thing led to another and there you have it.
Anyways, no person, child or adult, deserves the experiences endured by myself or my cohort in those institutions. It’s really telling that so many people believe there are people — children — deserving of such treatment. Of my cohort, I’m one of the lucky few that are still alive, not in prison, housed, reasonably healthy, and whose material needs are mostly met.
Yeah, exactly, it isn’t some kind of “suffering olympics” or whatever, it’s about making the world a better place so this sort of stuff doesn’t happen to anyone, children especially.
this is what it really comes down to. they don’t care if it sounds stupid or if it’s realistic or not. they need to rationalize their inaction or their self-conception will collapse inward on itself. anyway this whole comment was just an excuse to plug my favorite article, Masses, Elites, and Rebels
Thanks! I just started reading it, and I’m looking forward to reading it throughout my morning.
Incredibly pertinent and depressing analysis. Good (bad) news is the climate crisis is more or less guaranteed to bring about those conditions in the coming decades.
Political power grows from some inflatable frog or smth idk
“I believe that troops wouldn’t fire on u.s. citizens”
You mean, AGAIN??
If we do anything, that might give them an excuse to start killing people!
What’s that now?
Oh.
we can’t give them an excuse to send in the troops. No it doesn’t matter they just make shit up we can’t give them the excuse but make them base it on a lie, what would they do invade a country over a lie they made up?
I firmly believe that no American soldier would attack Americans carrying American flags, chanting US, and playing God Bless America
Yes they 1000% would, and what’s next, telling protesters to wear MAGA hats?
if we just vote for the guys who increased the ICE budget instead of abolishing the agency and sending everyone working for it to prison when they had the chance, then maybe next year when we protest ICE again they’ll have less bullets to shoot us with because they didnt get as high of a budget raise from our Democrat politicians
guys this is basic political maneuvering. think about how few bullets ICE could have in 5 years if the blue wave turns into a blue tsunami. in 10 years ICE might not even be able to kill you with impunity anymore if we just play our cards right and vote really hard in the mid terms
I don’t think this is bots. This phenomenon is described in 200 years old theory that keeps being called irrelevant and keeps being proven right.
In order for change to happen people have to believe they’re in imminent danger, there’s hope things are going to sort themselves out.
Look at how people pretend VPN is going to save you from your government. As if they won’t send black shirts specifically targeting VPN users, because using such services will be declared an act of terrorism.
I think I’m learning how people just stood aside while Nazis gained power.
In order for change to happen people have to believe they’re in imminent danger
The logical thing to do is to stay home, stay “safe”, don’t be visible and don’t get out of line. It’s self-preservation.
Again I’m gonna become a broken record asking this, but how did people like the Bolshevicks break through this? How did that group of Cuban revolutionaries do this?
how did people like the Bolshevicks break through this?
The Russian ruling family actually helped the protesters out in that regard; they had their soldiers shoot the protesters en masse
It also helped that the Russian army actually was mostly regular people that got conscripted, so the revolutionaries actually could convince most of the soldiers to turn coat
Fuck
I don’t want to die
That’s the thing, most people don’t want to die
If you want to read more about it, they are probably referring to bloody sunday:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1905)
But it’s worth noting that there were a few other huge factors. As some other examples, the Tsardom had a habit of doing pogroms against its Jewish population, which is the main reason that there were so many Jewish revolutionaries (this is part of the origin of the Judeobolshevism myth), and WWI had been going on for a few years and was seen by many as a barbaric meat grinder that accomplished nothing (especially those with family or friends on the frontlines), but the liberal provisional government refused to withdraw from the war. You might also find the story of how the Bolshevik withdrawal went to be interesting for other reasons.
Or perhaps we’ve been conditioned to split apart and hide from the monster, but our strength lies within our numbers. The more of us there is, the less we’ll suffer, by sticking together you increase your chances of survival.
The Achilles Heel of the Nazi’s is that they’re repugnant, inhumane and disliked by everybody. They spend great amount of effort in lies, deception, pretending to be good, they must, because otherwise the whole world would turn against them.
Stick together with your loved ones, build, strengthen your communal ties where you can and together you will persist. I’m sure you’ve already helped and thank you for your efforts, every bit counts.
100% yes
Toxic positivity is currently the biggest problem of the humanity.
The challenge is accepting reality, without becoming a doomer.
Self-alienation is the main cause of the toxic positivity I think. One stays away from oneself and one’s material conditions, then hope everything fixes itself.
We must promote self-love, self-respect, self-reliance, and self-devotion to defeat the alienation and keep doomerism and toxic positivism away. That way, people will become more willing to change the world.
The annoying part is that the right wing would also agree with this conclusion. They have basically turned all of that into the self-improvement bootstrap grindset industry.
Engels would refer to this as the false consciousness.
What you end up with is individuals who have it almost figured out, but something is missing, there’s a certain kind of lack of self-awareness, that we aren’t alone in this world and things are constantly in flux.
The antidote for false consciousness is class consciousness.
Basically imagine if instead of competing, the self-improvement club supported each other, while retaining their members individuality. These kind of spaces is what’s critically lacking in our societies.
I see liberals celebrating when protestors work with cops and regularly tell them to “stick to the law so they respect us!”
I have no hope for those types lol
USian libs will really look you straight in the eye and tell you dancing is the only form of acceptable protest. Their propaganda is something else, they managed to create a whole nation of spineless cowards, unless it’s about killing brown people abroad, then they are the most courageous fuckers around.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but these mfs really need to take a look into how the french protests. Start breaking shit for fucks sake. The yankees are being killed in their own country and are just lining up for it instead of revolting.
Anyways, Death to Amerikkka
The moment Trump orders a strike against American citizens and the soldiers sees protesters as a American citizens, and not some enemies due to right wing propaganda, is the moment that Trump loses.
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The protests are peaceful because people DON’T want to get shot
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Really? When the soldiers “sees protesters as American citizens, and not some enemies due to right wing propaganda”? What are you, 12? Unsubscribe from Netflix; the moment the Trump orders such a massive move against protesters, the military will see if they can brutalize you without legal consequence and then brutalize you. They have literally said as much.
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Ok let me boil down lib thinking “damn, glad i wasnt the one killed”. That’s it, the rest is performative. The reality is the system knows it cant strip everything from everyone instantly because riots will happen so it does so slowly and everyone just nods and goes along with it hoping its not them in the next round of shit.
Its like how a lot of businesses operate. Lay off x percent of staff where its not enough to tank everything immediately and you have most people sitting there hoping its not them. But when its the person next to them they breath a sigh of relief and pick up their work hoping to not get axed in next years layoffs. As long as its small enough numbers it doesnt matter how many people fall off the bottom over time as long as theres a chance its not you.
Getting loaded onto the train cart dressed as giant Minion inflatables.
Grok, generate this image.
Dinosaur: “Look everyone, I have the moral high ground!”
Doing the Mayo Pete High Hopes dance is simply the most effective form of political agitation, bucko!
![[CW: the most embarrassing liberalism that might actually give you a concussion] People are dying and they still think they can solve this with civil protest](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/80da2324-d2e4-406c-a62e-ea0158ea43fc.jpeg){kind=link}