What are YOU doing to fight the authoritarianism other than posting here? |
This is a really strange view of the country that you have. This weekend, a crazy conservative assassinated attempted to assassinate another Democrat state legislator. This weekend, 4-6 million Americans peacefully protested (with some violence done to them in Utah and Virginia and California) the unlawful and unconstitutional and unAmerican things that our president and government are doing. You think our president and government could have stopped them? How? |
Uh, the people taking part in the sign parties are the same ones who are doing the things you outlined. The idea is to raise awareness and recruit more to take an active part in the cause. That is how ogianizing and catalyzing works. |
You have a naive understanding of the way power works on this country, who has it, and for what causes they are allowed to wield it. |
Peaceful protests are like campaign signs. It seems silly that putting up a few signs on lampposts has impact on an election, but it's unlikely anyone would win an election--especially locally--without them.
Protests publicly communicate the breadth and depth of discontent. |
Okay. I have some understanding of how large this country is, population and square footage. I have some understanding of how fundamental the ideals of this country are, in our culture, of freedom, individuality, and respect for the law. There are criminals, but they are not respected. By anyone. If you think this weekend was meaningless, you might be right. I think you're wrong. We'll see. |
Except they aren't. Like I said, I'm at the meetings. We had about 3k at our local demonstration. Wanna know how many people attended the last neighborhood meeting? 11. I've been part of an organization working toward a general strike for years. Wanna know how many folks attended our last meeting? 23. Because people think these demonstrations ARE resistance. They waved their sign, they vote, so they've resisted, the end. And the people with actual boots on the ground doing work in your local community continue to work, essentially alone. |
I am willing to bet a few more and then a few more join those meetings. You have to give people a cause and make them feel a part of the community and communicate specific asks. It has to build. I am not sure your expectations, but so many people pay no attention to news and current events and have no idea what is happening. |
The person saying protests don’t accomplish anything is both right and wrong. In the short term, no, nothing external changes. Not immediately.
At this point, the changes are more internal to those who attend. If you’ve never actually been to a big protest about something that matters to you, you won’t understand. You can’t. But it means something to be a part of something so big. It solidifies your own values and gives you courage and clarity and determination — which is exactly what powerful forces *don’t* want the people to have. It also normalizes resistance as a shared, ordinary value. It takes the movement from a sense of being “fringe” to something common, even widespread. And from there, new things emerge. What precisely? No one can say. It’s like an invisible shift of an invisible current; it is happening below the surface, yet is still significant. If you don’t understand, and you care about democracy, try going to one. Just show up, look at the people who are there: veterans and doctors and coaches and teachers, young people and old people and in between. People who look the part, and people who very much do not. People who are standing there even knowing that at any moment some vehicle might drive into the crowd, or that someone might open fire. They are standing there anyway, determined to say what they have to say, refusing to just roll over and comply with whatever happens to be most convenient for the powerful. Is it enough? No. Is the world tangibly, conspicuously changed when you get back in your car and drive home? No. But it does change something. If you don’t know, you don’t know. But if you know, you know. |
There's a reason the Jan 6th protesters made it inside the Capitol and only one of them was shot, while the BLM protests elicited a very different response from law enforcement. There's a reason my local protest happened at a park, not in front of the ICE building or even downtown. There's a reason these protests were largely white and thus were allowed to remain largely peaceful. There's a reason the LA protests in particular have been spicier than all the others. Stop being naive. We can't fight what most of y'all won't even be honest with yourselves is happening. |
I hope the House members are paying attention. Let Trump threaten to primary you all he wants, you don't need him. The people in your districts will support you standing up for them against the wanna be dictator. |
Vote people! |
Really poor attendance was quite disappointing. |
troll |
When a mob of hundreds forcefully breaches security at our nation's Capitol Building, The White House, or The Pentagon, it isn't a "protest" or a riot. That situation is an attack on our nation's sovereignty and the attack should be met with immediate deadly force. Jan 6th was a law enforcement and security failure. Rioters and looters taking advantage of large protests in major cities should be met with an immediate response from law enforcement and arrests but not immediate deadly force. Most city riots involving looting and vandalism also involve failures of law enforcement to act swiftly and dutifully. These two situations aren't comparable other than the failures of law enforcement part. Try again. |