June “No Kings” saw the largest single day protests in US history. This is a healthy response by the population. We do absolutely need to move beyond the limits of street protests, and onto the development of a mass strike movement; however, the fact that masses of people are willing to go out and protest on a largely spontaneous basis is significant. What is needed is clear revolutionary political perspective. When this understanding grips the masses, particularly the working class, the movement will take on an explosivly historic significance.
I don’t feel like it’s ever going to progress past this though. It only gets this far because it’s as convenient as possible. The no kings protest emptied out after only a couple hours last time I expect the same here no one commits any amount of sacrifice.
I think this sort of pessimism is hopelessly self defeating. People are looking for meaningful ways to fight back. What they lack is organization and leadership. What are you doing to develop this?
I don’t do enough clearly and while I am being pessimistic I’d like to point out that I’m just saying I don’t think it’s going to progress past these protests not that it’s a worthless endeavor entirely.
I am still very hopeful that something does end up happening I’ve not given up entirely. But most of my opinions based on this have come from direct interaction of many people in these protests several of them have told me that they simply cannot monetarily commit to anything longer they have pooh-poohed the idea of multi-day protests lest a full strike.
I even had some of these people at these protests tell me that they thought the end goal was the protest that this was the win not all of them though but many like I said said they couldn’t even go a single day without the possibility of either losing their job or otherwise and none of them even considered it said it was too risky for them.
For the middle-class organizers of these protests, who lack a serious political perspective, the protest is their victory. They have no concept of the independent organization of the masses doing anything, besides protesting and calling it a day. They believe and promote the belief that mass rallies will be sufficient to pressure the Democratic Party, some Republicans, and the trade union bureaucracies to oppose Trump more vigorously. They will not.
It can be difficult to imagine the possibility of general strike when we haven’t seen a real organized mass movement in at least two generations. It’s not enough for isolated individuals convinced of the necessity to simply strike of their own initiative. That would be a recipe for disaster, with the participants facing certain reprisal and victimization. The movement must be prepared, starting with the most advanced sections of the working class organizing the leadership.
The protests express a broadly felt desire for action, but that cannot spontaneously generate the necessary movement. It will take the input of people like you, talking to your neighbors and coworkers, organizing action committees in your neighborhoods and workplaces, reaching out to people from other neighborhoods and workplaces, and organizing in preparation for a struggle. The protests provide a prime opportunity to do just that.
For what it’s worth, in case you’re interested, this is the statement we distributed at No Kings: Mobilize the working class against Trump’s dictatorship!
I’ll also recommend this perspective following the protest: The mass protests against dictatorship in the US and the way forward in the fight against Trump’s coup.
If you read something in there that strikes a chord, I would suggest reaching out through the contact form.
Epstein should be the theme. It even has traction with his own side. Empty G and I are on the same side, for the first, and very probably only, time.
Even with this theme, Epstein should feature prominently. This is the first time that an issue has resonated so strongly with his own following. The entire Q Anon thing started over conspiracy theories about Democratic Child Sex Trafficking, HitlerPig amplified it, and rode it to power.
And now we’ve come to the really deliciously ironic part. MAGAs treated this issue like the only people who could possibly be in the files are Democrats like the Clintons, but they’re finding out that even if that’s so, Dems don’t care. We’re all sick of the spineless establishment Dems anyway, go ahead and toss them in jail. Now we have finally reached that moment we have been careening towards for years, and their bluff is literally being called, but instead of showing their cards, they have to show the files, and they don’t want to do that because there are a LOT more MAGAs than Dems. Even more ironic, usually they aren’t holding anything when they bluff, but in this case, we know they are holding a Red Royal Flush.
If it turns out that the Epstein Files were full of MAGAs who could have been destroyed, but the Biden administration chose to give them a break in order to protect the Clinton’s, or some other Democratic perv, then that’s a secondary scandal.
Keep up the pressure, increase it steadily, and this could be the thing that brings him down.
The files were sealed under court order until January. Biden didn’t have the opportunity to release the files.
Besides all the other anti equal rights, anti justice, anti democratic, fascist bullshit trump likes, this is also acceptable to him and netanyahu:
More images from Anadolu @ Getty Images
This is acceptable to Israel. People in the west watching BBC or CNN seeing images like this is not though. It’s why they are now repeating the cycle of “letting in aid” that we are seeing now.
Any seemingly “moral” action that Israel takes is literally to ensure they can continue doing their genocide. Giving the west just enough coverage of aid trucks so their media can pretend that it’s no longer happening.
I am ashamed to live in this time of human history that we allow the people causing these images to remain in power and not have their heads placed on a spike (metaphorically of course).
De zoekopdracht voor “anadolu” heeft geen resultaten opgeleverd
You can filter on photographers, and then search the name Anadolu, that worked for me!
Works for me, and I’m not even in NL.
Me neither. Maybe it’s a country thing. Not important, I thought the URL was wrong.
Nothing will change until Americans are willing to disrupt. General Strikes are effective. Shut it all down and see how quickly things change. It’s not easy but until you get the appetite for it, nothing will change.
only if the railroad workers could strike again, this seems to extremely disruptive to the us, if they do it, because its lifeblood of the us. they were doing very hard on both sides to prevent those strikes.
Starting soon folks, get ready!
Removed by mod
To those being diswayed by comments stating that peaceful protests are useless and don’t do anything, keep in mind that these comments are from people who are probably doing nothing but commenting on the internet and are useless themselves.
“Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change.”
As an American (I know some people will scoff at that statement but that’s what we would genuinely say), but I feel like protests are effectively pointless in the modern day. The people in power don’t care and even Amy Coney Barrett has said how she has people around her house day and night and that they are wasting their time. Protests are great for the morale of the protestors, but they effectively don’t have any impact on people in office. I like the idea of protests, I support what most protestors are doing, but I don’t feel like they are making any real difference to the political stance of those they are protesting.
Agreed. Protests that don’t disrupt anything are about as effective as online petitions.
Except that protests that actually disrupt something get you arrested. Still doesn’t actually do much in the USA.
That’s the thing. You have to get enough people arrested that the system can’t handle it. Its tough to find that many people willing to make that sacrifice until things get much worse than they are now
Eh, that’s not really a good example. The US already has more people incarcerated per capita than any other country. The biggest limitation is how many people they can arrest at one time, not how many people they will arrest total. You might be able to get enough people to protest at once that they can’t arrest them all at once, but they absolutely will arrest them over 1-3 years. They kept arresting Jan 6th people for 4 years under Biden, you don’t think that the current administration will be after you as long as possible?
Jan 6 is actually the example I was thinking of. The system was overwhelmed enough that it took so long that their guy took office and pardoned everyone.
and also its only 1 side protesting, maga/conservatives almost never protest against the gop, they are more likely to follow the leader than anything.
Thats a generalisation.
It depends what the objective of your protest is.
Obviously people standing outside a politicians house with a sign are ineffective, thats just not how politics works.
Obviously large scale protests aren’t going to make Trump change his ways or resign.
However, I think large scale protests might activate a lot of apathetic people, and get them connected.
America doesn’t need Trump to resign and Vance to take over. You need societal change. You need your population to realise that your trajectory is pretty awful and that it doesn’t have to be.
Except there’s been no supporting evidence of that. Protests, large or small, get the people who protest to go vote. If they are the type to go to a protest then statistically they were already likely to go vote. The problem is the demographic of people who talk about issues but don’t historically go vote.
Historically conservatives go vote whether they protest, talk at work, or literally say nothing. Conversely, liberals and progressives historically do not go vote despite protesting, arguing, or anything else.
When I was in college I was still conservative leaning based on my childhood. I had a class with ~60 other people and we were given a group activity in which we could pick 2 guaranteed rights. The rights varied greatly, such as being accepted for your sexuality (as in from this day forth your sexual orientation would always be accepted without question), or you will have the right to universal healthcare, or you can move to any country you want without persecution. The premise of this question was that you would get the things you picked, but the others you would probably lose the other things. Out of that group of ~60 people only 2 chose the right to vote. The professor then pointed out that while each person had picked certain rights that couldn’t be taken away from them, two people now had 100% control of the political decisions for the rest of the group. With this they could give themselves more rights or even strip the unpicked rights from others.
I’m not sure how it happened, but conservatives instilled in their base that they need to vote no matter what while liberals don’t think it’s that important unless it’s the literal end of the world.
statement but that’s what we would genuinely say)
I think part of the issue here is not following through with that energy into elections to get progressive platforms in office.
It’s a mixed bag in my opinion. I think the majority of people who show up to protest are likely to go vote, but the majority of people don’t protest. There is probably a small subset of people who would show up to protest and not show up to vote, but the biggest problem is people who say they dislike something, brigade it online, tell everyone at their work or school about it, but then don’t turn out to vote. The one side requires action, the other is just talk, the problem with liberals and progressives today is that they talk but don’t vote. For conservatives the majority of them vote, but don’t talk.
Make me upnif this protests nis in the tens of millions of participants and paralizes the country for a month
Anything less than that will do shit all
Pfft, unless they secretly have anti-tank and anti-drone guns, they are not doing anything!
This protest ain’t doing shit.
Get the fuck out of here if you’re only feedback is “the protest is useless”.
That’s the same feedback Trump is going to have for it.
Protest is most effective when there’s a clear escalatory path to violence. MLK was successful because Malcom X was the alternative, and the people in charge knew it.
What “shaking the ruling class” did luigi do? They shrugged it off and went right on with the most massive corrupt looting in American history. When billionaires can afford their own private armies, or better yet bend the public one to their will, they don’t give a fuck about your pea shooter.
Stopping them requires taking their money. And that means winning elections and taxing the living shit out of them.
can’t really win an election and tax billionaires by protesting. wait another 3.5 years or so. strikes and violent protests could work though
What “shaking the ruling class” did luigi do?
The company the CEO worked for drastically changed the policies that (allegedly) influenced Luigi.
Other healthcare companies changed policy out of fear.
Other CEOs started hiring body guards because they were worried someone would get them for their practices.
The last protest didn’t change anything but surely this one that trump will be prepared for will.
Arm yourselfs, peaceful protest assumes trump has a conscience and morals that he will listen to when filled with guilt.
I’m sure that walking or standing around holding signs with passive aggressive messages on them will convince the regime to pack up and leave. That’s how the Nazis were beat the first time around, right?
It was peoples capitulation and unwillingness to take a stand against the Nazi’s that allowed them to win.
If there had been mass protests things might have turned out very differently.
There were literal street fights with armed militias going against the nazis. It is just that the nazis won.
A big part of their victory, is that the Weimer Republic had apocalyptic economic failings that allowed extreme politics to succeed. I suspect that the Trump Regime will suffer the same, so we might end up having antifa becoming the victorious party.
Of course, whether the antifa are good people is going to be dependent on me and others being there to fill the political void if the Trump Regime is obliterated. I want less Russian Totalitarianism and more Republican France to be the future of my nation.
The French republics that arose due to internal revolution (the first and second republics) were pretty brutal and oppressive in their own right and dissolved into authoritarian regimes before too long. The first one with any staying power (the third republic, which remained in place from 1870 until the Nazi invasion of 1940) was brought about due to France losing a war with Prussia/Germany.
When violence is normalized it gives the advantage to the people most willing to cause suffering.
The American populace has capitulated at every turn.
Their “peaceful protests” have served only to embolden the Nazis by clearly demonstrating how little of a threat they pose.
Every American who isn’t throwing punches is complicit.
A) Capitulate means to stop resisting. Protests are resistance, even if you personally think it’s too little.
B) If violence were to break out, where do you think it’s more likely to happen, out in the streets at a protest, or in the basements of people not willing to even leave the house to show their discontent?
C) How many punches have you thrown so far?
D) Random little acts of violence are likely to be suppressed by the pigs and the military. To be effective we need a plan. What better place are you likely to meet others willing to get off their asses and not just armchair quarterback the revolution than at a protest?
Wow, you managed to hit tired, overly-defensive responses #3, #4, and #5 in one post. Excellent. Great use of your energy right now.
What an empty zero effort response. I’ll give you one in return.
Before you bomb the white house maybe start with a protest.
tell that to every other previous protest
So how many protests before we can do something else? The 50501 protests didn’t stop Trump from being an evil dictator.
The Nazis were beaten through foreign intervention. I’m guessing the same thing will need to happen here. Americans are more concerned with making themselves look good (and mainly disagree on whether passive sign-waving or Internet-tough-guy-ism is the best way to do that) than with actually damaging the bottom lines of the people propping up this regime.
I wouldn’t be surprised by that. Imperial Japan had to be forcibly reformed into a democracy.
If they’re not showing up armed they’re doing fuck all.
Seems like a terrible name for it. It sounds kind of juvenile and the other side will latch onto that immediately.
Seems like a terrible name for it.
Oh we’re doing this again? “Let’s not do what I don’t feel like doing because… uh… I don’t like your tone! That’s it!”
I’m all for it, actually. I’ve just seen things go awry way too many times if you’re not able to condense your message into an airtight sound bite.
And I’ve seen movements killed because tone police give politicians an excuse to bail.
The other side will talk about the huge nationwide “Rage against the Regime” to their base? Even if they try to give it some dumb name, they are still talking about it.
Curious, what name do you think is better?
I have attended protests and will do so again, but I have no illusions that the fascists will simply ignore them. This may build up more frustration from people, but the sooner we can plan a general strike the better. The nazi ticks are just burrowing deeper.
The protests by themselves are certainly inadequate, despite the impressive turnout. What makes the difference is what we do with them. Last time I went out, I distributed statements, made contacts and even received some donations. People are seeking out fighting perspectives. They need organization and leadership.
What we need is for someone to openly share addresses of the billionaires homes and start protesting there. That’s the only way we can negatively effect them. Make them scared to be comfortable in their own homes.
It’s an hour long protest. What does anyone think that will accomplish. The “tree huggers” chain themselves to things ffs.
If you complain something won’t do anything, then you must propose a better thing or the only thing you want is apathy.
What “chaining themselves to trees” not clear?
He literally gave an example of a more committed response. We’re lazy
Then chain yourself to a tree.
That’s such a bad interpretation. They need your support to chain themselves to a tree.
Try something like this, and Im serious:
-if you tie yourself to a tree I will tie myself to a tree
-I cant tie myself to a tree because I have legitimate health condition but I will check in on you and share your progress with all my friends
-I totally support you tieing yourself to a tree. I want to see this happen and I admire anyone who would go that far.
Shaming them will only make them bitter… now maybe that is what you want.
Here’s how things will go: See those starving women and children in Gaza? This is what will happen to Americans, and much of the world.
Their own leadership thinks they are redundant, and no longer have to hide their sheer malevolance.
Shit don’t suggest organizing. That’s insanity.
I do, and it gets moderated and I get banned. You know this. Don’t be a cunt.
Oh no, not moderated! Sounds like you are ready and willing to actually do something, as long as it doesn’t come with the mildest of inconveniences.
Sounds like you love everything that’s going on.
It sounds to me like your solution is violence, but that’s actually a bad idea. Of course I can’t actually argue for or against this “idea” you totally have, because you haven’t stated it.
Although when you come out swinging with insults right out of the gate, it kinda reveals a lot.
What does it reveal?
I mean, that you’re a bit of an asshole.
But aren’t we all?
