You fool. You absolute maroon. Don’t you realize the cops leave you alone if you just stand there quietly waving the flag? Don’t you realize that the whole point of a protest is to make sure everyone understands you’re totally okay with the state?
Pretty much a
gathering.
Not effective in defeating fascism, no.
Liberals achieved their goal of taking over and deescalating any actual potential leftism , which was their actual goal.
Gotta keep actual protests smothered so Amerikkka can go to war with Iran
Liberals achieved their goal of taking over and deescalating any actual potential leftism
Saying this is a pretty strong indicator of Not Paying Attention Syndrome. What “potential leftism” was derailed by these protests?
The way people on Hexbear have been talking about 50501 and No Kings and stuff couldn’t make it more obvious that they’ve simply never bothered to engage with them to any extent. It’s a bunch of fart-sniffing online “leftists” who are too cool to go to where literally millions of people are in political motion because you imagine that their politics are gross and irredeemably bad.
I’m gonna write up a separate post admonishing all you losers instead of just you in this one comment.
yeah how dare dirt_owl not hop a 15 hour flight to go be among their community in a city they’ve never been to in a country they don’t live in to protest a government that isn’t theirs
why talk shit about it then
What “potential leftism” was derailed by these protests?
The anti-deportation protests that were crushed by the military had the potential to become another summer of uprisings.
Although of course the uprisings in 2020 weren’t really “leftist” and were just an outpouring of outrage from the masses, and of course there is no organized left to lead the masses towards productive action, but the purpose of No Kings was certainly to help Trump prevent unrest.
Exactly this. Spontaneous, locally focused restistance to not just ICE raids but any militarised law enforcement was popping off organically with an increasing move towards organising local defense.
Then the libs come in with their Walmart & Democratic party sponsorship, turn it into a cop-friendly teaparty while actively harrassing actual organisers for things like Black Panther merch, wearing masks, or displaying keffiyehs (two of the organisers are dedicated zionists), drawing people away from the actual neighbourhoods that are in need of defense to their Instagram oppurtunities in city centres instead, before commiting to a coverup with the help of police after their armed designated ‘peacekeepers’ killed a protestor and tried to murder another before conspiring with law enforcement to smear him as a mass shooter and terrorist and pinning a murder charge on him.
The anti-deportation protests that were crushed by the military had the potential to become another summer of uprisings.
No Kings had absolutely no part in derailing that and 50501 was a useful vehicle for solidarity protests across the country. And I’m sorry, do you think the struggle over deportation is already over?
What seems to have happened is No Kings sucked all the oxygen out of the room and the confrontation in LA has calmed down. Yesterday there were no overnight arrests for the first time since the protests began. The struggle isn’t over, but it seems to have been pacified in LA.
Spontaneous community self-defense violence by its very nature doesn’t last and comes in fits and starts. To look at the first wave of it in the current moment and say it was already defeated assumes that the rage has subsided and been subsumed. I don’t think the No Kings protest had nearly as much to do with it as the work week taking everybody’s time away. The violence in the streets was over days before the protest happened.
The work week took everyone’s time away, sure, and No Kings took the weekend away - the nail in the coffin.
I think we’ll see more outbursts from the masses in the future (a single weekend of counterrevolution can’t actually pacify the masses forever) but I think they bought themselves time with this stunt.
50501 was a useful vehicle for solidarity protests across the country.
0/10 as analysis
7/10 as a bit. Seriously. If you’re active on Hexbear - I can paraphrase you for my own jokes.
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I don’t like ELI5 because I want to be 15 not 5 to learn stuff. So ELI15 - what did the 50501, No Kings, etc. accomplish? As far as I know…
- Nobody made a single demand.
- Zero efforts were made at organizing.
- And point #1 and #2 are the quasi-official position of lib organizers. Every protest will be the same by design.
Am I wrong somehow about those points?
Also I don’t think getting people to gather together - even in their millions - actually accomplished anything. In fact - I think the lib mindset that No Kings was a “win” against Trump is a mirage. You don’t defeat the fascists by holding up signs of their leader as a baby crawling who is crying that his crown fell off and broke.
Am I wrong somehow about those points?
Yes, because there are many more people involved than just the libs online.
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Many protests had a very clear list of demands related to ICE, Iran and Palestine, education cuts, etc.
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I know people across the country who put in tons of effort at capturing people into actual organizations and succeeded.
Also I don’t think getting people to gather together - even in their millions - actually accomplished anything. In fact - I think the lib mindset that No Kings was a “win” against Trump is a mirage. You don’t defeat the fascists by holding up signs of their leader as a baby crawling who is crying that his crown fell off and broke.
Yes, obviously. These sorts of protests will never accomplish anything directly. That doesn’t make them a waste. They are an opportunity to escalate those attendees to greater levels of political action. You need to meet people where they are to move them further along.
Many protests had a very clear list of demands related to ICE, Iran and Palestine, education cuts, etc.
Which lib protests and/or organizers made demands?
I know people across the country…
Those people are libs?
-–
It’s standard operating procedure for libs to derail spontaneous protests for their own ends. And I think it’s pretty clear that the libs are going to be highly active doing that for the next few years. To be pedantic - one of their ever-present goals of the libs is crushing the left. At Bluesky the lib version of solidarity is “building coalitions”. And - of course - leftists get nothing. Building coalitions means that leftists need to get on the lib train because that’s the only path forward that’s “realistic”. Any leftist demands need to be jettisoned because they are entirely “unrealistic”.
Why do I get the sense you’re going to keep arguing with at least five of us that we’re wrong about all this stuff?
Which lib protests and/or organizers made demands?
None! But there were not only lib protests, and that’s my point. And even if there were, you still need to show up and contest the political space.
Those people are libs?
No, they are communists. I’m saying that your characterization of this entire thing as “libs” is wrong because they just represent one segment vying for leadership of the whole thing and they have absolutely not secured it.
It’s standard operating procedure for libs to derail spontaneous protests for their own ends. And I think it’s pretty clear that the libs are going to be highly active doing that for the next few years. To be pedantic - one of their ever-present goals of the libs is crushing the left. At Bluesky the lib version of solidarity is “building coalitions”. And - of course - leftists get nothing. Building coalitions means that leftists need to get on the lib train because that’s the only path forward that’s “realistic”. Any leftist demands need to be jettisoned because they are entirely “unrealistic”.
Don’t let them do this to you! They have tried to do exactly that to me and my comrades. They wanted us to buckle and get on board with their demands while dropping ours. What did we do? We held an entirely separate competing protest that was very successful and drew as many people as theirs did. We laid out the communist line. We were uncompromisingly anti-imperialist. And those politics were well-received because the people are primed for anti-systemic politics
Why do I get the sense you’re going to keep arguing with at least five of us that we’re wrong about all this stuff?
because you’re wrong
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What “potential leftism” was derailed by these protests?
By making sure the protests become a US patriotism parade with a focus on nonviolence and cooperation with the right-wing state. It tames any real escalation and just turns it into another Occupy Wall Street.
You seem to think I’m telling people to do nothing? Why? Is the only alternative to nothing to dress up like a slave owner and kiss US army ass?
I’m gonna write up a separate post admonishing all you losers instead of just you in this one comment.
ok
I’ve been out there with these people since they started coming to the local protests my comrades and I started back in February. They absolutely have been deescalating any actual potential leftism because they give people the idea that the neolibs will swoop in and save the day rather than looking for a better solution to our billionaire beholden, two party farce of a democracy. I’ve been able to reach quite a few people by being a consistent, reliable person there but when indivisible rolls up trying to get people to vote for them rather than organizing their local communities, it’s redirecting people’s energy towards the wrong thing.
Saying we’re a bunch of keyboard warriors that aren’t out there hitting the pavement is almost the same as saying the 2A conservatives are the only ones with guns.
when indivisible rolls up trying to get people to vote for them rather than organizing their local communities
damn, you better give up and just let indivisble have the movement
if you don’t want democrats to take over, you need to get out there and take over
Could you give me some advice on how to instantaneously win over millions of hearts and minds? Or are you saying I should just roll over and let the neolibs do their thing?
Oh, I’m sorry, is doing revolutionary organizing gonna take time and work and dealing with annoying people? Is the struggle a struggle?
You need to actually put in some fucking work, learn, build skills, build an organization, and deploy that organization to these protests to win people over. I’m doing it every single fucking day and it has been productive. It has moved large numbers of people closer to the politics we need. Your belief that we need to invent a Convince the Masses of Communism button and press it or lose is exactly why I’m calling you a loser. You’re gonna need to talk to people who might not already agree with you, and who might not even agree with you after you talk to them!
I’ve been able to reach quite a few people by being a consistent, reliable person there
I get your criticisms, but if you go back and read @calidris@hexbear.net"s comment, he says he’s doing exactly what you’re advocating and is expressing some frustration with people who are tugging on the other end of the rope.
If you’re engaging with people in real life the same way you are on here, I’m surprised you’re able to make any progress. And if you don’t, why do you have more patience with them than you do with us?
And if you don’t, why do you have more patience with them than you do with us?
Frankly because you all should know better. Instead the site is filled with politically demobilizing idealistic takes. My audience right now is the self-righteous strain of political disengagement from a bunch of people who supposedly want to build communism on a website known for crude and blunt communication.
Protesting trump does fuck all. It just feeds his ego that the left are mad at him. Unless you’re prepared to get violent, you’re just wasting your time.
Ok, why aren’t you getting violent?
It takes a team with an organized plan, buddy, and I think you know that. A single person going on an adventure isn’t effective either. I didn’t mean “you” the singular version, I meant “you” the million-odd people who showed up.
Ok, so how do you plan to get them to that point if not engaging with them where they are? We don’t have millions of people ready and willing to carry out revolutionary violence. We have millions of people mad at the system ready to hear alternatives. That’s where we have to be, and then we can bring them further along.
I went to an indivisible protest. They’re completely worthless
100%, the indivisible protest organizers are our enemies and we should see them as such. But they aren’t the same as the masses of attendees, who are what we need to be contesting for. Call your own 50501 protest, organize it, put it out there, and advance a radical line. It works. That’s how you defeat our enemies.
Stick to that line then instead of calling everyone idiots and assholes. It’s nice that you got liberals to clap at communism,mow try to apply those same skills of persuasion to communists and maybe you’d have a shred of credibility here
did you go to a no king’s protest or is this just a strong opinion based on what you saw on the internet?
I organized one and all the speakers were communists and the thousands of attendees enthusiastically cheered when we told them we need to do a socialist revolution and a bunch of them signed up to get involved in organizing.
I genuinely do not believe this. If this is true then you organized the only non-liberal No Kings protest on the planet.
Like the OP said, they are a mixed bag. In my city too, there were a lot of radical speakers, and speakers from the socialist and revolutionary orgs in my city.
ok, cool? stay home then, everything is hopeless, the dems have already won, I’m so seepy eepy
I went to a No Kings protest and it was aggressively anti-left and anti-anything other than voting. They were petting cop horses, thanking cops, having blue dog council members tell us all to vote for them. IO sincerely don’t believe anything organized as a “No Kings” protest would be allowed to have anything legitimately left involved, much less involved in its organization.
That’s because you didn’t do anything to change it. If the Democrats won in your local area, it’s because you sat by and watched it happen.
Yeah this completely eradicated any credibility you may have had
fuck you, here’s a link of literally this thing happening https://www.instagram.com/pslcleveland/reel/DK5lWskPp7w/
fuck you btw
This makes me happy to see. I hope you succeed in making real change in your community. I also hope you realize this was not the case in a majority of the other protests, despite our efforts.
I think the protests fall into a few distinct categories:
You’ve got small town ones, which are essentially entirely grassroots and politically pretty soft. They’re still a good thing, because they are composed of people who basically have never taken any political action before. It’s progress, just starting from a very low baseline
Then there are two city variants defined by the contest between the libs and the left. Either the libs have won via Indivisible and other components of the Dem machine quickly activating, or the left (embodied by PSL in most cities where there’s been some success here) successfully anticipating this movement and laying the organizational groundwork and earning the legitimacy to determine the political line and tenor. In big east coast cities, the Dem machine is powerful and mostly succeeded. In the midwest and mountain states, PSL has had far more success. I can’t really speak to the situation on the west coast, and these are all just trends with lots of exceptions.
Remember to delete this link in a day or two because your city + org affiliation may be doxable info.
To what end? I am essentially already a public figure in my city. Anybody can dox me as much as they want.
It’s clear you’re very good at organizing based on your rage
This but unironically
This but unironically. Jack’s basically channeling Lenin’s ghost lol
best organizer I ever worked like was like this, I hated working with the guy sometimes because he was gruff and sharp like this guy is being but he got shit done so I never complained
did really wear on me though…
I am in fact good as hell at organizing, because I have on multiple occassions the last three months taken all the energy the Dems wanted to redirect into their machine and directed into a revolutionary one. My PSL branch has put on four large 50501 protests with thousands of attendees each, and every single one we have been extremely explicit about our politics to excellent popular reception. If I hadn’t done that, all those people would’ve just been listening to some Dem council person telling them to vote for Chuck Schumer or whatever.
Effective = got some media attention and looked nice while doing it. Oh, you think protests are supposed to affect how the government acts? Yeah, ok buddy, keep dreaming.
no property damage, but didn’t some unarmed protester get shot by a “peacekeeper” at one of these for the crime of being near someone with a rifle the “peacekeeper” was shooting at? and there’s that other incident of the armed chud wandering into the crowd and menacing people brazenly his gun drawn, with no consequences?
liberals: property damage is bad, traumatizing and murdering people is NBD.
It was even worse than that. A leftist protestor and regular fixture at actually organising events was open carrying as they always did and was their legal right. Two ‘peacekeepers’ designated by the ‘protest’ organisers took it upon themselves to murder him in cold blood as he simply walked along the street, gun not raised, no intimidation etc (despite them lying about that until the video came out). He was hit and ran for his life and in their efforts to finish the job the ‘peacekeepers’ then shot another totally uninvolved protesting bystander. The organisers and ‘peacekeepers’ then conspired with the police to smear the victim of their attempted murder as a mass shooter and domestic terrorist, getting him slapped with a murder charge for the bystander they shot dead. They’ve only backed off this smear and attack narrative now that video has come out showing what actually happened. But orgnanisers are still refusing to acknowledge it, while protecting the identities of the ‘peacekeepers’, refusing to answer questions, and deleting or drowning out questions or criticism across their various online platforms.
I didn’t know there was a video.
They always make it so obvious that they value property damage over the lives of working class people, especially if they’re not white
We shot one of our protestors as a bystander while shooting and actively trying to murder another of ‘our’ protestors before working with the police to cover up the crime and smearing the victim as a “depraved and evil domestic terrorist” and a mass shooter, despite the video evidence to the contrary, but no one broke a bank window so… SUCCESS!
Libs will fucking murder you rather than see a bin set on fire and then pat themselves on the back.
I don’t know for sure because I didn’t follow the timeline of events that well but this is usually true: the LA protests probably would have had no property damage too if the pigs hadn’t attacked. LA pigs are some of the worst. Pigs hate seeing a bunch of anti racists standing together and are very likely to react violently.
There may not have been any property damage but what about the thousands of patting-yourself-on-the-back injuries that were sustained?
That’s no joke, patting yourself on the back can be fatal when you don’t have a spine.
These people are fucking morons. All successful protests have been disruptive. Did they not learn about Rosa Parks in school?
My favorite so far was a group of “protestors” chanting ‘Whose Streets-Our Streets’ while standing on the sidewalk. My new mental image of irony.
During the BLM protests under lockdown as we began to march in the streets we had to tell newer protestors to get in the actual street. It’s a funny irony but they did and it was cool. I think there is a natural inclination of most people not to cause a scene. Not to be very disruptive. Not to be too rebellious. And that’s okay. Most people want to live a fairly quite and productive life, honestly. Even when they are angry and fed up. That’s the job organizers, though. To show them that this is what we are doing and you should participate, too.
Another job of good leftist organizers is to lead some kind of confrontation with the police. I’m not saying violent, necessarily. Be antagonistic, though. It’s easy to get the cops to show their “us versus you” mentality. Get the libs to not just see it but to feel that. To realize the cops are against them, too. A major problem with liberals is that they think the police are their friends. It must be dispelled if anything positive will ever happen in this country.
All they learned is that Rosa Parks was tired and sat on the bus, she got arrested. MLK had a speech in D.C, and racism was defeated.
The paradigm we are taught is that if oppressed people are “deserving” enough and suffer to a sufficient degree our kind-hearted overlords will change things and “make them right.” We are taught that liberation rests upon the goodness of our rulers and it is not up to us regular people to decide.
Oh God, they’d be criticizing Rosa Parks if that had happened in this period
“Don’t argue, just go to the back of the bus and later tell people, and let everyone know how it made you feel; doing it the way you did you’ve upset everyone and now no one knows what you were trying to do”
My lib parents are all about “optics” and remaining peaceful. They also loved some news article of a protester in Kansas with a John Brown sign that just says abolish ice. Libs have zero analysis. They have zero critical understanding of history. How are you going to celebrate the invoking of John Brown, a guy who famously beheaded slavers in Kansas and whose last boldest violent campaign probably led to the civil war and the emancipation of the slaves… and also claim that’s no place for violence?
The liberal doth protest too much, hmmmm could there be some insecurity about the democrat’s lack of popularity?
Success to lib protests is when cars drive by you standing on the sidewalk and honk in support.
DAE
?
