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Anyone interested in the U.S. general strike this year: https://piefed.social/c/news/p/1928891/date-may-1-announced-for-national-strike-aimed-at-crippling-trump-no-work-no-school
and will not participate in one
Start building guillotines, please!
The first comment / response or whatever that I read in there does a better job of expressing my opinion on this than I ever could.
“It’s building the muscle. You have to get someone to show up one day before you can get them to show up often, or every day, or for the long haul.”
Really the same goes for so many of the organizations running the events. They’re local orgs, local people with different levels of experience (mostly very little) with organizing at this scale. It takes practice and time to get good at these things. It takes time to find volunteers and train them.
Contrary to what some of the comments implied, most of these events aren’t planned/operated by paid professionals, not that paying for professional help is inherently a bad thing anyway. There’s top-level guidance and coordination, that kind of stuff generally requires dedicated teams (aka paid employees) due to the time and skill requirements for those roles. But on the local level, it’s volunteers all around. And the real planning, the hard work, is virtually all done locally by those volunteers.
i don’t agree at all. the reason is that the people who go to these will argue that they are making a difference and fight against what comes next.
these are not even having the police interfere so you know no one cares at all. school children have a walk out criticizing israel? police show up with chemical weapons and shoots people point blank with less the lethal rounds. go to a no kings and police is directing traffic.
no these protests are a distraction to make people think that nothing more has to be done, and they did their part.
and then on tv the largest mass protest in history is a foot note to trumps birthday party. so no.
Note that the person criticising the original is also not active in organising a general strike. It is permissable to hold opinions without being obliged to act on them.
Yea I’m really bad at organizing but I damn well know it has to be done by someone with the skill to do it.
Yes. But the moment you release your opinion out on the wild, we’re allowed to ridicule you for them.
Of course you can. I’m just saying that the criticism is stupid in this case. I mean, I think that fusion power would be a good thing, but fuck me for not working 24 hours a day on a PhD in nuclear physics.
But that’s more like having people talk about how we should do nuclear and renewable power, and you coming along complaining people should be working on developing fusion power instead because fission power just won’t do anything
Not it isn’t.
Arguing that fission power won’t do anything is objectively incorrect.
Arguing that a general strike would be more effective than weekend rallies alone is objectively correct.
Your analogy is not analagous.
Beyond that, arguing against doing something is not the same as arguing for doing something else, in addition to /or/ instead of the original something.
Arguing that fission power won’t do anything is objectively incorrect.
That’s an opinion, regardless of whether it’s true or not. The analogy is analogous because I’m taking the same actions and statements, applying them to analogous topics in a different field. Dismissing that because you believe your beliefs to be objective fact is just dishonest.
… Fission power works.
It generates energy.
This is objectively true.
That is not nothing.
If you were being hyperbolic, well then your analogy is not analagous because one end of it is hyperbolic.
That is true, however this is not about the acting, it’s about hypocrisy in the traditional sense. OC is essentially saying “we have the same goal and I set an easier plan and I’m currently following it, while you are criticizing my plan, making up a way harder one, saying I should follow that one while not following either mine or your plan at all.”
It’s like when you are working in a supermarket, restocking the shelves and your coworker is just sitting on a chair watching you, and after a while he says “this is useless, you should rather do some cashier work, people are waiting” while eating candy.
Yeah sure he might be technically right, but this is extremely out of line.
Why should I listen to you? You’re not actively involved in organizing a general strike either.
You’ve opened this Pandora’s Box my friend there’s no closing it again now. It’s not being actively involved in organizing a general strike all the way down.
Yeah if you’re not actively involved in organizing a general strike you don’t get my vote. And since there are not any candidates meeting that criteria, I’m staying home on Election Day.
Don’t believe me? There’s 10 of millions of US citizens who will be doing the same thing!
Checkmate /s
I disagree about it being permissable. If anything it makes you a hypocrite and undermines the appearance of intelligence and empathy, alike. The complaint is also misguided and simply wrong. Saying nothing will change is absurd. Things are already changing. These rallies raise awareness for everyone. You can’t have a general strike until you get everyone to agree to it.
I’m not going to be first in line to start doing something that actually fucking matters, but you bet your ass I’ll be third.
protests and direct action present an opportunity for everyone to go at once. it’s just up to you guys to take it.
This person could be French. They know how to bring the state to heel, and they share their experiences for those clearly in need of learning Americans. But they have to leave organizing to the people who are actually involved.
I don’t know why people have this illusion surrounding French people when they’re actively electing fascists and calling antifa a violent group of terrorists, while having their government give a minute of silence for the death of an actual nazi (like, actually posting on twitter that he loves Hitler -kind of nazi)
French people know nothing, they stopped understanding protests and revolts after Napoleon started shooting civilians with cannons and have been licking the boots of dictators since then. It’s no wonder that a bunch of them collaborated with the nazis back in ww2, and it’s no wonder they’re collaborating with the new nazis now.
I agree people (Americans?) are idealizing the french in this regard. But you’re yourself misinformed.
Napoleon did shoot royalists with cannons in 1795, when he wasn’t yet in power. It didn’t stop the 1830 or 1848 revolutions happening, nor the 1871 commune. More recently the 1968 protests were accompanied by a general strike which did scare the hell of many people.
What we need is a pragmatic and informed assessments of events so that we can decide what might work and what won’t. National stereotypes and prejudices should be discarded.
French people get taught in schools that (pseudo-) dictators like Louis XIV, Napoleon and De Gaulle, are the best kind of leaders and that France would be nothing without them. The president of France himself implied very strongly that he believes France needs a dictator, and he got reelected after that.
Clearly, protests that happened after the French revolution were not enough to do any meaningful change in the long run, as proven by the state of France now. Most people see protests as a nuisance, violent protests as terrorism, and antifascism as a hate crime. This antidemocratic wave got heavily promoted by Napoleon and De Gaulle, and the fact that these two are seen as heroes in France shows the perception that French people have.
There’s a reason why protests like the recent ones against Macron basically did nothing, despite being amongst the biggest protests of the past decades: most of the population is hostile to protests and revolts, and supports the idea of a fascist government
You clearly don’t understand anything about French politics, and these overgeneralizations you’re making don’t prove otherwise.
The French government is currently divided three ways, with no coalition able to achieve a governing majority. They’ve been in a stalemate since their last election. That’s why they’re not able to get anything done, for better or for worse.
Attempting to characterize the entire French government and the entire French people as one thing is extremely ignorant. There’s plenty of dissent in France, and plenty of discontent.
Every country glazes its own image in schools. That doesn’t mean everyone in the country falls for the brainwashing.
Also, De Gaulle led the French resistance, helped the Allies kick the Nazis out of France, and led France during the period of denazification after the war. What part of that makes him a dictator, in your eyes?
What are you even talking about?
Macron has been doing whatever he wanted for the past years. He’s changed completely the political norm of France, brought the vision if the left from a normal party, to the evil antisemitic violent terrorist party, while normalising the far right so much that now most right-wing parties all blend together and say the same fascist crap.
France has, since Macron, been “dropping out of democracy”, according to the international federation for human rights. That’s not just a little stalemate here.
The fucking government gave a *minute of silence for a nazi terrorist that died after attacking people, while being watched by cops who saw them initiate the attack and intentionally did nothing. What more do you want? You’re waiting for them to do like in the US and have the government do nazi salutes?
De Gaulle ran away from the war to hide, took advantage of the french resistance, sabotaged resistance operations led by the communist resistance because he hated communists, loved colonies, and changed the whole government system to make it give more power to the president. He ignored the population, lied to them without giving a shit, encouraged violence in algeria, and the only actual good thing that he did (preventing the US and UK from stealing and invading France) was out of pride, and doesn’t compensate for anything else. But history is indeed written by the winners.
The French people brought down three monarchies after Napoleon fired those cannons.
Yes, and that didn’t revive democracy. Or prevent king macron
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Hes right though.
Could be a person not living in the USA, Max.
Us foreigners also have opinions on what’s happening in the US, because it affects us too, but we have no way to affect change in the US, other than our boycotts.
IDK Russia did a good job swaying the US public opinion and spreading propaganda.
I was gonna say I bet a lot of the accounts complaining about these protests are Russian bots
you guys simply cannot take criticism can you
American exceptionalism. They are the best country ever! Therefore, the way they are doing things is the best way it could possibly done, nothing could possibly be done differently, and anyone saying anything to the contrary must be foreign agents trying to undermine the best country ever!
no kings has no leverage and no power and no stamina and no guts. are the police attacking them in the streets? i personaly see these kind of protests as controlled off gassing. you have a large amount of people who would under other circumstances be pushed into actual action, thinking they make a difference doing this, allowing the system to functionally ignore them.
without the media on your side these protests do not work. and the media is captured, and neither side wants to see this stop
‘actual action’ beyond protest tends to get nasty quickly. I’m glad the left wing isn’t lowering themselves to the level of, say, the capitol attacks.
The just way will take longer but it’s the only way to effect real change.
A strike would be a good middle ground though.
you say it will “takes longer” as things have been getting worse not better is a weird stance. these protests have been unsuccessful in their goals, not having a goal was the first failure. and there is a lot that can be done before the need to storm the capitol. but you are already poised to reject anything beyond protest. so you are in reality happy with the status quo
I’m not happy though I’m not directly involved as I’m not American (though I am affected of course). But there’s a limit to what you can expect here. The MAGA’s are a cult, protesting won’t touch their hard core and pushing them harder will cause escalation.
The only way these walls will come down is talking, not fighting. And they’re burning up inside now with this Iran war that’s deeply unpopular even with MAGA. Unfortunately they did manage their goal of making everyone forget the word Epstein though 😔
By protesting and being reasonable you chip away at their fringes, the people that are kinda on the fence. Anyway that’s my take.
And like I said, strikes are a good idea too, anything non violent really.
incorrect. reasoning with a cult does not work. protesting will not effect their decisions in the slightest, and worrying about escalation has always been a moot point. they manufacture escalation at their pace. they do not need a reason. but forcing escalation it’s the point. the iranians have been more effective at changing the heart of magats by making life for magats directly harder. not a single protest has changed their mind. and so in order for this to stop, life has to start getting harder for everyone.
Are you recruiting there for an org that wants to do something that matters?
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/40568556
Or are you gonna let the Liberals get all the photo ops?
And are you actively organizing to change that? Or are you just providing an example of OP?
are you?
Yes. I’m a member of a number of local mutual aid orgs and other groups that I started working more closely with after my home state was invaded by ICE.
if that is true, then you should know better.
what concrete things have the no kings protests achieve?
If you’re writing off all liberals then your view makes sense. At our no kings the Brown Berets showed up to protect those you are spurning. Many years ago I attended a UFW march that was also protected by the Brown Berets and it shocked an out of town liberal white woman who compared the union march to the Nazis. These people tend to only see aesthetics so the march is a good opportunity to make unusual alliances. That’s the concrete achievement of my local Marxist-lennist org, but that probably doesn’t make sense to the terminally online.
here’s my comment from yesterday about this:
plus this is the perfect opportunity to organize to go literally talk to them. if not us, fascism will find a way to, like we’ve seen in the past so often. not all of these people are militant irreducible libs.
your condescending tone is definetly not convincing anyone.
I think liberals doing trust exercises with marxists and others from different political leanings is the effective part.
I thought a general strike was in the works for May 1st?
One-day strikes are the same as one-day protests. Good visibility and networking but no actual pressure on their own. Ideally a general atrike would be “indefinite until our demands are met” but the US doesn’t have enough class unity or social safety net for that right now.
The person online has more visuality than he who is not.
Your wallet is your strongest voice in the eyes of this administration. Think carefully about where you spend your hard earned money.
A single day of avoiding Walmart and Amazon is not meaningful if you give them your money tomorrow. Find local businesses that deserve your money and spend your money with them instead.
Buy less and buy better quality items that last longer. Reduce consumerism and give homemade gifts or experiences instead of more junk nobody needs. Use lending libraries, swap groups, and other methods to reduce your contribution to the economy, which is frankly the only thing the American government really is interested in.
And hats off to the person who successfully organizes a general strike. I’m cheering you on from Canada.
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