Not every protest is met with direct force. There's plenty that are dismantled from the inside using tactics developed in the sixties to divide and weaken idealogical movements! Shit literally documented in intelligence agency standard procedure documents for dealing with large scale idealogical movements and breaking them apart.
Then you just sprinkle some direct force here and there as a treat!
Occupy Wallstreet was poisoned in its crib through infiltration by external forces causing confusion, internal disent, and loss of direction. That is the one "conspiracy theory" I don't think I will ever be able to let go of.
Intersectionality and identity politics were long overdue, but there's no way in hell that their rise from the ashes of OWS was a coincidence. Give the socially concious public something else to latch onto for a while so the 1% can shore up their defenses and power structure while the people at the bottom squabble over very important but far less impactful things.
As important as everything else is, the largest determinant of life outcome is money, almost entirely overlooked in most discussions about gender and race.
They are so good at breaking up large ideological movements the white supremacists had to change their name from the KKK to MAGA
It's social engineering at its finest. They've mastered the art of dividing Americans, destroying the family unit, and eroding community bonds. Now, only state-approved groups remain, aimlessly arguing against each other.
I agree with everything you said. I wish down voters would express their differences of view instead.
It's disheartening to see America using tactics against its own people to create division and steer us into becoming more like slave workers. The legacy of those intelligence agency methods is still evident today. Occupy Wall Street’s downfall due to infiltration and internal dissent is a prime example. The rise of intersectionality and identity politics, while important, has also diverted attention from the economic issues that affect everyone. It feels like the tree of liberty is withering away as the 1% continues to strengthen their hold.
Are the tactics and procedures used to break down such documents leaked? Id love to read more about it, and I suppose it may be part of some of the leaks that happened in the last few years.
I'm interested in how exactly they do/did it, so I know what to watch out for.
To me, OWS failed because they lacked any sort of leadership or vision other than a list of grievances with no solutions.
Extremely unfun fact: before even the Jews, they came for LGBTQ+ people. The first major Nazi book burning was at the Institute For Sexuality which, apart from being a research institute dealing with all sorts of "nonstandard" sexuality in a scholarly rather than punitive manner, was also the world's first trans clinic.
The reason it's not mentioned is that Pastor Niemöller, being a conservative pastor, didn't see anything wrong with the persecution and erasure of LGBTQ+ people.
One of the reasons it's important to remember that the LGBTQ+ community were the first targets of concerted Nazi erasure even though they were far from the first targets of nazi hatred and slander is that the GOP are doing the same thing and they'll go through the rest of the list too if they aren't stopped.
Also important to remember when people are talking about queer identities being a "new trend" or whatever
It's not
We just got erased from history
This is also why people think being trans is a "new" thing. The Institute For Sexuality was the first and only place performing research and on trans people and offering gender affirming care. When the Nazi book burnings happened, they burned the entirety of the world's research on trans people.
Worth mentioning that Magnus Hirschfeld (guy who ran the Institute For Sexuality) was Jewish, and that is a big part of the reason why his institute was attacked. According to Nazi propaganda, his institute (and queerness in general) was a Jewish plot to weaken the white race.
Which goes to show, fascist propaganda hasn’t changed all that much since then!
Some LGBTQ+ people even vote for conservatives, as too do black, disabled, women, other non-white "minorities" (
I put in quotes b/c white people are actually the minority in the USA now, but on the other hand that fact doesn't seem to matter one bit to those who use that term the most...Edit: sorry I misremembered, it is only the under-18 crowd where that is true for now).And these people are shocked, Shocked I tell you, SHOCKED when the conservative party eventually turns on them. I know, shocking, right?
They don't understand that the result of pyramid-thinking is by its very nature exclusive rather than inclusive (Innuendo Studios video "There's Always a Bigger Fish" + Endnote video "The Origins of Conservatism"). They haven't been excluded from it - YET! - but they will, it is only a matter of time. It's karma. What is done - and allowed to be done - to others, can easily be done to YOU.
Ironically, Jesus Himself said "Treat others as you would wish they would do for you, in fact, even better than that - and nobody gets excluded from that". Also the Bible says a bunch of other stuff - the worker deserves their wages, live & let live, and so, so much else that just flat gets ignored by the people using it as a club to beat someone with.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...
Niemöller made confession in his speech for the Confessing Church in Frankfurt on 6 January 1946, of which this is a partial translation:
... the people who were put in the camps then were Communists. Who cared about them? We knew it, it was printed in the newspapers. Who raised their voice, maybe the Confessing Church? We thought: Communists, those opponents of religion, those enemies of Christians—"should I be my brother's keeper?"
Then they got rid of the sick, the so-called incurables. I remember a conversation I had with a person who claimed to be a Christian. He said: Perhaps it's right, these incurably sick people just cost the state money, they are just a burden to themselves and to others. Isn't it best for all concerned if they are taken out of the middle [of society]? Only then did the church as such take note.
Then we started talking, until our voices were again silenced in public. Can we say, we aren't guilty/responsible?
The persecution of the Jews, the way we treated the occupied countries, or the things in Greece, in Poland, in Czechoslovakia or in Holland, that were written in the newspapers. ... I believe, we Confessing-Church-Christians have every reason to say: mea culpa, mea culpa! We can talk ourselves out of it with the excuse that it would have cost me my head if I had spoken out.
We preferred to keep silent. We are certainly not without guilt/fault, and I ask myself again and again, what would have happened, if in the year 1933 or 1934—there must have been a possibility—14,000 Protestant pastors and all Protestant communities in Germany had defended the truth until their deaths? If we had said back then, it is not right when Hermann Göring simply puts 100,000 Communists in the concentration camps, in order to let them die. I can imagine that perhaps 30,000 to 40,000 Protestant Christians would have had their heads cut off, but I can also imagine that we would have rescued 30–40,000 million [sic] people, because that is what it is costing us now.
A large part of the very founding of the USA was due to Quakers escaping the persecution of slave owners, b/c they were so radical in their advocacy to halt slavery. And then it was Anglicans, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists, and other faith groups of all kinds who worked to actually stop it, in the UK and the USA. Sadly they worked against others of the same religions who argued (almost) just as vociferously to continue it...
My point is that religion can do great things, if only it would DO IT. It could help ensure that the worker receives their wages, feed the homeless, take care of widows & orphans (& everyone), be kind and like visit the sick or in prison, and on and on it goes - and to the extent that religious people do these things, that is awesome! But... it takes actually reading the book that is claimed to be "holy" (e.g. "show love to one another - be ye not Karens or Dicks to one another"), and second, it takes courage to actually act upon one's convictions, rather than merely say in words how much one "believes".
We have a low tier propagandist in Russia who tweaked the last paragraph:
"And then they stopped coming. Because everything became normal."
Jokes aside, last week he got accused of committing some kind of crime. Waiting for him to be jailed and the joke to be finished.
It should also be pointed out that modern protest movements aren't particularly tactical. In fact, these people largely suck at it.
You all know how much this country hates homeless and homeless-adjacent people, and yet, you opt to camp out in public areas anyway.
Here's a darn good article on why your protests fail: https://www.americanpurpose.com/articles/caring-isnt-enough/
This started to inspire me to organize a protest and not a social media stunt. I'm behind the idea of a "revolution" but knowing the fundamentals of protesting is honestly eye opening. We can't just "fight back" blindly, we need to think, we need to plan, and we need to execute our demands.
Yup.
There has also been a tendency for progressive protest movements to get extremely derailed by bad-faith actors subverting the plans, messaging and outcome of the events, seeding bad messages or inciting violence.
While this isn't necessarily the fault of the protestors, the groups have been terrible about focusing on message and enforcing guidelines for how to safely protest and stay on message, so it's really hard to separate out these saboteurs and point to them as the problem-starters.
I have said for a long time that the left needs better community organization and better leaders, not just in action movements and marches, but generally on a community level, there are a lot of people committing the same sin as the right, which is attaching to the progressive cause for the performative expression and storyline narrative only, and getting lost in the conflict not the message and goal. Performative progressivism is going to be the thing that sinks movements every time because it's so easy to poke holes in the half-ass campaigns and the people involved don't really care enough to push back in an intelligent way, as long as they have their in-groups to retreat to and feel validated and comforted by their community.
Agreed. A lot of these non-violent protests get infiltrated by cops posing as demonstrators. They're called "agents provocateurs" and they work to undermine and discredit the group's goals.
They're fairly easy to spot because they're always agitating for violence and nobody in the protest seems to know who they are or can remember exactly when they joined your group.
there are a lot of people committing the same sin as the right, which is attaching to the progressive cause for the performative expression and storyline narrative only
Nailed it.
The point of protest is to upset status quo, as a demonstration for attention to grievances.
To imply that you're doing it wrong is some next generation privilege shit.
What??
I think it's more, we need to be smart about how we protest to do it most effectively. We can't afford to be sloppy about it.
Article is sort of right but also seems aimed at discouraging people. Generally seems to be the goal that site, to promote a center right agenda.
Modern protest have little cohesion because Americans have little cohesion. It has no leaders bc any leaders are swept off to jail. It's a big part of why things suck so much. That article is missing any analysis of why. It's frankly anti protest propaganda and so are you.
It's frankly anti protest propaganda and so are you.
It's actually quite analytical, and gives you several examples as to why prior protest movements were successful. It suggests that maybe modern movements could learn a few lessons if they read their history books.
But you probably didn't read it anyway.
I think anyone with a working brain has figured out that the police has a side, at least in Brazil. I mean, every time there were demonstrations and walks asking for a fucking military coup and a new military dictatorship, the police would smile and pose for all sorts of photos with the participants.
Before the rabble invaded and broke into the buildings at the Plaza of Three Powers in January 8, 2023, it was like the police was escorting a group of friends. In some of the videos, the rabble would yell "We're on your side!" to the police who finally had to fight them. Of course, the majority of police still identifies with those fucking bozonazis.
I think anyone with a working brain has figured out that the police has a side,
May have something to do with the fact that the institution of police was designed from the ground up to be a fascist one.
Because of prevailing attitudes and upbringing, a statistically significant portion of those cops come from the same pool that generates the white nationalists.
Those cops rise in the ranks to be the people in charge of the police force, where they have command over which protests get dealt with harshly and which don't.
Because of the perceived nature of a cops authority simply because they carry a badge and a gun, the people who most want to become cops are the very people that should psychologically never be allowed to become one.
There’s also the fact that liberal protests don’t tend to be armed, (sort of goes hand-in-hand with liberals hating guns,) but white supremacist protests tend to be heavily armed. People noticed during the civil rights era that unarmed protests got violently busted; Cops had no qualms about firing into unarmed crowds to get them to disperse.
But heavily armed protests were politely watched from across the street. Because if you fire into an armed crowd, you may take out two or three protestors but then the entire rest of the protest can return fire.
This is exactly why the Black Panthers got started. People recognized that armed protests were allowed to continue, so they began arming protestors.
Anyone keen enough to be a police officer/politician/CEO should on no account be given the job.
Ok but this screenshot is clearly not from Tumblr
The white supremacists usually have a large number of firearms and actively use the second amendment. When aplied at other protests (see earty capital hill occupations) a similar response happens with police being more stand offish and refusing to take ground until absolutely necessary.
The white supremacists usually have a large number of firearms and actively use the second amendment.
Seems like the perfect situation for a hyper-militarized police force to me.
(Not to say I think the government should deploy a proto-military force against protests, but like, if they're doing it anyway...)
You’re right, but in most situations any casualties are unacceptable. The police will minimize their presence if they believe the people protesting have the conviction to use firearms against them. This is ehy the second amendment is so important, as defense for every other amendment against the corrupt and tyrannical.
That's because many of them are off-duty cops. And why would you arrest your friends?
When aplied at other protests (see earty capital hill occupations)...
...some other random fascist murders them instead, and then gets pardoned by Governor Abbott for it.
Self defense back at em.
May have something to do with the fact that the police is about as fascist an institution as institutions get.
How could police bully people at the white supremacist demonstration? Aren't they all too busy marching?
Having to switch costumes would be such a pain in the ass for them.
Conversely, when's the last time a peaceful protest actually worked
Before COINTELPRO became MO
You are in a bubble. A neo nazi march was banned two weeks ago in France before being allowed again by the judicial system. The exact same scenario has been repeating for pro-palestine protests.
At least in France, the scenario seems to be that the government wants to ban any controversial march and is being kept under control by the justice system.
Justice systems can only slow down or retroactively punish the government who controls the police.
Well just keep voting blue and hope things will change in 50 years
I haven't tried to prove or disprove this statement, but it could easily be selection bias. If you're in a bubble, you're going to be very aware of violence done to people you sympathize with, and less aware of violence done to people you don't.
In what bubble...the national stage?
Atmospheric bubble one might say
The protests that aren't oppressed are the ones that are utterly ineffective. Think flash in the pan pussy hat protests, that are more about making the participants feel good about themselves than actually forcing change.
If a protest has the capability to last and continue bringing their issue to the forefront it will be met with oppression.
Probably accurate. Anything that upsets the status quo, costs business owners money, or otherwise threatens reelection chances is going to be met with force. Or, more likely, a smear campaign, ridicule, and then force
