On Feb. 15, 2003, millions of people marched in over 600 cities against the plans of U.S. President George W. Bush to invade Iraq.
First time?
Many of those protests were shut down too. I was up in MA for the Blood for Oil/WMD protest. We were shut down due to a ‘bad actor’ that not one of us witnessed. Neither the bad actor nor the protest made the papers.
Props to the AP, Newsweek, and USA Today for covering 50501 while the rest show where their loyalty lies.
But there was a massive amount of coverage on how disliked Bush was (man, in fucking comparison...) whereas op's post is about how major the protest is vs. how little coverage there is of it.
The text in the image says it's the first time, though. Don't support misinformation just because it makes us look good
Was it all 50 states simultaneously?
That was my first experience organizing a protest. Fack I am old now.
Fifty states, one message: we see through the facade. Simultaneous protests coast-to-coast, and the propaganda machines are in stealth mode. Convenient, isn’t it? A nation erupts, and the so-called “free press” opts for strategic amnesia.
This isn’t apathy—it’s suppression. When every state rises up, the system panics. The Capitol steps become battlegrounds, yet the narrative is buried under celebrity gossip and stock market fluff. They’re scared. Scared of what happens when people realize that unity in dissent is their greatest weapon.
Keep marching. If they won’t cover it, we’ll document it ourselves. The truth doesn’t need their permission to exist.
they did this to “Occupy Wall Street” too… once they couldn’t ignore it anymore, they just made fun of them.
as much as i hate protests blocking the freeway, because it’s dangerous and pisses off innocent people, it does manage to get you on the news….
oh, also because it gives cops an excuse to raid you violentlyExactly. They ran the same playbook with Occupy Wall Street—ignore, ridicule, and then unleash the riot squads when the message hits too close to home. It’s not about “safety” or “order”; it’s about silencing dissent before it becomes unmanageable.
Blocking freeways? Sure, it’s inconvenient—but so is systemic corruption, unchecked corporate greed, and a government that treats its people like collateral damage. If a traffic jam is what it takes to make the propaganda machines blink, then so be it.
And yeah, cops love an excuse to escalate. The state’s monopoly on violence doesn’t tolerate competition, even when it’s peaceful resistance. But let them overplay their hand—every raid, every crackdown only fuels the fire they’re desperate to extinguish.
Then we start picketing them, too. Right outside their media buildings, asking when they plan to grow a spine and start covering what’s happening. Add media companies to the places being protested and show what cowards they are.
Why don't we start confronting news anchors? Start calling them out specifically for being silent. This could be in person or online or both.
The largest protests in the history of the world were in opposition to the invasion of Iraq. The invasion of Iraq still happened.
Protesting sends a message but it isn't enough.
If protests aren't enough to sway a democratic system, then the democratic system is broken and resistance becomes mandatory. To quote what the german constitution established after Hitler to prevent exactly what's currently happening again in the US:
Article 20 [Constitutional principles - Right of resistance]
[...]
(4) All Germans shall have the right to resist any person seeking to abolish this constitutional order if no other remedy is available.
I do not know if there's something akin to this in the US constitution (I know your culture very much thinks there is every time it's about guns though). But even if it isn't, fuck it. The system is evidently broken, do what's necessary to regain the power of the people. Do it the French way if you must.
(4) All Germans shall have the right to resist any person seeking to abolish this constitutional order if no other remedy is available.
Wow I love this.
The media did the exact same thing too they had a bunch of Iraq war experts and nobody about why we shouldn't go to war..
Anyone who knows anything about history has seen this story before
As much as I hate riots, I mean, yeah?
Really?! The worlds largest propaganda machine is playing tricks on us?!1!
Facebook knows who is sensitive to this kind of news, they know who would join a protest and who not. And they can decide to whom to show which news. How many people use Facebook & co. as their main source of information? Or main medium to organize?
Meta has the Meta(data)
Great work to everyone who stands up to hatred and fascism! ❤️
I watched some of the protests when they were live on YouTube. The fact there was apparently so little media coverage of people protesting against a fascist racist who appointed a Nazi as a special government employee and wants to annex Canada is simply mindboggling.
By all means, protest. Push these bad actors. Stick up for democracy! But Is anyone else mildly anxious that JD Vance’s hero, Curtis Yarvin, suggested in 2022, that all Trump needs to do is declare a state of emergency to extend executive immunity to prosecution, and to do it early on? So far, project 2025 combined with the manifestos of Dark Gothic Tech Bros are aligned.
“If the institutions deny the President the Constitutional position he has legally won in the election, the voters will have to act directly. Trump will call his people into the streets—not at the end of his term, when he is most powerless; at the start, when he is most powerful. No one wants to see this nuclear option happen. Preparing for it and demonstrating the capacity to execute it will prevent it from having to happen.”
But Is anyone else mildly anxious that JD Vance’s hero, Curtis Yarvin, suggested in 2022, that all Trump needs to do is declare a state of emergency to extend executive immunity to prosecution, and to do it early on? So far, project 2025 combined with the manifestos of Dark Gothic Tech Bros are aligned.
We have always known that all broadcast and cable news media is tightly controlled. Hundreds of stations across America literally parrot word for word what each other says.
Now we also know that all social media can also be controlled. There is nowhere safe except small communities that are not controlled by corporations or the government.
They want us disorganized, poor, uneducated, and religious. This is their plan to reduce us to their serfs to be controlled and abused.
This morning, I hear reports from neighbors that our "local" newspaper website has experienced some sort of breakdown, and it's showing the "local" paper from somewhere in Virginia, or Tennessee. They're all owned by the same company. The media outlets aren't parroting each other when they are literally the same entity behind the scenes.
Good ole Sinclair.
Elon and the felon: "Does their protesting stop what we're doing in any way? No? Then why would I care?"
fElon
Feb 5* also thank you for this post I am glad it is getting reach.
On February 5 (when this was happening) there was an infuriating number of posts saying “why aren’t pro-Palestine protesting?”
And then I’d get downvotes for pointing out people, in fact, protesting.
So many people with their eyes intentionally closed… felt so hopeless.
Protests alone will not stop the nazis. They also didn't in Germany ~90 years ago. I hooe people get that and organize. Fast.
After Elon's announcement about the department of Ed, I'm feeling indescribable despair. The systematic dismantling of public education in the U.S. has been happening for decades and is a huge part of the reason we're in this mess.
I know that's what they want. For us to feel paralyzed. I'm trying to fight it. But as someone who is convinced the election was tampered with*, I am sick over the fact that they let him in again. Someone should have objected before the inauguration, when an objection actually might have achieved something. I worry that the protests are not going to be enough, as they stay locked in their ivory towers. I'm terrified that a distress signal at the state department was quickly swept under the rug. I thought this is why we developed so many international alliances and treaties after WWII. To prevent fascism from taking hold in our countries. But they're not doing anything. I live in a blue state and haven't heard a peep out of my governor. Why? Are they waiting for things to get worse? Does a certain person in a specific role have to contact outside help? If so, who? We know this is going to be disastrous for more than the U.S., we can already see it happening.
I feel like I'm doing everything in my power and it's still not enough. I have friends who work for the government and they are just as scared and lost as I am. All I can think to do is be prepared for extreme hardship and try to stay involved in my community. What else is there?
*I'm just too tired to debate. If you disagree but are open to changing your mind, I have links in another comment that I encourage you to check out.
"Our little secret" and "he's very good with computers" "like those counting computers" "landslide in PA"...
I'm rift there with you, man. He openly admitted it because he can't ever fucking help it, either.
When you own the media...
I hope the whole stadium boos him off the stands at the Superbowl
The media will replace the boos with cheers or block the audio completely so they don't get sued.
Still would look good to get a visual close up of his face when it starts
The only language fascist speak is violence
Does DuoLingo teach that? I need to brush up.
Fuck around with that owl and find out.
My partner trying to keep their streak going at 11:57 in bed definitely promotes violence. Also a lesson in anger management. An app that has trained me without installing it is rare.
For y'all who've never protested before... The reason why they don't cover it is because they never cover protests (unless people actually FSU then it's a "riot")... Maybe if libs cared when it happened to activists for BLM, anti-genocide, etc... Now it's just completely normal.
It was on the 5th, not the 6th like in your title.
Thanks, fixed.
It took an elected Nazi to unite a country, agaisnt the Nazi.
If you plan to do protesting - i wpuld highly recommend getting a Faraday bag gor your phone. Just turning it off isn't good enough
It could be covered in social media but not by mainstream news. The real source of information these days is from the former, whether one likes it or not.
Man you had to go and set up a protest like 2 months in?
Wow. The stun-lock is happening.
Please do keep tiring yourselves, that will work wonders for your cause
You know what you should do next month? Pickets!
Also throw in a full strike, that will surely get them!
Hahaha oh my god 🤣
It's been 2 weeks. It only feels like 2 months. Keep laughing though. OMG 🤣🤣🤣🙄🙄🙄
Fun fact, this is the first time we get someone really serious about fixing anything and the left completely ostracized and scared about the absurd amount of people that will go to jail and/or lose their bullshit DEI jobs funding transgender plays in another country.
Fun fact, this is the first time we get a literal Nazi who is actively working on dismantling any securities we had about a single person having unlimited power (= dictatorship).
But hey, at least we got rid of those oh so scary Trans and Gay people...
this is the first time we get someone really serious about fixing anything
Who? Fix what? Trump and musk? They're fixing things the way the fire "fixed" the Palisades.
You're lost my friend, go back to yours in Asmongold youtube comment
Musk, a non-government official who gave a Nazis salute multiple times on video, is going through federal organizations and accessing data he shouldn't be and denying people access when they should have it.
That honestly doesn't scare you at all?
Do some serious research and go to Congress.gov and read bills that Republicans never brought to vote the last two years and then try to tell who's serious about fixing things.
Brother name one way your life has improved by MAGA efforts.
You can’t because your life more or less sucks and you just get off on performative dunking.
This kind of comment admits really only 2 possibilities:
-
This is the standard authoritarian tactic of flooding the zone with shit, spewing verbal diarrhea without regard to truth, but rather to disrupt discourse, to intimidate and disconcert, as Sartre famously said.
-
The writer is actually dumb enough to believe it, against all available evidence.
I guess there's also:
- All of the above.
-
Oy, sometimes I wish I could be as deluded as this, biggest fears being DEI (ahem, brown/black) and trans people. AHHHHH, so scary for the alpha males.
Okay, but fascism apart, how can you explain USIAD wasting money on transgender plays and DEI initiatives… there’s something wrong here there for sure.
Fun fact, billions of dollars go through USAID for global health and humanitarian needs and idiots cry to dismantle it because of $70k on a theater play (which turned out wasn't a USAID project). When actual legal paths to contest specific spending do exist.
And they're still in control and breaking things...
Protest by going out to vote. Only 64% of eligible voters participated in the 2024 election. Trump won the popular vote by a slim margin but got less votes than Biden did in 2020. Had more Democrats voted, we would have won the election.
I was talking to my brother about this the other day and tin foil hatting... Perhaps musk didn't rig the election in trumps favour by adding votes, but instead deleting the democrats votes. Thus making the left feel helpless while still guaranteeing an election
Yep. You're not 'tin foil hatting', this is just what happened. Can't believe this still needs to be said, but here's a post I just made : https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/21747932
Nice of the shitlibs in the comments to out themselves as not just do-nothing cowards, but active agents against dissent.
"oh my god we did this thing for attention and no one is paying attention to us"
Maybe because we're burnt out because people are outraged every couple of minutes.
Leopards eat your face much Midwest?
There are people in every state that hate Trump. Unfortunately, in some states, those people are greatly outnumbered.
protests accomplish nothing, people. when are yall gonna figure that out?
"but it's cause the media doesn't cover them!" - do you own the media? can you change that? then they accomplish nothing. like i said.
I asked before, why was the set up to be the middle of the work week, in the middle of the day?
Protests need to be disruptive and get coverage to work. They must be inconvient for everyone involved. Think of it like a Union strike there is a reason you generally hear about package delivery strikes around the holidays and not just in the middle of the year. The issue is most people in the US cant afford to just leave their job in the middle of the day currently cause they have something to lose. Though the less they have to lose the more they will skip their jobs to show up and protest. The average US citizen has not gotten desperate enough for these protests to rally enough people and as such work. There is also a problem with how the news and people in power have portrayed these strikes and protests as inconveniences to the common person, which reduces the solidarity the working class should have for each other.
Tell me how many people first.
A handful of people in every state is not impressive.
If the people on lemmy constantly (CONSTANTLY) talking about how small/badly timed/ineffective/waste of time these were actually went to them, or set up their own, man what a sight that would have been.
But no, go to work, that'll save you next month when 'people who use leftist platforms' are put in camps instead of immigrants.
There were a few thousand in California. Not crazy numbers but much more than i expected to see on a Wednesday in Sacramento. There were also protests in Oakland, San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego, but idk about numbers for those.
LA also had a protest the Saturday before, but it got drowned out in the news by the Grammy's 🙃
If it's useless, then why are you spending so much time downplaying them?
