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But I'm sure this time it will work...
(lemmy.today)
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this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2025
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Regarding the calls for non-violence, I don't want to put anyone down or say anyone's doing anything wrong. Good job being out there and trying. I would also like to point out
Dr. King was NOT spoken of as a paragon of non-violence by conservative contemporaries. It was very common to refer to Dr. King's protests as riots and in terms of inciting violence, even if the violence being invited, much as today, was police on protestor violence. If Dr. King had bowed to the cries that he was sparking violence, we never would have gone anywhere. There was a huge acceptance washing campaign by conservative America after the civil rights wins.
In the 2014 Maidan protests in Ukraine, protestors were getting cut down by police snipers during peaceful, unarmed marches. The police snipers were shooting people who were running out with stretchers to get the people who'd been shot. When they finally got sick of it and announced that they were going to come back tomorrow and do an armed march, the cops suddenly remembered that they all had dentist appointments in Belarus that day and skipped town. Nobody got shot during the armed march. See: https://youtu.be/yzNxLzFfR5w . So, it's not so much that you have to use violence, but the state is a lot more likely to hesitate about kicking your shit in if they know you can be violent back and believe that you're willing to do so. Ask any conservative what an acceptable protest is, and it's likely to be something like "shouting into your closet"; as far as they're concerned, peaceful marches ARE ALREADY violent if anyone notices them or they disrupt anything at all. Our cops don't give a shit if you're peaceful, they shoot reporters with rubber bullets and force people to grab billy clubs so they can beat the fuck out of them. We're past that. It's time to remind the state that there is alternative to peaceful protest if they really want to go that route.
Sure, but that was in lily-white Ukraine where the people doing the protests were aligned with Western European geopolitical interests and looking to overthrow an ally of the Putin Regime. So, of course the history we write about it is going to valorize the Ukrainians and paint the effort as trivial and the opposition as spineless.
What happened when Iraqis started showing up in armed protests outside of the US-occupied Green Zone? Or the Yemini Houthis began arming protesters against the Saudi-allied national government? Or the West Bank protesters began throwing rocks at Israeli tanks? Or the Ferguson BLM protesters or Hong Kong democracy protesters or Syrian Green Revolution protesters started showing up to tussle with police?
Hell, even taken in the best possible light, the Maidan revolution ended in... what? A country split in half by a Russian military occupation.
This isn't to detract from the virtues of armed resistance. But people love to harp on the eventual, occasional victories and hate to reminisce on the far more prolific depressing failures. It's easy to talk about Vietnamese insurgents triumphing in 1974 when you forget the revolution kicked off in earnest in 1940.
"Just show up with guns and the police will crawl away on their bellies and you'll win" is as painfully naive as the "Just show up with flowers and the police will put down their riot gear and greet you with hugs and songs".
Nothing about this is easy or guaranteed. Nobody is getting to the end of this without shedding blood. If you show up with a weapon to a protest, you better be prepared to have weapons used on you in turn. Don't go in thinking you can bluff your way to a glorious revolution.
Thank you, this needs to be said and highlighted. Whether violence or non-violence should be threatened depends on the context, there's no one-size-fits-all method or easy way to success.
I agree with your take on violence, but this is just disingenuous. A country split in half by a Russian military occupation is a direct result of a Russian military occupation. If Maidan didn't happen, it would be the entire country. We didn't choose to get invaded.
The goal of Maidan was to push Russian oligarchs out of Ukraine. You can't call that a success, unless you just stop recording history after 2021.
The idea that Ukrainians just showed up with guns and poof they won, is blinkered.
Simply showing up with guns did not make a rival military force vanish.
That's fair
I guess you're referring to me.
The protests in LA were mostly peaceful, what do you think would have been the outcome if the protesters weren't? Trump is itching to declare marshall law and take over California, why do you think he's sending so many national guardsmen and marines? Be prepared for defense, but don't start shit.
No, I was speaking generally. I've seen several calls for non-violence, though the only people I've seen get hurt so far are those who've been hurt by the police. I wanted to share that there is space between not being violent and being prepared or demonstrating the capacity for violence.
Lol, TACO was already polling terribly before his sugarbaby broke up with him. All I know is if people in California want to be free from fascists & the oligarchy, they better plan on getting rid of their own politicians as well. It's the lameass Democratic establishment that helped Trump get reelected. Also, the reason the majority of Americans support Trump's stance overall on illegal immigration is cause Democrats are just as guilty as Republicans in letting corporations buy up all the current urban housing & turning everyone into renters, while you drive an hour outside any major city & there are open fields for 10s of miles between each house. That is where the wealth is getting transferred to & where a majority of the Trump donors & voters sre. You want to want to see shit get crazy, then have the protestors go up to the Central Valley to setup makeshift communities on those thousand+ acres farms, tell them they're going to have to start sharing cause things are getting too fucking crowded in LA, and that they're taking all the water as well.
I think we're agreeing in that it's a class war more than anything else. If the poor class wasn't increasing by leaps and bounds, no one would need a change.
I like the "No Kings" slogan and I think our forefathers would agree.
Exactly. Corporations have driven up the cost of housing & corralled a significant portion of the populace into overcrowded urban areas where they own the housing & keep raising rent higher than ever before, lobbying & buying politicians to keep wages low, demanding people commute 2 hours each day with rush hour traffic, having police ignore crime in & target marginalized communities & people while protecting the rich & rural areas, etc. The list goes on & on. Like I said, have those protestors spread out to rural communities. Watch what happens.