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this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2026
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In Person Activism
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"Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them." -Tim Snyder
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Wake me when the guillotines come out.
Fuck that. Start building them yourself
I can build them, but if the crowd doesn't support it, it's painting a target on my own back for nothing.
By the time the guillotines are usable, you've already won. They'll just be turned against you. Build community if you want to win.
Por que no los dos?
Because they will always be used against you in the end to get back to an even more brutal version of the previous system. Learn the history of the French Revolution.
Do you seriously think getting rid of billionares would be so bad? That it would be worse after? That the US would do the same thing?
Your lack of imagination of profoundly disturbing.
Go learn the actual history. They just come back, but worse. They also murder the entire left.
So do more than deploy guillotines? I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept...
Notice, again, how I never said that these rallies are completely ineffective. They just won't change the momentum of the current equation.
To get to guillotines, you have to change society. By the time you've changed society, you don't need the guillotines. If you focus on the guillotines instead of building that society, you will end up with a more brutal and repressive system than the one you started in. See the history of the French Revolution and the USSR.
The South of France is literally the place billionaires go to hang out on their Yachts and Russia is literally the most oppressive and exploitative oligarchy in history. Like... That shit didn't work. Not only did it not work in the long run, but it almost immediately became way worse.
If you build a society that is just and equitable, then the billionaires will starve to death because they can't exploit anyone. They will starve to death while watching the world for literally everyone else become immeasurably better.
Build a world where they have no power. And no, that doesn't mean "let's keep having rallies and hoping they'll listen." I want the billionaires to die, but I want them to die because they can't possibly integrate into a just society.
I'm not a reformist. Literally every time people talk about NoKings I write a big post about how it needs to go way fucking harder. But I am saying that focusing on vengeance doesn't built community, and community is what actually eliminates billionaires for good.
I'll definitely +1 for going way harder.
I also won't be surprised when it takes at minimum jail sentences for billionaires for things to improve.
We both know many are already guilty of several specific crimes, let alone general crimes against humanity.
I don't believe in prisons. I want them to have to answer to their victims directly. All of us, and especially those they have harmed the most. I want them to have to explain themselves.
We can always do both. They clearly do not deserve freedom given what they do with it.
Here's a longer form answer if you need to understand more: https://hexmhell.writeas.com/wake-me-up-when-the-guillotines-come-out
There probably will never be a demonstration with perfectly aligned opinions, but I think you would definitely find your crowd or more likely your crowd would find you with such a rallying point.
The crowd aren't the ones who would be painting the target.
I don't live in the US so my assessment might be completely off here, but with protests like this you shouldn't hope for the more radical positions. If you're more radical yourself this can be annoying or feel like it serves no purpose and I get that. It still provides opportunities for us.
There's two main reasons I advocate for showing up at things like this:
Treat it like a networking event. Go talk to people, hand out flyers, wave your flags, bring funny signs, hand out vegan cookies... As an anarchist I'm very much aware that most people never think about anarchists, and when they it's rarely in a positive way. Protests like are an opportunity to get people to see, however briefly, that anarchists can be nice people with free cookies.
If or when things go poorly, like if the police or the far-right decides to escalate, I'd want people with experience there to provide assistance. Whether that's taking up the front to defend others, yelling: "Walk! Don't run!" while people are trying to get out of tear gas, handing out water so people can rinse out pepper spray (and telling people not to use milk), explaining how to handle a kettle, etc.
These should be called rallies, not protests.
Sure, but that doesn't change my points in any way.
You yourself called them protests, even in your points. So... It kinda' does.
Acting like networking events are valid, effective protests is inoculative behavior and counterproductive.
So when all the hard work is done you want to take credit?
Who said I'd take credit? Furthermore, if you think these rallies are going to stop the police state from cracking down, you are beyond delusional.
All it does is give them a head start on identifying whos rights to violate first when the gulags open for all citizens.
If you think 8 million people hanging out noticing that nonviolence isn't enough and sharing that dissatisfaction with each other doesn't help progress things towards more effective means of resistance, I don't know what to tell you. It's like complaining that grade school doesn't teach children algebra.
Where did I say it did nothing? I said it won't stop the police state from cracking down.