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Hi, I'm here to announce that everyone pushing the standard Hexbear party line on the protest movement is a loser and wrong. I already know the weak-ass arguments you're gonna make and every single one of them reveals your disconnection from any actual organizing. Let's go through them one by one. If you have another that you think Marx Failed to Consider, please bring it up and I will explain how you are wrong in that way as well.

This was funded by the Waltons

No, one Walton bought an ad in the NYT. Who fucking cares? It has no material bearing on the movement whatsoever. There's no organization money is being funneled to other than the Democratic Party and Indivisble, which is not different in any way. The on-the-ground organizers in most cities and towns are not receiving a penny from the left's George Soros conspiracy. They're just normal people (and, to the next point, lots of leftists).

The Democrats are using this to steal the leftist energy of the masses

The Democrats certainly want to do that, but on the ground reports indicate they are losing all over the country. That's because leftists (especially PSL) are not leaving this space uncontested. I have spent an enormous amount of time putting in the work to earn the trust and legitimacy necessary to place a bunch of literal revolutionary communists in the leadership of the local movement. Not in some sneaky, behind the scenes way, but out in the open, succeeding specifically because we are literal revolutionary communists who never shut up about it. The Democrats, by my accounting, are losing the struggle in more places than not. If you refuse to engage because you're afraid the Dems will suck your leftist soul, you're just conceding the struggle and granting them victory. They don't co-opt by pressing a button, they co-opt because they have the resources to take leadership and then defuse. So far they have failed to do so specifically because the space is not empty and the communists are fighting harder to reach the masses (since we actually have an appealing program).

The attendees are all Kamala-loving liberals who just want to go back to brunch

If you had ever bothered to go to one of these events and talk politics to people, you'll discover a very broad array of political perspectives, including a strong trend towards explicit support for socialism. Yes, of course, the PMC bug-eating libs are there - who cares? They are by no means the only attendees. Maybe you're just Too Cool to be around someone who reminds you of your mom, but the rest of us are finding deep political discontent and activating it. When one of my comrades gets on the mic and says "we need to break from the democrats and do a literal socialist revolution", the crowd response, by and large, is incredibly positive. The retired dentists and accountants in the crowd grumble and whine, but they are a minority - and they don't leave. They stay and listen to the arguments we make. They say things like "you're right, I just don't think it's possible". They very, very rarely say "you're going too far".

This is a disorganized mess that's going to fizzle out

50501 and other decentralized spontaneous protest movements never last, but they do give an opportunity for dedicated political organizers to intervene on a stage where thousands of disaffected liberals and Democrat voters are asking "what is to be done?". If you decide not to show up and answer that question, the Democrat machine will coordinate the demobilization of this movement. If you do show up and you deliver the political argument you believe in. If you show up with the AV equipment, safety marshalls, march route, signs, and speaker list - the bare minimum for a halfway serious organizer - then you don't just hand out flyers and talk at a table but set the entire political line of the event. And in doing so, you demonstrate the leadership of the socialist movement and win a lot of those attendees to your side. If you can plug them into actual organizing work, you can bring them into permanent political motion. Does it matter if 95% of these people just go home and never bother to do anything besides another protest? If those 5% join the movement in a meaningful way, that's half a million new comrades.

Mao says: "All work done for the masses must start from their needs and not from the desire of any individual, however well-intentioned. It often happens that objectively the masses need a certain change, but subjectively they are not yet conscious of the need, not yet willing or determined to make the change. In such cases, we should wait patiently. We should not make the change until, through our work, most of the masses have become conscious of the need and are willing and determined to carry it out. Otherwise we shall isolate ourselves from the masses. Unless they are conscious and willing, any kind of work that requires their participation will turn out to be a mere formality and will fail."

Stop thinking about what you want to do and achieve and start thinking about the fact that we needs tens of millions of people to support revolutionary socialism in the US in order to get anything done. They are out in the streets begging for you to explain this to them.

These are just peaceful protests that won't achieve anything because they aren't revolutionary.

Lenin says: "What grounds are there for assuming that the “great, victorious, world” revolution can and must employ only revolutionary methods? There are none at all. The assumption is a pure fallacy; this can be proved by purely theoretical propositions if we stick to Marxism. The experience of our revolution also shows that it is a fallacy. From the theoretical point of view—foolish things are done in time of revolution just as at any other time, said Engels, and he was right. We must try to do as few foolish things as possible, and rectify those that are done as quickly as possible, and we must, as soberly as we can, estimate which problems can be solved by revolutionary methods at any given time and which cannot."

You're doing the ultra-leftism of conflating tactics with strategy. Our tactic in this moment is to intervene in these protests to convince people of the necessity of a revolutionary socialist political organization as the only solution to our sick society. Right now, mass revolutionary socialist consciousness and organization does not exist in the USA. Therefore, it is impossible to carry out open revolutionary militancy. If the current crop of people who are in some way directly involved in revolutionary socialist organizing (certainly a lower bar than revolutionary guerrilla warfare or sabotage) turned today to armed struggle, all ~100,000 of them would lose. The broader periphery of people who semi-passively support that objective through attendance at events and monetary contribution is probably a few million. The masses who would passively support probably number in the tens of millions, but that passive support is not particularly useful. And the number of people who would simply sit by and watch it happen is probably over 100 million. Every one of those groups needs to be elevated to the next stage - observer to passive supporter, passive supporter to semi-passive periphery, semi-passive periphery to revolutionary organizer, revolutionary organizer to doing the literal revolution. Each of these layers of the movement have a symbiotic relationship with the others that strengthen the entire struggle.

Here's the key lesson: WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH PEOPLE TO WIN VIOLENT STRUGGLE AND YOU NEED TO GO WHERE THE MASSES ARE TO RALLY THEM TO OUR CAUSE.

Amerikkkans will never do a revolution because they are labor aristokkkrauts

Ok, thank you for you contribution, you can resume sitting in a hole since your prescription is inactivity.

Please tell me your other weak-ass reasons why you're correct to sit on your ass.

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[-] picklemeister@hexbear.net 45 points 1 day ago

as a fellow grass toucher i always appreciate your takes on organizing and appreciate and agree with this excellent internet post. catgirl-salute

[-] heresiarch@hexbear.net 32 points 1 day ago

As a fellow grass-toucher, this post goes hard. I have never in my life been to a more libbed-up protest but I was happy to be there with my comrades. I think many armchair organizers are far more worried about appearing the same as liberals when instead they should be worried about making more socialists.

[-] 9to5@hexbear.net 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

As non American thats my take as well. It doesnt matter if the protests are lib as fuck. IF you go there and get some folks interested or curious about socialism thats a win.

Afaik there is no large left movement in the USA so one goal should be to reach as many people as possible through whatever means possible to create more socialists/communists anarchists etc

[-] TransWalterKronkite@hexbear.net 8 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

Communist should go out but hexbears shouldnt

[-] frogbellyratbone_@hexbear.net 42 points 1 day ago

fuck is this post? i want to sit on hexbear and talk shit while smelling my own farts

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[-] homhom9000@hexbear.net 27 points 1 day ago

Whatever gets the masses in the street is what gets the masses in the streets. We should be there to guide them to something actionable, if it exist.

[-] iie@hexbear.net 22 points 1 day ago

Amazing post and sorely needed. I probably needed to hear it too.

[-] xiaohongshu@hexbear.net 31 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Doesn’t change the fact that there was no strategy, and without which the only thing the protest does was to “send a message that we don’t like this”, to which the authorities will respond with “duly received”.

In order for the protests to work, first, the political goal(s) of the movement need to be clearly defined. Not some nebulous idea about why you don’t like the way things are - but actual goal(s) that can be achieved through political actions.

Then, the strategy to achieve those political goal(s) in a realistic manner has to be laid out and disseminated to the public or the participants of the movement.

Without these two steps, you don’t have a movement. You have people “sending a message” which the authorities may or may not choose to ignore. To put it bluntly, a cosplay at best. The participants know that they are not having to commit to any real political action, and the authorities know that the participants know this, and choose to let them gather in public.

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[-] kristina@hexbear.net 20 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Idk, I'm old as shit. These sorts of milquetoast bog standard do nothing protests are a dime a dozen whenever a republican is in. Most were just standing in the grass, unobtrusive. You can talk to everyone there and it's like it all goes in one ear and out the other, and it's precisely because they're afraid to have real skin in the game. I prefer organizing with queers, they're more likely to do interesting things and stick around. And more importantly, queers always have skin in the game whether they like it or not.

[-] jack@hexbear.net 23 points 1 day ago

There are piles and piles of queers at these things, they are bursting at the seams with queers eager for political engagement. Not that your other avenues for that are invalid, but don't misrepresent the opportunity presented.

[-] kristina@hexbear.net 14 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Maybe. One of the kids in our group went to one and said it was a cishet boomer fest waving American flags, people were thanking the cops for being there.

I personally am more of a fan of stochastic destruction of corporate property, you can scare the shittiest companies out of an area very easily, I've been doing it every week for decades and never have been caught. Not convinced protesting does anything, unless it's a riot or something.

And if you destroy corporate property with friends you open them up to realizing even more radical action may be possible by seeing the readiness of local cops.

[-] free_casc@hexbear.net 20 points 1 day ago

OP is not suggesting that the protests are effective at anything, but that it is an opportunity for those of us who want to make some people effective. I fully agree with u/jack that there are tons of queer people who are stoked to get educated, and they know for a fact that these protests don't achieve anything and they love to be given an answer.

This is like 10% of the people there, ran into a ton of empty liberalism, but 10% of 40k is far more people than my group of 5 could possibly talk to anyway. If we can get just 5% of our contacts converted into canvassers for the next event, that will more than double the size of the group (of protest canvassers, not the org as a whole). Exponential growth!

If we dig in and make personal phone calls and contacts with the couple hundred sign ups we got, the retention will be much higher than 5%! These people are now part of an org where they can develop their knowledge and skills, and have the opportunity to become true comrades who are ready to hop into PSL or something like that.

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[-] Rey_McSriff@hexbear.net 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I handed out a ton of homeprinted newsletters at my protest no-tip

[-] AcidSmiley@hexbear.net 27 points 1 day ago

I'm thankful somebody finally says something. I've been slowly getting burned out on this space for months, but it felt too futile to effortpost against the consensus of the "shitposting and arguing with ex-redditors is the only acceptable form of praxis" idiots on here. Anything else is either liberalism or adventurism to these people, so the answer to what is to be done is always a convenient "let's just rot". I'm sick of this shit.

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[-] Rakisa@hexbear.net 31 points 1 day ago

Great post comrade. Your posts about the PSL is part of what motivated me to start interacting with my local one, and I know some of them went to the local protests.

WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH PEOPLE TO WIN VIOLENT STRUGGLE AND YOU NEED TO GO WHERE THE MASSES ARE TO RALLY THEM TO OUR CAUSE.

This is something I think about a lot, esp in counter to the people (often libs) who just think Americans are idiots and can't be reached. I sympathize with their frustrations but this is what we got and what we have to work with. Can't just throw up our hands and give up.

[-] Chapo_is_Red@hexbear.net 17 points 1 day ago

I went to one and propagandized. It wasn't the most receptive audience, but made some connections.

[-] iie@hexbear.net 11 points 1 day ago

What is some of the rhetoric that has been effective in the field?

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[-] menecimmeb@hexbear.net 23 points 1 day ago

Agree with this. Our local DSA handed out all 2500 pamphlets we brought, and got something like 180 sign-ups to be contacted about joining DSA. Crowd was libbed up, but very open to engaging with us.

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[-] Skye@hexbear.net 24 points 1 day ago

I'm not American so I have no idea what things are like on the ground.

I've just seen the online presence of 50501 and it has been nothing but dire. Like, "show how much you love America by only wearing red white and blue!" and "lol the army at Trump's birthday parade is epically owning him by not knowing how to march properly as a secret part of our protest, glory to the troops" type of shit.

If things are actually better on the grass touching side of things that's cool.

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[-] SuperNovaCouchGuy2@hexbear.net 17 points 1 day ago

Amerikkkans will never do a revolution because they are labor aristokkkrauts

This is not a prescription, its a statement based on historical precedent that needs to be proven wrong.

Anyways, it seems that the real argument here is:

The "hexbear party line" about the No Kings protest is a cope to justify people sitting on their asses.

Brother whether it is cope or not the truth as you have admitted yourself is that "mass revolutionary socialist consciousness and organization does not exist in the USA" and that the No Kings protests are decentralized and will eventually fizzle out.

Its true however that these protests are a good opportunity to continue developing the necessary mass organization that may eventually lead to Something Happening.

But its unlikely that Something will actually Happen due to these protests. They are not effective in and of themselves.

inb4 "so this is why you need to organize etc. etc."

Yes so clarify that, its not about the party line being correct then its more about it being necessary to organize and prove the party line incorrect.

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this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2025
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chapotraphouse

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