Troops are being moved into cities and they will keep being sent to more cities.

Which is important. Make them want to cover every city in America. The problem for them is that they can't. There aren't enough regular troops, National Guard, and ICE agents put together to make it work. They'll be spread too thin.

That really highlights the importance of protests. If it was just New York it would fail. If it was just Chicago it would fail. If it were just LA it would fail. If we signal that we're all going to work together on this, they can't possibly do it.

I wish I could sticky this.

Trump could get overthrown tomorrow and Lemmy Europeans would find a way to bitch about it

Coordinate another date, and I'll participate in that one too.

One of the factors in whether a nonviolent resistance movement can succeed or not is whether any state forces end up shifting loyalty. "Appealing to the moral sense of the people oppressing them" may be false if you're just talking about whoever's at the top, but it absolutely is a factor for the day-to-day bureaucrats and security forces. Nonviolent campaigns are more likely to cause these sorts of changes (particularly when violent crackdowns against nonviolent resistance backfires).

Consider the success of the following movements:

• Peoples Power Revolution (First one in 1986) - several military leaders defected from the Marcos regime
• Velvet Revolution (1989) - had several government officials defect
• Malagasy Political Crisis (2002) - Defense minister resigned, generals and military officers were split on who to support (source for this one, since the article is hard to find). In fairness, although this one would largely be classified as nonviolent, at the time, it was hard to say whether or not there would be any armed conflict (aside from some incidents with police attacking protesters early in the movement)

There's several other cases of this happening over the past century, but I hope you get my point - nobody's appealing to the guy on the throne, they're appealing to all the other cogs in the machine.

I humbly disagree. Protests can have a massive economic impact if they reach critical mass. Acts of violence also need a critical mass, but convincing people to protest is far easier than convincing them to commit acts of violence.

Don’t go to work, block all traffic, don’t pay taxes, stop spending, attack all opposition. With enough participation, we can crash the economy in a single day and regain control within a week. Getting people to do what is necessary en masse is the hard part. Things will have to get worse before we get there.

I do realize your username is literally GuyFawkes. Nevertheless, when somebody is doing wrong, the first approach should be to use reason and empathy as a point of argument. If that fails, then work to starve the oppressor of what they seek to exploit until they find that pursuit to be no longer in their interests. If that fails, then use whatever means necessary to ensure oppression ends and human rights that were once willingly suppressed instead become guaranteed.

Non violent protests might take time but it will give good results. Even against violent oppressors.

Violent protests might feel direct, might show results immediately. But those might not be what you would like. Violence only begets violence.

Did you go? Did you talk to anyone when you were there? Have you spoken with them since? If your answer is no, then you're just a loud bystander, who gives a fuck what you think. If all you know how to do is blow things up, then STFU and do it. Otherwise, try actually participating.

It's important to note how the Black Panthers used "violence". There were very few incidents where they actually fired their guns, and when they did, they were arguably baited into doing it by the FBI and local cops.

Their best tactic was just hanging around with an AK on their back while a cop did their racial profiling thing to somebody else. They'd keep a book of laws handy and give the person advice from the sidelines. If they didn't have a gun, the cop would likely have found some pretext to arrest them and that'd be it. With a gun, the cop thinks twice and puts up with it. It wasn't there to actually be fired, but to make sure everyone behaved themselves.

This was so effective they changed California's open carry law to stop it. It's estimated that there were only around 100 Black Panthers at the time.

What are you trying to accomplish here?

Everyone else: next one is September 1st.
https://www.fiftyfifty.one/

That's why there needs to be a clear line that people know exists between performative protest and concrete protest.

For anyone confused:

Performative protests, like the No Kings protests, serve to:

• Get people energized to either take concrete action or donate/join organizations that can
• Reduce feelings of hopelessness/despair
• Make people more aware who were previously not following the news much if all

Concrete protests actually delay or stop the bad thing in question (e.g. blocking exits to ICE facilities)

A lot of people are hoping No Kings and similar protests will stop Trump. They won't. Of course they won't. But you can bet there's a lot more people donating to charities that either legally fight the administration's actions, or disrupt fascist policies on the ground, and a lot of people end up breaking off from these more liberal protests to later go to more concrete ones.

They're not worthless, but nothing beats direct, concrete action.

https://beautifultrouble.org/toolbox/tool/dont-expect-a-concrete-outcome-from-a-symbolic-action

So double down right back at them. What are you doing to stop what's happening? How else should we disrupt the regime's efforts? What do you recommend? Or do you think shitting on people's efforts is helpful somehow and will lead to a good outcome?