Fifth column resistance, Sabatoge, and things you cant say on the intetnet.
Find out what fascism would look like at the individual level, and then make yourself immune to that behavior yourself, ensuring that you yourself are not fertile ground for it to grow in.
That’s the emphasis of the course Maps of Meaning. One of the stated intentions of the course is (paraphrased) “To make my students realize that they are capable of being an Auschwitz camp guard, which is not a fun thing to realize, and then to build the kind of life and character that would prevent them from taking part”.
So really, based on my own understanding of how fascism arose in Germany, the best thing is to be totally dedicated to telling the truth. Have values to go higher than your own safety and comfort, and be dedicated enough so that when the opportunity comes to stay comfortable by supporting the fascists, you have the backbone to oppose them.
Check this book with 20 relatively specific actions written by a historian https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Tyranny
Also here are the rules briefly summarized. https://scholars.org/contribution/twenty-lessons-fighting-tyranny-twentieth
I think this one rings particularly strong today.
- Take responsibility for the face of the world. The symbols of today enable the reality of tomorrow. Notice the swastikas and other signs of hate. Do not look away, and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.
The only peaceful method i can think of would be for enough people to collectively get together and agree to completely stop buying stuff, other than food and absolute necessities. No luxuries, none. But you’d need enough people and to do it long enough to completely destroy the economy. It would be very boring for a long time.
Not gonna happen.
More realistically, we need more Luigis.
“I’ll preemptively give up that anybody will make any effort so I don’t have to either and I’ll just wait for somebody else to step up save us all.”
/The Devils Advocate.
I think the solution is attack the systems themselves and when that isn’t sufficient there are only a few people at the top with power.
I am leaving or unsubscribing from as many monopoly powers as possible: Google, Amazon, meta, Twitter, Netflix, etc etc. Be vocal about it, take friends and family with you if you can. I’m choosing open source when possible over more polished closed source, like jellyfin and Linux (transitioning this weekend 🤞), and donate. These actions take a small fraction of their income from them and if enough people do it I believe it will cause them issues.
I’m trying to not just leave these things but build communities for when we leave. For me this looks like trying to get a blog off the ground for friends and family, developing friend circles that have these discussions frequently, and then contributing/volunteering within my direct neighborhood or community (working on this one as I’m new in Germany and that comes with it’s own time taxes).
Also, if you can afford to, buy local. Buy from someone you know. Buy from people with good supply lines. Be vocal about how this is critical and necessary. The more money that goes to our neighbors instead of the 1% somewhere else in the world, the better. That’s all the shift of power, and it starts with not shopping at whole foods or Walmart and buying bespoke or sometimes worse products for sometimes more money so that those good people can work on their process and products.
But these are small steps, and personally I don’t have any idea of the connective tissues between a person or group of people and the political systems most of us exist in. I guess in the past political parties were more grassroots driven, like get in a room with your neighbors and develop policies and debate. I’ve never lived in that reality. Getting back to that is probably incredibly important. I guess new age political parties and old school unions are the best path forward there.
But the inevitable path, if all else fails, is violence. That is the reality. That becomes a lot less personally risky the larger a community you have before starting it, but as we’ve seen one Super Mario brother is sufficient to make changes.
You have to be willing to Luigi these people. We need a thousand more Luigi.
Any other answer is wrong.
Stay armed.
Tactical nukes.
I won’t say just vote, but you should do that, too, at every level!
Depending on how much time and money you have:
- Join a union (and give time and money to organising the union)
- Join an antifascist political party (and give time and money to organising the party)
- Lobby your representatives to demand they oppose fascism
- Join protests against fascism
- Join civil society groups that are antifascist (either directly or because they’re pro human rights or anti-racist, or what-have-you) (and give time and money etc.)
- Boycott businesses that are owned by or enable fascists
- Join co-operatives (and give time and money etc.)
- Join community groups (these don’t even have to be political)
- Support local, independent media and good freelance journalists
- Spread the word about all of the above
I’ve ordered these roughly by how effective I think they’re likely to be (this is of course just one guy’s opinion); you should pick the one(s) that are most attractive to you and best fit your current situation.
Fair warning, none of the above will instantly fix the problem and I grant that some of them probably seem pretty weak sauce in the face of fascism, but the more people do them, the weaker the fascists will get.
“A Riot is the language of the unheard”
-Martin Luther King Jr.
“When peaceful revolution becomes impossible, violent revolution becomes inevitable”
-John F. Kennedy
As per lemmy.world rules, I’m obligated to say that I do not condone violence, just quoting some people, interpret it however you wish to. 😉
Luigi
Organize en masse using a common enemy (billionaires). Fascists win when they are able to successfully divide and conquer, which they have been very successful at.
There’s a very good reason both neoliberals and fascists have been working so hard for so long to distract the masses from who’s causing the real issues in society.
We can’t let them shut us down this time, like they did with Occupy Wall Street, the George Floyd protests, the hippy movement, MLK Jr.'s economic movement. We need to stay controversial and constantly active so we can stay in the news cycle (much like how Trump has been able to dominate the news cycle since 2015). If they try to distract us, we must counter at every step of the way.
Workers have the real power in society, and the oligarchs can’t survive without us. The sooner we all realize that, the better.
also remember any movement will get infiltration attempts and if succesful they will try to derail, corrupt or otherwise bring the movement to its end. Got to plan things well since halfassing this will have severe consequences.
Couple of things:
- Information : Keep creating and sharing reliable information. Not just opinions, information. We are still the majority, the US fascists is not world, we need to flood all the relevant platforms with our content.
- Education: The reason these monsters have any credibility is because some people are too mentally weak to defend themself from misinformation. We need to educate around in any way possible. Everything counts, keep trying.
- Humor is a powerful weapon. These people have giant ego and 0 humor. Let’s keep ridicule them and have fun at their expense. They need to understand we have some things they can never touch, even with all the money in the world, solidarity, humour and camaraderie.
also hope. Got to show people there is hope so they dont fall into apathy. They got to know others are actively doing something and refuse to be silenced. I have been trying to look for this for long time now and its not been good.
To be fair, both Ghandi and MLK Jr. showed that there is an alternative to violence that can be very effective in gaining support.
That being said, I do think the Black Panthers/Malcom X were very instrumental in the civil rights movement. I think the leadership saw two options: work with MLK Jr. or deal with the Black Panthers.
Of course, the FBI, amongst other groups in power at the time were able to successfully thwart MLK Jr.'s attempt at educating people about class consciousness. MLK Jr. wasn’t just fighting for equal rights among racial lines, but also economic lines.
Hell, Jesus Christ was able to start an entire religion based in nonviolent protest based around class consciousness. Of course, that religion has since been perverted, but the point still stands.
They only worked with the threat of violence if they failed.
And they’ve both been WAY watered down in modern tellings…
MLK and the Civil Rights Movement have been majorly white-washed since they happened. That narrative is a big reason why protests since have been largely ineffectual in the US.
MLK supported the Black Panthers and Malcolm X and said that the only reason that he didn’t do anything more than the sit-ins and such was because that was already illegal and anything more could get them all jail time. And he was still seen as being just as violent as they made BLM out to be.
The Million Man March was seen as a threat of violence by white America. If he could get a million people to mobilize in the capital and shut down the entire city, what else could he get them to do?
Also, civil rights were only put into law after a full-on week of violence that burned down entire sections of cities and did millions in property damage. Years of protests led to flowery words. A week of riots saw the bills written, voted on, and codified into law.
Violence really, really fucking sucks.
It may be necessary, but if there’s any other option you should look to that first. If it legitimately comes to violence a lot of innocent people are going to suffer in a big way.
There were other options. I think those other options failed at this point in time.
I wonder what he is thinking, that is odd looking face
It’s the face of effort. Dude probably doesn’t get off of the computer chair very much, and lifting his arms above the ‘loose hang, elbows bent, wrists resting on desk’ takes a lot of effort, and thus the grimace from struggling.
Why haven’t i seen this side by side with Nazis? Or him put in the rally or along side Hitler etc?
These all seem like simple edits
Well that’s a little on the nose isn’t it.
It’s a weird salute he’s doing there that guy on the left.
Some kind of awkward excitement reaction i guess.
His heart really goes to his people, doesn’t it?
Yeah, I feel like violence is evangelized online in odd ways.
The class that suffers the most in violent uprisings is the lowest class. By orders of magnitude. For every member of the bourgeois that is taken down, tens or hundred or thousands of every day people are injured or killed.
Take it from us who dont live in a country built on liebensraum created by genociding the native population and has spent all its VERY short existance not knowing tyranny or how to separate church, state and private companies.
Classless society leads to death of millions and classed society. Lowest class loves killing lowest class. Once the preceived opressors run out more will be found. People wanting violence want it for selfish reason. The guy calling to kill all landlords today will be raping your small daughter in a state organized torture dungeon tomorrow. Yes its graphic, yes this is what you get when you want mass violence, stop pretending otherwise and buying into propaganda of evil people.
This is how it has always been, and always will be. Slow social reforms is the way to get what you want. Violence just creates more violence.
But it’s already happening. They’re already suffering.
Peace as a choice is only possible when the option of violence exists.
In all fairness there are non violent support roles
Somebody has to build the drones and c4 kits
It’s not that people die commiting acts of violence, it’s that people minding their own business or just trying not to be violent, also end up violently dismembered with their families.
Supporting the violence is participating in it. Maybe you’re on the “good” side but still. If you work a normal 9-5 go home shoot the shit with your buds and volunteer at a homeless shelter… You’re still not a good person when your job is making bombs getting shipped to Israel.
The problem with violence is that the bad guys are usually better at violence.
I wouldn’t say better at violence, just better equipped.
I wouldn’t say better at violence, just better
equippedfunded.FTFY.
Not true. Japan was definitely the Bad Guys. US was able to commit more violence then they were.
Woo hoo…? I guess!
The US wasn’t the good guys against Japan. They just were slightly less bad for about 5 years before and 6 months after.
So you don’t know your history.
Or they know that there weren’t any “Good guys” around.
The Japanese war crimes are well known in the West. The US ones are routinely glossed over or ignored.
Wars don’t determine who was right. They determine who’s left.
There are no evidence of US war crimes even coming close to Japan, Germany or Russia at the time or superceding it. Where are the tens of millions of bodies, rammer? Where are they?
#VITA
