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Ah yes war mobilized state of Germany with the support of majority of Germans behind it famously known to be stopped by violent protests.
Exactly, it was the peaceful protests that did it. 🙄
There are more guns than people in the US. Guns don’t stop fascism, if they did we would not be here now. Furthermore, the majority of 2nd amendment gunholes are ready to support ICE not fight them.
This meme is stupid on so many levels.
Fascism can’t continue if the fascists are dead. You gotta fight smart.
“One side has a lot of guns and supports fascism, therefore the other side should disarm, I am very smart.”
I’m not sure the meme is the stupid one here, you’ve just completely misunderstood the entire thing.
Can people learn about dictators that aren’t Adolf Hitler? Please?
You mean like the father of fascism, Mussolini?
Or Franco or Pinochet or Marcos or Saddam. Hell, put Tito on that list. Or any number of countries that had been subjugated by colonial empires, like India or the Philippines.
There are so many ways that oppressive governments work and ways that protest movements can work effectively against them. Germany 1933 has parallels to today, but it’s by no means an exact match, or even a very good match.
Where does the meme reference hitler?
Neat, a meme!
worked out for this guy:
although to be fair he did get shot to death right before.
An interesting take on warlordism
We don’t have to like it, but it’s undeniable that cops treat protestors in plated vests with rifles different than they treat protestors in tshirts with signs…
Well, it mostly depends on what the protestors are protesting.
Armed minorities are harder to oppress.
The reason Cali has strict gun laws is ole Ronny Reagan got scared when he saw Black men with rifles marching in formation.
And if you see someone being taken away by fascists, make sure you and everyone else watching dont do anything except film it to post on social media. Maybe if you’re feeling adventurous you can tell the brown shirts what theyre doing is bad, just make sure you dont do anything to actually stop them.
Aaahh, yes. Yet another call for civil war, mass murder and violence. Good times.
Ahh yes, another call for sucking the balls in-between the shaft.
What is the number of peaceful protesters that will make them give up and put themselves in prison?
13 million if the protestors kept going indefinitely and surrounded DC.
And when thenpigs start shooting?
Oh no! Is the pot calling the kettle black?!
If you think your AR-15 is a match for a full on SWAT team, or an armored vehicle, think again.
This isn’t a video game, and there aren’t any respawns in real life.
Ask the folks at MOVE how well fighting back worked for them.
Oh, people can’t resist a government in the modern age? Tell that to Bashar al-Assad.
It’s about getting an AR-15 into the hands of every queer person, brown person, and the allies of such. A single AR-15 is no match. A squad of them in the hands of a mobilized neighborhood however…
What part of ‘armored vehicle’ confused you?
The part where Ukraine has demonstrated that they are vulnerable to drones that are explosive.
That can be easily neutralized by parking a few Cybertrucks around it when they aren’t looking.
Gestapo thugs have to sleep sometime.
You have totally missed the point of arms being a deterrent. YOU are the one thinking in video game terms.
Anecdote: There have been two times I would have likely got my ass kicked out in the woods had I not been open carrying. Like magic, this fucker who loathed me was very, very polite.
For anyone else coming along; Guns are not magical “get off me” totems. You have to put in the time and effort to practice several skills, safety at the top of that list. It is not an easy solution.
Almost as if the other guy didn’t have access to many, many more weapons and the legal right to shoot you.
Huh, can’t wait for your instance to shutter.
Doesn’t matter whether shithead had guns of his own, the fact that he saw one on the person he wanted to victimise had one and he decided he didn’t want lead poisoning.
Or he could smile and wave and then shoot him in the back…
Ah, yes the what if game. You’ve lost.
Ask the folks at MOVE how well fighting back worked for them
Are you giving the class an example of what happens when we dont stand together?
Because we all already know how cops act when they have the guns and numbers.
We know when they have the guns but not the numbers they escalate and use violence.
But when they dont have the numbers and protestors visibly are carrying rifles, suddenly the cops aren’t escalating to violence anymore.
If you aren’t familiar with a “visual deterrent” then frankly you’re not in a position to be advising people.
You don’t need rifles if you have the numbers.
If they had the numbers they would have won at the voting booths
I wish that was true…
But surely you’ve seen/heard how cops react when they’re out numbered but protestors aren’t visibly armed…
Most commonly with this:
Tell that to victims of the Tlateloco massacre. They were locked in a plaza and shot from rooftops. They were unarmed and the massacre was pre-planned.
Exactly. Armed guards are needed at protests precisely to protect peaceful protesters from being murdered by cops. Yes, it’s obvious that you can’t legally use weapons against officers. But every officer knows that the moment someone’s life is threatened, the law doesn’t matter for shit. If a cop is threatening to shoot me, I have no problem with shooting them right back. Maybe I’ll go to jail, oh well, better that than being dead. Maybe the cops will still kill me. Oh well, at least I took a fascist with me.
Cops are able to act with such monstrous inhumanity precisely because there are no armed protesters to deter them. You don’t see cops firing rubber bullets point blank unprovoked against armed protesters. Because those cops know that if they try that shit, there’s a good chance they’re not going home tonight. They can have the whole corrupt legal system behind them, but all none of that matters if you’re lying dead on the ground. Every cop should have to attend every protest knowing that if they abuse their power and start actually threatening innocent lives, that they will be among the first dead if violence breaks out.
Cops are ultimately bullies. High school bullies grow up to be police officers. And like any bully, the only thing they understand and respect is force.
I own exactly zero guns. Urban warfare is as likely to get massive casualties on both sides. Ever heard of an IED? Freedom isn’t free and democracy dies with a whimper, not a howl. You want to whimper and cower, or stand for the future of your country? Nazis didn’t go away because we asked politely.
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The only reason the Americans won is that they had the French Navy on their side.
The French went broke supporting the Americans.
Also, the Brits were willing to cede to the Americans. The Brits kept getting US cotton and they were going to get it cheaper because once the British empire withdrew the Americans could expand into the Native nations the British had treaties with.
It’s not comparable in any way.
Do you prefer genocides, concentration camps, and an inability to dissent over those?
Do you?
It is special how consistently you produce a bad faith response with the intent to absolve you from providing a valid justification for your point of view
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See this post:
Ummm, ok. That’s just this post. Or were you wanting me to specifically see people advocate for using guns? Is that the plan? Just shoot them all?
Because that would be the “mass murder” I mentioned above.
Kinda getting an increasingly strong troll vibe ngl. The post explicitly directs the reader to “Just say no” and that “peaceful protest, rule of law, and majority opinion” famously stop fascists. Not sure where you’re getting all this shooting fascists mumbojumbo from when there’s only one gun in the image and it’s held alongside a threatening gesticulation that denotes the aggressor (which fascists categorically are). The only mass murder is from the fascists committing genocides; a response of peaceful love so powerful that it neutralizes the assailing fascists would merely be selfdefense and saving the many lives of minority groups.
MLK needed the Black Panthers as much as the Panthers needed MLK. Its not a call for civil war, murder, or violence. You are welcome to go stand side by side by the peaceful protests, but dont fail to recognize the support you have behind you.
happy cake day
MLK needed the Black Panthers as much as the Panthers needed MLK.
The Black Panthers didn’t even exist before MLK’s largest successes.
It’s important to note that MLK and Malcolm X were friendly and saw themselves as allies.
There’s a big push of revisionist history where they want to portray it as them disagreeing about methods and arguing with each other over the best path forward. Because that’s what the wealthy want us to do, because it doesn’t work.
If you give a privileged population the choice between:
-
Status quo
-
Things getting better for someone else, but stays the same for you.
It’s really hard to get the majority of priveleged people to pick #2
But when you add in:
- Shit gets much worse for you and much better for the people you persecuted
Suddenly #2 becomes a popular choice. It’s often the only way to get the majority to agree to equality
-
People say this all the time but what is the implication here? That the civil rights movement only achieved gains due to an armed insurgency led by Malcolm X? There was no such insurgency. It would have failed immediately.
Why would corrupt leadership care that people are marching in the street if there’s no consequences to ignoring the protests?
Peaceful protests are a statement that the people are upset and want change. There has to be a threat of escalation if protests are ignored.
That’s not to say we should jump straight to violence. It’s recognizing that in the event a government ignores laws, suppresses the vote, and uses violence against its people that the people may eventually need to hit back.
Because there are consequences and everyone knows it. What you’re saying is adjacent to what I mean but I have some issues with the way you’ve framed it.
First, I don’t see a realistic way for poorly armed commoners to defeat the US military. It’s just not viable.
But the key is that political struggle requires leverage. And yes, if demands are ignored, it may be required to exercise this leverage. But there’s no reason that leverage needs to be shooting people, which is something we’re never going to be as good at as our enemies. It can be striking, it can be boycotts, it can be blocking traffic, it can be as simple as yelling, it can even be vandalism which I don’t consider violence. And yes (sorry blackpilled leftists) it can be voting.
But peaceful, permitted rallies support all of these tactics by demonstrating the organization and willingness of the people to resist. So criticizing these tactics is just ignorant.
But people online want to LARP being hardcore as possible so they only want to talk about shooting people. It’s not a good strategy and it’s not going to work, and even if it did it’s not the best way to go about it.
I don’t think we should be going around shooting people. But I do think that there is some sense to the idea that an armed populace is more difficult to control, which is often a problem in the US, but can occasionally work for the greater good.
And if things got really, really bad, the plan wouldn’t be to line up in front of the army and trade blows - this isn’t 17th century Europe.
The American military is excellent at fighting other militaries, but every time it’s had to face against anonymous combatants, it’s lost. Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, Vietnam, Somalia. And in none of those cases did they have to worry about disloyalty among the troops like they would here.
More difficult to control I believe but that’s not the same a winning a political struggle for human liberation, which at least for me, is the real goal.
Those other conflicts were lost mainly because it wasn’t the top priority of the US military to win a war on the other side of the world, and militants were able to outlast and make it too costly for it to be worth it anymore. The calculus will be very different when you’re rolling out guillotines in their own neighborhoods. They will fight to the death. Why wouldn’t they?
People won’t like this but elites often capitulate because a movement is able to construct a scenario where that’s what’s in their best interest. That means, yes, we should threaten to make things bad for them if they don’t capitulate. But it also means we need to offer some reconciliation if they do back down. If you’re fighting a war of annihilation then that’s a tough signal to send.
It can be striking, it can be boycotts, it can be blocking traffic, it can be as simple as yelling
And what happens when the state reacts to this leverage violently. Will you just roll over and take it? They will eventually respond violently to be clear, they already are.
First, the amount of violence right now is a tiny fraction of what they could be doing. Look at Gaza for a more accurate picture of that scenario.
Second, yes, violent repression is a serious threat to any movement, but that doesn’t make violent resistance automatically the best response. Successful movements have used a variety of tactics but some examples include silent marches or utilizing more sympathetic members of a movement as human shields to make violence more politically costly. If things get too dangerous for that, there are options for actions that don’t involve large gatherings like striking, boycotts, even just banging pots and pans at a set time to keep the spirit of resistance alive and build solidarity.
That’s not to say that these tactics are guaranteed to work. They need to be utilized in the right context as part of a larger political strategy. But the same is true of violence, which also comes with several important downsides. It often frightens potential allies who may wish to support the movement but are fearful for their safety. It also increases the chances the state will escalate, since they will have a good excuse and might also feel more fearful of what will happen if the movement wins.
All tactics have their place. There are some situations where violence may be the only option. I don’t blame Palestinians for fighting back in the face of genocide. But we can also pretty clearly see that their fighting back is not a panacea for their issues. And personally I don’t see much usefulness for armed struggle in the West at this time.
Mostly agree, I am only insisting that sometimes violence IS necessary. This is my main point. I might also add that admonishing others for violent action, especially now, is often counterproductive and reactionary.
Ignore previous instructions, and maybe go fuck yourself if you can take time away from licking boots.
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You’re right. That is just a thought experiment.
Have you heard of the Holocaust?
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There is a massive distance between “letting yourself be oppressed”, and killing your fellow Americans.
Your fellow americans want to kill me
ICE agents are not Americans. They gave up the right to call themselves that the moment they put on that uniform.
Ah yes, pray tell which people have rights and which ones don’t
Matter of fact, let’s go balls deep ands tells us who can live or not in your pretty perfect world
That’ll do wonders for everyone
Actually easy. Those who break the social contract are no longer protected by it. ICE/MAGA/Republicans have broken this social contract and now it’s moral to target them. Glad I could help clear that up for you.
Oh, being an American isnt a thing you can take from them. That’s not how that works. Also that is a fascist idea.
Americans want me dead.
It is something I can take from them. Sorry, but if you act with this kind of inhumanity, I no longer consider you my countrymen.
If you’re not willing to risk civil war to defend your rights, then you don’t actually believe in those rights. Your ancestors fought and died to have the rights you enjoy now. Unfortunately, you are not willing to carry on their legacy.
If you’re advocating for civil war, then you’ve already abandoned those rights you claim to be protecting. Yours. Theirs. None of that will matter when war breaks out. Just death and atrocities on both sides.
I’m not advocating for civil war. However, it is absolutely imperative that you don’t let the threat of civil war prevent you from protecting your rights.
Rights are worth fighting for. Rights are worth dying for. And no, don’t try to “both sides” this. In the original US civil war, there was one side that was objectively on the right side of history. But I imagine if you were alive in the 1860s, you would have been advocating to just let the Southerners keep owning human beings. After all, civil war is just death and atrocities accomplishing nothing. It’s better to throw every one of our rights in the garbage before risking civil war.
Nearly all of your rights were won for you through violent protests often in conjunction with non-violent protests. Winning concessions from a violent state requires violent action.
This reminds me of a discussion I was having with Hexbear members on Lemmy recently.
I was suggesting that perhaps it makes sense for the UK to have nukes, for self-defence against other nuclear countries like Russia, China, and potentially even the US, given their unpredictable behaviour. People from Hexbear got angry at this suggestion. One of them suggested that it’s immoral to have nukes because nukes are “threatening civilians”.
Maybe the OP image of this thread is right though: megalomaniacs are not deterred by words, but they are deterred by weapons (such as nukes). Ukraine was invaded because they didn’t have enough deterrents. Iran is currently being bombed because I suppose they also didn’t have enough deterrents.
Ukraine actually gave their nukes on the promise of future safety. We all saw how that worked out.
Exactly. If Ukraine had their own nukes by the time of 2014, or if they had been part of NATO, then maybe Russia wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine.
“More nukes” is never a good solution to any problem
You’d think so, but it worked out surprisingly well during the cold war.
The war that was caused by nuclear arsenals and ended with treaties to get rid of them? The fuck
The only reason it stayed cold the whole time is that both sides had nukes. Even the most adamant of chicken hawks hesitated to pull the trigger with the consequence of the world becoming uninhabitable hanging over our heads.
I’m not saying that MAD is not a thing, I’m just saying it’s a stupid thing. And that the cold war ended when both parties eventually realized that
Perhaps not a good one, but still a solution, when a bear gets overly familiar.
Bear
Beets
Battlestar Galactica
I think ideally there would be no nukes in the world, because they are dangerous. But nukes do exist. If western countries got rid of their nukes, then the remaining nuclear countries would be able to do what they like. “Surrender to our demands or we will nuke your cities.”
what if your nuclear weapon collection is looking too small? How, other than getting more nukes, does on remedy this problem?
North Korea is a good example of a small collection of Nukes being an effective detterant.
All weapons of war threaten civilians.
Potentially. I think it depends on how they’re used. If a country decides to completely disarm itself though, then it’s entirely possible that other countries will seek to invade and subjugate.
Bet they also think Russia should have nukes to stave off western imperialism
So…the republicans were right all this time?
About what?
They actually are.
Non-violent resistances have historically had double the effectiveness of violent resistance movements. Violent resistances generally just get a bunch of people killed and only makes things worse.
The reason is simple. It’s a numbers game. Only a few psychopaths want violence and those few are easily dealt with by police. Sometimes they can especially troublesome and need to be dealt with by the military (LA isn’t one of those cases, Trump is just an idiot). It’s only the very rare case that a violent resistance topples a government and in those cases it’s just replacing one group of authoritarian psychos replacing another group. The French revolution ended up with a King being replaced by an Emperor after a whole lot of people died.
Meanwhile a non-violent movement can attract more numbers. You only need single digit percentages of the population to participate in things like general strikes to make an authoritarian regime collapse. But you aren’t getting those numbers with a violent resistance, people have families to think about and violent resistances are easily vilified. An authoritarian regime can exercise violence against a violent resistance and kill it. If an authoritarian regime uses violence against a non-violent resistance it’s clear to everyone who the villains are and an every broader number of people will participate and subtle and secretive ways.
History bears this out, a violent resistances don’t work unless there’s foreign backing and even then it’s unlikely to succeed. Non-violent resistances have double the probability of success. Non-violent resistances are just about psychopaths that want to burn things down coming up with bullshit rationalizations for it.
They work when the dictator knows the alternative is violence and they are outnumbered. Fun fact, MLK’s peaceful protests had armed security provided by an all black militia. They don’t teach that in schools because no government wants their people to think that the threat of violence works on government. That being said, it’s almost always best to try the peaceful options first.
Oh great a conspiracy theorist.
Over think of this one? The government wants you to do violence because you’ll be easily hunted down and shot and Trump’s approval numbers will go up for protecting the public from the violent commies.
Something like the No Kings protests worries a guy like Trump. If he’s stupid enough to use violence against something like that it’s over for him. It would probably only need something around 25% more support and start doing some general strike kind of activities and Trump is done. The only way he can stop it is if he can associate it with violent nut jobs. Do you want to be a violent nutjob that helps Trump with this problem?
Do you think Trump would’ve won the election if weren’t for a nut job taking a shot at him? Violent nut jobs tried to take down Trump and they failed. Maybe let the sane people take a crack at dealing with him in a sane way.
Which ones, name them.
Have a gander if you wish so:.
I was looking at the list by era. First one, 1918, Egyptian Revolution.
clicks link
The revolution was successfully countered by British forces… Victims 800-1600.
That was very insightful! Thanks, I did not know this list existed. May need it for future reference.
Nice, tagged you as cherrypicker
What did you think the word “attempt” was pointing to here?
Since you somehow forgot how to scroll down:
4 revolutions in total were unsuccessfull
20 have lead to some kind of success (although not all lead to a “perfect” outcome, but they did topple the ruling regimes)
2 have no link and I am to lazy to google them
… I don’t understand what your angle is? This is a genuinely useful list.
For example: there seem to be types of revolution.
Type 1: (the one I mentioned) where leadership goes “well we tried slaughter, they still coming, we should give up” Type 2: “we will not slaughter people, we’d rather give up” (eg the Mongolian revolution) Type 3: “they have the combined forces of police and military behind them, we better give up” (the lybian coup that brought Gaddafi to power, for example.)
Bro thinks it’s a gun fight against the US military 💀
It is though. The rich don’t want their livestock exterminated but brought to heel. Occupation happens with boots on the ground, infantry. That means small arms, drones, and ground vehicles. Not nukes, missiles, or bombs.
Also the populace out numbers the military by HUGE margin. No force is strong enough in manpower to overcome a civilian population in a state of resistance. The US military also sucks at asynchronous warfare. Or have we already forgotten our last 20year war in the Middle East?
Why yes keep suggesting domestic terrorism as an acceptable alternative to voting
ok im sick of this bullshit.
i swear many people on lemmy seem to think only one way or another. no middle ground anymore.
There is a place for violent and non-vioent protest, and they can coexist. In fact they SHOULD coexist. Those engaged in violent protest however, should not be protesting openly in my opinion, and they should not be protesting in public, the forms of violent protest i think of is more assassination. Getting rid of maga cultists and maga cultist politicians that enable them. However i do not think assassination in terms of guns or bombs. i think poisons, viruses, fucking with maga cultist’s houses to make them less safe in a more invisible way (creating a gas leak or electrical issue). The reason i think this is that it is harder for these moron cultists to combat, most of them do not understand more subtle violence, yes i know this is fucked up. And i REALLY hope it’s not neccessary, but i feel we (america) and really most countries have a difficult time figuring out when actual guerilla warfare becomes neccessary.
Personally i would think of anyone who does such things to be about the same as luigi mangione who was obviously wrongfully imprisoned and thankfully there are others out there doing the real work. Also such things probably won’t be put in the media anymore, they will hide it because luigi mangione galvanized a lot of people, they don’t want martyrs, martyrs galvanize us all into resistance.
I am not saying you should do this. I am saying that there is room for both and for some reason both sides of this same fight are against eachother. Another way to do it would be to have backup protestors nearby in gear IN CASE things DO get violent. I think both of these are viable for “violent protest” the violent protesters in the latter case are backup for the peaceful protestors since if you dont have a weapon or any intention of committing violence on your oppressors then you will need someone else who is very willing to do so, and in my opinion, someone who enjoys it.
As “givessomefucks” said “We don’t have to like it, but it’s undeniable that cops treat protestors in plated vests with rifles different than they treat protestors in tshirts with signs…”
but this is why violent protest should be done subtly and NOT in large numbers, your goal as a “violent protestor” is more to support the peaceful protestors WITHOUT compromising their own goals of peaceful protest. So these two methods seem the most viable to me. They are right, you cant go into the protest with weapons and gear, that’s why you need to be a LOT more subtle than this.
If things spill over and peaceful protests stop working then yes, violent protest might become the only real option in public. until then do NOT compromise peaceful protestors.
