Alt-text: Protest can be organized through social media, but nothing is real that does not end on the streets. If tyrants feel no consequences for their actions in the three-dimensional world, nothing will change.
source: On Tyranny (Graphic Edition)
But so much can be done offline it’s crazy that we hold on to this belief that we need to go to the streets.
Why? What are you doing in the streets that can’t be done better online?
I believe change always needs a multi-pronged approach. If we were to dominate the online field of culture, but cede the control lf the offline world to them, they could arrest us, shut down the infrastructure we rely on, and so forth. We need cultural force online, peaceful activism offline and (unfortunately, in my opinion) also the threat of violence to make the option of peaceful change more appealing.
But you can’t control the real world. How would you do that? With the way they control their authority you’re just asking to get any leadership removed and imprisoned. Anyone showing half a decent threat to them will be targeted, removed and charged so far up their ass they will be afraid to show their face with 1000m of any protest again. The only leadership they’ll leave in place will be the ones that convince everybody to sit in a park clicking their fingers because clapping is too aggressive.
Online is the last territory that we have some control over. Very little left since somehow magically we all agreed to remove ourselves from. With online you have done anonymity, You have reach and engagement and you can get the actual message out to much more people. All things protests attempt to go but poorly.
Or the people posting online to tell everyone else “Don’t you dare do anything!”
Online spaces are too easily segregated. Already we have no control over plenty of cuntservative “safe spaces”.
The point of protests and demonstrations is to give a physical, visible mass to demands and movements. The Suffrage, Civil Rights Movement, the various protests against Soviet rule, not to mention various uprisings against monarchies or dictatorships (Frances’s Storming of the Bastille, Russian deposition of the Czar), the creation of unions that did a lot for modern working conditions and other protests with less visible results in slowing down the encroachment of bullshit.
But their success hinges on numbers. Every scab that breaks strikes is a traitor to their peers. Every cunt discouraging people from participating harms the rest of the protestors.
Now more than ever we have the tools the Internet provides to generate the will and coordinate the execution of strikes and protests. Don’t participate, if you feel it’s hopeless, but don’t infect others with your defeatism. Best case, they’ll manage to win and improve things for you. Worst case, it’s not you that’s getting hit.
Look at George Floyd, you had numbers and it didn’t do shit. If anything police are more violent and more authoritarian. This isn’t the 70s anymore. Police have trained yearly to Coral and suppress. It’s shooting fish in a barrel for them. You say you have all these tools yet weird how you show up to the things and none of that has advanced at all. Instead it’s people wandering around until someone smashes windows and it turns into a mini riot that’s then used to hurt the cause.
That just means we have to step up our game, not that we have to surrender
But that’s what I’m saying. Stepping up the game is bringing the old days into the Internet. The goal is numbers and awareness. That’s achieved online where every single major group is doing it. Doesn’t mean you stop showing up in the streets but that the physical presence isn’t the main driver. Opinions and culture need to be shifted and to do that we need content. Without it there’s no point showing up anywhere
Then we were talking past each other. My point was that we need both that online presence and a physical one to give it real-world visibility, but as I understand you now, we need something to give visibility to. It seems that our points are more or less the same and we’ve been arguing different nuances of the same opinion.
My point is not that we need to be less reliant on protesting because policing has evolved to make it practically impossible to get any traction. We’re only allowed to protest because it is ineffective the way we currently do it. If a protest is actually going to create change, they have the playbook from decades of training and adapting and studying. At this point it’s farmers moving cattle. It’s referees watching guys fight and letting them get tired before stepping in. It’s giving us the illusion that showing up is doing something. If it actually did something they wouldn’t allow it.
Therefore I look at what is working. What is working is online engagement. That’s how Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro and Nick Fuentes and Joe Rogan and Steven Crowder and Alex Jones and Milo and on and on and on. The Internet is the space we need to show up. Networks need to be built. Like channels between Lemmy and Twitter and mastedon to Facebook. Especially Lemmy. The reason is because Reddit might not allow certain topics for example Charlie Kirk videos right now. So Lemmy and other places should be building these channels and creating content. That’s how you get noticed. Flood the zone just like Russia or heritage foundation or Prager u does. We need people like a left version of Ben Shapiro making good arguments that are then flooded in comment sections of videos totally unrelated, which is what the right wing voters do. We need to take all that space back but we need energy and motivation to do it. That comes from content.
You can’t make fascists afraid to speak their thoughts online.
Why is that the thing you think is the goal.
Fascists need culture to agree with them. The Internet is very literally a culture creating machine.
Like it fucking baffles me how ignorant leftist are to this fact. It’s so blatantly obvious where they need to apply pressure and instead they’re doing all the exact opposite moves. They’re focusing on physically showing up as the main driver of change. They’re convincing each other to leave all digital platforms. They’re rejecting new technologies that are essentially force multipliers. It’s almost like the other side has a lot of funding and resources to manipulate the left as well as the right.
I agree in that the internet has value in a modern resistance. But how could it possibly be used as the only form of change?
I’ll entertain this thought. Let’s just say we are back in Nazi Germany but we have all modern technology and advancements. Let’s even say it’s a few months before Kristallnacht to give this theortical resistance some time.
How would you propose German citizens form a fully remote resistance against the Nazi government using only the internet to prevent the coming atrocities?
Hitler rise is traced to the struggles German people suffered after WWI. That suffering created cultural views that Hitler seized upon and grew like a tumor.
Culture is born, lives and dies everyday online. As crazy as it is you cannot deny that the Internet has not shaped our every day lives for the best 20 years. You stop these people by spreading and challenging bad views with better ones. You flood the space with content to either drown out the fascists or show why they’re wrong. Every person becomes their own PR team.
It takes 10% of any group to shift their view to reach a critical mass that can change the entire groups opinions. It isn’t much. So the game is too engage that 10% and deny them the same. The problem is when we all decided to up and leave all the digital spaces given them free access to that 10%.
This is why now the entire world seems like they’re saying Charlie was just a good Christian.
The Internet and the media that can be generated is way more powerful than showing up in real life. The funding police have now plus the military component is just proof that showing up in the streets is not going to go well.
I’m also not saying we don’t show up. But it shouldn’t be the first thing. It needs to be better organized and thought out. I hate to say it but the convoy was a perfect example. Thing how much it fucked with police. They can’t arrest everyone. They don’t have enough tow trucks. Most of the tow trucks agreed with the convoy. It was a nightmare for police because they had no idea how to respond. But seems like leftist continue to show up for protests in the same way that police have been training and developing techniques to counter for decades. Just every time I see leftist trying to do something it all feels like it’s action that someone who hates the left who tell them to do.
you dont need to go to the streets but you absolutely need to form small groups that meet regularly. Think about how much more you can accomplish as a team of 5 or 10 or 30 at work.
Form a group, meet regularly, have each others backs, and focus, focus, focus.
You think maybe there’s a machine that helps you do that?
I feel like all the responses here are a joke. This is bad. Seriously fucking bad
You can’t fight a fascist takeover of your country from your couch. I know it’s not the American way, but you have to go out and change it yourself.
Why? Seriously.
It’s probably the best way.
Please truly explain to me why. What are you saying is the winning strategy.
I think it really depends on who you are fighting and what you are trying to accomplish.
Personally, I feel Congress is to blame for much of this mess. they could end all of this tomorrow. Congress doesn’t give 2 shits what I post online, so its a waste of my time to change their mind online.
In short, pick your goal, then choose your strategy.
I don’t really know what to say other than you’re wrong. Like on so many levels. The whole system is literally about representing people and people create demands based on culture. Culture identity and public opinion is the root here. It’s why there’s so much attention by powerful people to control it. The left is really showing how ignorant they are to basic concepts here.
I swear to god, people like you deserve to lose your democracy.
There’s no collection of spineless wombles quite like the American left.
No you’re wrong and always have been. But most are like you and that’s why the left is where they are now. You’re socially and politically confused about how you accomplish your goals. There’s another user saying you gotta go light buildings on fire. The left is done because of people like you
And how do you propose we change culture when we can’t afford to purchase twitter or tiktok to sway public opinion?
What im proposing is a grassroots movement based on community.
That’s insane. How do you propose a grassroots movement in real life when you can’t even muster that online. How does that make and sense to you. It’s like you’re building a fire and asking me why don’t I start with the huge logs instead of the kindling. I’m just honestly frustrated the reasoning and logic of it all because I know so many of you feel that same way. The left are behind the times.
Because they’re raiding work places and dragging immigrants off to concentration camps. And you think the appropriate response is posting memes on Facebook? By the time you’ve gotten a like emoji your neighbours are already in the back of a black unmarked van.
Communication on the internet is an important factor, but you won’t defeat fascists with a Tiktok video. That time is passed. You need to organize and gather in the streets to shut the economy down.
Yes, are you insane. As you just said, they’re illegal disappearing people. How are you so ignorant to the idea of anonymously bringing awareness to these things. How the hell are you going to convince people to help you while you’re standing in a street in Wisconsin while a boot is on your face. You need to meet people where they are. That is online
Okay and what does awareness do? What’s the next step after everyone is aware? Just keep posting on Twitter about how much you don’t like things?
You have to take action to change things. Internet posts won’t stop them. Stop making excuses for not saving your own democracy.
“bringing awareness”.
Do you really think people don’t already know?
Yes 100% they don’t. You’re so far behind the times if you think they do.
Like even the logic of it doesn’t make sense. You and all other leftist removed yourself from all digital spaces where the majority of people get their information from. The rest of the country gets their information from those people who get their information from online sources where Lefty’s no longer generate the information. Go outside and start asking people at your work said in your life questions about things you know about Charlie. I bet most would tell you he was a good Christian bravely debating the youth and trying to bring people together. People don’t know because the left removed ourselves from platforms and stopped generating meaningful content. There’s no point going into the streets if we don’t have the channels to promote them messages. How many protests have come and gone the past decade. Yet the right spread something about trans kids in classrooms and my grandmother is discussing kids using Kitty litter in classrooms. M
You can’t virtually set fire to something, that’s what.
Now make like the Nepalese and burn down parliament.
Easy buddy. Nobody needs to set fires. That’s the most useless counter productive action I can think of
That’s the spirit, just ask politely. Don’t make waves.
This is just stupid.