I was actually a big organizer in my community last year and had to step away because my wife and I were getting doxxed from MAGA idiots, but I agree with the first comment.
At least in my city, no planning other then planning the next protest is all they do. People ask to help and really they just want to help very little so they feel useful. Which usually is “I can buy more poster boards next time for others” and “I’ll help set up the sign up sheets for next protest.”
I tried organizing strikes but people wouldn’t show up if it wasn’t convenient for them. Most people want it to go back to how it was, few want it to completely change. I’m going to partake in the national strike, but fuck the No Kings protest. It’s become a festival for those wanting to not be unconvinced with real civil disobedience.
I thought a general strike was in the works for May 1st?
One-day strikes are the same as one-day protests. Good visibility and networking but no actual pressure on their own. Ideally a general atrike would be “indefinite until our demands are met” but the US doesn’t have enough class unity or social safety net for that right now.
And it’s no kings.
Wishing for a general strike exactly to happen on May1 2026 does not in fact constitute planing there of.
Now all managers of all companies will be forced to stop using the word " planning " or risk being in some investigation.
Manager: I will pla…no no, organiz… No no…hey, can y’all just be here for the staff meeting on Monday?
Note that the person criticising the original is also not active in organising a general strike. It is permissable to hold opinions without being obliged to act on them.
Yes. But the moment you release your opinion out on the wild, we’re allowed to ridicule you for them.
Of course you can. I’m just saying that the criticism is stupid in this case. I mean, I think that fusion power would be a good thing, but fuck me for not working 24 hours a day on a PhD in nuclear physics.
But that’s more like having people talk about how we should do nuclear and renewable power, and you coming along complaining people should be working on developing fusion power instead because fission power just won’t do anything
Not it isn’t.
Arguing that fission power won’t do anything is objectively incorrect.
Arguing that a general strike would be more effective than weekend rallies alone is objectively correct.
Your analogy is not analagous.
Beyond that, arguing against doing something is not the same as arguing for doing something else, in addition to /or/ instead of the original something.
Arguing that fission power won’t do anything is objectively incorrect.
That’s an opinion, regardless of whether it’s true or not. The analogy is analogous because I’m taking the same actions and statements, applying them to analogous topics in a different field. Dismissing that because you believe your beliefs to be objective fact is just dishonest.
… Fission power works.
It generates energy.
This is objectively true.
That is not nothing.
If you were being hyperbolic, well then your analogy is not analagous because one end of it is hyperbolic.
Saying marches change nothing is hyperbolic as well.
That is true, however this is not about the acting, it’s about hypocrisy in the traditional sense. OC is essentially saying “we have the same goal and I set an easier plan and I’m currently following it, while you are criticizing my plan, making up a way harder one, saying I should follow that one while not following either mine or your plan at all.”
It’s like when you are working in a supermarket, restocking the shelves and your coworker is just sitting on a chair watching you, and after a while he says “this is useless, you should rather do some cashier work, people are waiting” while eating candy.
Yeah sure he might be technically right, but this is extremely out of line.
Why should I listen to you? You’re not actively involved in organizing a general strike either.
You’ve opened this Pandora’s Box my friend there’s no closing it again now. It’s not being actively involved in organizing a general strike all the way down.
Yeah if you’re not actively involved in organizing a general strike you don’t get my vote. And since there are not any candidates meeting that criteria, I’m staying home on Election Day.
Don’t believe me? There’s 10 of millions of US citizens who will be doing the same thing!
Checkmate /s
Yea I’m really bad at organizing but I damn well know it has to be done by someone with the skill to do it.
I disagree about it being permissable. If anything it makes you a hypocrite and undermines the appearance of intelligence and empathy, alike. The complaint is also misguided and simply wrong. Saying nothing will change is absurd. Things are already changing. These rallies raise awareness for everyone. You can’t have a general strike until you get everyone to agree to it.
Could be a person not living in the USA, Max.
Us foreigners also have opinions on what’s happening in the US, because it affects us too, but we have no way to affect change in the US, other than our boycotts.
IDK Russia did a good job swaying the US public opinion and spreading propaganda.
I was gonna say I bet a lot of the accounts complaining about these protests are Russian bots
you guys simply cannot take criticism can you
American exceptionalism. They are the best country ever! Therefore, the way they are doing things is the best way it could possibly done, nothing could possibly be done differently, and anyone saying anything to the contrary must be foreign agents trying to undermine the best country ever!
Remember, if your organization is big enough to organize a general strike, the feds are there and watching. Watch your back
recall that the FBI infiltrated the civil rights movement and more even before we had a police state empowered by the Patriot Act surveillance and AI data collection.
I have zero proof, but I suspect that they are actively disrupting all attempts at organization. This is based on the history of CIA and FBI; we never know what they are doing currently, we only know a tiny bit of what they have done in the past.
Maybe I’m paranoid.
No you’re not paranoid. However, the point of surveillance is not to repress, but to make us afraid to act (panopticon and stuff). Not everything could be done through organization; but not system shift could be done without. A strong solidarity network is something that could people to act by other mean, help them to get inform on industries by people being exploited by those industries. And of course building international solidarity.
Depending of your country or your affinities, you could even join an union under a pseudonyme
One of the organizers of Standing Rock was framed and turned in by their partner of like 3± years, iirc. The fbi offered them ~$2000 and so they planted a gun in their partners belongings before a camp raid.
Remember kids, anyone can become a tool of the state if put in the right position
Paranoid has proven to be downright reasonable
What was that one phrase again? Something like “there are two kinds of conspiracy theories: antisemitic woo and declassified CIA documents”
Evidence is there that they are doing that, at the very least the consistent effort to not only divide but also demoralize through deliberate propaganda. It’s why you see so many people on Reddit, Lemmy, or any other social media being downright pessimistic about what protests can accomplish or build into. They’ve already lost to the propaganda, so what’s going on now immediately gets written off by them as futile. They are exactly where these orgs want them to be: at home, isolated, writing dumb little comments on the internet that only serve to pull the crabs back down into the bucket. That kind of stuff is infectious to others and makes people opt to view organizing as ineffectual.
- People every time a post about protests is made: “This will accomplish nothing.”
- Those same people when asked what they’re personally doing since they talk like they know what will and won’t work: “Also nothing.”
- (Bonus points for the ones who say violent uprisings are needed, but are not violently rising up themselves. Double bonus for “well I don’t live in the US.”)
Protests aren’t the solution on their own, they’re a step in the process of people getting to the point of doing something about the situation they’ve found themselves in. You can’t fix a problem if you don’t first acknowledge and accept that it’s a problem. Stop crapping on people for protesting. Instead, encourage them to use that energy to take things further. And if you know so much about what will actually work and are going out of your way to tell people what they’re doing isn’t going to work, maybe you should be doing the thing you claim will work so you can lead by example instead of armchair directing.
A term I’ve been using is ‘activation’. people who are in the early stages of activation attend protests - more often attendance is more activation. This eventually evolves into active participation in support networks, vigilante counteraction, or legal resistance like journalism and similar activities.
Protest attendance is the start of most individuals’ activation, and we can’t knock that starting place if we want greater numbers participating in the counteraction apparatus going forward.
Yeh the other step is actual violence. Not condoning or promoting it.
Just saying that has to be the next follow up if they’re not listening to he protests.
The No Kings Marches are just a prelude. Imagine all those millions of people participation in the upcoming general strike . Then imagine those millions turning to violence. Imagine them armed.
Just a suggestion, but becoming armed before becoming violent might be a better order of progression.
LOL what country do you think this is? “Becoming armed”? Bro this is America.
except the ones who have traditionally fought against the right to bear arms is the same people protesting. they need to be armed, and they need to protest with their arms, same reason a government will parade with their weapons
Bro this is America
yes, and my point still stands
You didn’t get the reference. I don’t think you picked up what I was putting down.
oh, the music video. that’s a whole ball of critique against the american system, and gun culture. but it still is what it is
Lol, good point, but I was speaking more in a general sense, not just this country.
That might be the more logical progression, but logic rarely comes into play in these things.
In fact, being armed before it’s time for violence is often a bad thing.
But when it is time, anything at hand can be a weapon.
Paris housewives once marched on Versailles and decapitated several guards with kitchen knives after they opened fire on the crowd.
You can make nearly anything into a weapon or a musical instrument. Remember that, and you’ll always be safe, and entertained.
A primary exception is the marshmallow. Pretty much useless for either.
Someone’s never forced 20 marshmallows down someone’s throat and it shows
You don’t know me.
you know, the americans are always going on about their 2A rights, but i don’t see them overthrowing tyranny when it’s present.
The first comment / response or whatever that I read in there does a better job of expressing my opinion on this than I ever could.
“It’s building the muscle. You have to get someone to show up one day before you can get them to show up often, or every day, or for the long haul.”
Really the same goes for so many of the organizations running the events. They’re local orgs, local people with different levels of experience (mostly very little) with organizing at this scale. It takes practice and time to get good at these things. It takes time to find volunteers and train them.
Contrary to what some of the comments implied, most of these events aren’t planned/operated by paid professionals, not that paying for professional help is inherently a bad thing anyway. There’s top-level guidance and coordination, that kind of stuff generally requires dedicated teams (aka paid employees) due to the time and skill requirements for those roles. But on the local level, it’s volunteers all around. And the real planning, the hard work, is virtually all done locally by those volunteers.
i don’t agree at all. the reason is that the people who go to these will argue that they are making a difference and fight against what comes next.
these are not even having the police interfere so you know no one cares at all. school children have a walk out criticizing israel? police show up with chemical weapons and shoots people point blank with less the lethal rounds. go to a no kings and police is directing traffic.
no these protests are a distraction to make people think that nothing more has to be done, and they did their part.
and then on tv the largest mass protest in history is a foot note to trumps birthday party. so no.
Your wallet is your strongest voice in the eyes of this administration. Think carefully about where you spend your hard earned money.
A single day of avoiding Walmart and Amazon is not meaningful if you give them your money tomorrow. Find local businesses that deserve your money and spend your money with them instead.
Buy less and buy better quality items that last longer. Reduce consumerism and give homemade gifts or experiences instead of more junk nobody needs. Use lending libraries, swap groups, and other methods to reduce your contribution to the economy, which is frankly the only thing the American government really is interested in.
And hats off to the person who successfully organizes a general strike. I’m cheering you on from Canada.
I remember how fast Jimmy Kimmel was back in the air once people starting attacking the bottom line. The biggest thing a capitalist society and its oligarchs fear is the threat to its money.
Being part of march is already more than what many people would do. Seen too many times after the whole CEO execution last year people saying shit like “oh won’t somebody step up and do something”, “somebody should really try and change the system”, or “I would totally support someone stepping up”.
Buddy, that someone better be you. If not, be quiet.
- Sincerely, a union representative of my workplace.
To be fair the people vote for leaders who are supposed to show them the way forward we don’t have that for the most part.
Honestly we have no good community leaders at all (for white leftists), they are bad at organizing, they are bad at messaging, they seem to always want to take over and grift money, it’s always get out and march (if you can… that’s ok if you can’t) meanwhile the other side organized an attempted fucking coup.
Like we need someone at Obamas level saying don’t pay federal taxes while they deny your rights and plunge us into war and march on DC/mara lago and here’s the address to the homes they stole from top military brass would be a shame to bother them.
And maybe a little “HEY THEY FUCKING SHOT YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS, VOTE FOR ME AND I’LL MAKE SURE THEY ALL GO TO FUCKING JAIL!” would be a nice fucking start or even a little acknowledgement the election was fucking stolen.
First thing you need to do is make America a representative democracy. Throw that first past the post bullshit in the trash.
Then maybe the electoral collage.
Then maybe gerrymandering illegal.
The way your system works is all sorts of fucked up. And it’s fine for us here in Europe if it didn’t effect us, but the tribalistic thinking of “left vs right” without any gradient or nuance is starting to effect us over here too.
The problem is that even doing that isn’t simple. Both parties are captured by and cater to capital’s interests. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party both have 0 interest in changing away from first past the post because first past the post gets them elected and in power. It’s incredibly difficult to get anyone elected that is outside of either of those two parties because they will do everything in their power to challenge it. We’ve seen this most recently in the 2024 elections when the Dems were challenging Green Party candidates’ rights to even be on the ballot by taking them to court to contest their signatures and other procedural challenges. The Greens don’t have the pocket book to handle lawsuits, so this can effectively kill any local and bottom up candidate initiatives. It takes time to contend with these structures, which is why we’re just now seeing gains being made by Democratic Socialists like Mamdani in NYC. His election required years of organizing on the DSA’s part to build a party structure in NYC. Sometimes their best route to office has been through the Democratic party itself, like Mamdani, which comes with its own issues as well.
A union rep. So you only protect certain people, and only if they pay? We need to get rid of that divisive union bullshit as well and level the playing field for all workers.
Ouch! Based on the downvotes it seems you only want to help yourselves and those in your club, not all workers everywhere. No wonder the billionaires are winning.
Okay, let’s make everyone unionized then. The other direction is bad, very fucking bad.
Haha ha hahaha ha.
No.
A rising tide lifts all boats. When negotiating pay raises, better parental leave, pensions, vacation days, overtime, the results don’t merely apply to union members. They apply to everyone.
To manage all the paperwork the union employs full-time office workers. Who pays their salaries?
If a company starts throwing some shit that needs to be taken to labour court, who pays for the lawyers?
What about when a strike is necessary? Where does the money on the warchest come from?
How can the union cover unemployment benefits when people get laid off?
You sound just like the Marx textbook I read back in the 70’s. Even the trite, popular phrases. It’s no laughing matter though. People are dying and suffering all over and all you can talk about is meaningless money of questionable value. A guy once shoveled my snow for me and didn’t charge me anything. He did it to feel a part of the community. How does that fit into your money calculations? It’s a human/ecological issue, not a fiscal one. You can look down and laugh at us from your protected collective perch however. Have fun!
You sound just like the Marx textbook…
Almost like that movement was a result of overbearing oligarchs literally working people to death.
Must be a funny coincidence.
How does that fit into your money calculations?
Doing someone a favour is all fine and dandy, but favours don’t pay for lawyers when you’re going up against a corporate entity.
How does shovelling snow for you neighbour fit into that?
You can look down and laugh at us from your protected collective perch however.
The only reason I’d look down on you is because you’re somehow, unironocally, using “collective power” as a bad thing.
As I said previously; a rising tide lifts all boats, and when I sit at the negotiating table I’m not merely demanding special perks for union members. I represent the needs of the entire work environment.
This is a pretty valid thing to say in the US.
Too many people think that just protesting is enough for any change they want to be effected. We don’t get taught about things like labor struggles.
I’m not going to be first in line to start doing something that actually fucking matters, but you bet your ass I’ll be third.
protests and direct action present an opportunity for everyone to go at once. it’s just up to you guys to take it.
This person could be French. They know how to bring the state to heel, and they share their experiences for those clearly in need of learning Americans. But they have to leave organizing to the people who are actually involved.
I don’t know why people have this illusion surrounding French people when they’re actively electing fascists and calling antifa a violent group of terrorists, while having their government give a minute of silence for the death of an actual nazi (like, actually posting on twitter that he loves Hitler -kind of nazi)
French people know nothing, they stopped understanding protests and revolts after Napoleon started shooting civilians with cannons and have been licking the boots of dictators since then. It’s no wonder that a bunch of them collaborated with the nazis back in ww2, and it’s no wonder they’re collaborating with the new nazis now.
I agree people (Americans?) are idealizing the french in this regard. But you’re yourself misinformed.
Napoleon did shoot royalists with cannons in 1795, when he wasn’t yet in power. It didn’t stop the 1830 or 1848 revolutions happening, nor the 1871 commune. More recently the 1968 protests were accompanied by a general strike which did scare the hell of many people.
What we need is a pragmatic and informed assessments of events so that we can decide what might work and what won’t. National stereotypes and prejudices should be discarded.
French people get taught in schools that (pseudo-) dictators like Louis XIV, Napoleon and De Gaulle, are the best kind of leaders and that France would be nothing without them. The president of France himself implied very strongly that he believes France needs a dictator, and he got reelected after that.
Clearly, protests that happened after the French revolution were not enough to do any meaningful change in the long run, as proven by the state of France now. Most people see protests as a nuisance, violent protests as terrorism, and antifascism as a hate crime. This antidemocratic wave got heavily promoted by Napoleon and De Gaulle, and the fact that these two are seen as heroes in France shows the perception that French people have.
There’s a reason why protests like the recent ones against Macron basically did nothing, despite being amongst the biggest protests of the past decades: most of the population is hostile to protests and revolts, and supports the idea of a fascist government
You clearly don’t understand anything about French politics, and these overgeneralizations you’re making don’t prove otherwise.
The French government is currently divided three ways, with no coalition able to achieve a governing majority. They’ve been in a stalemate since their last election. That’s why they’re not able to get anything done, for better or for worse.
Attempting to characterize the entire French government and the entire French people as one thing is extremely ignorant. There’s plenty of dissent in France, and plenty of discontent.
Every country glazes its own image in schools. That doesn’t mean everyone in the country falls for the brainwashing.
Also, De Gaulle led the French resistance, helped the Allies kick the Nazis out of France, and led France during the period of denazification after the war. What part of that makes him a dictator, in your eyes?
What are you even talking about?
Macron has been doing whatever he wanted for the past years. He’s changed completely the political norm of France, brought the vision if the left from a normal party, to the evil antisemitic violent terrorist party, while normalising the far right so much that now most right-wing parties all blend together and say the same fascist crap.
France has, since Macron, been “dropping out of democracy”, according to the international federation for human rights. That’s not just a little stalemate here.
The fucking government gave a *minute of silence for a nazi terrorist that died after attacking people, while being watched by cops who saw them initiate the attack and intentionally did nothing. What more do you want? You’re waiting for them to do like in the US and have the government do nazi salutes?
De Gaulle ran away from the war to hide, took advantage of the french resistance, sabotaged resistance operations led by the communist resistance because he hated communists, loved colonies, and changed the whole government system to make it give more power to the president. He ignored the population, lied to them without giving a shit, encouraged violence in algeria, and the only actual good thing that he did (preventing the US and UK from stealing and invading France) was out of pride, and doesn’t compensate for anything else. But history is indeed written by the winners.
The French people brought down three monarchies after Napoleon fired those cannons.
Yes, and that didn’t revive democracy. Or prevent king macron
