Microblog Memes

I like this new format where we scan photocopies of posts.

Was this faxed to lemmy?

I didn't know that this is the perfect way to enjoy memes. Posted to Twitter, screenshotted, discussed further in Tumblr, printed out, faxed, scanned, and then posted to Lemmy.

I can understand that people don't like riots.

What really shits me is when people are opposed to completely non-violent disruptive protests. Street marches, die-ins, gluing yourself to statues, throwing non-destructive liquids onto monuments, etc. If you put your mild inconvenience or sense of propriety ahead of a cause, that's clearly not a cause you believe in, so stop blaming the protestors for your lack of support.

If you feel:

☑️ So empty

☑️ So used up

☑️ So let down

☑️ So angry

☑️ So ripped off

☑️ So stepped on

☑️ So filthy

☑️ So dirty

☑️ So fucked up

☑️ So walked on

☑️ So painful

☑️ So pissed off

You're not the only one, so let's start a riot!

Some dorks in this thread are the perfect example of who potential protesters need to ignore.

I brought up "truckers blocking highways and important intersections" to my very good (but desperately clueless) friend. Violence free, requires few bodies, historically effective.

He said "but what about the people they inconvenience?"

I'm like dude. Inconvenience to power is. the. point.

I love him but he's a fool, guy thinks protests are people smiling and holding clever signs.

Sad thing is he's representative of a lot of people.

They'll be happy when things are better but idgaf about asking their advice. They don't read history, the closest theyll get to a protest is the news coverage, and they'll never be satisfied with less than some impossible dream of a "immaculate ~~conception~~ protestation"

So like, fuck em

During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.

Yes. A quite recent example from Germany:

Letzte Generation (Last Generation) a group of climate activists which glued themselves onto streets, usually carefully planned, organized and communicated with emergency services (such that ambulances can pass). They just got all of the hate and achieved not really much.

Then there were some farmers who were unhappy about governmental advances to reduce or remove the "agricultural diesel" subsidies. They've blocked highway entrace ramps with burning car tyres and dung, went really hardcore compared to the Letzte Generation, and finally got what they wanted.

It’s not civil disobedience when the other side isn’t being civil.

I don't mind riots, so long as it's targeted in some way, and not just the random breaking down of privately owned small businesses (which hurts no-one at the top).

Until now, whenever I point out that any and all societies are fundamentals based on the capacity of violence, people got uncomfortable and/or denied it.

Sweeties, people got murdered so that you could have a democracy* because that gives the power to the people** as they have the most capacity of violence, so they need to be appeased.

Sidenote: the eu, the UN and so on are also existing to appease enough of us to reduce violence as it is a shared interest.

I can name several historic US riots which were not justified.

The Tulsa Massacre of 1921.

The series of riots occurring after the removal of confederate statues in the last decade.

When men marched with torches and firearms after the inauguration of Barack Obama.

During the BLM movement a white couple was charged with Arson of a restaurant as they were trying to delegitimize peaceful protests.

Meanwhile the most successful social movements were not accomplished with violence at all. Women suffrage, equal rights for protected classes, gay marriage, etc. Some movements had a mixture of peace and violence, such as rights to unionize, but far more effective than riots were the affected workers like miners and industrial manufacturers striking.

This is the same as any major conflict. People want to try to work thing out without violence. The times that does happen are unremarkable. The times it doesn't happen, we can judge later weather it was the right thing to do.

Yeah, this takes some time to settle in for me

"Why Civil Resistance Works" is a good book about why civil disobedience is the most effective means of resisting a regime. It's not an easy read, but it's still great info.

It's only a rebellion if you lose.

also the tankies who made them happen.

That's a feature not a contradiction

The ends justify the means. Not a moral statement on 'doing whatever it takes' - it is meaningless to win when the victors are no different from the victims.

Rather, an observation on the nature of what it is to be justified or vilified.

The ones at the end decide. When it is happening, it is never justified. It is never tolerated. It is vilified. It is criminal. The means are always painted as extremes.

Something new can only ever be justified when you reach the end. Until then, it - literally - is radical.

To the present, you're just a person stirring up trouble. Could be good, could be bad, but either way, it's trouble.

You can only ever be a hero to history.