- cross-posted to:
- mop@quokk.au
- liberalgunowners@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- mop@quokk.au
- liberalgunowners@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/34641538
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Violence when you’re outnumbered and outgunned doesn’t accomplish much and is a good way to end up dead.
Violence when organized in numbers can make a big difference. But then nonviolence in organized numbers can also make a big difference, and according to some historians and revolutionaries is statistically more effective.
But I get it that it’s difficult to stay idly by when our fellow civilians are gunned down by regime paramilitary agents. So think of it this way:
COIN models are pretty consistent about winning hearts and minds, and everything ICE is doing is costing them exactly that: hearts and minds. It’s why they’ve had to shift strategies from regional raids to scattershot surprise attacks. No matter how much it’s spun by the social media propaganda machine, every death, every act of brutality (and for that matter, every release of how detainees are being abused and tortured) is losing them the war, the same way the Coalition of the Willing lost the International War on Terror.
For every Alex Pretti, dozens of bystanders become sympathists. For every Renée Good, dozens of sympathists become activists. For every Lorenzo Araujo or Joan Guerrero, dozens of activists become militants.
And that is according to pre-internet COIN theory, what we might expect in the 20th century. Nowadays, phone camera footage hits the internet in minutes, and spreads across the globe in hours, a phenomenon that informed how the Ferguson Unrest was received, or the 2020 George Floyd protests, or the 2021+ crisis in Palestine.
So it may not be merely dozens anymore. It may be hundreds.
During the German occupation of Paris in 1940, Germany required France to pay for the privilege of an occupying force, featuring financial shenanigans (sound familiar?) that depleted French resources, leading to food shortages and scarcity.
And then the garrison forces could not help but indulge in brutality. It quickly became too much for the common civilian to bear.
The early Résistants started small and scattered: Independent Parisians slashing tires, defacing propaganda posters, cutting phone lines. Service staff routinely spat in the food and drink served to occupying Germans. It would only take a couple of years before La Résistance formed into a formidable fighting force, and every French household was ready and willing to hide them away.
The resistance works the way that recycling aluminum does. One person doing their tiny part doesn’t do much, but there are millions of us who are active, and plenty more who sympathize, and more still who are just pissed off at the bullshit. (Affordability, inflation, blatant corruption, the fucked up pointless elective war in Iran, election meddling, etc. It adds up.)
The big demonstrations are about visibility, it lets the resistance represent and do a headcount and remind ourselves we’re not alone. But the real work is in crabbing at representatives, sabotaging Flock cameras, responding to ICE attacks, calling out MAGA misinformation, making sure neighbors are cool and fed, and so on.
Wash your hands regularly. Avoid shopping at Amazon. If your household gets a case of cyclosporiasis, report it.
It adds up.
And yeah, it’s okay if it takes a while to find your place in the organized resistance. The Trump regime operated quickly so we haven’t yet had time to fully shift gears. (The blitz has also made it impossible to adapt to the new norms, hence for some of us the Overton window is now offensive. Stephen Miller’s they’re all deformed speech is channeling Joseph Goebbels directly)
For most of us, the effort might be very quotidian. A classic WWII era move was simply to hat-tip to the Jewish neighbors, which pissed off the Nazis.
If you’re lucky (or unlucky) you find yourself in a position of opportunity, to take subversive action, and risk your liberty, possibly your life. In that case, bloc up, be safe, and don’t get caught.
As were some of the groups in the Civil Rights movement. There was a group armed and trained by a black WW2 veteran that protected families from retaliation by the KKK for going to desegregated schools. Armed with rifles and machine guns, they would put sandbag emplacements on people’s porches to ensure that their kids were safe throughout the night
United we stand, divided we fall
The “watchers” protected MLK’s peaceful protest . Armed protectors.
Needed to prevent KKK from driving a truck or attacking the protest. Not part of protest but the KKK knew about it.
MLK gave the government a choice between MLK or Malcom X.
Guess who was chosen? Guess who is forgotten?
They weren’t going against the government. Do you think a civil war in current times would end well?
RIP CHAIRMAN HAMPTON
hmm. are there examples of violence carried out by not the government in recent years. hmm. can i think of one of those. hmm. hmm.
embarassing, apologize for being dumb on purpose
Well friend, in the case of civil rights it depends on which layer of government you’re talking about. In the case of Southern states the state governments were absolutely involved in violent action against black people through discrimination, incarceration, police abuses, and turning a blind eye to groups like the KKK or those committing violence against black communities. At the federal level, the security apparatus was definitely working in direct antagonism against Black liberation.
Please see this first hand account of why that sort of organization was needed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HnDONDvJVE
You and the other responder talking about civil war are fixating on a different question than self defense and community defense. Something like that is unfortunately entirely conceivable, but were not there. I’d look at Minnesota as a great example of the current level of conflict and how to push back on violent targeted state violence. Community organization and building connections with labor to stop the economic engine forced the government to retract the enforcement efforts of Operation Metro Surge. The people won that battle.
Minnesota is exactly who I think are doing it right. They have a lot to teach everyone about supporting the people who need it and having teams to keep an eye out. I don’t think you have any idea how many people were trying to get the Minnesota peeps to go violent.
Well you know me best…
Do you think civil war in a distopic 2032 would end well?
Ah yes, the new demographic for gun manufacturers to capture. I am sure they love this gun fetishizing bullshit because more guns sales!
I agree with you, we should arm the people at no cost to themselves with firearms directly manufactured by the community with no profit motive.
You must be fun at parties, you definitely know how to read a room.
Actually, most people tell me they have never had more fun than hanging out with me. The fact that I hate corporations making a dime off my fellow countryman’s deaths has little to do with having fun.
It probably also has to do with the fact that I am safe and I never leave friends behind and actively disarm assholes.
I’ve had a great time hanging out with you!
Lots of people talking about revolution and fighting the government, but this is largely irrelevant at this moment.
What is a source of oppression to which this is immediately relevant? Personal defense from white supremacist stochastic terrorists and individuals wanting to commit violent hate crimes. In the near term flare ups of right-wing paramilitary and lynch mobs are possible as well, location and circumstances dependent.
If you live in America, I would wager that you’re aware of armed would-be fascists in your neighborhood. I would wager you can check social media for your local area and find a presence of right-wing paramilitary. I would wager that depending on the color of your skin or gender presentation, a call to the police could mean a roll of the dice on becoming a statistic of state violence.
Yes, it would be preferable if all of those groups did not have weapons, however this is America. Until disarmament is universal, unilateral imposition of gun access limitations means access will be affordable only to those with wealth.
Others cryptically calling for Luigi: First, I would also ask you what changed about the behavior of United Healthcare and the US for-profit health abuses as a result of his actions? If you are going to encourage others to throw away their life in the same way, what are you doing behind the keyboard? With these critiques that others don’t have any guts, aren’t you just externalizing your hypocrisy?
Second, I would ask you to look at the many decades history of assassinations in Russia in the pre-revolutionary period in which this became a very common and very ineffective tool. In fact it was so ineffective, it resulted in the Tsarists infiltrating Left groups and encouraging assassinations due to the public alienation and sense of helplessness it fostered.
Compare these failed actions to the successes of the Russian Revolution.
As Trotsky wrote in 1911:
If we oppose terrorist acts, it is only because individual revenge does not satisfy us. The account we have to settle with the capitalist system is too great to be presented to some functionary called a minister. To learn to see all the crimes against humanity, all the indignities to which the human body and spirit are subjected, as the twisted outgrowths and expressions of the existing social system, in order to direct all our energies into a collective struggle against this system—that is the direction in which the burning desire for revenge can find its highest moral satisfaction.
For all your talk of asking others what they plan to do about it themselves, and that their solution will not work, it seems you too are doing the same. So, please, what are the alternatives you see to steer humanity away from the evils that continue to curtail other avenues of recourse.
I don’t think many who oppose what’s going on want violence, that’s perhaps one of the key factors separating the two. I certainly don’t, it seems like one of the more wasteful things we do as a species. But there’s a line, there’s always a line.
What you can see of what I do is on a Lemmy forum, so I would not be so quick to judge. As others have encouraged in this thread, I’m pursuing the tactics of organizing community resistance, organizing labor, and political education.
Actually, I am like you in that I don’t want violence. We should use nonviolent methods of political change to their fullest extent until those avenues become fully blocked. Of course, we live in violence perpetrated by the state every day, it is just legalized.
Studying the history of Leftist movements internationally, there is a repeated pattern of persecution though violence as well as outright purges. Those that were not prepared to defend themselves and their community were killed. Even those that were, were unfortunately often killed.
So what kind of community resistance are you doing? Are you hiring or just bull shitting
‘Hiring’ in what sense? You can ‘hire’ yourself and start if you’re sympathetic and not already engaged. You don’t even have to like or agree with the ‘gun part’ if you don’t find yourself so inclined.
Knowing your neighbors and disaster prep is a good square one.
If you’d like to get involved in in your area, I’d suggest mutual aid networks, rapid response, and harm reduction groups. If you’re looking for relevant skill building SRA, Stop the Bleed/First Aid trainings, and Meshtastic communities are also useful.
You’ll find many of the same people are engaged in political actions, counter-protests, ICE watch, and labor organization. Helping organize responses, protests, and labor activity is a natural extension of building a broader community structure and helps connect the dots. When something like the Minnesota resistance to Metro Surge flares up, these sorts of networks are there to funnel the people’s energies into productive activity.
Fantastic comment, very well written.
What ?
Your shit is totally fucked already but I’m struggling to see a point at which some fediverse user having a gun would have averted the current predicament of US non-fascist citizens.
There are so many alternatives to the word “armed” in this sentence that would be a lot more effective: educated, informed, active… and so on.
Guns don’t give much if any political power on their own, but if the hard groundwork of building up a community with strong mutual aid is done beforehand, they can be one part of protecting that community. ICE and cops are a lot less likely to mess around with visibly armed groups.
People who think buying a gun will keep the menacing government from harming them have no idea how tanks work. Waco wasn’t so long ago.
Lol you’re an idiot if you think anyone is arming themselves to fight the US military. I’m worried about white Christian males. Sure the police state is a problem but I don’t think anyone thinks they’re going to that on a tank with a 9mm.
We get it, you’ve already given up and you want everyone else to give up also but don’t straw man so hard
It’s not always about the government. Regardless of what happens in 2028, we’re likely to have the American version of the The Troubles.
All you can do if the tanks roll in is haul ass, try to avoid flock cameras, and hope no one is looking for you specifically. But, when whatever paramilitary org is upset this week starts burning your neighborhood and the police decide they aren’t going to do much about it, community defense becomes a viable option.
avoid flock camerasShoot down mas surveillance devices.There, FTFY
Waco is a good example but let me also bring up MOVE as well. Fred Hampton is also a good example.
Yeah, the US totally has the ability to lose a war in the straights while also sending tanks to multiple cities.
And the US totally rolled the taliban right? And Russias massive supply helped them soooooooo much against Ukraine right?
Do you fuckers pay attention? It would take 5% of the country being pissed off enough to throw the country into chaos.
Don’t even get me started on how easy it would actually be to drone infrastructure with essential unlimited areas to move freely and stage some shit like that.
You need some workers refusing to work to throw a country in a chaos, the problem is organizing the workers tho
You’re right that 5% of people could disrupt the government.
However, achieving that 5% is no small feat. Keyboard warriors are not helpful, you need people to be ready and willing to sacrifice themselves for the cause.
Buying a weapon doesn’t mean someone has joined the 5%. A far more meaningful recruitment strategy would be to join political groups.
wait wait wait, you are arguing that fighting fascism is hard…. so don’t do it.
and i am raptly watching the “political movements” posture the current emergency to bid for more power so they can get special treatment from their corporate doners. and its going REAL well isn’t it?
the united states hasn’t won a war against an insurgency in near 100 years, and that’s considering the insurgencies not being able to attack us infrastructure directly. and an insurgency is much easier to form when the people are armed.
you want to keep trying political remedies and expect a different outcome, be my guest. but don’t tell people to sell their options to throw in with you when your efforts have resulted in well, this…
Fighting fascism is hard, dumbass.
Insurgents die. A lot. Are you ready to lay down your life for the cause?
Political remedies and armed resistance are not mutually exclusive. In fact an armed resistance is the ultimate political remedy, and needs a strong foundation of political strategy, or else your armed resistance will end up being frustrated aimless terrorists.
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Not disagreeing, but there’s a good chance somebody will snipe an ice agent and it will set the civil war in motion.
I don’t want it, but it’s starting to seem like that’s the path we’ve taken.
Someone probably already has but the media won’t show it, lest ICE be seen as fragile.
Yeah, that’s certainly a possibility. My feeling is that you’re not going to get a nice crisp revolution / civil war.
I think for that to happen you need to have a lot more people desperate enough to lay down their lives to win some kind of future for the people they care about.
It seems more likely you’ll end up with an armed resistance movement.
You keep saying “you,” where are you from?
Yeah, that’s certainly a possibility. My feeling is that you’re not going to get a nice crisp revolution / civil war.
I think for that to happen you need to have a lot more people desperate enough to lay down their lives to win some kind of future for the people they care about.
It seems more likely you’ll end up with an armed resistance movement.
Australia.
So do it, fight back… Luigi cannot be the only American with some balls.
I’m afraid to tell you that, so far, Luigi is the only American with some balls.
If there is any correlation between private gun ownership and the human rights situation in a society, it’s the opposite one.
Switzerland doesn’t have human rights?
Just to be safe, let’s take the guns away from the cops and ICE first.
Finally, a good idea.
Okay, minorities have a gun. Now what?
I own guns and am opposed to this government.
I’m not gonna charge the battle lines, but if they come for me in my house I’m fighting back. I won’t win. I’ll certainly be killed if it happens, but if they’re coming for me at home that’s probably happening anyway. I may not even get any of them. But I might.
If there isn’t a legitimate risk to invading homes, they won’t hesitate to do it.
Are you keeping your guns safely stored? If so, do you expect them to wait for you to get your gun when they come through your door?
In my vehicle I have a safe that’s inside a separate steel box that’s bolted through the floor in a manner that stealing the safe itself would require removing the fuel tank. So when I’m out and about somewhere I can’t or shouldn’t carry my gun is securely stored. Im confident in that safe because the vehicle was stolen from the previous owner and the car thieves were unable to access the safe prior to ditching it.
At home, it’s always nearby. I live alone, and if company is coming over I can put it in the safe with the long guns easily enough. When I leave the house it comes, with me and gets put in the car safe when I’m in the office.
You do you.
Nice! This should be its own post.
Isn’t that why it says “land of the free and the home of the brave”? You can’t have the former if you don’t do the latter.
Land of free enterprise for rich white men, home of the brave morons conned into dying for them.
Organize with a local group of like minded minorities. Suddenly, less of a minority
It’s almost like organisation is what makes minorities harder to oppress, not guns.
It’s both actually, both are necessary
They are both very valuable tools when facing a fascist regime with a monopoly on violence… take the history of the blck panthers as one example. The government was so afraid of them, they made new gun laws. Almost like education is about empowerment and legislation is about control. but you do you i suppose.
Everyone keeps bringing up the Black Panthers like it was during a time that they had targeting drones and spyware across the city. They didn’t.
The government was so afraid of them, they made new gun laws.
They made new gun laws and also made them dissolve. Do you know of any uprisings recently? I tell you where they go now, to become slaves in the private prisons on pot charges.
Also, even with the low government tech of the time, they were targeted and harassed and an authoritarian took them over.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party
I know you’re trolling, but if you can’ only bring up 50 year old shit that’s not relevant, you might want to rethink your strategy.
If you think im trolling that is truly sad and no wonder you are so hopeless.
Organizing doesn’t provide money for the NRA
And then?
Fuck it, if you dontnwant to do something about it, just leave then. Idk what you want me to tell you. As a trans woman with very mixed heritage, organization and community defense is the only reason i exist.
What is the reply you want to see here? Almost looks like ban baiting.
It almost looks like people are trying to get minorities to do suicide by cop.
Almost looks like ban baiting.
There’s no rule @pelespirit@sh.itjust.works has broken by making you feel annoyed and the argument in the OP look stupid.
For clarification, I’m suggesting that pelespirit’s comments are an attempt to get others to break the rules by encouraging them to describe some of the things guns can be used for so those users get the boot. Baiting them into a ban.
Oh, I didn’t even consider that because if you manage to get yourself banned in this comm based on something so unbelievably innocuous, you have actual interpersonal issues you need to work on.
Like if a response to basic interrogation of your premise is enough to get you banned here, that’s 1000% on you; in this hypothetical, you didn’t fall for “bait”, you just have zero composure.
Banned for using big words!
Shoot the white Christian males (aka the most likely demographic to commit a terrorist act) that are coming into your grocery store, theater, concert etc trying to kill everyone they see.
The gov brings out their APC.
Damn, why didnt the government use APCs in Afghanistan?
First, just having a gun protects yourself - criminals love soft, unarmed, defenseless targets. Just having a gun makes criminals move on to a safer target - dogs accomplish this on a lesser level. Second, you may need to dispatch a dangerous animal where a stick won’t do the job. Owning a gun carries a LOT of responsibilities with it though: You must be safe with it, be good with it and never brandish it unless you intend to use it if necessary.
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