this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2025
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That’s an impressive „CV of resistance“, although I only asked what you’ve done specifically against trump, Vance and musk, and if I’m nitpicking, I can’t see much apart from protesting. The same thing you expressed your disgust about saying „is that the best you can do“.
I do hope, that you continue to do as much as you’ve already done and I’m thankful for every single thing you do.
I also hope, that you start to inspire others to follow in your footsteps instead of making them feel bad for not doing enough.
I mean to quote them:
They've got their excuse.
To be fair those are two sides of the same coin. If you can't get people to think "I'm not doing enough and that's a problem" you'll never get them to get off their asses. This is particularly relevant in America because Americans have forgotten what it means to actually resist their government.
Thank you. I just want to add that they saw all that and said "just looks like protesting" as if personally helping organize action against the coal industry using grassroots techniques to some small success is "just protesting," or raising money for disabled people in community "not much apart from protesting." The gall, from someone who probably hasn't been to even a measley protest. And yes, I am saying protesting isn't enough, speaking from someone who's done it for 14 years. Waving signs does fucking nothing. It disrupts nothing. You have to put your bodies on the road and your safety on the line like we did.
Maybe you should run for office. Probably would have been far more effective, and if America is short on anything it's leadership.
If I ran for office and mentioned anything about the $36 TRILLION in offshore tax havens to help pay for things like infrastructure, UBI, and universal healthcare, i'd be fucking assassinated. The problem about wanting change and working within the system to achieve that, is that it's never you who changes the system, it's the system that'll inevitably change you. There's nothing wrong with compromise in a situation, but compromising yourself in a situation is another story completely.
To be fair to them too, they were specifically asking what you did to resist Trump and co. As to everything else they said:
I get that you're angry—hell, I'm angry and I've never been to the United States—but it seems you're responding to something other than what the other person actually said. Also getting Americans to get off their asses is one thing, but you do have a bit of a holier than thou attitude you should probably work on if you want to be successful at getting them off their asses. If you don't want to succeed at it then you do you I guess; like I said, you and everyone else who has been fighting this fight since the beginning have the right to be angry.
I am responding to something other than what the person actually said. People like myself (and the countless nameless faces who actually stick their necks out) have been screaming about this to people who metaphorically can't see or hear, for decades, only for them to be the "holier than thou" one trying to look for hypocrisy or hatred in other people who've done more than them. Why focus on idols like Trump and Co when they're just symptoms of the greater problems - capitalistic greed/corporate irresponsibility - and then after listing our many years of efforts to fight it and then say "Yeah but what did you do to stop Trump and Musk specifically?" That sort of nitpicking, missing the forest for the trees attitude is what angers me so, it's proof of how blind people are to the realities of what it means to be in a democracy. "If you want a democracy, you have to be a player."
Oh, I see; you're a dyed in the wool "down with capitalism" lefty. In this part of history it'll be necessary to tolerate the presence of normies—people who want to stop the backsliding of democracy but don't really understand or care about the down with capitalism stuff. Those people can then be radicalized into full fledged lefties, but at least at present it's important to accept their aims not being as ambitious as yours, even though as you said they're missing the forest for the trees. They with proper education can and do stop going after individual trees and start burning the whole forest, but you have to be patient (or not, you do you). That aside the holier than thou attitude I'm talking about is mostly the bragging. That's probably not what it feels to you, but to an external observer you definitely sound like you're bragging about the fascist bricks you got hit with, so.. uh... yeah.
Not bragging, just proud.
If you feel bad for not doing enough that's on you.
So you honestly think, that it is more beneficial to the cause to look down on people not doing enough instead of encouraging them to continue what they’re doing?
I'll believe it when I see it. People are not doing enough, myself included. The reality around us is proof of this.
I know, it is frustrating, I also feel like everything’s doomed a lot of times, but I refuse to get drowned in this frustration.
If we can encourage others to engage more, then that’s a lot. Don’t underestimate what you’ve done so far. You can be an inspiration to others!
Even if they think organizing the community to raise local funds for deaf and blind kids, as well as grassroots organizations to delay big coal for a year, laying our in front of bulldozers and police cars, as "just protesting"? The same way these people are peacefully and safely holding signs outside a goddamn ski resort?! I'm not special, yet even I and others like me can risk our safety to get real results instead of peacefully be taken unseriously by the opposition. Just look at all the critical enlightened centrists in this thread.
___
You can’t win without them, you’ve got to work with them.
Only if you work with them then you have the chance to radicalise some of them. If you don’t work with them the movement stays as small as it is.
I've had better luck turning MAGA towards leftism than any liberal. At least they have the balls to storm the US capitol, these so-called "protestors" with their JD Vance signs outside a ski resort are groupie cheerleaders for the status quo.
Kind of but not really relevant: As someone from an authoritarian state where you don't really get to protest, I'd always wondered just how the whole protesting thing is supposed to work. Like you go out, hold some signs and chant some slogans and then politicians just listen to you??? Is that how democracy works??? In the last few years as I grew to understand how all that stuff works I learned the answer to that question, but I think many Westerners and Americans specifically really need to start thinking once about how what they're doing is supposed to lead to results.
This was 100% relevant to what i'm trying to say, you just said it better than I could. They think that it goes "Protest, sign petition, that'll magically make politicans think oh we should listen to them, they sign our best interests into law." They also think the only blood spilled in the name of democracy are from our troops who fought overseas - but forget the protestors who were gunned down by land-barons when workers were killing cops so that we can have weekends, or lives without slavery. That's why there's so much importance held to democracy, because of all the horrific sacrifices people have had to make, and will have to continue to make, to make it even possible. But even that's been lost on most people, people now "vote with your wallet" instead of voting with a soul.