Jesus Christ I don’t think I’ve ever seen a posts comments so full of reasons this won’t work.
You guys don’t even need your media to dissuade you, you just convince each other not to do anything.
I wonder why a bunch of people might be jumping onto social media, spreading pessimism and suspicion about protests and discouraging people from attending.
Edit: I asked every single person who said that their protest-aware friends told them this was a “false flag” or something, what protest their friends would recommend attending instead. I’m curious to see what the responses are.
Edit: One of the accounts which is expressing well-intentioned nail-biting concern that something really bad might happen to the people who go to these protests, and urging people to stay safe if they do decide to go… is the same account that has been telling me about how Ukraine is the bad guys, and the Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans, and other interesting things.
I expect you’ll he hearing a lot of crickets.
Some of them are downvoting me for asking them the question.
The thing is if everyone said “fantastic! This will be huge” and the actual protests are underwhelming, well that serves to confirm the false narrative that a very small minority of people are upset.
Declaring high expectations and delivering low is a path to undermine your cause. Waiting until after the fact to explain why sounds like making excuses rather.
The protest in my region was like maybe 50 people. I don’t think this is because people are broadly happy, it’s because as many many people pointed out, this was poor planning. The optics of pulling off a huge protest in only a week would have been amazing, but just impossible in the real world.
as many many people pointed out, this was poor planning.
So fucking organize it better then.
Jesus this American shoulder-shrug-why-do-anything-if-it-isn’t-perfect is so frustrating to watch.
The thing is if everyone said “fantastic! This will be huge” and the actual protests are underwhelming, well that serves to confirm the false narrative that a very small minority of people are upset.
But nobody did, they just said “this day this time go protest in your capitol”.
The optics of pulling off a huge protest in only a week would have been amazing, but just impossible in the real world.
It was a protest across the entire country, and it can be done again, and again, and again.
Seriously do you guys even need opponents? You just give up and convince each other to not do anything unless it’s perfect and then sit back and watch your neighbours get put in camps, declaring that you sure don’t agree with those actions.
The instant anything is posted on here it’s already been scraped. Know this. Act accordingly.
Some tips to help you out
- don’t take your phones to the protest
- if you take a burner, don’t take it home. buy it, and trash it at the protest.
- don’t take anything that could identify you as you
- superglue and baking soda on your fingerprints. don’t go crazy, just enough to make printing you impossible/difficult
- write any important phone numbers on your arm or ankle in permanent marker if you can’t remember them
- stuff a couple hundred dollars for bail in your shoe
- don’t give ANYONE your real name. don’t care how hot they are or how impassioned they are, just fucking don’t
- designate one trusted individual to come get you from jail. they are not to bring their phone, they should park at least 1/4 mile away and walk to get you(long enough to realize you’re being tailed by police).
Pay attention to your surroundings, specifically the movement of officers/agents. if they’re running you should be too. if there’s a large group marching or a wall marching, leave immediately and regroup.
ICE will be there. they will be picking people up. many of them not illegal. if you’re not white, wear makeup if you can get away with it. paint your face with state colors if need be. not a mask, so it shouldn’t be covered by “no-mask” states.
Know your rights. Bring the proof of your rights. Force them to acknowledge your rights.
Stream everything.
If you are picked up you will;
- go on a list
- be unlawfully monitored
- become a link in a larger web to ensnare organizers
You will now go dark for at least a month. No social media posts about the protests, no discussions about the protests, nothing. After that, it should be difficult to pair your online activity with your real world activities.
If you can’t make it to the protests, record the streams, share them online, pressure the public to demand answers for the crimes committed by the officers/agents.
One last thing.
There will undoubtedly be people there to provoke the protests. do not let them. once one incident of violence is determined all bets off and the police will become physically involved.
Trust no one, question everything, power to the people. 🫵
This message from a colleague will live here until the death of Lemmy
For further research here’s a great video on mutual aid.
I went to my local capitol protest today and it went peacefully. I was prepared for (and very much expecting) escalation. I wrote the ACLU phone number on my leg, left my phone at my girlfriend’s house, and carried pepper spray in my pocket. My gf and I (and a number of other people) wore medical masks. We also brought clear, full-face shields in our bag too, just in case.
The capitol and the police station were near each other; lots of cops drove by our crowd, but thankfully that’s the only interaction we had with them. But a lot of drivers, bicyclists, and other passers-by made noise in solidarity.
I should also probably note that I live in a blue state. I haven’t heard yet about the experience in red and purple states, but hopefully people will be sharing their stories soon.
One last thing - I’m glad you made the note about phones. Apparently some of the people at the protest reasoned, “I might get arrested, therefore I should bring my phone.” Then they were confused when I used the exact same reason to justify me not bringing my phone. Do people not realize that the police seizes a person’s belongings when they arrest them? Considering the way this administration is going, I wouldn’t be surprised if they rewrote the law to allow police to break into phones without a warrant. At the very least, they certainly won’t stop cops who do it unlawfully.
Happy you made it. Ours was small and uneventful except one person brought us all a bunch of pizzas which was cool for those that could eat cheese, I brought a big pack of hand warmers and a big caraffe of hot mint tea. It was pretty much just a lunch. None of the state reps came out, and there was no counter protest. Fliers were handed out for another protest soon. Hopefully others are seeing the attendance numbers and planning for more better organized protests.
I handed out the EFF protesting .pdf that I had printed out at work.
https://www.eff.org/files/2017/06/19/protest-one-sheet.pdf
It’s usually enough for most people.
Oh hey, we had someone handing out hand warmers too! She saw me and my girlfriend trading one pair of gloves between us and asked if we wanted a warmer. It was a sweet gesture, the kind of look-out-for-your-neighbor thing we were all there for.
Damn, this reads like a guide for protesting in Belarus. Hope your situation gets better.
It won’t get better if we sit on our asses. It’s also a guide for Lebanon or Israel or Syria or Russia…
No there isn’t
This was Colorado. I agree that the timing sucks for people with regular jobs, but we also need to get the attention of our representatives and disrupt the peace.
Awful short notice. My state capital is 3 hours away and I have work.
There’s a protest at your work today.
Not true, I don’t live in the US lol
This is way too obscure. Most people would need more time than this to plan I imagine. I’m only hearing about this today after being tuned into politics for months and I’d only realisticly be able to participate if I heard about this 2 weeks ago.
Yeah, true that. I’ve been hearing about a lot of things like this more or less the day of, which isn’t too convenient most of the time.
If it makes a difference, it seems likely to me that the protests in DC will keep happening on an ongoing basis until something happens to disperse them.
Yeah, I only found out two days ago. Unions usually get the word out weeks in advance for a strike, and that’s for people that are necessarily engaged in protesting those in power and (currently) have the protections to do so.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t try to go, but the expectation for turnout should be tempered accordingly.
Hopefully the next one gives people a lot more advanced notice.
I’m skeptical of this one. On one hand, I am glad that this is going to be visible and let other people know that they aren’t alone and a resistance is there. However, this is unorganized as hell. You’re going to have a lot of first time protestors who don’t know the basics of protesting against an active police state. I think this protest is a net positive, but not a massive one. The best we can hope for is for organizers to make use of this enthusiasm in the future or we get very visible tension escalation.
People have to get started somewhere. Very few people in America are used to organizing and demonstrating; things have been so good in America for so long that we’ve become coddled. Seeing some new faces energized to get out there and start making some noise is definitely a win imo.
Yeah, that’s a good point. European countries have that protest game down strong because there’s such an enshrined culture of collective action. We don’t have that here. Yet.
Today, we start!
Everyone gets their start somewhere.
And you can be sure that the old hats are making sure to record and broadcast everything. So when the jackboots inevitably see a black person and start unloading with “rubber bullets” and tear gas, people will see.
GET OUT THERE, STOP MAKING EXCUSES.
(For your protection read the EFF websites protest guide to keep yourself safe).
aweehh !! I have work!! and I love so much to slave away for my corporate slave masters !! bullshit.
it sure is convenient to have an excuse to let your country fall
Most people don’t live in their state capitol, and have no hope of attending something there that they learned of at the last minute. They should have been informed of this days ago.
I dont even live in that shithole and I have been seeing these posts for days.
But at best if you saw the very first mention of the ideation of going for this, you still would have had barely over a week of notice. This is not enough time for people to plan someone like this, especially during a school and work day.
I feel like the enemy started this so they then say “see nobody cares, nobody showed up” because we saw through their bullshit.
The lack of organizer info after a whole bunch of people have tried to find it is a huge red flag to me.
I was wrong. At least for my state. There was a huge protest in Denver yesterday.
We may have just hit the point where enough people are pissed off that a lot of organizing/motivating isn’t needed.
I’ll be at the next one, and I’m already planning how to comply and assist with a general strike in March. I have the teeniest hope that some momentum might be starting to resist these fuckers now in charge.
I’m pretty interested to see how widely upvoted this is.
Definitely, and they can track the people that did show up as highly motivated.
Ugh, I really need to order some glasses. I’m blind as a bat without contacts but I’m also not trying to end up literally blind if the cops break out the tear gas (and Denver PD is still settling lawsuits from the 2020 protests, so I have zero faith in them to not escalate). Didn’t have “buy glasses to protest the rise of fascism” on my 2025 bingo card but I probably should’ve.
Online glasses places are pretty cheap and good quality, if you know your pupillary distance and your prescription isn’t complicated. ⭐Encouragement⭐
Unfortunately, I don’t, but I can get an exam pretty quickly, I think. My friend/coworker really needs glasses in general and I’ve been bugging her to go, so maybe this is a good way to get her to finally do it, too.
Ask the eyes doc for your pd measurement during the exam and they will be happy to help in my experience.
Well you are wrong I’m not from the US
Did you check?
Yeah, we don’t have states
Are you sure though? Sometimes we call them weird things like territories and allies. :)
Nope not it in croatia
Hold on, it says right here that Croatia is a member of NATO. I’m pretty sure that makes it an American state.
I’m just having fun with you. I have to laugh to keep from crying.
Did they check if they have a state capitol? They probably don’t need to if their country doesn’t have states.
Sounds like someone needs to start an anti-Trump protest in their country. It’s not like it’s not going to impact you, or like your local government is yet doing enough to adapt to what’s going to come.
Yeah, I don’t think that’ll have the impact you think it does. This is something we Americans need to handle ourselves, and not rely on the rest of the world to do for us.
Reminder anyone that you don’t know who approaches you and suggests illegal activity is a LEO plant.
Its crazy to think if I weren’t a US citizen and was reading this, I’d think “man that’s 50 individual locations for everyone to be able to participate if they want.”
When the reality is, if I wanted to attend my New York Stare protest in Albany, id be looking at a 5-6ish one way trip, 10-12hrs round trip just driving. I’m totally guessing tho. Ive never gone from my house to Albany before. Only ever went there from either the adks or NYC coming back to Buffalo with other stops on the way home. I’ve always used 7 1/2hrs as the time it takes to get to NYC so that’s where I’m getting 5-6hrs Buffalo to Albany.
Tldr: Yo, America’s big as fuck.
Nah, 50 locations is rookie numbers. Like, Germany has 715 cities over 20k pop and I just checked and yep the smallest one did have a protest in 2024 when the AfD “remigration” plans became public.
Protest where you live. Protest where people are. Wait that doesn’t work in the US. Protest on the Walmart parking lot. Fuck trying to hit individual record numbers on prime time news noone cares noone watches that shit if it even gets reported, be visible to your neighbours they can’t censor that. Think globally, act locally. Have grandmas and cookies.
Lol homie, where are you getting 715 cities in Germany from? According to Wikipedia, Germany has 11 cities.
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Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region
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Central German Metropolitan Region
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Frankfurt/Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region
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Hamburg Metropolitan Region
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Hannover-Braunschweig-Göttingen-Wolfsburg Metropolitan Region
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Munich Metropolitan Region
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Northwest Metropolitan Region
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Nuremberg Metropolitan Region
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Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region
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Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region (also covers the Cologne Bonn Region)
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Stuttgart Metropolitan Region
Is this a translation thing where you are calling every municipality a “city?” If that’s the case then the comparison would be 715 towns/villages/cities for Germany vs approximately 30,000 towns/villages/cities in the USA.
The organized protests are only happening in each state’s capital. Which is one city per state that someone a long time ago in a galaxy far far away decided would be called that State’s Capital City.
The German directly translates to “Large and medium cities”. Small ones are smaller, and yes in English at some point you’d use “town”, German doesn’t make that distinction. I think “over 20k people” makes it very clear what I was talking about, though. They’re all individual municipalities, and if you look at large ones, e.g. Berlin: They have multiple protests about the same topic all the time. “Stadt”, “city”, doesn’t even have legal meaning in German it originally refers to special privileges (trading etc) that some places had over others, and those places tended to grow bigger.
What you’re listing is Metropolitan areas and no, that’s not anywhere close to a city. I understand that it’s often used that way in English, and there’s some parallels in Germany e.g. the Bay Area can be in some way considered one city, and so can the Ruhr Area, but when you look at Berlin-Brandenburg it’s literally the two states: Berlin and Brandenburg. That’s like… imagine Chicago being its own, independent, state, and then considering it and the whole of Illinois to be “the same city”, the smallest municipality (that’s the actual legal term) with the title “Stadt” is Arnis. 300 people, down from a maximum of 1000. Quirk of history.
20k pop is large enough to be a medium centre, meaning that the municipality provides things such as hospitals, specialised doctors, secondary education etc. to the municipalities around it because it’s the big kid on the block. About 7k pop would be a subordinate centre where you can get stuff like groceries and a hair cut, there’s a primary school, a pharmacy, such things. Even smaller places may have some of those things but do it for themselves, they aren’t set up to serve the surrounding area a complete package.
The organized protests are only happening in each state’s capital.
And that’s stupid. People won’t come because it’s not something just about anyone can work into their schedule, and you won’t be seen because only people living in the capital will randomly drop by. Differently put: Protests should be in commute distance, ideally on that very commute. Hence why I mentioned Walmart.
If we did that in Germany there’d be 16 protests, and population-wise btw the average German state is just about as large as the average US state: You have a few gigantic ones like California, and also some that are smaller than our smallest state, but mostly you simply have more states. And a lot more area.
Going by “A protest in every 20k pop place” Minnesota alone would have about 60, then add the county seats over 7k to that.
As said: Rookie numbers. That was my point. You’re not doing a protest wave, you’re doing rookie numbers.
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America’s not a country. It is a continent.
America’s government is not a government. It is the largest, most varied, most complex single human organization that has ever existed. Also the most powerful. But very little of it is organized. And almost all of it, to almost everyone, is invisible.
America’s culture is not a culture. It has cultures within in, and some are quite good. Once you’ve met with the beating heart, it’s hard to forget. But like the onion it has no center. Once you reach the center of the dream, you realize it is nothing but marketing, it never existed.
America is sleeping fitfully. America died long ago. America has yet to be born. America was always a lie.
