The presidency thread is moving too fast for long posts. I'm hoping this thread could be specifically for people that are very concerned about the current government. Whether you're liberal, conservative, libertarian or independent. What are your ideas and plans for resistance? In the last few days I've started looking into what's happening in my community. My wife works in the refugee program at the State Department of Health. We have friends that work at the U of M. Another friend who is an elementary school teacher. We have immigrant friends. Not exactly Trump country. I'm hearing a lot of people around me who used to be politically complacent, and now suddenly there's this surge of interest to participate. I was surprised how far along some of the discussions are already at a community meeting I attended on Sunday. One guy in particular was really sharp and effective. He was an Iraq War vet from an anti Trump veterans group. He spoke powerfully about the grim reality of war and why this government today is so dangerous. These leaders speak so casually about torture, carpet bombing and even nuclear weapons. And yet it's never them that get their hands bloody. They're never the ones pulling the trigger. They're not the ones being killed. I think before the election, Trump's rhetoric was still kind of abstract. Does he really mean it? Or is it all talk ... Well, the last couple of weeks is sort of clarifying for a lot of people that this is pretty dire. Some war with someone feels inevitable, and it's never too early to start thinking in terms of an anti war movement. Another interesting person was a local union leader who, without saying it explicitly, kind of spoke on behalf of the white working class. He reminded everyone that there's a lot of people out there who stayed loyal to Democratic party despite many of their friends and neighbors flipping. He argued that now more than ever that loyalty needs to be rewarded. You don't abandon a coalition partner when they're down. One thing to remember is that whenever one party goes off the rails and swings too far in one direction, it's always going to leave some leftovers that can be picked off by the opposition if they're willing to expand their tent. That's just a sampling. Obviously lots of other things going on all over. The university is active. The Somali refugee community is active. For them at this point it's an existential battle. They were allowed here legally. Either they fight today or potentially risk being stateless if Trump has his way. What does this all mean for 2018? Not sure, but I'll try to do my part. At most Minnesota could flip one House seat. We have a retiring Democratic governor which means a much anticipated battle for that open seat. The hope is that this will energize the Democratic base to build some sort of a statewide wave. If this thread gets any interest, I'll try to update with news about what hopefully becomes a strong grassroots opposition. Would appreciate any links for things going on in other states or even regionally and nationally. Or even just to spitball ideas on how confront this government politically, intellectually and philosophically.
My social media feed is filled with information about protests. Protests. Sustained, Nonviolent Protests. That's the hallmark to removing him from power. It works. So go to protests. Worked in Egypt to remove Mubarak. Worked in Tunisia to remove Ben Ali. Worked in Brazil and South Korea this past year. There's this idea called a "revolutionary cascade." Imagine a country with ten citizens. It could be 100, or 1,000,000. Doesn't matter the scale. But ten will do. Each individual has a "threshold" number assigned such that they will only go out and protest if there are a certain number of other protesters. So, the individuals are arrayed as: 0 1 2 2 5 5 7 7 8 9 The first person (the "0") is the guy at your Capitol every day with the dog, cardboard signs, and "war is murder" signs. Or the "Life" protesters at the Supreme Court. The "1" goes out and protests if there's one other protester - so he's on board when a crisis pops up. That's who is out now at the airport protests. The pair of "2"s will only go out if two other people protest. They'll come out for the Women's March, March for Science, etc. Then the protesters run out of additional people. The "5s" and "7s" currently stay home. The only way to get them out is to lower their threshold. Trump's statements are making that happen. Seeing other protesters not get arrested or shot or attacked will help. They'll eventually come out. Once they do, the 8 and 9 will follow suit. Then the whole country will be united against him. Don't believe it can happen here? The world is replete with examples of it happening. I've been to two protests so far.
I've got my calendar marked for the tax day protest and the earth day protest. Looks like they are going to be back to back Saturdays, so I may have to just choose one. I've made some small donations to dems running in local VA races this year. And I'm doing something civil disobedience-y that I ain't gonna talk about here.
Start and join a movement urging people to stop filing tax returns and refuse to pay taxes as long as Trump is president. Besides the fact that refusing to pay tax on legitimate conscientious grounds might be protected, if enough people join the movement, they can't all be punished in any case.
Just curious, what do you all think about resistance like this? Is this type of resistance ok with you? If liberal protesters had been attacked by Trump supporters in the same way, would that have been ok too? If you do not think it is ok, how do you think law enforcement should handle these situations? This is not the first time we have seen this and I'm sure won't be the last. A woman wearing a #Trump-style hat was pepper sprayed at #UCBerkeley protests. She & @WayneFreedman are alright: https://t.co/g7WofodFyD pic.twitter.com/JD3Bt1y7rE— ABC7 News (@abc7newsbayarea) February 2, 2017 Liberals are currently beating peaceful Trump supporters unconscious at UC Berkeley. Disgusting. https://t.co/QaosUePFKc— Baked Alaska (@bakedalaska) February 2, 2017 826995732997619712 is not a valid tweet id
Only non-violent protest is acceptable. I can't speak to these incidents - only that outliers will always exist on both sides - life is messy and imperfect.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my OP, but let's keep this thread from derailing into a 'who's the most violent' dick measuring contest. We already have a thread for cataloguing hate and violence. I don't deny that violence is going to be a staple in the Trump era. Maybe we can discuss the ansrchist movements somewhere else though. Here I'm more interested in the other 99% of the resistance that is happening in legitimate political channels, advocacy groups, town halls etc ...
There was some guy on here five days ago who thought it was funny when protestors were getting pepper sprayed at the airport protests. I wonder if you maybe could have a talk with that guy? You can take your fake concern and go away.
Small difference tough guy. The people that got pepper sprayed WERE BREAKING THE LAW AND IGNORING THE POLICE. The people getting assaulted in these videos are doing nothing wrong. I would have laughed if those thugs in Berkeley got pepper sprayed last night too. They deserved it. Brilliant optics too for liberals. Images like that are going to bring the Rust Belt flooding back to their party.
Ok fair enough. I made my point. Protest all you want and in any way you choose but violence is not acceptable. Period.
Gonna nip this in the bud. The topic is about thoughtful discussion re: organised protests. If you want to talk about violent incidents feel free to start a thread about it.
Less burning more voting. If Trump's rise has proved anything it is you need to convince people to vote for you and your ideas rather than yelling that people just like them are knuckle dragging troglodytes. I am amazed at how the Democratic base turned because the DNC completely ignored or insulted them.
This was from a Facebook post from a FB who is a Minister for young Adults and Families and some sort of Lecturer at Berkeley.... Anarchists from around the Bay Area, NOT Cal students, were the ones who demonstrated violently last night in Berkeley. The violence was instigated by a group of about 150 masked agitators who came onto campus and interrupted an otherwise non-violent protest. ...SNIP.....he goes on to talk about how everyone is ok and family stuff..... They (anarchists) came to campus eastbound on Bancroft Way, and fire damage and other destruction to the Stiles Hall construction site, where a new residence hall is going up. The group entered campus and immediately began throwing rocks at officers. In an effort to avoid injuries to innocent members of the surrounding crowd who might have been caught in the middle, police officers exercised restraint and did not respond with force. EDIT: THE POINT IS ANARCHISTS =/= LIBERALS.
You know these guys show up to pretty much every protest possible looking for a fight, right? They're a bunch of anarchist dickheads, and looking for any excuse possible to ******** shit up. And they're generally in no way representative of the larger groups they glom onto. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bloc
You do know that baked Alaska is a white supremacist right? Dude got even got kicked out of the deplorable ball for being too anti-Semitic. I am not attacking his message, but just interesting that he is someone you follow or at least quote. https://www.yahoo.com/news/deploraball-spat-over-baked-alaska-033230497.html To be fair here is who defends that guy.(Mods my apologies to all for posting a dailystormer web-page, it is just to show who the guy is). http://www.dailystormer.com/full-cu...a-from-deploraball-invites-kike-milo-instead/
How do you convince people to vote for you when they think Obamacare was a failure, and no data to the contrary can sway them?