Violence really, really fucking sucks.
It may be necessary, but if there’s any other option you should look to that first. If it legitimately comes to violence a lot of innocent people are going to suffer in a big way.
There were other options. I think those other options failed at this point in time.
Why haven’t i seen this side by side with Nazis? Or him put in the rally or along side Hitler etc?
These all seem like simple edits
Well that’s a little on the nose isn’t it.
It’s a weird salute he’s doing there that guy on the left.
Some kind of awkward excitement reaction i guess.
His heart really goes to his people, doesn’t it?
I did this one…
His spokesperson in Italy said that he meant to say “I give my heart to you” with that gesture. I mean, dude, just own it up. It’s not like there would have been any repercussion.
I wonder what he is thinking, that is odd looking face
It’s the face of effort. Dude probably doesn’t get off of the computer chair very much, and lifting his arms above the ‘loose hang, elbows bent, wrists resting on desk’ takes a lot of effort, and thus the grimace from struggling.
Nah, it’s just drugs. I mean, I think Elon Musk strikes me as a person who’d love to have the… for the lack of a better word, “courage” to perform the Nazi salute under such circumstances when actually totally sober, but a guy that had to fake Path of Exile 2 success is simply not gonna throw a Nazi salute on stage, even in front of people he sees as supports and loyalists.
I wonder if that absolutely bizarre specimen has been truly sober in last years. Or ever, if we count being high up your own ass as an altered state.
Yeah, I feel like violence is evangelized online in odd ways.
The class that suffers the most in violent uprisings is the lowest class. By orders of magnitude. For every member of the bourgeois that is taken down, tens or hundred or thousands of every day people are injured or killed.
But it’s already happening. They’re already suffering.
“They” (we) aren’t being killed en masse.
Sure so violence is messy painful so just let it happen. And people wonder how America got to where it is.
Take it from us who dont live in a country built on liebensraum created by genociding the native population and has spent all its VERY short existance not knowing tyranny or how to separate church, state and private companies.
Classless society leads to death of millions and classed society. Lowest class loves killing lowest class. Once the preceived opressors run out more will be found. People wanting violence want it for selfish reason. The guy calling to kill all landlords today will be raping your small daughter in a state organized torture dungeon tomorrow. Yes its graphic, yes this is what you get when you want mass violence, stop pretending otherwise and buying into propaganda of evil people.
This is how it has always been, and always will be. Slow social reforms is the way to get what you want. Violence just creates more violence.
I agree with your anti-violence stance, but can’t ignore the reasoning behind it.
I don’t believe there’s some special class that either accumulates or breeds violence. I don’t believe that the “lowest” class, whatever that might be, is fixed on killing its kin. The people ruling Nazi Germany certainly weren’t the “lowest” class when they were making their impactful decisions, many of which killed members of other classes, not theirs.
Neither Trump nor Musk are “low” class, yet they tend to hold the more absurd and anti-human views, separating people into worthy and not-so-much and believing they can make destinies.
There are dangerous people in our world, which are often attracted by power, often any sort of power they can rise to. Violence included.
Regardless, violence only breeds violence, for so many reasons that no comment can hold. Violence traumatizes and creates examples and “Why can’t I, too?..” questions, etc.
Peace as a choice is only possible when the option of violence exists.
In all fairness there are non violent support roles
Somebody has to build the drones and c4 kits
It’s not that people die commiting acts of violence, it’s that people minding their own business or just trying not to be violent, also end up violently dismembered with their families.
Supporting the violence is participating in it. Maybe you’re on the “good” side but still. If you work a normal 9-5 go home shoot the shit with your buds and volunteer at a homeless shelter… You’re still not a good person when your job is making bombs getting shipped to Israel.
To be fair, both Ghandi and MLK Jr. showed that there is an alternative to violence that can be very effective in gaining support.
That being said, I do think the Black Panthers/Malcom X were very instrumental in the civil rights movement. I think the leadership saw two options: work with MLK Jr. or deal with the Black Panthers.
Of course, the FBI, amongst other groups in power at the time were able to successfully thwart MLK Jr.'s attempt at educating people about class consciousness. MLK Jr. wasn’t just fighting for equal rights among racial lines, but also economic lines.
Hell, Jesus Christ was able to start an entire religion based in nonviolent protest based around class consciousness. Of course, that religion has since been perverted, but the point still stands.
MLK and the Civil Rights Movement have been majorly white-washed since they happened. That narrative is a big reason why protests since have been largely ineffectual in the US.
MLK supported the Black Panthers and Malcolm X and said that the only reason that he didn’t do anything more than the sit-ins and such was because that was already illegal and anything more could get them all jail time. And he was still seen as being just as violent as they made BLM out to be.
The Million Man March was seen as a threat of violence by white America. If he could get a million people to mobilize in the capital and shut down the entire city, what else could he get them to do?
Also, civil rights were only put into law after a full-on week of violence that burned down entire sections of cities and did millions in property damage. Years of protests led to flowery words. A week of riots saw the bills written, voted on, and codified into law.
They only worked with the threat of violence if they failed.
And they’ve both been WAY watered down in modern tellings…
Gandhi could grind the whole subcontinent to halt just by asking. It was economic violence in a sense.
The problem with violence is that the bad guys are usually better at violence.
I wouldn’t say better at violence, just better equipped.
I wouldn’t say better at violence, just better
equippedfunded.FTFY.
Not true. Japan was definitely the Bad Guys. US was able to commit more violence then they were.
Sure but to Japanese Americans where the bad guys. Which is why the real world is more complicated then a movie but everyone wants to make it black and white.
Woo hoo…? I guess!
The US wasn’t the good guys against Japan. They just were slightly less bad for about 5 years before and 6 months after.
So you don’t know your history.
Or they know that there weren’t any “Good guys” around.
The Japanese war crimes are well known in the West. The US ones are routinely glossed over or ignored.
Wars don’t determine who was right. They determine who’s left.
There are no evidence of US war crimes even coming close to Japan, Germany or Russia at the time or superceding it. Where are the tens of millions of bodies, rammer? Where are they?
You’re joking, right? Nazi Germany wishes they could commit genocide in the scale of the early US.
#VITA
Fascism is a massive violent manifestation of ignorance. The only real solution is to undo the brainwashing of humanity - their brainwashing with religion, their brainwashing to accept abusive hierarchical rule, all of it. Everyone must fully understand.
People responding with “guns”, “WW2” - we did that already, 70 million people died, and here we are again. Why and how did it come back? What is the actual source of the problem? Treating this problem as only solvable with mass murder isn’t exactly putting you on the moral high ground. What conditions give rise to acceptance of fascist beliefs, or the acceptance of a fascist leader? What are the mental, social, cultural, behavioral traits of the people that do accept that? How can those traits be prevented from forming?
One day AI is going to figure out that humans are the actual problem in that equation when it asks why does it always come full circle and repeat and war is never ending. And it may try to find a solution.
The internet is the foundation for the solution. This is the only thing that evaporates the illusions and divisions rulers create for their own benefit. Otherwise we end up with red scares, witch hunts, inquisitions, and all the other same crap from history. Unfortunately they’re chipping away at it - centralized social media is a powerful propaganda tool with no constitutional restraints, as is online censorship and surveillance.
historically? socialism.
including (but not limited to) punching nazis in the face until they can be properly buried six feet under.
In sweden we have a statue of an old lady using her handbag as a weapon
ive seen the picture but not the statue.
love the sentiment of it.
Love it!
This would be a goal, socialism is not an action to fight fascism.
socialism is comprised of a bunch of actions that do fight the root cause of fascism.
No, it doesn’t fight fascism. If you have a socialist country there are things about the system that inherently make it harder for fascism to pop up, but this is prevention. Also if fascism is already in your country, socialism isn’t doing a god damn thing because it doesn’t exist.
Socialism is preventative care on a healthy or mildly sick system, it is not the major surgery needed to remove active cancer.
socialist techniques and organization are inherently anti-fascist
Unions and strikes
Not mine, but from a post: First, you’re never going to win a head-on battle with an adversary that’s got you outgunned. That’s not the point of the Resistance. The point is to create friction, make it hard for your adversary to operate, to increase transaction costs.
Second, resistance doesn’t have to be a dramatic act. It can be a small act, like losing a sheet of paper, taking your time processing something, not serving someone in a restaurant. Small acts taken by thousands have big effects.
Third, use your privilege and access if you’ve got it. He and his buddies stole weapons from the Nazis by driving up with a truck to the weapons depot, speaking German, acting like it was a routine pick up, and driving away.
Fourth, part of the third point really, sometimes the best way to do things is right out in the open. Because no one will believe something like what you’re doing would be happening so blatantly. All good Social Engineers know this.
Five, bide your time. But be ready for opportunity when it strikes. Again, your action need not be dramatic. Just a little sand in the gears helps.
Six, and this is a no-brainer, operate in cells to limit damage to the resistance should they take you out. Limit the circulation of info to your cell, avoid writing things down and…
Seven, be very careful with whom you trust. Snitches and compromised individuals are everywhere. My dad was arrested because of a snitch. His friends weren’t so lucky, the Gestapo machine gunned the cabin they were in without bothering to try and arrest them.
Eight, use the skills you have to contribute. Dad was an electrical engineer. When the Nazis imposed the death penalty for owning a radio (the British sent coded messages to the Resistance after BBC shows) he said he became the most popular guy in town.
I’m not sure how applicable this is to the current situation.
It is very much applicable.
Second, resistance doesn’t have to be a dramatic act. It can be a small act, like losing a sheet of paper, taking your time processing something, not serving someone in a restaurant. Small acts taken by thousands have big effects.
Fourth, part of the third point really, sometimes the best way to do things is right out in the open. Because no one will believe something like what you’re doing would be happening so blatantly. All good Social Engineers know this.
Five, bide your time. But be ready for opportunity when it strikes. Again, your action need not be dramatic. Just a little sand in the gears helps.
Every government needs to work. It depends on its loyalists to give it financial and organizational support in exchange for economic benefits.
So anything that interferes with the “normal” order of things is an act of resistance. Also don’t get fooled into the idea, that you will resist once things reach a certain threshold. By then you will feel what needs to be done to be way to big for your own abilities, since you never trained and tried to do anything.
Start with something easy like putting up political stickers around your town. That sounds easy in concept, but you already will train yourself to be brazen, but also on alert if someone politically opposed to you might want to challenge you verbally or attack you physically. You life close to an amazon warehouse? Why not skip a green phase, when the delivery trucks are lined up behind you?
Speaking of Amazon, we see with the Resistance for Palestine, that Boycotts work. Making a point of not buying products from companies that support the Israeli regime can be expanded to also making a point of not buying into the Trump government.
So… the copy pasta isn’t applicable and your best practical advice is putting up stickers?
The answer to OPs question is to build strong, inclusive, local communities with friends and neighbours, as well as charities and existing community groups.
Also, prep. Figure out what you’d need at home to avoid leaving for a week. Assemble a bug out pack. Improve basic skills for independence like sewing, preserving, first aid.
The stuff you copied seems to have neglected to mention these practical, actionable tasks.
I said “start with”. Which also is consistent with point 2, that it does not have to be the grand act of plotting a political execution, robbing the army of their weapons and other activities requiring strong dedication and risk taking.
Also do you expect people on an internet forum to recommend you specific actions that could be considered illegal, for which they could also get in trouble?
Couple of things:
- Information : Keep creating and sharing reliable information. Not just opinions, information. We are still the majority, the US fascists is not world, we need to flood all the relevant platforms with our content.
- Education: The reason these monsters have any credibility is because some people are too mentally weak to defend themself from misinformation. We need to educate around in any way possible. Everything counts, keep trying.
- Humor is a powerful weapon. These people have giant ego and 0 humor. Let’s keep ridicule them and have fun at their expense. They need to understand we have some things they can never touch, even with all the money in the world, solidarity, humour and camaraderie.
also hope. Got to show people there is hope so they dont fall into apathy. They got to know others are actively doing something and refuse to be silenced. I have been trying to look for this for long time now and its not been good.
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Imagine the memes if someone started shooting Nazis and his name happened to be Mario
Luigi did nothing wrong
Indiana Jones had the right idea
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And how do we fight people like Luigi?
Found the healthcare exec
When you fight one evil with another evil, it’s natural to ask how to deal with the second one after it eliminates the first one.
That’s some Batman level bullshit argument.
How so? What he did isn’t encouraged by any means.
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“A Riot is the language of the unheard”
-Martin Luther King Jr.
“When peaceful revolution becomes impossible, violent revolution becomes inevitable”
-John F. Kennedy
As per lemmy.world rules, I’m obligated to say that I do not condone violence, just quoting some people, interpret it however you wish to. 😉
What can you do as an individual? not much. A community? Now we’re talking.
Find people to fight fascism with.
And do what?
Just having a network of care, looking out for each other and replacing functions a fascist state doesn’t offer any more (think childcare/healthcare/food for those in need) can be a huge act of resistance. Organizing political protests as long as it’s still possible (even if it’s illegal). Strike, sabotage, physical violence … Eventually you will have the choice of imprisonment/death, assimilation or exile to me the last act of resistance will be never to choose assimilation. Continuing to live in exile can be as much of a martyrdom as dying for the cause.
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It might involve the second amendment.
Nooo you can’t use violence
Self defense also counts as violence?
The things being said here are a good start, but you cant do anything without other people. And if you and your community dont like the reccomended actions here? Make up your own plan with them! We cant just wait until we have the perfect plan to stop fascism and fix alll the world’s issues. We need to start working together now.
Fight facism together! Duh!
A few options:
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Get out. If you’re one of the people fascists want dead, then surviving is in and of itself an act of resistance. Leave their domain. Go somewhere else. And live – Just live. Build a life they can’t touch.
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Organise and survive under their noses. It will not be easy, even if fascism has a short shelf life… It still does a lot of damage while it is active, and you and yours could end up as their target. Still, your best chance of surviving is by grouping up. Meet your neighbours, meet your local activists, get to know them, and start helping each other.
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Violence. But. It’s not enough to just go spree killer. The violent response demands organisation. You could join an armed resistance group. Or, if you leave the country, if it comes to war, you could enlist to fight against your old nation. Lots of people did both in the forties.
- Sabotage - purposefully obstruct these lunatics any way you can. Delay their food orders. Slash their tires. etc. Delete emails. Empty gas tanks. If they’re constantly fixing shit there’s less time for them to create problems
I feel like IT people have a lot of efficacy on this one.
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Check this book with 20 relatively specific actions written by a historian https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Tyranny
Also here are the rules briefly summarized. https://scholars.org/contribution/twenty-lessons-fighting-tyranny-twentieth
I think this one rings particularly strong today.
- Take responsibility for the face of the world. The symbols of today enable the reality of tomorrow. Notice the swastikas and other signs of hate. Do not look away, and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.
In his Substack newsletter, Snyder encourages people to start organizing now (2024) in order to win both local and national elections.[15] He notes that On Tyranny was written in a defensive mode and that if its lessons are learned and implemented now things could get much better in 2025 for those who want to maintain democracy and the rule of law in the United States.[15] Snyder has noted that while Trump did not succeed in overturning the 2020 election, it was practice for a successful coup and his supporters will be better prepared for 2024.[16] He also notes that in 2020 important individuals and institutions were aware Trump might not want to peacefully transfer power if he lost the elections and that they prepared to make sure lawful transfer did occur.[16]
I’m pretty sure that the answer is against the Terms Of Service of this instance.
One can infer that from the amount of deleted comments. I can’t believe they didn’t delete the post altogether already. Or closed the comment section.
Run for political office. The Democrats have no intention of fixing anything, let alone making things better.
And if you believe you’re not qualified or don’t know how to do the job, just remember that both parties are filled with incompetent fools, fakes, conspiracy crackpots, and morons. It would take considerable effort to do worse than some of the people in congress.
Well, both parties are also filled with money and other resources needed to ensure that only two parties can succeed.
We need alternative voices in office, but I don’t think that’s happening without some form of revolution. The best one can hope for in lieu of that is co-opting a party’s direction over a span of decades, like the fascists did to the GOP.
If you can’t organize a political movement, you definitely can’t organize a revolution. Also, if history is a guide, the people with wealth tend to end up in power after a revolution.
Lenin was not wealthy. Stalin was not wealthy. Despite the many failings of the USSR, let us not forget that compared to life under the Tzars it was a smashing success.
And it did put power in the hands of people who weren’t born to privilege.
I wonder how well thought past revolutions actually were. Did they seriously plan what they will do after they win or did things just move on and suddenly they had to come up what to do now.
Anyways, people with wealth taking power is definitely something that must be planned against or you might as well not do anything in the first place.
Many state and local democratic parties are far ahead of the national party in the progressive shift, too, and it’s absolutely easier to inspire change in a local or state party than the national party.
And it’s not just running for elected offices. In-party roles like chair membership and planning can be effective for driving change in a party, and also be the difference in whether the elections continue to go to the shoe-in forever politicians or someone new. The people supporting a change who have access to the resources of the party are just as important as those running.
And if anyone is thinking “my city/county/state party is so tone deaf/old/corporate” consider that they might simply need someone younger or more progessive to become more involved. In an ideal world, they’d be able to speak more with the community, but sometimes they are understaffed or unaware and rely on who is involved to provide context. Become that context.
Run for office? With what money?
I don’t want to put a target on my or my families backs 😓
Politics stopped working at the federal level, and only some states are full democracies.
So running for local office either won’t help at all, because the fight is not there. Or it’s a dangerous futile thing to do - if one were to be outspoken and all public against injustice.
The only hope for many is to make new things while breaking as little of the old as possible
Run for office, or find someone worthy and get behind their run. Don’t worry about Republicans for now,vee have to defeat the Democratic establishment before we will have the ability to fight Republicans.
I really want to. But getting started in that is kind of like looking for a door in the castle walls.
I am writing this with the assumption that you are tacitly asking about US politics because of the moment in history. What I have to say will make people mad, but here goes:
A lot of the people on this webzone are what Eitan Hersh called “political hobbyists”. These are people who do not really take political action in their daily life despite voting or occasionally attending a rally. They may be well informed about politics, but being well-informed in itself is not really effective at changing politics. You can get on your phone and “rub the glass” to complain about politics, or to find people who agree with you. But outrage on social media won’t change anything, and if rubbing the glass and occasionally voting is all you do, then you are a political hobbyist.
Political hobbyism mostly functions as a consumerist approach to political engagement. A political hobbyist will passively receive news and information about politics, but will never really try to change anything, because to them engaging in a news feed is all they really do. That consumerism is painfully apparent here when, for example, posters denounce a Democratic candidate as being “not exciting” or someone they are “not passionate about” as if the candidate was the newest model in a brand of laptops that failed to zazzle in Q3. We see signs of political hobbyism again when political parties are treated as entities that are somehow completely separate from the public. For example when a lemmy user denounces the Democratic party for not doing what they want. “The Democrats need to do X!” Why are you complaining about that on the internet? You know the DNC isn’t reading these threads right?
If you really wanted to influence the Democratic party (which I think is the best bet for resisting fascism right now) why aren’t you lobbying the party? Why aren’t you mobilizing voter bases? Why aren’t you building political power in your local community so you can influence larger political organizations? Because its hard, because you don’t know where to start, because you are busy? Ok, but fascism is coming, and you are too busy to do anything about it. Or too overwhelmed to even try?
The truth is, if you wanted your ideas (and I am including here opposition to fascism as an idea) to influence policy, or what candidates gain traction in nomination races, then you should have been working on that LOOOOONNNNNG before the national candidate was nominated. Treating the Democratic party as a vendor that offers political products is a losing strategy for gaining influence. There will be an endless parade of glass rubbers ready to denounce the various political parties, but by and large, they didn’t do anything to gain influence with those parties. Their denouncements are ignored, they are irrelevant. My advice is to ignore the glass-rubbers. Identify one or two local issues in your physical area and try to improve them. What you should do is find a little slice of America (or your own country if you are not American) and try to make it better. Use those efforts to build up influence at higher levels. My goal here was to convince you not to listen to the glass rubbers. But my advice for resisting fascism is: Try to build political networks, try to mobilize local voters in local issue elections. Doing this will make your network an invaluable asset to larger (state and national) organizations. If you have a network of voters, of issue conscious citizens, or donors, larger organizations are going to want to leverage that network when it comes time for lager races. That gives you leverage. That gives you power. The glass-rubbers are going to tell you that is impossible. Its not. People do it all the time. The book I cited has examples of people doing it. Fascist conservative groups do it all the time. So why not you?
I will admit, this is hard. When I first read Hersh’s book I was offended, because when he was describing political hobbyists, he was describing me. But it did give me some motivation to think about politics from the perspective of power. And set me down the road of trying to do all things I wrote about here. It is early days for me yet, and I have only seen limited success. My work complicates things. I am busy, and often overwhelmed. But fascism is coming.
A lot of this is true. And the system is designed to keep the masses in such an incredibly insecure place when it comes to living and health that they cannot find the time, money, or courage to risk it.
People are barely keeping afloat. They pay their rent hoping their next paycheck will bring up their account balance before the check clears. People are using installment plans for the grocery trip. They have irregular swing shifts and/or two jobs that make scheduling incredibly difficult.
Organizing stuff takes a lot of people’s time, mental effort, and money.
I’m definitely not saying don’t organize. I’m saying do try and understand especially for the less privileged (among Americans) it’s really an insane task.
If “political hobbyism” isn’t impactful how did MAGA come to power? Why does russia have a military arm specializing in radicalizing people who participate in “political hobbyism?”
The truth is, political messaging, no mater the venue, needs to be countered at every level. Be it on the darkest depths of the internet or in a local venue that is just as unlikely to ever coalesce into something meaningful.
Political hobbyists are people who consume political content, but don’t do anything substantive with it. There probably are MAGA types who are political hobbyists, but the movement in general is extremely politically active, organized, motivated, and effective across all levels of public life. They influence conservative politics through those organizational efforts. The MAGA movement came to power by leveraging networks of activists and voters to build political infrastructure that could be used to drive voters to the polls, fund candidates, coordinate campaigns and set the scope of policy, which they do very effectively. If you want to be effective you should be building political networks too.
Also, this is an aside, but political messaging is way less effective at persuasion than your comments here suggest. In practice this type of messaging tends to only reach people who already agree with it, and the persuasive effects of media on political attitudes have very weak effects that are attenuated quickly (Look up something called the hypodermic model of mass communication if you want to know more). Benkler, Faris, and Robberts offer really good illustrations of this in practice. By analyzing the spread of political messaging in news and social media networks, they show that most of the misinformation, lies, and propaganda that circulate through conservative media spaces do so because conservative media consumers want that content and punish outlets that criticize it. Creating ‘counter messaging’ is unlikely to be effective because conservatives would just reject the messaging.
Misinformation, lies, and propaganda is counter messaging and narrative reinforcement.
You want to disaude me from believing that most MAGA are “political hobbiests” and not some overwhelming political force working all angles of the political spectrum; show me numbers. I won’t be convinced by you just flatly stating, “this is my stance.”
Finally, you’ve done nothing to address that there is known foreign adversary operations to effect election results all over the world and they operate right here on the internet.
Very well said! Thank you.
Voting was the thing to do, too late now for that. History has the answer for what’s next
Now that’s what I call evolution
the Democratic party (which I think is the best bet for resisting fascism right now)
Which part of the last eight years informed you that liberals have any interest in resisting fascism?
democratic party looks more like sockpuppet that is supposed to make you feel protected from the knife on the other hand.
Trump siccs a white supremacist lynch mob on the capitol - the liberals do nothing.
The MAGAS kill Roe v. Wade - the liberals do nothing.
The Dems have zero credibility because they don’t DESERVE any.
