Keep in mind, the property damage after the murder of George Floyd was started by a white supremacist, too. “Umbrella man” smashed windows on an auto zone and spray painted it “free shit zone,” it would later be set on fire. Out of 20 people charged in Minnesota for rioting, only 4 were actually local to the state.
and msm and fox was showing mostly the looting and not the protest itself.
If we try to do a proper protest, we’ll get killed by subpar gun laws and a shot by some members of the official Kyle Rittenhouse fan club.
I see the problem. You heard something from leftists, and then brought up something said by liberals.
Easy mistake in the bullshit US discourse
Yeah the monolithing OP is doing is honestly impressive. Here, let me try another:
“Americans say trans rights are human rights, but then they also say trans people should be banned from public restrooms. Wtf lol???”
During the BLM demonstrations right wing provocatours deliberately caused damage to discredit the demonstrations. Two were caught and prosecuted in Cleveland where i live. Don’t be a tool
Yep. Pretty much all of the negative issues from the BLM protests were off duty cops or non-local white supremacists trying to provoke violence.
Remember the conveniently placed pallets of bricks?
Ahh yes how could we forget those government-provided taxpayers’ bricks that mysteriously overnight appeared on city street corners.
Then after nobody used them to break windows or anything at all, the brick pallets mysteriously disappeared the next night.
Um, all BLM has to do is wear merch and hold up a sign and the police start lobbing CS grenades.
The point of protest isn’t to riot, but to get the state to over-respond, brutally. Its why the entire world knows about and sympathizes with the BLM cause.
At least that’s the game, according to COIN. Hearts and minds. Though in the Civil Rights movement, we added lawsuits.
And Trump and the red states are quick with their riot squads. Left wing movements just have to represent and make booga-booga faces to trigger anti-riot shooting civilians with rubber bullets. (They’re plastic and steel, actually.)
And then two years later, the victims are awarded millions from the districts or the US treasury, depending on the department of the officer who decided it was time to bust heads.
Law enforcement in the US has already lost its legitimacy in the public eye, worldwide. We know they’re just thugs of the state, and their response to protest, especially minority protest, especially black protest, figures largely into that paradigm shift.
So, just because protesters in the US still carry signs instead of molotovs, doesn’t mean the protests are weak. It means the state’s responsers are incredibly easily trolled into initiating violence while camers are watching.
The point of protesting is not to provoke the state to kill you so that people will watch it.
There are many points to protesting. Provoking the opposition is one of them. We see this in civil disobedience protests and noncooperation actions.
Provocation of state responders is one of the effects of protest, regardless of whether it is intended. But it’s so consistent, especially in authoritarian regimes, that it is absolutely figured into the calculations of organizers. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., for instance, staged actions expecting casualties, but knowing they would ultimately further the cause by orders of magnitude.
It’s unlikely you (a specific person) will get killed at a protest, but we see casualties at protests all the time, and they are often honored, such as the Kent State victims, who have a folk song written about them. It also sparked a student strike four million strong, and helped to speed the end of the war.
Not all antagonistic responses have to be lethal or even injurious to to create a backlash in support of the cause. The No Kings Snapchat account shutdown by Meta is already resulting in backlash against the Trump regime, against Zuckerberg, and against the tech bro coalition in general.
But again, all a state really needs to do is manage a protest with grace. Authoritarian regimes just jave a tendency to take visible dissent personally (or any criticism, really), and then more liberal states often fail to instill in their law enforcement a predisposition of deescalation. I suspect right-wingers just enjoy the notion of cracking dissenter heads so much they can’t help themselves.
it ain’t the same guys saying both.
Goomba fallacy
I will never forget when the neighborhood Facebook was alight about the hoards that were going house by house through the suburbs. That was almost 10 miles of suburban sprall…my nerd brain can’t fathom the logistics of that and where that force would have come from.
“Having a conversation” is a stall tactic.
All these people saying that Americans can’t protest forget that we literally host hometown hero Luigi. Arguably the best way to get the message across. Needs more consistency, but It’s certainly effective.
a lot of people somehow missed the fact that luigi’s actions worked to force change immediately.
“somehow” as in the media kept that part quiet as best they could.
I’ve said it before.
People are alive today that wouldnt be alive if someone hadnt shot that UHC CEO.
The entire insurance industry got so scared and so panicked that they stopped denying coverage for curable issues for like… the next year. Hundreds, thousands, possibly tens of thousands of people are alive today, and are in better health today, because one vile piece of shit got shot and died.
Thats an easy trade to make any day of the week.
Temporarily IIRC. Didn’t they quietly revert their changes later, denying just as many claims again?
And that change was the mass deployment of Flock cameras Nation-wide.
Hate to break it to you but the same is true in France. Media coverage here has focused almost exclusively on small shops being looted. The human brain has a much easier time focusing on individual tragedies rather than systemic issues, and the government and its cronies (and the local versions of fox news) are taking full advantage of that bias.
Less a “human brain” focus than a main media focus
I still remember when students at the local high school organized a BLM march from the school to the police station (a 30 minute walk) I saw so many posts from people in this town itching to shoot them if they even looked at their house weird.
One day the world will come together and form an army of therapists and send you guys the humanitarian aid you deperatly need.
Return2ozma: posts accurate meme
Americans: (insert excuse or bad reaction here)
Always happens
But if the protests are supposed to go against the status quo why are they worried about whether those status quo liberals are angered by the protests that would be going on against them?
It is usually local people harmed by property damage when the people who are the problem point fingers from afar at strawmen. It seems no matter what you do, tribalism will overcome any change.
Always with the “liberals”.
Yeah, exactly which liberals are we talking about? Maga? This shit is beyond moronic.
Philosophical liberals. Right to private property and engage in commerce, individualist, idealist, legalist ethics liberals.
maybe people who are really into Liberace?
Usually for posts like these I assume they’re talking about the unfortunately large group of milquetoast left-leaning Americans who think the system destroying their livelihoods can be reasoned with, as if the people stepping on our necks are just unaware of their actions, and would feel really bad if we wrote them a letter explaining the situation. They’re certainly better than the neck-steppers themselves, but neither will ever actually fight to improve the situation we’re in.
Ah, the Liberal Surrogate ™️.
Insert the thing you want to use as a punching bag. The right, the left, the middle, doesn’t matter. Choose your own adventure.
To be fair, back when I would have identified as a Liberal, I was exactly the type of person to say “If we just communicate that we’re unhappy more effectively, they’ll listen this time for sure!”
I mean, I miss those days.
Bright eyed and bushy tailed. Believing that most people are kind at heart…
Now I’m pretty sure my neighbors will call ICE on my other neighbors if they ever do anything even slightly annoying.
Spent nearly a decade doing data analysis for the corrections system. Just one small part, but we interfaced with many others in different parts of government, academics, and NGOs, spinning our wheels discussing how to implement progressive reform, reform we have had mountains of hard evidence corrects a lot of problems, especially reducing recidivism. The big hurdle wasn’t corrupt politicians, or privatization of the prison system (not saying those weren’t major problems, just different ones) the big issue was that the average person is vicious, and wants to sit in their house, seeing “bad” people on a screen, get destroyed by the system. A HUGE portion of the population have a vicarious blood lust for seeing people get punished, the harsher, the better. This allows for the punitive system we have, which makes it an open field for other predatory practices. Suggesting anything to the counter will not get anyone elected, and will stir backlash from throngs of morons asking why we should do anything less than just execute criminals on the spot.
Those who don’t either are a minority that grew up differently, or had this unjust bloodlust targeted at them, or someone they care about.
“liberal” here, smash that storefront for me I have to go to work thanks 👍
They keep forgetting to put “neo” in front.
They don’t learn that part during their tankie training
Where’s that tankie factory anyways? They must come from somewhere
.ml mostly
I dunno man, there are some who ONLY operate under the Marxist definition of “Liberal”. They don’t believe language evolves and that maybe to most people “Liberal” is the term used to describe anyone with progressive ideals.
Because the Marxist version of liberals still call themselves liberals and have intentionally erased the semantic existence of all ideologies left of them so that they can pretend to be the left.
Sure. But the bucket of people that term encapsulates doesn’t match that definition anymore.
That’s not how that works. That only makes sense if like liberal parties didn’t exist. Saying Social Democrats or Socialists or Greens are more liberal than Liberals on some issues doesn’t make any sense, it like implies that the Liberals are ontologically the most progressive.
Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK)
Is it democratic? Is it a Republic? Names don’t always represent their namesake.
There also is no party titled “Liberal” in the USA, which is what I’m specifically referencing since this post is about USA “liberals”.
Like no, just no, stop trying to make “liberal” synonymous with progressive, they are different things.
The word “liberal” is useless because there is no consensus on what it means. Similarly useless are the words “left” and “right”. “Marxist” is still useful because nobody can deny that it denotes adherence to the ideas of Karl Marx. Similarly, even though people TRY to erode its meaning, “Christian” must ultimately mean adherence to the philosophies espoused by Christ. So for example anyone who identifies as “Christian” but makes no attempt to follow the principles he espoused, is simply lying.
It’s a Tankie thing. They call everyone a liberal.
Nah it’s a leftist thing.
Liberals are centrists who maintain the status quo and at best ask for “reforms” without substantially wanting to change the underlying system.
They think improvements like ranked choice voting would make capitalism magically end poverty and inequality. That if a few more people benefit from social programs, that you can overlook the others still suffering because it’s “better”.
I am a leftist. I’m telling you they call everyone liberals. They even call Trump a liberal.
Liberals are moderate conservatives, a.k.a. Establishment Democrats. And then you have the GOP, which consists of extreme right Fascists, so far right they’re practically the antisis of liberal. There is no dominant centrist or leftist party in the United States. The closest we have in office are AOC and Bernie, and even they’re just barely to the left of center in my eyes.
Ranked choice voting won’t solve everything, but it’s a step in the right direction. It’s worth giving it a chance.
Leftists often call them liberal because many of them use the term to define one who believes in Liberalism.
“Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property, and equality before the law.”
Thus anyone who is liberal believes in the right to private property. MAGA strongly believes in such. No leftist believes in such. Thus in their use, a leftist cannot be a liberal.
It’s just a different usage of a term based on cultural differences.
Liberals are moderate conservatives
What kind of brainrot is this?
This worked in some places with social market economy and such.
Social democracies in the West also benefit from being imperialist.
classical liberals maybe
Are we talking about Martínez de la Rosa-era liberals? (that was on the 30’s. The 1830’s)
Classical liberalism was an improvement over what came before it. Neoliberalism is when it morphed into anarcho-capitalist-esque “austerity for the poor; rights and subsidies for corporations”
There is no such thing as “anarcho-capitalist”
Anarchism is fundamentally oppositional to capitalism.
These tend to be libertarians from Texas or something. You are right though
Confidently wrong. There are different kinds of anarchism, and yours might be fundamentally oppositional to capitalism. But to deny the existence of anarcho-capitalists is counterproductive, because they exist, and they’re a serious threat to be aware of.
The idea is that in an anarchist society, there’s no governing body to regulate businesses, and so they get to do whatever they want. It results in a neofeudal corporate oligarchy, a la Curtis Yarvin. You can argue that it’s not really anarchistic if it results in oppressive systems. They might argue that it’s only anarchy if there’s nothing stopping them from oppressing you.
The point is, anarchy is a big umbrella, and just because you might be anarcho-syndicalist or something else doesn’t mean that your version of anarchy is the only version of anarchy.
Arguing over what constitutes “the true anarchy” is pointless. Critique anarcho-capitalism to your heart’s desire, but to deny that it exists implies that there’s nothing to critique.
It results in a neofeudal corporate oligarchy
Yes, because it is neo-feudalism trying to wear the label of Anarchism. That doesn’t mean it is Anarchism.
By your logic, “National Socialism” is a socialist philosophy because it calls itself socialism. Which is an utterly stupid thing to claim.
I never said what it calls itself is an accurate description, only that there are people who claim it
My problem with rioting is it often seems to be the working class shitting on their own doorstep… surely the most effective rioting would be to target parliament buildings, political party offices, banks and the properties of the very wealthy? Just my twopenn’orth.
This is why riots without organization are just as ignorable as nonviolent protests without organization. Neither threaten the power of the state because there is no power in individual acts.
The french have riots and gillotines. Americans have the 2A.
The fact there isn’t more Brian Thompsons is astounding. Crazy that some lib-cuck-fag (used ironically!) is America’s biggest patriot.
We need more tractors with slurry wagons spraying the houses of politicians.
