Federal immigration agents swarm Minneapolis high school, handcuff staff and fire chemical irritants at students. Safety concerns prompt school closure.
You avoided the primary question - what’s the line them? It honestly doesn’t even really matter, since the whole premise of your post is that there is a line and that you eventually have to strike and use force. Our only disagreement is where that line actually is.
Besides, acting like Portland was some grand victory is just silly. OK - the national guard is out of Portland for the moment. They just moved on to their next target. They flood the zone and move fast so the legal system can’t keep up. The damage was already done and they just moved to sow chaos in a new location with a different militarized force. What a win.
Peaceful protests are an important tool to the fight, but these people only fear consequences. Physical, emotional, reputational or financial harm. It’s a multi-faceted fight, but that’s what it is - a fight. If they think they can best you through physical force alone, that’s what they will do. You can’t let them think that. You need a stick to respond in kind with.
Maybe you should read up on the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association or the Indian National Army. They both played major roles in Indian independence. Ghandi is a great story, but guess who he had as a counter balance? The stick.
And that’s just a lie. The legal system IS keeping up. The National Guard is NOT being redeployed. Hell, the NG isn’t even in Menneapolis, though Gov. Walz has put it on standby as is his prerogative as governor.
Ghandi is a great story, but guess who he had as a counter balance? The stick.
Then you should go back and reread that story, because “the stick” was hundreds of years worth of the British coming down on Indians with absolute brutality, the Indians rising up again with massive brutality of their own, and then the British coming back across with escalations like Amritsar.
What got the British their asses handed to them after hundreds of years of this bloody back and forth was a line of non-violent protesters who simply went to the beach to make salt. Thousands of them. Who at the end of their march walked straight into billy clubs without ever raising a hand or a stick.
You literally do not know the history you to seek to (mis)represent here. Hundreds of years of what you propose did nothing; it only secured the British power more firmly than ever. And it’s not just India; we have some semblance of civil rights here because of Martin Luther King, Jr. doing the same thing.
The line of violence is not for you to propose to others. It is for you to choose for yourself, and stop trying to get others to bleed in your stead.
I mostly don’t disagree with you but it seems the executive branch has moved on from deploying the national guard to instigate violence and instead is just outright committing acts of violence on its own. Will the legal system keep up with that? -I don’t know for certain but I’d put a fiver on these agents never sitting opposite of a prosecutor in a courtroom.
the executive branch has moved on from deploying the national guard to instigate violence and instead is just outright committing acts of violence on its own.
This is because of Reagan’s use of NG at Berkeley and the mass murders of students by NG at Kent State and U New Mexico in 1970s. NG has checks now. I realize Lemmy thinks Police State Fascism is new in 2025 but this has been America since the 1960s.
it seems the executive branch has moved on from deploying the national guard to instigate violence and instead is just outright committing acts of violence on its own.
You’re not wrong. That’s exactly what they are doing. But they are doing it out of desperation: if they get us to the midterms and states (all voting in the US is regulated by the states, not the feds) have elections, this administration becomes powerless and Trump is in the same danger he was in prior to regaining office, but now with a pissed off nation that wants him gone.
For myself, it’s too soon to tell whether this administration will succeed in overthrowing the legitimate government and substituting its own form of fascist authoritarianism. This is in progress; it is anything but complete. Plus, states have their own authority as well, and today, the Minnesota AG told the feds that the goon who shot Ms. Good can be prosecuted for murder by the state. So it may not be up to the feds after all. I guess we’ll see.
So you’re saying we only need to wait one year until the midterms and if that doesn’t work, then all gloves off? Or are you going to tell us to wait then too?
I’m not telling anyone anything but to stand back, learn their enemy, and choose their own moment in which to bleed. Anyone calling for others to fight is not going to be bearing your losses, you are. You choose your own moment to fight.
And while you’re weighing up your best approach, look at one of the many violent protests we’ve already had in this country and consider which ones are resounding successes, because they’re not. They are all remembered as fails, on both sides. There are very good reasons why agents provocateurs are planted in non-violent protests; they would not be there if violence was not going to help the state.
Meanwhile, the National Guard was ordered out of Portland in 2025 because of non-violence:
You have no right to get others to fight your battles. If you want to hit the streets and fight ICE, no one is stopping you. But it won’t change a fucking thing. That’s a great way to ensure you get labeled violent thugs and your protest labeled the problem of malcontents.
If you want change that makes a government truly piss itself in fear, go French and have a general strike.
I think you misunderstand. I don’t want violent PROTESTS. I want people to get these ghouls in their homes, as should anyone who truly values morality and not just pays lip service to it. But yes we all must choose our own moments of actions.
These people are doing real damage to real peoples lives. Destroying them and preventing that damage is an obvious good. These people will not be reformed. They will not be swayed by moral arguments and logic. They want you to suffer and they want to be the one to cause it.
Even if you were right about the legal system keeping up (you’re not), it is failing so hard is other ways, it doesn’t even matter. Do you remember Citizens United where the Supreme Court allowed endless and unchecked amounts of money to flood our political system accelerating us down this path of division? How about SC giving our president complete immunity to do whatever he wants in office? Or the Trump appointed judge that intentionally derailed his prosecutions so no one could hold him accountable? Or how about the SC justice that retired early so his son could get a cushy job in return for Trump being able to appoint another justice? That legal system? Yea, it’s functioning great. A real bulwark there.
Secondly, you really believe that was this one series of peaceful protests the ONLY and driving factor behind Indian independence? Not the fact that the British had a failing empire and needed funds to rebuild after WWII? How about the fact that they had their hands full in the middle east and China at the same time? Or that they no longer had the forces, resources or will to contunue to fight the armed resistance in the country? Chalking up a remarkably complex series of events and outcomes to a single factor shows how little you understand about the world.
No one is asking anyone to bleed for anyone. I just don’t have blinders on and can see what is coming. I also have a deep enough understanding of history to understand how freedom is obtained and maintained. Sorry that offends you, but it really seems like a personal problem. Have fun with that.
The difference here is that none of what you are writing about is currently relevant: successful non-violent protest is.
Instead of addressing that, and absolutely avoiding the actual court order I posted with all your larping might, you’re diving into the weeds of how we got here, like Citizen’s United has anything DIRECTLY to do with choosing as an individual to hold your ground, think it out, and choose your own arena in which to most effectively fight.
As to the rest, I think what I think because many more educated and reasoned individuals than yourself have already researched the strategy of non-violence in topping unwanted regimes. I don’t need a misguided larper to rewrite history for me; I’ve already studied it, and many better than yourself have offered studied, intelligent analyses of both positions.
There’s a reason non-violence works, and a reason why you keep posting in defense of violence, while accusing me of non-specifics even as you pointedly ignore your own.
If you wanna get out on the streets and fight ICE, no one is stopping you. But I note you’re not. You’re posting here to incite others to do it for you.
If they think they can best you through physical force alone, that’s what they will do. You can’t let them think that. You need a stick to respond in kind with.
Holding that stick is fine. We have a Constitutional right to that stick. They need to be made to think about that stick before they attack us.
BUT we gotta play smarter than that and pray to God we don’t gotta use that stick, because these guys will beat The People in a standup fight. Why?
Their whole lives are violence. They dream of violence, they are paid handsomly to spend their time training for violence, they spend their individual salaries on violence-multipliers and have government budgets to enable their violence, they consume violence.
They have forfeited their humanity in order to be really, really good at brutalizing and killing other human beings, and they have a massive apparatus behind them.
If we draw a line in the sand they will cross that line because they know they would win that game.
However, they seemingly struggle to understand how their own friggin’ government works though, and they’re slipping up, even with their cronies in place. We need to press that advantage as hard as we can and play a game they’re too stupid to handle.
So if we can embolden the political resistance, and also stoke civil resistance as discussed above (cutting off supply lines and flipping public sentiment and pressuring weenie politicians), any act of brutality is still a massive mark against them right now.
I’m sure only the most diehard cultists can see what happened to that poor woman and still think “bUt MuH jUsTiFiEd FeDs ThO.” The more we expose them, the more they’ll lose support, even from all their wet-napkin neolib suburbanites who “Don’t follow politics.”
By all means, we should still train and be ready to use that stick, if all else fails. But by God…we should not be eager.
You avoided the primary question - what’s the line them? It honestly doesn’t even really matter, since the whole premise of your post is that there is a line and that you eventually have to strike and use force. Our only disagreement is where that line actually is.
Besides, acting like Portland was some grand victory is just silly. OK - the national guard is out of Portland for the moment. They just moved on to their next target. They flood the zone and move fast so the legal system can’t keep up. The damage was already done and they just moved to sow chaos in a new location with a different militarized force. What a win.
Peaceful protests are an important tool to the fight, but these people only fear consequences. Physical, emotional, reputational or financial harm. It’s a multi-faceted fight, but that’s what it is - a fight. If they think they can best you through physical force alone, that’s what they will do. You can’t let them think that. You need a stick to respond in kind with.
Maybe you should read up on the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association or the Indian National Army. They both played major roles in Indian independence. Ghandi is a great story, but guess who he had as a counter balance? The stick.
And that’s just a lie. The legal system IS keeping up. The National Guard is NOT being redeployed. Hell, the NG isn’t even in Menneapolis, though Gov. Walz has put it on standby as is his prerogative as governor.
Then you should go back and reread that story, because “the stick” was hundreds of years worth of the British coming down on Indians with absolute brutality, the Indians rising up again with massive brutality of their own, and then the British coming back across with escalations like Amritsar.
What got the British their asses handed to them after hundreds of years of this bloody back and forth was a line of non-violent protesters who simply went to the beach to make salt. Thousands of them. Who at the end of their march walked straight into billy clubs without ever raising a hand or a stick.
You literally do not know the history you to seek to (mis)represent here. Hundreds of years of what you propose did nothing; it only secured the British power more firmly than ever. And it’s not just India; we have some semblance of civil rights here because of Martin Luther King, Jr. doing the same thing.
The line of violence is not for you to propose to others. It is for you to choose for yourself, and stop trying to get others to bleed in your stead.
I mostly don’t disagree with you but it seems the executive branch has moved on from deploying the national guard to instigate violence and instead is just outright committing acts of violence on its own. Will the legal system keep up with that? -I don’t know for certain but I’d put a fiver on these agents never sitting opposite of a prosecutor in a courtroom.
This is because of Reagan’s use of NG at Berkeley and the mass murders of students by NG at Kent State and U New Mexico in 1970s. NG has checks now. I realize Lemmy thinks Police State Fascism is new in 2025 but this has been America since the 1960s.
You’re not wrong. That’s exactly what they are doing. But they are doing it out of desperation: if they get us to the midterms and states (all voting in the US is regulated by the states, not the feds) have elections, this administration becomes powerless and Trump is in the same danger he was in prior to regaining office, but now with a pissed off nation that wants him gone.
For myself, it’s too soon to tell whether this administration will succeed in overthrowing the legitimate government and substituting its own form of fascist authoritarianism. This is in progress; it is anything but complete. Plus, states have their own authority as well, and today, the Minnesota AG told the feds that the goon who shot Ms. Good can be prosecuted for murder by the state. So it may not be up to the feds after all. I guess we’ll see.
So you’re saying we only need to wait one year until the midterms and if that doesn’t work, then all gloves off? Or are you going to tell us to wait then too?
I’m not telling anyone anything but to stand back, learn their enemy, and choose their own moment in which to bleed. Anyone calling for others to fight is not going to be bearing your losses, you are. You choose your own moment to fight.
And while you’re weighing up your best approach, look at one of the many violent protests we’ve already had in this country and consider which ones are resounding successes, because they’re not. They are all remembered as fails, on both sides. There are very good reasons why agents provocateurs are planted in non-violent protests; they would not be there if violence was not going to help the state.
Meanwhile, the National Guard was ordered out of Portland in 2025 because of non-violence:
https://www.opb.org/pdf/FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW_1762564569662.pdf
You have no right to get others to fight your battles. If you want to hit the streets and fight ICE, no one is stopping you. But it won’t change a fucking thing. That’s a great way to ensure you get labeled violent thugs and your protest labeled the problem of malcontents.
If you want change that makes a government truly piss itself in fear, go French and have a general strike.
I think you misunderstand. I don’t want violent PROTESTS. I want people to get these ghouls in their homes, as should anyone who truly values morality and not just pays lip service to it. But yes we all must choose our own moments of actions.
These people are doing real damage to real peoples lives. Destroying them and preventing that damage is an obvious good. These people will not be reformed. They will not be swayed by moral arguments and logic. They want you to suffer and they want to be the one to cause it.
What a fantasy land you are living in.
Even if you were right about the legal system keeping up (you’re not), it is failing so hard is other ways, it doesn’t even matter. Do you remember Citizens United where the Supreme Court allowed endless and unchecked amounts of money to flood our political system accelerating us down this path of division? How about SC giving our president complete immunity to do whatever he wants in office? Or the Trump appointed judge that intentionally derailed his prosecutions so no one could hold him accountable? Or how about the SC justice that retired early so his son could get a cushy job in return for Trump being able to appoint another justice? That legal system? Yea, it’s functioning great. A real bulwark there.
Secondly, you really believe that was this one series of peaceful protests the ONLY and driving factor behind Indian independence? Not the fact that the British had a failing empire and needed funds to rebuild after WWII? How about the fact that they had their hands full in the middle east and China at the same time? Or that they no longer had the forces, resources or will to contunue to fight the armed resistance in the country? Chalking up a remarkably complex series of events and outcomes to a single factor shows how little you understand about the world.
No one is asking anyone to bleed for anyone. I just don’t have blinders on and can see what is coming. I also have a deep enough understanding of history to understand how freedom is obtained and maintained. Sorry that offends you, but it really seems like a personal problem. Have fun with that.
The difference here is that none of what you are writing about is currently relevant: successful non-violent protest is.
Instead of addressing that, and absolutely avoiding the actual court order I posted with all your larping might, you’re diving into the weeds of how we got here, like Citizen’s United has anything DIRECTLY to do with choosing as an individual to hold your ground, think it out, and choose your own arena in which to most effectively fight.
As to the rest, I think what I think because many more educated and reasoned individuals than yourself have already researched the strategy of non-violence in topping unwanted regimes. I don’t need a misguided larper to rewrite history for me; I’ve already studied it, and many better than yourself have offered studied, intelligent analyses of both positions.
There’s a reason non-violence works, and a reason why you keep posting in defense of violence, while accusing me of non-specifics even as you pointedly ignore your own.
If you wanna get out on the streets and fight ICE, no one is stopping you. But I note you’re not. You’re posting here to incite others to do it for you.
Holding that stick is fine. We have a Constitutional right to that stick. They need to be made to think about that stick before they attack us.
BUT we gotta play smarter than that and pray to God we don’t gotta use that stick, because these guys will beat The People in a standup fight. Why?
Their whole lives are violence. They dream of violence, they are paid handsomly to spend their time training for violence, they spend their individual salaries on violence-multipliers and have government budgets to enable their violence, they consume violence.
They have forfeited their humanity in order to be really, really good at brutalizing and killing other human beings, and they have a massive apparatus behind them.
If we draw a line in the sand they will cross that line because they know they would win that game.
However, they seemingly struggle to understand how their own friggin’ government works though, and they’re slipping up, even with their cronies in place. We need to press that advantage as hard as we can and play a game they’re too stupid to handle.
So if we can embolden the political resistance, and also stoke civil resistance as discussed above (cutting off supply lines and flipping public sentiment and pressuring weenie politicians), any act of brutality is still a massive mark against them right now.
I’m sure only the most diehard cultists can see what happened to that poor woman and still think “bUt MuH jUsTiFiEd FeDs ThO.” The more we expose them, the more they’ll lose support, even from all their wet-napkin neolib suburbanites who “Don’t follow politics.”
By all means, we should still train and be ready to use that stick, if all else fails. But by God…we should not be eager.