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Why all these marches in areas that these oligarchs don't care about? Why not their mansions?
Because if protesters ever pose any actual threat, they'll be viciously attacked.
(I'm talking about progressive protestors. Cops and fash go hand in hand.)
So we should continue wasting time, effort, and energy to NOT pose as any threat? So what's the point?
The U.S. is pretty much as big as Europe.
It's not easy to drive thousands of kilometers to get to their mansions. These marches happened all over the place, in major cities and capital cities.
People drove from all across the country to go to Washington yesterday, organizers supplied coaches from every major city. Same with BLM, Occupy, and many movements before it. But god forbid we do that towards a location that could actually make a difference.
EDIT -
The White House is more than 40 hours away from here driving non-stop.
The number of people from here who could have participated in a march at the White House (maybe taking a week off work in order to get there and back traveling 16 hours a day by bus) would have been very small. Instead, thousands of us marched in our local downtown yesterday in a solid throng.
Protests at a specific location convey a message, but mass protests everywhere convey a message too.
Yep. Which is why there were a disproportionate number of small business owners, landlords, and other nonwage "workers" on January 6th. The people that could actually afford to fly out and storm the capital are people already in a very financially sound and privileged position. They either do not do actual work or have a job they can easily take time off for and not fear being fired.
And these people are the base of the Republican party and the MAGA movement. It's why it's so mucher harder to get leftist organized in places like this. There are just not as many of us that can afford to do something like that.
Showing massive crowds in every major American city does a lot more good that anything else.
Most people are followers, and many people are Republicans simply because they are cowards, and are afraid of everything that the Conservative Propaganda Machine has screamed at them about. So they think MAGAs will protect them better than weak-willed spinless Democrats. The MAGAs are also telling them that there is very little support for Democrats, and they believe it.
But if they see massive crowds of angry Democrats, many will realize that there is a LOT of opposition to the Nazis, and it will sway many to our side.
because America is big, like really big. Its not like EU countries where you can just hop on a train and get to the capital in a day. for someone in South Dakota its at least a three day commitment to travel and protest in DC, and encase you didn't notice most people in this country can't afford that.
Am south dakotan, can confirm
Millions of people protesting isn't good enough for you?
Voting would be better lmao
Who do I vote for to put insurrections in prison? Democrats showed it wouldn't be them and clearly Republicans won't. So who, I ask, should I have I voted for that would have prevented this.
I don't think voting really does much, but voting for a third party is probably a good place to start.
Okay, do you have a time machine that will let them go vote?
Who was stopping them to vote then?
you're either terribly uninformed or willfully ignorant. lack of transportation, accommodation, childcare, time off work, current identification all contribute. gerrymandering minimizes the effects of successfully voting as well.
also, you're not helping anything.
I'm talking about right now. The present. Millions of people actively protesting in the present is not good enough for you.
Yup, the election was a huge fuck up. It's already happened and over with. What would you prefer people doright now? Bitch on Lemmy that people fucked up in the past instead of actually doing something?
5 million middle class, old ass boomers vs what? 77 million voters?
Yeah you bet it's not good enough
Next General election isn't until November 2026
Optimistic.
Sure it would, they should have a vote right now. And not the kind of vote where people in the States with lower population get more say.
I'm vooting! I'm vooting!
I think most of these protests were properly permitted (I know my local one was). Protestors in residential areas would likely get arrested for stuff like disturbing the peace, even if they stayed on public property such as roads. They'd probably try to charge the organizers for something too, which is probably why they aren't being organized. But, I agree there should be protests at these people's homes regardless.
I feel off about this. Permits. Like ok, you are given permission by the powers that be that as long as it’s in a specific area and don’t cause a disturbance… why would a protest want to play by these rules? Isn’t the point to cause a disturbance? Wouldn’t getting a permit be a direct message that the protest has no chance at obtaining actual change?
Then why aren't you being downvoted to oblivion?
Whose mansions are you talking about? Just protesting at some random Sociopathic Oligarch's palace isn't going to do anything, they'll never even see it. These people configure their lives so they never have to be touched by real life. They'll just spend the day on their yacht or at a different palace. If they are in town, they'll just chopper in/out at the residence, which will be behind walls and gates a quarter mile away.
Nope, flood the streets in every major city, disrupt everything, block Federal buildings, be as inconvenient as possible. That's far more effective.
If you want to piss off a Sociopathic Oligarch, then protest at their place of business. Block their entrances, interrupt the flow of business, make it difficult to do business, inconvenience their employees, irritate their neighbors, embarrass them to their neighbors, etc.
So how does gathering outside the White House or town halls move us towards this goal?
It gets SEEN. Sociopathic Oligarchs generally live far away from every one else, so you are a tree screaming in an empty forest - nobody hears it.
Instead, fill the streets in front of their offices, so neither they, nor (more importantly) their employees can get to work. It will piss off the other tenants in the building, the building owner, the buildings and businesses next door and across the street, etc. The message gets sent that it's this Sociopathic Oligarch's behavior that is causing all this trouble, and they'll want him gone, too.
Make their lives miserable.
You're living in a fantasy world if you think people getting blocked on their way to work by protestors are going to blame the oligarchs and not the protestors, they get mad at the protestors every time. Literally zero of them go "Hey maybe they have a point" and skip work that day to join the rally. No, they go "Fucking hippies" and roll their eyes before laughing at them with their work colleagues and taking loyalty paychecks from the oligarchs that employ them. Rather than pissing off fellow workers in an attempt to convince them (which it famously doesn't) perhaps actually directing the attack towards the actual culprits. Again, it seems like everyone (and you) seem to try their best to figure out how NOT to go after the oligarchs, and that we should try every other roundabout idealistic mystical way instead.
The impact on the locals is irrelevant, they aren't your audience. They're in the same neighborhood as the Sociopathic Oligarch you are targeting, so they're probably more like him than not. Fuck them.
Besides, even if they don't come over to your side, they're still going to hate the SO that is causing the disruption to their businesses. Rich fucks dont like to be inconvenienced, that was one of the primary motivations for getting rich. So they'll be pressuring him to shut the fuck up, or stop doing whatever sociopathic behavior that is jiggling his jollies. Have you noticed that we havent heard much from Skum over the last couple of weeks? No doubt his Board of Directors, at the very least, are telling him to calm the fuck down.
And an ostracized Sociopathic Oligarch means his social status is impacted, and Mrs. Sociopathic Oligarch isn't going to appreciate it when she doesn't get the e-vite to the next brunch/ book club meeting because her husband is being a national dickhead.
Your audience is those who see your protest in the media. Seeing monster crowds that are pissed off and taking bold action also attracts a lot more of the same, leading to steadily increasing crowds at more and more protests.
Those growing crowds start to scare the politicians, who are all craven cowards, and they start to panic, and make political moves both positive and negative, but the main thing is that they are on the run. As the citizens see the crowds gaining political power, and the politicams panicing, many will shift their support to them.
During the Vietnam war, that's how protests helped to force the government to end the evil draft, and eventually the war (or at least weaken political support of the war so much that they lost it, thus ending it).
Which, specifically? They all have several.
The people going to events want political action to fix the problem and prevent it from occuring again. Not pointless Lynchings for petty revenge.
Now if we could organize in a way that encourages conservatives to switch sides then that would be cool, like a tour through conservative counties.