I really need to get into local government because there seems to be a lot of bribes going around and I need a new computer.
this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2026
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Just as managers and owners agreed to the compromise of unions in order to prevent the workers from dragging them from their homes and setting the factory on fire with them inside, governments should feel the fear of what happens when you treat people like shit and ignore their complaints.
A lot of people died to get the pittances we got from the ownership class. Decades of
- labor: we want to paid in real money, and work less than 12 hours a day 6 days a week
- owner: no
- labor: then we're going on strike
- owner, to the state: HELP
- the state: sends police and troops to do violence to labor
The idea that peacefully asking for stuff on its own is effective is largely ahistorical. A happy myth sold by the people who would be receiving violence.
People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.
Ya know.....everyone always tries to say violence isn't the answer. It's things like this that tells me those people are stupid. Violence is absolutely the answer.
I think they mean violence isn't the first thing you reach for. There's a real problem in the world, and especially in the US, where the moment someone is even moderately upset about something they immediately start pulling weapons.
You should always attempt to negotiate and de-escalate the situation. Violence is something you should reach for only after it becomes abundantly evident that they are not prepared to meet you halfway or are just obviously corrupt, like is the case here.
But you never know, some of the officials may just be really stupid and have not thought about the project beyond the immediate benefits, and haven't thought about/don't know about the downside.
There's a real problem in the world, and especially in the US, where the moment someone is even moderately upset about something they immediately start pulling weapons.
Honestly this isnt true we have ignored all the underlying systemic issues that put these people into pressure cookers ready to pop. Erosion of education left them unable to interpret the world beyond force fed propaganda pointing blame on those that would be allies instead of being targeted as enemies/shouldering the blame. We have never provided proper health care that could aid in reducing mental and physical trauma. We have ignored others needs for safe housing and secure food sources, which means people are stuck in fight or flight. Just to name a few common systemic issues. Sure you may see one specific moderate problem that in isolation shouldn't create the reactions you see, but people today are like a superheated liquid just waiting for the smallest of disturbances to set them off.
Most of these people have never even been met part way because the system ensures they have no means to come to the table and ensures they are constantly pitted against each other so no class conscience can form.
There are better answers. But the last 18 months have taught me that there is no way in hell the billionaire class will ever give up any of their wealth. Even when it in everyone's best interest.
If they won't play nice, don't expect the response to be nice either. Violence still isn't necessary, but they should be afraid!
Violence still isn’t necessary
I disagree. Show me a time in history where a population is being oppressed, and then that stopped without violence.
Disruption and obstruction can force concessions without explicit violence.
(Edit: To clarify, I'm not claiming that violence can't achieve anything, because we all know it can. I'm saying that nonviolence can also achieve things, because the key component isn't the exact tool, but the strategy of using it.)
The Montgomery Bus Boycott achieved its goal without it by demonstrating the economic significance of black passengers. The Nashville Sit-ins won through the resilience of its participants without fighting back. The message in each case was "We're going to continue being a problem until we get what we want." The Civil Rights Movement in general achieved a lot of victories simply by being a persistent, well-coordinated nuisance.
Their discipline in staying non-violent even in the face or cruel injustice was a psychological weapon, which can win battles without firing bullets. It drew attention to that injustice, dominated news cycles until people could no longer look away. If media thrive on outrage, police violence is more effective than police suppressing terrorists.
The mistake that people make is to conflate peaceful, "polite", lawful protest with non-violence: Protests need to be a problem. I can ignore people chanting whatever in the streets, but I can't ignore them disrupting businesses and obstructing public places. I can try suppressing them with violence, but what if that doesn't work, if they keep coming?
There's a book on the topic, "Waging a good war" by Thomas E. Ricks that I found quite enlightening. The important takeaway is that there are multiple ways to win a war, and defeating the opposition's will can work without actual violence, but the key part is still a military level of discipline and planning.
The Civil Rights Movement in general achieved a lot of victories simply by being a persistent, well-coordinated nuisance.
It achieved a lot because in addition to those nuisances you had groups like the black Panthers demonstrating that should they not be respected they will use the means they need to enact their change. Don't be so willfully ignorant of the past.
If violence was so ineffective at creating change militaries would not exist. Those who wish to oppress you will do so by any means necessary, combating that oppression takes the same resolve. You dont get any where by tolerating intolerance.
The Black Panthers, founded 1966, had nothing to do with the fact that people started avoiding the malls in Nashville because of the violence that had transpired there in 1960, or the fact that four thousand people confronted the mayor about his failure to stop that violence. Violence, critically, that could not be pinned on the demonstratively nonviolent students, who then made a point of doing their penal labour with the enthusiasm of youths trying to prove that they're not, in fact, troublemakers, but actually cooperative community members.
That violence can achieve things is hardly novel, nor do I deny it. It is a tool, and if used right, it can effect change. The trouble the US had with the insutgents in the middle east is a wonderful example of the power that well-supported and organised resistance can achieve with violence.
I simply deny the claims that it's the only effective tool, nor that it is effective by itself.
The Panthers, for all their laudable bravery, lacked the rigorous discipline and organisation of the CORE, SNCC or SCLC. Once people flocked to their image of militant resistance, they lost their grassroots nature of feeding kids and treating the sick. They made a half-hearted attempt to stop the law against carrying loaded weapons in public, but it turns out that thirty people with guns who didn't even know the way can't have the same impact as a few thousand people without guns marching in stoic unity. They also lacked the political appeal: While the firefighters in Birmingham (1963) eventually refused to keep turning their fire hoses on children at the police's behest, no such qualms were had about attacking militant insurgents.
The key with any tool is to use it correctly. If you're gonna pick a fight with the state, make sure you're better prepared than the Panthers. Learn from their mistakes, learn from the successes of the SNCC and SCLC and learn some military theory about targeting the will of the opponent rather than reducing war to pure bloodshed.
If you don't want to read a book, maybe a blog post is more digestible?
Against the State – A Primer on Terrorism, Insurgency and Protest
The people that tell you violence doesn't work. Hold a monopoly on violence.
Violence is the last resort, but that's where the billionaire dickheads are taking us.
Remember that the j6 rioters got everything they thought they wanted, and they got a pardon.
If violence doesn't solve your problem, it's because you aren't using enough of it.
the difference between violence as an act of aggression/dominance/establishing hierarchy, versus an equalizing force to regain autonomy/dismantle said hierarchy
I always see it like a game of tug of way. With 2 sides. there needs to be tension. If there is no pull at one of the sides then the other side just pull all the rope. These situations need a level of tension.
There's two sides but three teams; don't forget the centrists forever pulling for the right.
Centrists trying to cut the steel rope with plastic scissors
Good. Scare the fuck out of them.
I wonder how many government officials, local and state, have been paid off to ignore public input, know they aren't getting reelected, but don't care because they've gotten enough to retire.
In my county they changed tune on data centers 6 months before running for re-election and won re-election. People have short memories or never knew to begin with.
The only government that works for the people is a government that is afraid of the people
That's evidentially the only way, since the councils just don't care
Violence can be an effective strategy.
Let them cool data centers with the tears of the Martin Luther King Jr that white supremacists invented.
Speak softly (peacefully protest) and carry a big stick (riot).
Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.
You need both.
Good. You weren't elected to fuck over your constituents
Thats just awful.
/s