I don't think I've seen a protest accomplish anything in my entire lifetime in the US. The 60s get mythologized, but that was more than fifty years ago.
We have learned that organization gets you targeted and infiltrated, like the ICE protestors in Minneapolis. We've learned that you can go to jail for 30 years for moving boxes of zines if someone you organized with gets arrested doing something you aren't a part of. We've learned that we are under surveillance at almost all times.
We've also seen Luigi move the needle, and school shootings pretty much every week.
So. Honestly, I think lone wolves are going to matter and protests aren't, at least until we see a big national security reform.
The big problem here is that there is a natural limit on the number of morons and mentally unbalanced individuals in any given population that will buy the anti-Palestinian pro-Hamas antizionist line, or the anti-Western pro-Communist line.
As a French citizen living in France, I’m very confused by the way Americans understand what’s going on here. What the government pledged to do is not only putting a bandaid on a bullet wound, it’s nothing more than the plan they already had before the protests started. So far, the only real response from the government has been a massive and violent repression. Just to give you an idea, over 6800 protesters — 86% kids— have been arrested in the span of 2 months. Thats breaking records even by Macron’s standards. The police have received no order to moderate their response or pull back punches, contrary to what they did when farmers burnt down a government building during protests a couple years ago (farmers are mostly white right wing leaning voters, whereas high school students are diverse and left leaning non voters). On the contrary, we have seen teenagers lose their eye, their hand, their jaw(!!!), being strangled, dragged, beaten and kicked while on the ground. There is literally no difference between the violence of French Police and ICE in the US: they cover their faces and their badge numbers so it’s impossible to report them. They detain minors without allowing them to speak to an attorney or even call their parents.
Please, please, please for the love of God and everything you hold dear, stop ignoring Macron’s dictatorial tendencies because he’s more charismatic and better spoken than Trump. In 10 years in power, he has been dismantling what was left of the welfare state piece by piece, bypassing l’assemblée nationale (the chamber of representatives, which is the democratically elected law-making body given that our senate is not elected by the people) and ruling by decree instead of law. He has refused to engage or negotiate with any social movement, from the gilet jaunes, to students, to hospital workers, to anyone who wasn’t further on the right than he is. He dissolved l’assemblée nationale promising to lead in concert with whatever majority would win the new elections because he thought the far right would win and he wanted to legitimize his far right policies. A coalition of the left parties won and still he appointed a right wing prime minister.
I really need you (you personally and you Americans plural) to understand we are not winning and we will not win until he’s gone. Macron is better looking and better spoken than Trump but that’s where the improvement ends. He is a neoliberal, oligarch-bidding, war mongering, far right (barely) in hiding piece of garbage.
One message, and one that can fit on a bumper sticker. That's it. Get the jeep unstuck first, and figure out the details later. That works for work place organizing and it works in politics. The right has it down to a fine art. We should be taking notes. Or we can just continue to pen gauzy think pieces and pay attention to people more in love with the idea of being a "union guy" or "activist" than pushing for systemic change.
I don't think I've seen a protest accomplish anything in my entire lifetime in the US. The 60s get mythologized, but that was more than fifty years ago.
We have learned that organization gets you targeted and infiltrated, like the ICE protestors in Minneapolis. We've learned that you can go to jail for 30 years for moving boxes of zines if someone you organized with gets arrested doing something you aren't a part of. We've learned that we are under surveillance at almost all times.
We've also seen Luigi move the needle, and school shootings pretty much every week.
So. Honestly, I think lone wolves are going to matter and protests aren't, at least until we see a big national security reform.
I don't think
The big problem here is that there is a natural limit on the number of morons and mentally unbalanced individuals in any given population that will buy the anti-Palestinian pro-Hamas antizionist line, or the anti-Western pro-Communist line.
As a French citizen living in France, I’m very confused by the way Americans understand what’s going on here. What the government pledged to do is not only putting a bandaid on a bullet wound, it’s nothing more than the plan they already had before the protests started. So far, the only real response from the government has been a massive and violent repression. Just to give you an idea, over 6800 protesters — 86% kids— have been arrested in the span of 2 months. Thats breaking records even by Macron’s standards. The police have received no order to moderate their response or pull back punches, contrary to what they did when farmers burnt down a government building during protests a couple years ago (farmers are mostly white right wing leaning voters, whereas high school students are diverse and left leaning non voters). On the contrary, we have seen teenagers lose their eye, their hand, their jaw(!!!), being strangled, dragged, beaten and kicked while on the ground. There is literally no difference between the violence of French Police and ICE in the US: they cover their faces and their badge numbers so it’s impossible to report them. They detain minors without allowing them to speak to an attorney or even call their parents.
Please, please, please for the love of God and everything you hold dear, stop ignoring Macron’s dictatorial tendencies because he’s more charismatic and better spoken than Trump. In 10 years in power, he has been dismantling what was left of the welfare state piece by piece, bypassing l’assemblée nationale (the chamber of representatives, which is the democratically elected law-making body given that our senate is not elected by the people) and ruling by decree instead of law. He has refused to engage or negotiate with any social movement, from the gilet jaunes, to students, to hospital workers, to anyone who wasn’t further on the right than he is. He dissolved l’assemblée nationale promising to lead in concert with whatever majority would win the new elections because he thought the far right would win and he wanted to legitimize his far right policies. A coalition of the left parties won and still he appointed a right wing prime minister.
I really need you (you personally and you Americans plural) to understand we are not winning and we will not win until he’s gone. Macron is better looking and better spoken than Trump but that’s where the improvement ends. He is a neoliberal, oligarch-bidding, war mongering, far right (barely) in hiding piece of garbage.
Agreed.
One message, and one that can fit on a bumper sticker. That's it. Get the jeep unstuck first, and figure out the details later. That works for work place organizing and it works in politics. The right has it down to a fine art. We should be taking notes. Or we can just continue to pen gauzy think pieces and pay attention to people more in love with the idea of being a "union guy" or "activist" than pushing for systemic change.