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Vote locally
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Run locally
If you can rally people behind a cause, go for it.
Other than that. Nothing really. Try to spend money with those that align with your values.
Unrelated, but likely more important. Donate to charity, or help the homeless in your own community.
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Unless you’re a billionaire or willing to go full Player 2, there’s nothing you can do on a macro scale.
You can, in your little slice of the world, do good things. When ICE asks you if you’ve seen someone, you tell them you haven’t. If you’re walking past a business getting raided and see a brown person, you tell them to turn around and get away. If you run a school and ICE shows up, you stand up for the kids they’re trying to kidnap. If you see ICE kidnapping someone, at minimum, film and post it. If there’s a group of people willing to physically intervene, join them.
That’s it.
Voting doesn’t solve this because all Democrats have to offer is strongly-worded letters, and Donald uses those letters to wipe Elon Musk’s ass. Their choice was aiding and abetting fascism or getting richer, and they chose the money.
Furthermore:
Be aware of local political groups in your areas that share values that align with yours. Generally, have a practice of being involved. Work out how your state and local elections and party machines operate, run for empty positions or support good candidates who will do the job, and not sell out to the local moneybags.
Attend protests. Sure, it might look like a bunch of people standing outside getting rained on with soggy cardboard signs, but protest works. It shows others that even though you may be afraid, you’re still standing up for what you believe is right. Support protests you agree with - order them some pizzas or something.
There’s no longer a choice about what to do - become an activist, or become complicit.
Attend protests.
Meh, not sure I agree on this one, unless you’re part of the Marsha P. Johnson school of brick throwing and you’re going armed. Protests accomplish nothing (apart from making it easier for ICE to identify people) without a credible threat of violence.
I disagree with you. Protests accomplish a great deal, and send an undeniable message when that message is appropriately scoped and targeted.
Protests show popular support for an issue in ways that are impossible to minimize or ignore, and they are effective in moving the needle on issues. Have a few tens of thousands of people take to the streets sends an undeniable message. Even getting a hundred people to chant something in a town square sends an undeniable message. Just because the outcome isn’t immediately visible doesn’t mean that nothing was accomplished.
NEVER go to a protest armed, that defeats the purpose. Why make a situation worse by making everyone surrounding the protest regardless of whether they’re uniform, or just someone getting to and from lunch fearful for their lives? That’s very bad advice. Additionally, gearing up almost automatically makes for a bad look. Half of what a protest aims to accomplish is to show the other side of an issue “We are here, we aren’t something you should be afraid of, we are people like you” - how is that aim going to be achieved by masking up like a bunch of cosplaying militarized goons? You don’t want that. I don’t want that. Believe it or not, I doubt half of the people co-opted into ICE want that. And part of the message has to be “We don’t need this in our lives”
Just take a look at the campus protests regarding the Palestinian Genocide. First off the students were made out to be violent, which as it turns out is largely untrue, then a bunch of pro-israel actual crazies showed up and started assaulting them (and random people) on the street. Not a good look, even with media minimization. By simply being there, and refusing to give up, they have raised awareness on the issue despite the personal cost. Those people have taken a great personal risk to do something about a situation they find ethically intolerable. I think that deserves respect, at the very least.
Be loud, focused and get your point across, but be respectful. I’ve seen police step in to stop potentially/violent counterprotestors on many occasions, believe it or not they do actually try to be neutral even in the face of provocation - so don’t offer that kind of fear to anyone sharing the local environment whilst making your point. There’s so little respectful middle ground remaining that it is critical to preserve it, because this is now a wasting asset.
This situation is now tilting towards the question of how much the lack of protest and visible popular opposition emboldens a group of self-serving individuals, before the cumulative risk becomes worse than the risk of protesting and possibly getting hurt. Constant, nonviolent protest in even the face of state violence is how to win this, and sure, that puts the protestors at risk. Risk is part of this equation, it’s coming for us - for many it’s already here - and can no longer be ignored.
I get that it’s hard work. Sometimes it feels like nothing is accomplished, and it’s not shocking and awe inspiring…but Hard Work is what’s required to correct this trajectory. We spend so much time and effort making entertainment about one special person or one special moment that we’ve given ourselves a social impediment vs. truly understanding the kinds of efforts, risks and suffering it took to get to a more equitable society in the first place.
You and I will just have to agree to disagree on this. Have a good day.
👏👏👏
join your local protests today :)
if protests didn’t work they wouldn’t try so hard to fight it/buty it
they say violence is never the answer but historically, well, history disagrees.
My issue is I never know there ARE protests until like 4 days after it happened.
ugh. for real though lol
I’ve been recommended 50501 and mobilize.us
there’s also !50501@piefed.social and !Mirror@50501.chat on lemmy
Check for any local organizations such as DSA. Their mailing lists can keep you posted on protests near you
General strikes
Tax strikes
____ing politicians who support the genocide
Primary, right?
Become Luigi.
The Spanish went on general strike to stop their country’s complicity in genocide, but failing that you can start with these guys. You can just write BDS on Wikipedia if you want to know what they’re about, but this site has plenty of concrete, actionable steps you can take to reduce your, your community’s, your workplace’s and—with enough people on board—your country’s complicity in genocide. I’d suggest looking into apartheid-free zones as a start. I also want to note that the best thing you can do for Palestinians is to spread the word and get more people on the side of humanity.
Also, if you’re not already doing so, organize in your community and workplace, and use your collective leverage to push for causes you care about. Be an active participant in the fight against fascism and for democracy, equity and solidarity. These values, I should add, are already mutually exclusive with Zionism, so you’d be hitting two birds with one stone.
Edit: In case anyone wants assurance that this works (or just wants to enjoy some economic schadenfreude), enjoy.
Spain did not go to general strike.
A general strike was convoked by a small union (as it is their right) and basically no one seconded the strike.
I don’t think I could, on good faith, call it a general strike if basically no one stopped working. Was a very minoritarian thing. General strike was called as it is a right unions have, but if workers decide not to follow there’s not a real strike to talk about.
Source: I’m Spanish and I clearly remember first hand what happened.
Second source: https://funcionpublica.digital.gob.es/dam/es/portalsefp/funcion-publica/dialogo-social/seguimiento-huelgas/27_9_2024_Datos_Huelga_General_convocada_por_CGT_y_SUO.pdf Strike supporting numbers for AGE workers. As you see about 1% of public workers followed the strike.
When the government is powerful enough to cause genocides, that’s a problem. It’s far easier to just not give your money to a business that engages in such practices.
Not giving money to your government, however, is considered tax evasion.
Talk with people! Discuss it with your friends! Be aware that they might have a very different outlook on this, so be patient with people. Here is a list of things to do when discussing this with people supporting Israel:
- Don’t berate them. These are your friends, not murderers. Direct your anger towards the actual murderers.
- Ask them if they believe Israel is mounting a heavy disinformation/propaganda campaign towards the west. If they do not believe this, it is relatively easy to prove, see example below.
- Show them the Twitter accs of Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. These guys are quite outspoken in their intentions.
- Show them examples of heroic acts of Palestinas, rather than just Palestinians suffering. This will help them respect Arabs, as that seems to be difficult for many Americans due to two and a half decades of Indoctrination that all arabs all terrorists.
- Also the obvious things (tens of thousands of children killed, not letting food enter, cutting off water, etc)
Example of Israeli disinformation: They created a fake hamas website (hamas dotttt com) whereas the real website was taken down from all of internet (hamas dottt ps). The fake one was heavily promoted by Israel’s official twitter acc and several Israeli government officials on twitter and recieved heavy traffic during Oct 2023-end of 2024. Use the wayback machine or similar for this, I believe both sites are down now.
There has also been many, many other lies by the Israeli government. Find proved examples and show.
Learn basic electronics and how to solder to weaponize commercial drones.
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Buy a gun, and start learning to use it. Now is not the time, but be prepared should it.
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Stop supporting the right wing duopoly that enabled it
On an individual level one should also start getting fit and learning basic defensr/boxing.
E: To be clear I am not saying we should start fights, but fitness is overall useful and healthy. Being able to defend oneself is important to confidently defuse a situation too.
Fuck I’ll say that. The best thing for everybody is if Nazis are physically afraid to walk the streets.
Bold of you to assume they walk anywhere. This is America not communist China with public sidewalks and transit.
/s
And “fit” doesn’t have to mean “able to run a marathon”. That might not be achievable for you. Even minor improvements can be big, though. For example, I have lower back pain. It sucks and I do not recommend it.
I’ve started physical therapy. It’s two 30-minute sessions a week, plus 10 minutes of homework stretches every day. My pain is much less than when I started.
I feel much more able to do things like long trips to the grocery store. Before, I’d sometimes have to beg off and lie down in the car and let my partner finish the trip.
Anyways, fitness. It’s good. YMMV, PT might not work for you, I am not a doctor.
And “fit” doesn’t have to mean “able to run a marathon”.
True, but many people cannot jog a mile. Let alone a flight of stairs.
True! Let’s encourage them to work towards goals that seem attainable and worthwhile.
Sometimes, just small changes can make a big difference to the individual. I used to take the elevator to my 5th-floor office. Now I take the stairs. The only conscious change to my routine was converting from carrying a bag/purse to carrying a backpack–I carry the same amount of stuff more comfortably, and so the stairs don’t seem daunting.
leave the country. You are paying taxes, purchasing goods and services, raising families, and just being here enables the genocide machine to continue churning. We have no representation here. It’s all performative. But take their money away and oh boy do they notice that.
Ok moneybags what us poors?
I can’t afford to leave either. Which means I can’t fight back either.
Don’t worry we’ll meaning people with escape hatches will save us, wait no that’s never how it works out. We just die
If you are profitable why are you even alive?
Speak up, tell people what you think and why.
If that doesn’t work: something was added to your constitution for this situation, the second amendment. You can use your six shooter to go up to the government’s tank and gunships. Good luck.
We don’t put it in the tourism brochures, but it turns out guns are really expensive. Which sucks because the fash seem to have all the money at the moment.
bullets add up pretty quick too, depending on your budget. Novice shooters tend to shoot for the head (human target) and hit the target 60% of the time at 3 feet for a stationary target, 24% at nine feet. Its less for moving targets.
Missing a target thats literally 3 feet from you sounds crazy but once you try it you will see how frustrating it can be to hold a pistol right and line it up right to the target. I’ve walked up to stationary grouse on roadways (they come in the morning to eat rocks to aid digestion) and blasted all around them missing each time from 5 feet away. Luckily they are incredibly stupid and just stand there, or look at the spot where the bullet hit on the ground, confused.
–Kreskin, the mighty hunter.
