cross-posted from: https://expressional.social/users/Peter_Link/statuses/116297296931682941
#US protest on Saturday, March 28 - #NoKings 3 – just released press video/advertisement.
[Just got this from a local Signal chat group.]It’s pretty good, definitely worth sharing. I hope that defenders of #Iran and #Palestine will be there, so I am tagging this for them.
Ni kings protests 1&2 literally did shit all to change anything, for one because these were just one day manifestations that disappeared the next day and nobody cared.
What is this protest supposed to achieve? Seriously, why even bother if it’s just another single day protest that changes exactly nothing?
Edit: I’m seriously not trying to be negative, it’s a serious question: what is the goal? You have concentration camps, people are being taken from the streets, you have a pedophile president destroying the world, and these one day no kings protest really is the best you can do? Can you at least make it a week worth of protests? I know it’s a cost, I know Americans can’t because work won’t let them, but FFS, that IS the problem, you should be able to just protest whenever you want and you literally can’t because you don’t have vacation days? You want that to stay the same forever? You want no change?
What are you going to do?
From a recent article on this topic:
Critics have pointed out No Kings’ lack of a policy platform as a flaw, a sign that the movement has no real demands.
Marcus Board Jr, a political scientist at Howard University and author of Invisible Weapons: Infiltrating Resistance and Defeating Movements, argues that the standard by which we judge movements – did they produce legislation? Did they win federal policy changes? – reflects an outdated model of political change, one built for a different era. “The legislative and federal route made us think that we could change the world without changing people,” he said. “That’s just not the case.”
The real measure of success, Greenberg said, is what happens in the weeks and months after No Kings: how many people who came out for the first time get asked to the next meeting, the next training, the next organizing effort.
“It’s about the day of, but it’s also about how many people get asked: ‘Hey, can you come to a follow-up meeting? We’re going to talk about our neighborhood’s fight against this warehouse for ICE,’” Greenberg said. “Those are going to be the things that help us see: are we absorbing more people? Are we trying new tactics? Are we getting more people into the fight?”
The point of No Kings isn’t to magically end the Trump regime in one day. It’s to onboard folks into the resistance movement so that they can work collectively at chipping away the pillars of support of the Trump regime—over the course of months and, if needed, years.
i participated in the largest national no kings protest… and was basically used as a back drop for trumps birthday parade. a protest does not work unless it has leverage, and if the media is hostile to your cause… well there goes the leverage.
Maybe ask the French how to do a protest, then.
They too don’t have leverage, they make their leverage. They make sure they can’t be ignored and they go at it for months if they have to.
A single day protest is going to do so little that the Cheeto won’t even have to bother thinking about it.
You need to have a permanent protest in front of the Whitehouse, and congress and the equivalent state houses in every goddamn state in your country. Be there 24/7. Make yourself unignorable.
Wishing Americans all the best. Stay safe out there guys.
A core principle behind all No Kings events is a commitment to nonviolent action. We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values and to act lawfully at these events. Weapons of any kind, including those legally permitted, should not be brought to events.
Rare to see a “militant” geezer support a fascist event⸮
