cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/34641538
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2026
499 points (92.6% liked)
Political Memes
12202 readers
2883 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
1) Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
2) No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
3) Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
4) No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
5) No AI generated content.
Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Lots of people talking about revolution and fighting the government, but this is largely irrelevant at this moment.
What is a source of oppression to which this is immediately relevant? Personal defense from white supremacist stochastic terrorists and individuals wanting to commit violent hate crimes. In the near term flare ups of right-wing paramilitary and lynch mobs are possible as well, location and circumstances dependent.
If you live in America, I would wager that you're aware of armed would-be fascists in your neighborhood. I would wager you can check social media for your local area and find a presence of right-wing paramilitary. I would wager that depending on the color of your skin or gender presentation, a call to the police could mean a roll of the dice on becoming a statistic of state violence.
Yes, it would be preferable if all of those groups did not have weapons, however this is America. Until disarmament is universal, unilateral imposition of gun access limitations means access will be affordable only to those with wealth.
Others cryptically calling for Luigi: First, I would also ask you what changed about the behavior of United Healthcare and the US for-profit health abuses as a result of his actions? If you are going to encourage others to throw away their life in the same way, what are you doing behind the keyboard? With these critiques that others don't have any guts, aren't you just externalizing your hypocrisy?
Second, I would ask you to look at the many decades history of assassinations in Russia in the pre-revolutionary period in which this became a very common and very ineffective tool. In fact it was so ineffective, it resulted in the Tsarists infiltrating Left groups and encouraging assassinations due to the public alienation and sense of helplessness it fostered.
Compare these failed actions to the successes of the Russian Revolution.
As Trotsky wrote in 1911:
For all your talk of asking others what they plan to do about it themselves, and that their solution will not work, it seems you too are doing the same. So, please, what are the alternatives you see to steer humanity away from the evils that continue to curtail other avenues of recourse.
I don't think many who oppose what's going on want violence, that's perhaps one of the key factors separating the two. I certainly don't, it seems like one of the more wasteful things we do as a species. But there's a line, there's always a line.
What you can see of what I do is on a Lemmy forum, so I would not be so quick to judge. As others have encouraged in this thread, I'm pursuing the tactics of organizing community resistance, organizing labor, and political education.
Actually, I am like you in that I don't want violence. We should use nonviolent methods of political change to their fullest extent until those avenues become fully blocked. Of course, we live in violence perpetrated by the state every day, it is just legalized.
Studying the history of Leftist movements internationally, there is a repeated pattern of persecution though violence as well as outright purges. Those that were not prepared to defend themselves and their community were killed. Even those that were, were unfortunately often killed.
So what kind of community resistance are you doing? Are you hiring or just bull shitting
'Hiring' in what sense? You can 'hire' yourself and start if you're sympathetic and not already engaged. You don't even have to like or agree with the 'gun part' if you don't find yourself so inclined.
Knowing your neighbors and disaster prep is a good square one.
If you'd like to get involved in in your area, I'd suggest mutual aid networks, rapid response, and harm reduction groups. If you're looking for relevant skill building SRA, Stop the Bleed/First Aid trainings, and Meshtastic communities are also useful.
You'll find many of the same people are engaged in political actions, counter-protests, ICE watch, and labor organization. Helping organize responses, protests, and labor activity is a natural extension of building a broader community structure and helps connect the dots. When something like the Minnesota resistance to Metro Surge flares up, these sorts of networks are there to funnel the people's energies into productive activity.
Fantastic comment, very well written.