having a bunch of random people gather somewhere to protest

having a group of workers shut down their workplace in protest

The ruling class views college kids and random protesters as basically expendable. The only thing protecting protesters from state violence is the thin reed of public opinion. Workers are necessary for the ruling class to actually function in their day-to-day life. Violent repression still happens but there are actual material consequences to beating & arresting your entire workforce.

The sum total of every vote you ever cast in your entire life is worth less to the state than one week of your labor at a job critical to the function of the economy, like an amazon warehouse.

It feels like literally everyone is against us and it is depressing af.

No, they are pulling out these tactics to silence people because the majority agree with us (on Palestine at least). That's why they're amping up the fascism to give the impression of everyone being against us.

it's never been a good time to be a leftist. Libs, conservatives and ultra right wingers are all fascists in slightly different shades of color. Stalin, as he often is, was correct.

Organise with commies as much as you can and pray China wins

With stopping vehicles the issue is you have a massive object moving at speed and it needs an equal, opposite amount of force to stop it.

to stop movie vehicles is putting a massive object - another vehicle, deeply secured anti-vehicle bollards, tank traps (saw some during BLM20 no shit) between you and the oncoming vehicle. You can use terrain - position yourself somewhere a vehicle cannot easily go, or somewhere it will struggle to go. You could in theory use caltrops and tire poppers but the vehicle will still likely be able to move on damaged tires and you'll need to place them far enough away for the vehicle to come to a stop.

I don't think people are ready to steal heavy equipment and start building ditches and berms.

Shooting the engine won't stop the vehicle. You need at least 12.7mm/.50 bmg to have a chance of damaging the engine enough to stop it and you need a lot of warning. Similarly, shooting the driver won't stop the vehicle unless the driver takes their foot off the pedal. At which point the vehicle will coast to a stop.

Significant barricades - sand bags, tired full of dirt, stacks of concrete barriers, things of that nature will likely dissuade most vehicle attackers and cause significant damage to most civvy vehicles.

Any serious defense is going to bring the cops out but I guess that's just the game we play now.

Keep doing it until forced underground.

Then operate underground.

If the democratic powers that be won't stop enabling genocide, we have to physically prevent the arms from getting to where they're meant to go. Some countries are refusing port access to arms shipments, maybe a similar action at various US ports like have been reported on some indie outlets would be in order.

Its pretty hard core, but I don't see what other options we have. Its possible that some kind of political reform could make a difference, but I imagine that would have to be done as part of a mass anti genocide movement. The timeline for that doesn't really work though and we can't resign ourselves to saying its too late.

Go armed, oh wait some dude will kill you for that then get pardoned

Protests were never really effective anyway. It seems like an unforced error on their part to take away liberals pressure relief value

The UAW strike authorization is a start.

In Bevins, the "successful" protests almost always also required labor in tandem with the protests.

vote

If the state is going to crack down on these actions with military force then these protests need to be organized and armed to match it if they want to sustain themselves. First and foremost that means ideological training and disciplined organization. Later that means weapons and tools to protect their comrades. This doesn't necessarily mean immediately escalating to shootouts with the state but even something as small as maintaining a formation will protect a lot of people in a fight with cops.

Malicious compliance is more strategy than tactics but there are lots of ways to play within the rules while subverting them provided that you are creative.

The other option is to get more serious about things and start hitting operations with strikes and stuff like coordinated sabotage.

Keep organizing. Build affinity groups and deep movements. Get to know the cool people in your communities, and help each other. Theory, sure, but also read history and tactics. Learn to shoot and other new skills.