this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2025
572 points (93.7% liked)

No Stupid Questions

39248 readers
1652 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here. This includes using AI responses and summaries.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I'm shocked that I haven't seen one protest yet. Is the media suppressing them? If there aren't any, why?

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] salena@lemm.ee 29 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Bernie and AOC just got 34,000 people at a protest they did. Check out 50501... They seem to be rallying point. You might need to check them out here or on Blue Sky though, tik tok is deleting comments about them and Facebook will soon also probably. But yeah, for some reason the protests are not hitting the media

[–] faythofdragons@slrpnk.net 27 points 21 hours ago

The revolution will not be televised

[–] Tezzerets_Tea_Time@lemmy.world 62 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There are regular protests of thousands of people all across the country, but it never hits top headlines. There aren't nearly as many as there should be, but we're largely a broken people, a collective beaten dog cowed in the corner. We're burnt out. Literally every direction we turn, things are falling apart. The working class is almost entirely one or two paychecks from homelessness. Minimum wage hasn't increased in 15 years despite year after year of record earnings and productivity. A third of the country genuinely believes a rapist conman is their literal biblical savior.

We're fucking tired, man.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] asg101@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Millions protested against the invasion of Iraq, the USA invaded Iraq anyway. Mass protests are ignored by the oligarchs.

Now if the USians grew spines and organized a general strike, that might get the ruling class's attention.

[–] SendPrudes@lemm.ee 11 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Can’t get a general strike to work when the majority of utility workers are magats. The algos target the blue collar industry for this very reason. Look at what the conservative / fascist media arms of your own country are targeting very specifically. Its core services for corporate enablement.

Transportation, construction, farming, police force all fine if we try a general strike tomorrow. Most upper middle class also are magats. So bank services, middle management, accounting and financial CIO / CEO teams all also are not participating.

General strike happens tomorrow and protesters in the streets will be arrested - people who are Dems or anti fascist will lose their jobs and houses.

We are in a no win game.

[–] Cantaloupe877@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago

There are many, but nobody reports them.

[–] agent_nycto@lemmy.world 40 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Ok so everyone wants one, right? Feels like it'll be dramatic and big and change and fix everything, even if it gets violent.

But there's problems with that, not only in execution but also results.

One problem is the US is massive. It would take almost as much planning as a moon landing to effectively organize a protest that large, even if you only do the continental 48 states. Some of those states alone are as large as some European countries, some are larger, so the size alone gets in the way of things.

Then you have the problem with getting all the people protesting to agree to a cohesive protest. Where to protest, what to protest specifically about, and to have a solid list of demands. Trying to get that amount of people to agree on anything alone would be huge. Like my mother says, it's like herding cats.

And then there's the matter of getting that info out there. Occupy wall Street and BLM did have a comprehensive list of demands but the media pretended they didn't. Almost all media is owned by like, six corporations, so even getting the instructions for that protest would be incredibly hard. And lest people forget, those media companies are final, so most of the media in other countries hearing about this will have just as much information surpression and do already. So it would be incredibly hard to get a comprehensive plan, demands, and instructions out el to everyone.

Also don't forget that we have the technological spying that didn't exist before. Cameras are everywhere. Not only in your phone, but on almost every street. People even put those Ring doorbells on their homes and that company sells it's video footage to the police, and doesn't turn off, so any protest could be monitored and nipped in the bud. We have whole agencies devoted to surpressing protests and entire handbooks in infiltrating them.

Then there's logistics and provisions. Most Americans can't afford to travel, much less take a week or two off of work, or a month, to protest long term. We can barely afford to keep ourselves fed with what we're getting paid, and if we were protesting in one specific location, most of us couldn't take the time to get there much less afford to. We have to feed the majority of almost an entire continent in one location for an extended period of time.

And if it was one specific location, the hospitals, hotels, grocery stores and restaurants would be so overwhelmed that they couldn't handle everyone.

Speaking of hospitals, if, as in when, the police and military attacked the protest, most people could never afford the medical treatment to be able to get patched up, much less their lives saved.

And speaking of the police and military, we have the most militarized police force on the planet. Our police don't have just batons, they have live rounds of ammunition and full on tanks. And they are more than willing to use them on civilians, especially in protesters. Look up Blair Mountain and the Kent State shooting. Not only could this crush a protest, but people would have to be ok with the idea they would very likely die.

And our prison system, being for profit, would salivate at the idea of getting more slave labor en masse, and the current administration is more than happy to detain people over trivial things. So everyone would have to be ok with life imprisonment if they didn't get shot.

On top of that, not everyone is on board. About a third to a half of the country is in favor of what's happening and have a cult around Trump and Musk. A lot of people voted for this and are in favor of it, because they really, really hate the liberals, Democrats, gays, minorities, etc. There's a whole media pipeline for this that they listen to, especially young people who normally are the type to protest this stuff. So there would be resistance from civilians on top of not everyone being in favor of the protest.

Then there's the problem of what that protest would actually accomplish. Even if you pulled it off, because of the supply issues, it would be short lived. Maybe a week or two, being surpressed by the military and police, and demonized in the media. The oligarchs would simply wait it out. It wouldn't enact long term change, even if everyone could agree with what they want changed in the first place. So it might not be effective even if it was pulled off.

And the primary opposition party, which should be doing anything, has adapted a strategy of self preservation. Concede to the fascists for now, bide your time, then come election season tell everyone that you are the better and only choice (because winner takes all so they are the only alternative) and hope for a blue wave in four years. Can't make any changes if you're not in power, so do what you can to keep it now and believe that if things get bad enough now people will come crawling back. So very little actual support for a protest would come from on top.

And then, if we look at history, a lot of rebellions needed other countries to support them in order to be successful. Most of them had outside influence from other major powers. The other major powers right now are either in favor of the government, turning fascist themselves, or if they did intervene would risk starting a war with the US which has the biggest military in the history of humanity. So not a lot of help would come from the outside, if any.

So while we also would like a massive protest, there are huge issues in the way of effectively pulling it off.

So what's been happening has been local efforts. You might not hear about town hall protests or stuff in individual state capitals in other countries, but those smaller fires are burning. There's been economic protests, like the backlash against Tesla and the no buying day, which apparently was started to get people to dip their toes into a national protest. There's been a lot of smaller community organizing, which hopefully adds up. I think and hope there will be more individual direct action, perhaps more Luigi strategies on specific individuals, as things get worse. Maybe more guerilla tactics, French resistance style efforts, are what is going to happen rather than a massive protest.

Tldr: We ARE doing stuff here. We hate this more than anyone. The change will have to come in less exciting ways than a big, national rebellion, so sorry you're not getting as much of a spectacle, we'd like that, too, but there's a lot of prep work that would need to be done to pull it off that needs to happen first. We aren't sitting by and letting this happen, and we are working towards fixing things.

[–] misteloct@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You're describing a fascist government in many ways.

[–] agent_nycto@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (16 children)

Yeah my guy I'm pretty sure we're one "this election was cancelled Trump is president for life" legislation away from it being official.

load more comments (16 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] foggy@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago (4 children)

It's going to take a unifying event that is unifyingly abhorrent.

Until that show drops, no movement will take enough momentum with it.

Wait until a Mayors daughter gets sent to gitmo for protesting at college. Wait until the social security checks bounce. Wait until the next viral George Floyd police killing.

The tension is simmering.

[–] ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 4 points 23 hours ago

I think that the thing that made the protests for George Floyd and Covid policies so widespread was people were out of work. The capitalist system has done a very good job of binding us to our jobs. we need a change that will put large amounts of people on the streets with little to lose. An economic collapse might do it.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] winter7@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You also have to understand the sheer size of the USA. It's not like everyone can go to DC that easily. The protests are taking place in all states.

[–] match@pawb.social 8 points 1 day ago

to have the biggest effect though we really should be blockading DC. blockading the capital is the most effective form of demonstration as evidence by MLK's March on Washington, EDSA, Euromaidan, basically any successful protests.

protesting at your own state capital is okay for state level changes (see the state-by-state results of BLM).

protesting at the financial center is pointless because the rich don't actually do work (see Occupy).

if you want national change you demonstrate at the national capital for long enough to make the dictator flee the country (or whatever your goal is)

[–] Triasha@lemmy.world 32 points 1 day ago

There have been dozens.

[–] hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 44 points 1 day ago (2 children)

There are. And from what I know, apparently the media avoids reporting about them.

[–] PanArab@lemm.ee 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Some states also have laws that allow drivers to run over protesters

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] match@pawb.social 7 points 1 day ago

where are you? are you in the US, outside the US, rural, urban? I'm in a relatively small urb and even i see protests, and have attended them. if you're not seeing them reported, you need to change your information sources. if you're not seeing them in person, well, that's a question of whether you're in a dense enough area for protests to make sense

[–] blady_blah@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Because, in reality, peaceful protests don't work. We've been taught that they do, but they don't.

The most successful protest going on right now is against Tesla. A bit of anonymous property destruction and a boycott, crashing the stock price, those things actually work. Getting together and holding signs doesn't actually do anything, especially in some place like California.

[–] Curmudge_john@lazysoci.al 4 points 19 hours ago

Good news, Peaceful protests are actually twice as likely to bring about change. Better news, peaceful protests with only 3.5% of the population actively participating have never failed to bring about change. Even better news, we have strong leadership in Bernie Sanders and AOC leading this movement, 34,000 people showed up to a recent rally in Denver.

*Source https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 16 hours ago

They work. As long as people make sure that the top knows that the alternative are guillotines

[–] smontanaro@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago

Find a protest, bang your drum.

https://theblop.org/

[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I dunno about you bro but there's a protest every other day in Denver. We're getting there.

The question is how Dumbfuck will respond. There's an unverified rumor the Insurrection Act may be invoked on April 20th owing to an executive order signed on January 20th. If it gets to that point, we will find out how far our military is willing to stretch its service to the Constitution.

Don't be afraid. Don't look away.

[–] Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

I don't call them protests. I call them "Opportunity to arrest figure heads of whatever movement in order to eliminate momentum and silently kill the cause since no North American protest seems like anything more than cows being led to a slaughter house by cops getting paid overtime to kick heads"

[–] xor@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 1 day ago

the media is definitely suppressing it….

[–] Kwyjibo1@lemmy.myserv.one 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Bread and cicuses, when those run out people will be in the streets.

[–] fake_meows@lemm.ee 8 points 1 day ago

My friend said that if Steam and Netflix both went down at the same time there would be huge riots. I am not sure they are wrong.

[–] Nangijala@feddit.dk 35 points 1 day ago (2 children)

There have been protests in every single state for awhile now. At least that is what I have heard through the grapevine. I'm Danish so I haven't seen the protests with my own two eyes, but I have seen pictures, read posts and talked to Americans who are out protesting. From what I have been told, it is unheard of that there are protests for the same cause in all 50 states at the same time. It is historic, but I'm not surprised that the greatest president who ever lived wouldn't want that information to slip out in the media. It would hurt his fee-fees bigly.

[–] BreadAndThread@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Next Saturday is a massive country wide protest at 500 Tesla dealerships and charging stations all across the country. I'm hoping that's too hard for the media to hide.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 55 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There are. I've been to a few. They don't get covered by the media.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›