Fascist policy has moved quickly in response to the recent solidarity encampments that sprang up to support Palestine. It seems like every state action right now is geared toward either making sure these camps can never again exist, or they can legally be crushed by any fascist who wishes to do so. I’m NGL, it’s a scary time to be an American with left views right now.

What’s happening just off the top of my head:

  • Camps are being destroyed and dispersed by armed police, attacked by right-wing mobs, and harassed by Zionist propaganda shops.
  • Positive coverage of the protests on mainstream media is near-zero. Same thing we saw during BLM protests in 2020.
  • Individual protestors are facing consequences ranging from doxxing to harassment, to school suspensions, expulsion, and jail time.

That’s all run-of-the-mill, seen that before. What’s new:

  • A man who was convicted, by a jury, of murdering protestors was just pardoned by the Governor of Texas.
  • Protests continue to be attacked by fascists in vehicles.
  • The federal government & many states are passing laws changing the definition of antisemitism to include the messages that the students were using at the camps, making it that much easier to legally suppress them.
  • At least one state (NC) is about to change it’s mask law to prevent protestors from wearing masks to protect themselves from Zionist retaliation.

So… protesting is basically banned, extremely dangerous, and silenced due to media blackout, state oppression, and social media bias. I know showing solidarity is important but I am struggling with seeing the local camp my local org helped support, a group of peaceful students and activists, just utterly crushed. IDK what to say to the people who effectively lost their rights to free speech.

Any ideas on what to do? How to escalate? How to protest in a way that is more effective and safer for the folks involved? I know the state is scared of these movements growing because of the sheer amount of action it is taking to quell these. At the same time I see these tactics working. I am tired of seeing good people dragged into jail. I’m tired of seeing them speared under the false charges of “anti-Semitism”. I’m afraid of losing the life I have if I speak out. It feels like literally everyone is against us and it is depressing af.

I originally wanted to post a question about defending against vehicular attacks, but I remembered everything going on and realized there’s a lot more stopping protests than that. I don’t have the answers but hopefully we can collectively figure out some options.

  • Droplet [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    14·
    2 months ago

    As Lenin said: Учиться, учиться и ещё раз учиться!

    Study, study, and study again!

    Read theory.

    It is never enough to protest, or even doing armed struggle. You will lose.

    The liberal capitalist class has prepared and perfected their tactics for this very moment for over a hundred years, ever since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.

    Look at the Italian communist movement, crushed by fascists since 1921. Look at the German communist movement, crushed by the social democrats and fascists since 1919.

    Fascism is liberal capitalism’s answer to Leninism, and they have since perfected fascist violence across Europe as post-war Gladio operations, and as far away as in Indonesia in Asia and in Chile in Latin America, just to name a few.

    The predicament of the Western left is made exponentially worse by the fact that there is no organized left in the West, which is partially why there hasn’t been fascist violence systemically enacted against the toothless Western leftist protests, yet.

    You are facing against the most brutal and violent political machineries that have murdered tens of millions over the past century. They will not hesitate to do the same at home when the situation calls for it.

    The fact is that we are heading towards the rise of fascism in the West once more, just like it did a hundred years ago in response to the contradictions of capitalism and the proliferation of leftist movements, and you better believe that they - the capitalist class - are more than prepared for this.

    Don’t fool yourself into thinking that the capitalists are incompetent and stupid and will trip themselves over. Just look at the history of the past 100 years and tell me they’re not ready to murder millions more to brutally enforce the free market against any opposition.

    That’s why it’s no longer adequate even for armed struggle. You need to take Lenin’s advice to heart and “study, study and study more!” to learn how to defeat not just the capitalist class, but their fascist opposition against socialism.

    Marx and Engels gave us the tools of dialectical and historical materialism. Use them like Lenin and Mao did to emancipate their countries from the yoke of capitalism!