this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2025
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WHEN PRESIDENT DONALD Trump announced on Saturday night that he would send the National Guard to Los Angeles to crush protests, a narrative emerged on social media that demonstrators had somehow given a gift to the authoritarian president by escalating confrontations with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

“Los Angeles — violence is never the answer. Assaulting law enforcement is never ok,” Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., posted on Sunday. “Indeed, doing so plays directly into the hands of those who seek to antagonize and weaponize the situation for their own gain. Don’t let them succeed.”

In reality, the protesters throwing rocks at heavily armed security forces or attempting to damage the vehicles used to kidnap their immigrant neighbors did not introduce violence. They are instead acting in militant community defense.

After all, would the situation somehow be less violent were ICE left to snatch and disappear people without impediment? Does Schiff imagine either his pronouncements or the empty condemnations of his Democratic Party colleagues will slow down the deportation of our neighbors?

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[–] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 51 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Hearing the LEO parrots quack on about, "oh, the protesters are interfering with lawful action," is so tiring.

Show one valid warrant signed by a judge, I dare them. Trolling Home Depot parking lots and restaurants is called stalking. Abduction and kidnapping is called abduction and kidnapping. All are unlawful crimes in a country that allegedly is "lawful."

[–] Deflated0ne@lemmy.world 30 points 7 hours ago

When the "lawful action" is plain clothes nazis black bagging people off the street because they failed a brown paper bag test they should be interfered with. With deadly force in my opinion.

[–] GuyFawkes@midwest.social 45 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

So if protests can’t be violent, and the authoritarian regime mows down the non-violent, how EXACTLY are we supposed to actually win this?

[–] Signtist@bookwormstory.social 22 points 7 hours ago

We're not? One of our parties may be significantly less sadistic, but they both exist to lock the American people into a life of servitude for the rich. Our votes won't get us out of fascism, they'll only let us choose 4 years of "good cop" or "bad cop." We'll have to actually be okay with making our overlords mad at us in order to escape, and that includes the media; if the news is on your side, you can be sure the rich people who own it aren't sufficiently concerned.

[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 15 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

I think a really good lesson comes from the documentary "Winter on Fire" about the 2014 Maidan protests. The tl;Dr is that the protestors organized a peaceful march, and the police set up a sniper corridor and started mowing people down indiscriminately. They shot people who ran out with stretchers to carry the people who'd been shot. That night, the protestors regrouped and announced their plans to march again tomorrow, and to do so armed, all 90,000 of them. Like a Christmas fucking miracle, the cops found somewhere else to be the next day, and nobody got shot.

https://youtu.be/yzNxLzFfR5w

[–] tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 7 hours ago

While definitely not the same level of violence of that, during the protests in 2020, I never saw the police riot and assault the group when there were armed civilian guards. Even five or so out 100+ people was enough to give the cops pause.

[–] GuyFawkes@midwest.social 5 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Just out of curiosity, what retribution was enacted on the cops for their indiscriminate violence? Because at this point I’d no longer be in a “shake hands and make up, live and let live” state of mind.

[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 5 points 6 hours ago

None, because the cops skipped town; I think it was said that they all left for Belarus, for the most part.

[–] FireTower@lemmy.world 4 points 6 hours ago

Non-violent protests capable of dissuading hostile official intervention through MAD. Peaceable ≠ peaceful.

[–] FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world 19 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Kidnap vans need functioning tires, just sayin.

[–] Fingolfinz@lemmy.world 7 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Caltrops pop them very easily

[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 11 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (2 children)

Apparently, rawlplugs make for better caltrops than simple nails. The hollow tube permits air, which keeps the caltrop from getting plugged into the tire.

Now, the question is how to get the plugs to stick together. Maybe wrap them with Play-doh? It isn't like they have to last for more than one tire, long as they get the job done.

[–] Fingolfinz@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

Epoxy clay for modeling is good for bonding metal kind of expensive for the task though I guess

[–] FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Maybe dental floss or fishing line to make a bundle? And/or wrap in black masking tape to blend with asphalt but easily allow punctures.

[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 2 points 3 hours ago

If stealth is key, black play-doh and dunking the screws into black paint might do the trick. Biggest problem with that, is that civvies might walk onto them. As with landmines, caltrops don't care who stumbles across them - be they cop or child, they are the same.

It is going to be a major issue with resistance and a civil war, that our efforts could potentially harm people who aren't jerks. 😥

[–] Initiateofthevoid@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Why we should scruple to call such a set of people a mob, I can't conceive, unless the name is too respectable for them. The sun is not about to stand still or go out, nor the rivers to dry up because there was a mob in Boston on the 5th of March that attacked a party of soldiers.

  • John Adams, Founding Father, Patriot, later President of the United States, describing the violence of the crowd on the day that lead to the Boston Massacre.

He used this argument to defend the British soldiers in court, because justice demands due process for everyone. Even the enemy.

The Boston Massacre was:

The day that laid the foundation of Independence.

  • Also John Adams.
[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 97 points 10 hours ago (4 children)

LA is doing a great job of keeping everything calm. There was no reason to send the National Guard and now the Marines. Trump knows he looks like an idiot and is going to try and speed up the dictatorship early. Let's not give him a reason to look like he's doing anything and continue to be calm. Republicans, you're in on this or I would hear something from you. You r's better start speaking up mf's.

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 15 points 7 hours ago

Republicans, you’re in on this or I would hear something from you.

Always has been.

The cons hate America, hate freedom, and hate the Constitution. Always have.

[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 13 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Yeah, nobody's been hurt except by the cops. Some waymos and cop cars got burned; that's what they call Monday in LA.

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 44 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Right? It's the cops with the guns and the gas canisters, not the protestors.

And the protests are well into the thousands, yet only a few dozen arrests, and no reports of serious police injuries or death (if anything like that had happened, news everywhere would have been plastered wall-to-wall with that story). On the other hand, plenty of reports of protestors and media being harmed by police weapons. That is less violence and injury than after a major sports game.

[–] Kyle_The_G@lemmy.world 11 points 9 hours ago

those that make peaceful protest impossible...

[–] VeryInterestingTable@jlai.lu 33 points 9 hours ago

Don't do anything and therefore agree with authoritarianism. Protest and therefore justify authoritarianism.

They are just beging for someone to hurt them. According to their own logic.

[–] pleasegoaway@lemm.ee 35 points 9 hours ago

There is a reason that a country is not supposed to use its own army against its own citizens.

The national guard is not needed or wanted in CA. The governor of CA did not ask for you, and CA does NOT want you to be here.

[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 39 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

It should be completely legal to shoot cops with rubber bullets whenever you feel like it. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

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[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 48 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Man, Schiff is such a fucking limpdick. Sometimes, violence is the answer. Otherwise, we’d all be speaking German and Japanese.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 27 points 10 hours ago (3 children)

Don’t believe the doubters: protest still has power

Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change.

There are, of course, many ethical reasons to use nonviolent strategies. But compelling research by Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard University, confirms that civil disobedience is not only the moral choice; it is also the most powerful way of shaping world politics – by a long way.

Looking at hundreds of campaigns over the last century, Chenoweth found that nonviolent campaigns are twice as likely to achieve their goals as violent campaigns. And although the exact dynamics will depend on many factors, she has shown it takes around 3.5% of the population actively participating in the protests to ensure serious political change.

Working with Maria Stephan, a researcher at the ICNC, Chenoweth performed an extensive review of the literature on civil resistance and social movements from 1900 to 2006 – a data set then corroborated with other experts in the field. They primarily considered attempts to bring about regime change. A movement was considered a success if it fully achieved its goals both within a year of its peak engagement and as a direct result of its activities. A regime change resulting from foreign military intervention would not be considered a success, for instance. A campaign was considered violent, meanwhile, if it involved bombings, kidnappings, the destruction of infrastructure – or any other physical harm to people or property.

Source in article from 2019

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 47 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (8 children)

I’m not saying protest doesn’t have power. But the power of nonviolent protest diminishes sharply if there’s no implicit threat of violent protest if matters get pushed too far. One of the primary reasons MLK succeeded was because Malcom X was waiting in the wings.

Nonviolent protest against a status quo ante is one thing; nonviolent protest against an aggressively authoritarian regime that’s grabbing more power by the day is quite another. It is a very, very different context.

[–] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 hour ago

I feel like we're all saying the same thing: if you make peaceful revolution impossible, you make violent revolution inevitable. It's not about what's right or wrong, or what the public should or should not do; it's about which of those two options Trump himself has decided we're doing. And he has chosen....poorly.

[–] brandon@piefed.social 28 points 9 hours ago (8 children)

As an additional point to add to yours, every single political protest movement in history has included violent elements. It's unavoidable. When these political "moderates" start pearl clutching about some windows being broken or whatever it is an attempt to de-legitimize the entire movement, and draw the focus away from the actual source of the majority of violence, the cops (including ICE).

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[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 9 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (2 children)

Daily reminder that the media of the time did not hail King as the paragon of non-violence as we do today. The rhetoric were that his protests were violent and disruptive, and that they ought to be stopped. It was only after he was successful that all that rhetoric was blown away and retroactively painted with the brush of acceptance and approval.

Also worth noting that in the 2014 Maidan protests, one of the only times nobody got hurt was when the group announced an armed peaceful march and the cops made themselves scarce.

https://youtu.be/yzNxLzFfR5w

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[–] ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 15 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I think the government has learned a lot about suppression of protests in the last 20 years.

Find (or create) an excuse to call the protest violent, apply less-than-lethal weapons liberally, and subvert the message of the protest to turn the public against it.

[–] brandon@piefed.social 8 points 8 hours ago

It's textbook manufacturing of consent

[–] Harlehatschi@lemmy.ml 24 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

I know this is quite easy to say from the comfort of my couch in Europe, but guys you need to shoot this fucker in the face already.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 20 points 9 hours ago

The people crazy enough to do something like that are the ones that voted for him. The guy that got his ear was a republican.

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