• wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 months ago

        OWS crumbled in ways right out of various leaked three letter agency guides to disrupting grass roots movements.

        I’d love to see it get another try, with how news sources have become far more decentralized. Less opportunity for major news orgs to kill the momentum.

        Full disclosure, the destruction of OWS is pretty much the one thing I allow myself to go “full tinfoil hat” over.

      • Barx [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        2 months ago

        OWS was not well-organized. Palestinian solidarity groups are doing better. The key difference is in being able to coherently make informed decisions as a group and then act on them as one.

        Every OWS encampment was basically 5-30 orgs all doing their own thing and then fighting about horizontalism and being naive about how the cops and City Hall would treat them. We need to be able to act like 1-3 orgs (even if there are more), politically educate so we can avoid mistakes, and create good structure as early as possible so that expectations are set and time isn’t wasted and bad decisions are avoided.

        The US left is basically slowly relearning the basics of organizing. Get involved and make it go faster!

          • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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            2 months ago

            If you are doing this shot at a gun point, you are no better than the regime you are fighting

            Oppressed people have the right to use violence to liberate themselves. Were the Haitian Slaves wrong for killing their Masters? Was John Brown wrong for killing Slave Owners? Were the French wrong for killing the Monarchy? Were the Bolsheviks wrong for killing the Tsar? Are Palestinians wrong for killing the IDF?

            Violence is a tool that should be used sparingly and carefully, yes. It should be avoided, if possible. However, if non-violence is proven to not work, then that leaves violence, or threat of violence, as the remaining path.

            The idea that using violence against oppressors makes you “no better than them” is useless moralism used to justify an extremely violent system that daily beats its subjects.

            What a clown take to glorify Bolsheviks’ crimes.

            Was it a crime to liberate Russia from the brutal Tsars and pull Russia out of the highly unpopular and bloody World War I?

            How is this anymore acceptable than “people voted for Hitler” shit?

            What on Earth are you talking about? Why are you comparing liberatory violence with voting in Hitler?

              • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                2 months ago

                After they killed the czars, they turned on the people.

                Yea, they helped the people by ending famines, doubling life expectancy, getting to 99% literacy rates, provided free college and healthcare, and democratized government.

                That’s the part tankie won’t teach you folks but a quick Wikipedia search should explain to you what they did to the peasants, esp in Ukraine and Kazakhstan

                Are you genuinely under the impression that Marxists somehow spent their entire lives avoiding western narratives around the USSR, read dozens of books on history and theory, and somehow have never once seen the western point of view? Are you specifically referring to events, or their entire history?

                As an example, prior to the current Russo-Ukranian conflict escalating in 2022, in 2019 62% of Ukranians said they were worse off then, than under Communism. Ukranians enjoyed being a part of the USSR more than they do being a part of the current Ukranian State. Similarly, Central Asia (including Kazakhstan) is not without Soviet Nostalgia either.

                This is, of course, after you said using violence against oppressors makes you no better than them, which automatically makes you anti-Palestine, pro-Confederacy, anti-Haitian Slave Revolt, anti-French Revolution, and against all violent liberatory movements, if we assume you to be morally consistent.