I’m envious of the way the French protest their government. They’re literally setting things on fire because their schools aren’t adequate. Because the government tried to raise the retirement age. Because their politicians are shitbags.
I think the biggest obstacle to organizing in the US is the sheer distance. It takes 40 solid hours of driving to get from one side to the other. That’s not counting any breaks. France takes about 14 hours. Doable in a day or so if you push it.
Anyway, I’d sign up for a Revolution if there was a serious contender.
Why would they? They don’t even live in the US! They are just russian bots trying to stir discontent in order for you to not vote so the orange turd can continue breaking up the democracy.
Whole bunch of pussy ass accelerationists on this platform. I enjoy calling out their pussy ass behavior.
Vote or die.
And I suggest voting for a candidate that isn’t guaranteed to lose if you want anything other than fascism to happen.
Ranked choice voting makes it easier to vote for the best candidate AND one that won’t lose, if two states can do it so can more.
But I’d rather sit around and critique the system while allowing the candidate that is objectively worse to win. It makes me feel superior as I sniff my own farts.
Hey, as much as I get your point about distance, I don’t think it’s the whole story. I think there is one of the most powerful history and tradition of revolt and demonstration in the US. I think the difference has something to do with the esthetics of it. In France, revolt, fire and police violence are associated with beauty. I’ll leave that here.
The distance thing is a real issue. Look at a list of countries by size and three of the top five all have massive long-standing authoritarianism issues.
I guess Canada doesn’t, but what’s the other one?
Not Antarctica.
I may have answered confusingly
It is it is, that’s the whole point of municipalism and things like bioregionalist anarchism. But there are stronger factors to mobilizing. Imagine a synchronized mob of 50 persons in each county. Also, France is a country built as a basic centralized system where all roads of transportation and communication lead to Paris. So, yeah, sure, but also absolutely not.
Most protesters don’t drive 14 hours for a protest. Cities usually have people around.
The thing about the French, or specifically Parisians, is that it’s hard to stay inside and mind your business when everything requires you to walk. Meanwhile every American isolates at home and then in their vehicle. There’s a physical structural advantage.
French protesters have been putting even most other European protesters to shame, yet France is pretty far from being the most socialdemocratic European country.
Knowing little of the matter: French protest a lot but seem to achieve fairly little. The Yellow Jackets wreaked havoc of the country for a couple of months… got nothing. Current protests don’t have a real political agenda other than “this is not okay” and I haven’t heard of a political response other than wait-it-out.
I haven’t heard of a political response other than wait-it-out.
This is generally how it’s done here in Germany, too. Seems like the state understood at some point that protests don’t actually do anything, and the more radical activity that might actually make a difference is generally only a pretty low amount of people - this part seems to be bigger in France, but far from big enough.
this is completely wrong, institutions and companies respond most to protests, then they have to invest additional effort to pretend as if the protests did not work, so that people will not protest as much
French have more rights than Americans and institutions and corporations fear more taking them away from them.
I think France should rather compare itself to its less protest-happy peers, not some third-world shithole.
But the have the lowest retirement age of Europe, that’s all worth it!
Akkording to Wikipedia, that’s actually Ukraine at 60 years, 2-7 years lower than France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement_in_Europe.
As far as I understand, in France you can retire early (possibly as early as 62) if you worked for 43 years, otherwise you retire at up to 67 years. And nowadays it’s pretty common to lose your job in your 50s and spend the rest of your time before retirement underemployed, which is going to make it rather difficult for a lot of people to retire at 62.
Isn’t this another way of saying that you are voting for the best available option? What’s the alternative? Vote for the worse option so things get worse? Don’t vote at all and tell other people to do the same so the worse option always wins? If you aren’t voting and are also not out in the streets stoking revolution against the greater evil, you can go fuck yourself. Because people spreading this bullshit concept and voter apathy is the real reason we have the government of today.
It’s less the size and more the density, I think. Also, country dwellers simply don’t understand the problems facing city dwellers and city people constantly diminish concerns of the country people. That leads to a divide and no chance of concerted protests.
I also think a consistent problem facing left wing leaders (at a large scale)is an inability to tap into emotional response, in the face of right wing politicians successfully exploiting emotions.
People need to feel that their actions can make change happen, and they need to be emotionally invested.
Eh, I have to disagree on density. The United States may be big, but the population is ‘clumpy.’ Almost 1/3 of the land area has essentially nobody living there, while the Northeastern states are very dense. Thomas Jefferson had a vision of a new nation of yeoman farmers, but even in the 1790’s, the nation was quite urban. Now, about 94% of Americans live in cities and towns. (A lot of “country people” are engaged in what CityNerd calls “rural cosplay” .)
But 110% about the centrist and left-wing leaders having an inability to tap into emotional response. I hear variations on this comment all the time (on Lemmy and IRL): “I just don’t understand what his voters see in him!” It’s simple. Right-wing populists talk to the so-called lizard brain; centrists and left-wing leaders talk to the frontal lobes. Seriously, I saw a Lemmy commenter tout, back in 2024, that Kamala Harris would “address systemic inequalities in the medical system that predominantly impact African American men.”
How do I feel about it? I dunno, WTF does that even mean?!
The amygdala (lizard brain) overrides the frontal lobes every time. We say it all the time that, “you can’t logic somebody out of a position that they didn’t logic themselves into,” but then proceed to analyze their choices as if they were based on factual information. I have a lot more thoughts about it, but yeah, the opponents of right-wing populism need to realize how it operates, and adapt to speak emotional language, too.
The problem in the U.S. is, unfortunately, that everybody is too comfy and they’re just hoping somebody else does it. A person could go and end a prominent politician while shouting “THIS IS THE REVOLUTION! TO ARMS, FELLOW AMERICANS!,” and everybody else would just watch the fallout on TV.
I think it has more to do with being a police state that imprisons more people per capita than any other nation on the globe. Peaceful protesting is too easy to ignore, and we all know the cops would just love a good excuse to beat our asses before locking us up for as long as they can find an excuse to.
Choosing lesser evil is not cause of problem. Not choosing anything instead of lesser evil is a key problem. The time to activate is before it comes down to final choice. Not voting, means all of your concerns are irrelevant, because you are unlikely to vote next time, according to establishment algorithms.
The Bernie and Kamala experiences suggest otherwise. They will dictate as they wish.
Time to vote harder for Bernie was when it was relevant. In November, turning out for HRC over Trump would have prevented the worst of oligarchist supremacist tax cuts and covid response. Kamala had no primary, but no Epstein mossad kompromat on her wouldn’t have forced submission to Israel for Iran war, and yet more oligarchist tax cuts, and a collapsing financial overextension, wouldn’t have happened.
The lesser subhuman demonic piece of shit is still better for you, and most importantly, not voting means its easy to keep you not voting, and they know you aren’t voting. That DNC gets paid to lose intentionally for the best Israel outcome, even then doesn’t mean you shouldn’t vote, and vote for them. Politics is a continuous process you get to be involved in. Election day abstention is the complete opposite of any flex.
What experiences?? You mean the lack of?
Nice try, DNC.
What would be our chief demand(s)?
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No war, stop all aid to Israel
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Abolish ICE
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Medicare for all
Seems like a reasonable start.
No genocide, no proxy wars, no funding separitists, mercenaries, coups.
No election interference at home or abroad.
End all embargoes, release political prisoners, stop meddling in the Caribbean, LatAm, Asia, everywhere.
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Healthcare right?
- No nazis
- No kings
- More gock
Every permutation of LateStageCapitalism I’ve ever seen acts like a gop honeypot to keep people from voting.
LateStageCapitalism on Lemmy is almost assuredly exactly that. It is run by a single crybaby mod (Godless Commie) that non-stop espouses quitter bullshit and deletes comments and bans anyone that disagrees with his shitstain opinions. No one should be visiting that sub. If it isn’t a honeypot, it may as well be.
LSC will also ban you for telling people that they are a honeypot to get people to stop voting.
I wear my ban from that shitstain sub with beaming pride.
No one want to become first victim or sacrifice voluntarily , shocking.
The distance is for sure a thing, but I believe it’s also a huge reason we dont have universal healthcare.
If I didn’t need a job to help subsidize my outrageously expensive health insurance that doesn’t cover shit, i’d be able to be more motley.
That said, at this point i’m about to go fucking French regardless
