• Zaktor
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    2 天前

    He was pretty keen on using violence against his opponents last time, and BLM still stressed resources to the point where enforcement had to have pretty limited objectives. I think people overestimate just how actually powerful the police (and by extension the military trying to support the police) are in the face of popular uprisings. Every state, even the US with its giant military and police state, relies on individual fear to prevent uprisings.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      1 天前

      The police were not authorized to use deadly force last time. I doubt Trump will be so lenient this time.

      Spraying bullets into crowds with automatic weapons is a pretty effective way to stop an uprising.,

      • Zaktor
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        1 天前

        If that were true all the dictatorships in the Middle East would still be (the same) dictatorships. Soldiers aren’t killbots and massacres have a way of spawning more resistance.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          1 天前

          Most dictatorships in the Middle East are still there or replaced with new dictatorships. Which one were you thinking of in specific?

          And what makes you think all the MAGA members of the military and all the violent thug cops wouldn’t be fine spraying bullets at protesters? Especially the cops?

          • Zaktor
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            1 天前

            The multiple popular uprisings of the Arab Spring that did not end simply because there was a violent response. Syria just fell at the end of a protracted civil war spawned from a popular uprising. That’s not to say violence never quashes uprisings or that spawning a civil war is a desirable path, but if simply applying violence was a reliable solution to unrest we’d live in a much different world.

            And what makes you think all the MAGA members of the military and all the violent thug cops wouldn’t be fine spraying bullets at protesters? Especially the cops?

            Because being MAGA is a lot easier when it doesn’t also involve wholesale slaughter of Americans. Soldiers get fucked up killing foreigners of different religions propagandized to be months away from launching dirty bombs. It’s not that easy.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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              1 天前

              The Arab Spring was a total failure. How do you not know that? It literally resulted in new dictatorships.

              Do you think the Nazis were reluctant to massacre people they didn’t like? Because they weren’t.

              • Zaktor
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                1 天前

                Huh? The whole point is that the dictators in power during the uprisings weren’t able to quash them simply by being violent. It doesn’t need to be some sort of larger metaphysical success for goodness to be a demonstration of the limits of violence.

                If your entire philosophy is just the bad guys are too powerful and there’s nothing that can be done, fine, but it’s not useful or helpful. Learned helplessness is literally the goal of dictators and you’re speedrunning it.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                  1 天前

                  Which one of those uprisings involve people spraying bullets into the crowd? And, again, the uprisings were a failure.

                  And the thing that could be done was already not done in November. That’s why I’ve taken my lesbian daughter to safety in Europe where she won’t be sent to conversion therapy by gunpoint.

                  (Let me guess, there will be no genocide of queer people, they wouldn’t do that.)

                  • Zaktor
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                    1 天前

                    Literally multiple regimes fell (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen earlier, Syria just now). All of which had death tolls.

                    I’m glad you’re leaving both for her sake and because you don’t seem to have any concept of resistance and simply want to tell everyone it’s hopeless and nothing should be done.