Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Feb-2025 07:47:20 JST Paul Cantrell

   • Laffy

   There’s a lot of talk brewing right now about a general strike, total shutdown, etc. Like this below from @GottaLaff.

   For this to work, we need a •large• segment of the population to be ready to jump on board, to believe that we’re in a state of emergency.

   Are we there yet? My Mastodon TL is; the general public, I’m not so sure.

   Should we wait, spring-loaded, until we’re right at that trigger point? Or is it better to try 10 times and have it fizzle so that it can finally take on the 11th attempt? I don’t know. https://mstdn.social/@GottaLaff/113981320068902415

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Feb-2025 07:54:36 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     What I •do• feel confident about is this:

     1. It is crucial to fight tooth and nail immediately, through political, legal, and social channels. No “wait and see.” The question is in what ways to act now, not •whether• to act.

     2. There will not be sufficient opposition to this coup attempt to stop it until / unless it creates noticeable damage in people’s lives. Our question is how to make people (public and oligarchs both) perceive Trump-Musk as a threat to their personal well-being as quickly as possible.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Feb-2025 07:56:31 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     On that second point, a general strike / stoppage could cut either way: it could be perceived as instability Musk-Trump created, •or• as instability they should be granted authoritarian power to control.

     Are there historical examples of other similar efforts that went one way or the other: toppling an authoritarian or boosting an authoritarian? What were the differing circumstances?

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Feb-2025 07:59:00 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     One more thing I feel confident about:

     People who don’t already see the danger are not going to “wake up” on their own. Not going to happen.

     The price of eggs or, say, chaotic non-delivery of social security checks are going to go much further toward unraveling this coup that all the best information and arguments in the world.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Feb-2025 08:03:47 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Quark Maker
     • Laffy

     @GottaLaff @QuarkMaker
     I tend to agree with Laffy here: it doesn’t need to change minds. What it does need to do is some combination of:

     1. building support
     2. energizing opposition
     3. demonstrating capacity to do larger things in the future
     4. noticeably impacting corporate bottom lines

     I’m not sure we’re ready for 4, maybe not even 3. We may be starting with just 1-2.

   • Embed this notice
     Laffy (gottalaff@mstdn.social)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Feb-2025 08:03:48 JST Laffy

     in reply to

     • Quark Maker

     @QuarkMaker Oy.

     Guess what. MAGA doesn't do protest marches with us either. And they only last a few hours.

     IT'S A PROTEST. And it's effective.

     @inthehands

   • Embed this notice
     Quark Maker (quarkmaker@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Feb-2025 08:03:49 JST Quark Maker

     in reply to

     • Laffy

     @inthehands @GottaLaff I have issues with this.

     1. Conservative Americans will only see this as “evil America-hating liberals” doing this. They will never link this to Trump in the “learning that Trump is bad and that they were wrong in voting for him” sense.
     2. Unless this is a “shut it down indefinitely” act, it will not have a sufficiently meaningful impact on the economy to even start the conversation, much less force anybody's hand.
     3. It does nothing to deal with conservative America.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Feb-2025 08:05:31 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Yvonne Caruthers

     I suspect that these posts from @sysadmin1138 and @grammasaurus have the correct answers to my questions above:

     https://ngmx.com/@sysadmin1138/113982086613196097

     https://mastodon.social/@grammasaurus/113982079165981008

     Right now, we’re still building capacity, building a movement. Do it, and expect to do it again.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Feb-2025 12:53:21 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • GhostOnTheHalfShell
     • Laffy

     @GhostOnTheHalfShell @GottaLaff
     Yeah. The question in my mind is whether the grievance can manage to gather steam fast enough to outpace the causes of grievance.

   • Embed this notice
     GhostOnTheHalfShell (ghostonthehalfshell@masto.ai)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Feb-2025 12:53:22 JST GhostOnTheHalfShell

     in reply to

     • Laffy

     @inthehands @GottaLaff

     I have a very thin or scant understanding of the history leading up to the massive Vietnam protest in the 60s.

     And it's important to remember that protest against the war started small and years before they made news.

     Protest are only going to end once the grievance subsides. It's only taken Donald Trump's trade war, plus implementation project 2025 to set in motion and economic collapse.

     And this administration is going to let everyone hang