Couple of things:
- Information : Keep creating and sharing reliable information. Not just opinions, information. We are still the majority, the US fascists is not world, we need to flood all the relevant platforms with our content.
- Education: The reason these monsters have any credibility is because some people are too mentally weak to defend themself from misinformation. We need to educate around in any way possible. Everything counts, keep trying.
- Humor is a powerful weapon. These people have giant ego and 0 humor. Let's keep ridicule them and have fun at their expense. They need to understand we have some things they can never touch, even with all the money in the world, solidarity, humour and camaraderie.
Run for political office. The Democrats have no intention of fixing anything, let alone making things better.
And if you believe you're not qualified or don't know how to do the job, just remember that both parties are filled with incompetent fools, fakes, conspiracy crackpots, and morons. It would take considerable effort to do worse than some of the people in congress.
Not mine, but from a post: First, you’re never going to win a head-on battle with an adversary that’s got you outgunned. That’s not the point of the Resistance. The point is to create friction, make it hard for your adversary to operate, to increase transaction costs.
Second, resistance doesn’t have to be a dramatic act. It can be a small act, like losing a sheet of paper, taking your time processing something, not serving someone in a restaurant. Small acts taken by thousands have big effects.
Third, use your privilege and access if you’ve got it. He and his buddies stole weapons from the Nazis by driving up with a truck to the weapons depot, speaking German, acting like it was a routine pick up, and driving away.
Fourth, part of the third point really, sometimes the best way to do things is right out in the open. Because no one will believe something like what you’re doing would be happening so blatantly. All good Social Engineers know this.
Five, bide your time. But be ready for opportunity when it strikes. Again, your action need not be dramatic. Just a little sand in the gears helps.
Six, and this is a no-brainer, operate in cells to limit damage to the resistance should they take you out. Limit the circulation of info to your cell, avoid writing things down and...
Seven, be very careful with whom you trust. Snitches and compromised individuals are everywhere. My dad was arrested because of a snitch. His friends weren’t so lucky, the Gestapo machine gunned the cabin they were in without bothering to try and arrest them.
Eight, use the skills you have to contribute. Dad was an electrical engineer. When the Nazis imposed the death penalty for owning a radio (the British sent coded messages to the Resistance after BBC shows) he said he became the most popular guy in town.
I am writing this with the assumption that you are tacitly asking about US politics because of the moment in history. What I have to say will make people mad, but here goes:
A lot of the people on this webzone are what Eitan Hersh called "political hobbyists". These are people who do not really take political action in their daily life despite voting or occasionally attending a rally. They may be well informed about politics, but being well-informed in itself is not really effective at changing politics. You can get on your phone and "rub the glass" to complain about politics, or to find people who agree with you. But outrage on social media won't change anything, and if rubbing the glass and occasionally voting is all you do, then you are a political hobbyist.
Political hobbyism mostly functions as a consumerist approach to political engagement. A political hobbyist will passively receive news and information about politics, but will never really try to change anything, because to them engaging in a news feed is all they really do. That consumerism is painfully apparent here when, for example, posters denounce a Democratic candidate as being "not exciting" or someone they are "not passionate about" as if the candidate was the newest model in a brand of laptops that failed to zazzle in Q3. We see signs of political hobbyism again when political parties are treated as entities that are somehow completely separate from the public. For example when a lemmy user denounces the Democratic party for not doing what they want. "The Democrats need to do X!" Why are you complaining about that on the internet? You know the DNC isn't reading these threads right?
If you really wanted to influence the Democratic party (which I think is the best bet for resisting fascism right now) why aren't you lobbying the party? Why aren't you mobilizing voter bases? Why aren't you building political power in your local community so you can influence larger political organizations? Because its hard, because you don't know where to start, because you are busy? Ok, but fascism is coming, and you are too busy to do anything about it. Or too overwhelmed to even try?
The truth is, if you wanted your ideas (and I am including here opposition to fascism as an idea) to influence policy, or what candidates gain traction in nomination races, then you should have been working on that LOOOOONNNNNG before the national candidate was nominated. Treating the Democratic party as a vendor that offers political products is a losing strategy for gaining influence. There will be an endless parade of glass rubbers ready to denounce the various political parties, but by and large, they didn't do anything to gain influence with those parties. Their denouncements are ignored, they are irrelevant. My advice is to ignore the glass-rubbers. Identify one or two local issues in your physical area and try to improve them. What you should do is find a little slice of America (or your own country if you are not American) and try to make it better. Use those efforts to build up influence at higher levels. My goal here was to convince you not to listen to the glass rubbers. But my advice for resisting fascism is: Try to build political networks, try to mobilize local voters in local issue elections. Doing this will make your network an invaluable asset to larger (state and national) organizations. If you have a network of voters, of issue conscious citizens, or donors, larger organizations are going to want to leverage that network when it comes time for lager races. That gives you leverage. That gives you power. The glass-rubbers are going to tell you that is impossible. Its not. People do it all the time. The book I cited has examples of people doing it. Fascist conservative groups do it all the time. So why not you?
I will admit, this is hard. When I first read Hersh's book I was offended, because when he was describing political hobbyists, he was describing me. But it did give me some motivation to think about politics from the perspective of power. And set me down the road of trying to do all things I wrote about here. It is early days for me yet, and I have only seen limited success. My work complicates things. I am busy, and often overwhelmed. But fascism is coming.
Ok, so serious answer for our friends who don't live in places without an active culture of protest:
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Vote. No, really. If people actually fucking voted, we wouldn't be in this mess.
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Give money to advocacy organizations
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Give your time and money to mutual aid organizations
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Read the news (not just on lemmy either)
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CALL your congresspeople. Emails and letters are better than nothing, but do not have the same impact.
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Try to get your friends to do #1-5
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Organize en masse using a common enemy (billionaires). Fascists win when they are able to successfully divide and conquer, which they have been very successful at.
There's a very good reason both neoliberals and fascists have been working so hard for so long to distract the masses from who's causing the real issues in society.
We can't let them shut us down this time, like they did with Occupy Wall Street, the George Floyd protests, the hippy movement, MLK Jr.'s economic movement. We need to stay controversial and constantly active so we can stay in the news cycle (much like how Trump has been able to dominate the news cycle since 2015). If they try to distract us, we must counter at every step of the way.
Workers have the real power in society, and the oligarchs can't survive without us. The sooner we all realize that, the better.
You have to be willing to Luigi these people. We need a thousand more Luigi.
Any other answer is wrong.
Check this book with 20 relatively specific actions written by a historian https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Tyranny
Also here are the rules briefly summarized. https://scholars.org/contribution/twenty-lessons-fighting-tyranny-twentieth
I think this one rings particularly strong today.
- Take responsibility for the face of the world. The symbols of today enable the reality of tomorrow. Notice the swastikas and other signs of hate. Do not look away, and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.
A few options:
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Get out. If you're one of the people fascists want dead, then surviving is in and of itself an act of resistance. Leave their domain. Go somewhere else. And live -- Just live. Build a life they can't touch.
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Organise and survive under their noses. It will not be easy, even if fascism has a short shelf life... It still does a lot of damage while it is active, and you and yours could end up as their target. Still, your best chance of surviving is by grouping up. Meet your neighbours, meet your local activists, get to know them, and start helping each other.
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Violence. But. It's not enough to just go spree killer. The violent response demands organisation. You could join an armed resistance group. Or, if you leave the country, if it comes to war, you could enlist to fight against your old nation. Lots of people did both in the forties.
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I found this book to be very compelling and topical: https://www.ericachenoweth.com/research/civil-resistance-what-everyone-needs-to-know
Civil resistance is a method of conflict through which unarmed civilians use a variety of coordinated methods (strikes, protests, demonstrations, boycotts, and many other tactics) to prosecute a conflict without directly harming or threatening to harm an opponent. Sometimes called nonviolent resistance, unarmed struggle, or nonviolent action, this form of political action is now a mainstay across the globe. It was a central form of resistance in postwar anti-colonial movements, the 1989 revolutions, and the Arab Awakenings, and people are practicing civil resistance at higher rates than ever before around the world, including in the United States. If we want to understand the manifold protest movements emerging around the globe, we need a thorough understanding of civil resistance and its many dynamics and manifestations.
The only peaceful method i can think of would be for enough people to collectively get together and agree to completely stop buying stuff, other than food and absolute necessities. No luxuries, none. But you'd need enough people and to do it long enough to completely destroy the economy. It would be very boring for a long time.
Not gonna happen.
More realistically, we need more Luigis.
Fascism is a massive violent manifestation of ignorance. The only real solution is to undo the brainwashing of humanity - their brainwashing with religion, their brainwashing to accept abusive hierarchical rule, all of it. Everyone must fully understand.
People responding with "guns", "WW2" - we did that already, 70 million people died, and here we are again. Why and how did it come back? What is the actual source of the problem? Treating this problem as only solvable with mass murder isn't exactly putting you on the moral high ground. What conditions give rise to acceptance of fascist beliefs, or the acceptance of a fascist leader? What are the mental, social, cultural, behavioral traits of the people that do accept that? How can those traits be prevented from forming?
Find charities, news outlets, podcasts, rights groups or other entities that match your message and support them.
Donate money, time, and whatever else you can to help.
I think everyone understands that being loud might draw the wrong attention, so do what you can to support the ones that you want as much as you are able.
I have three pieces of advice:
First: The best, most practical and actionable advice I can think of is to start organizing your neighborhood. You don't even have to openly be organizing resistance to do it, just get to know your neighbors, get your neighbors to know each other, get to know what's going on in each other's lives and offer help where and how you can. Bring over some snacks on the basis of being neighborly and just ask how they're doing some time. Forming these social bonds are really, really important, and it's the basis of building resilience in your community. We used to have stuff like this built in, but it's been slowly eroded over lifetimes, largely but not exclusively by exclusionary zoning and car-centric infrastructure.
Look, if you're just the person a couple doors down they don't really know, people might go "oh, huh" when the brown shirts come. If you're Dolores down the street who brings them brownies every month, there's a much better chance that your neighbors knock back when the brown shirts come knocking. And if it's not just one neighbor, but three or four of them that come out to beat some Nazi ass? Pretty good chance those fucks will get the message loud and clear.
I can feel some of you out there already replying "but my neighbors voted for the Nazis". Yeah, they did. I've also worked with enough Republican voters to know that when they think of the evil other, they don't possibly imagine that that could include their friends, family, and co-workers. That is, your neighbors, in all likelihood, don't want the bad thing to happen to you. The point is this: community bonds can and will outweigh other considerations if you build them.
Second: Go to local government meetings as much as possible, bitch at them about your favorite pet issue, listen and watch other people who show up there. It's an easy way to speed run making connections in your local activist community, and you might even end up actually influencing some local policies. I go to them, it's free and easy, and the cops can't stop you from yelling at the city council about the price of housing. The real value, though, has been getting invited to other local activist groups that I never realized existed because I met other members of those groups there.
Third: Prepare. If shit hits the fan, you need to be able to take care of yourself, help might not be coming. I think probably the best strategy is the same as for mass shooters: run, hide, fight.
Run- ditch your smartphone and other spyware devices. Tell nobody about your plans, especially not over any kind of electronic medium. Just go. Have a bug out bag ready to go. When you're making your bag, remember that you're going to have to carry it a long, long way. Try to be practical. Probably the most important items you can have are your ID, cash, more cash than you think in a few different places, a change of clothes (especially underwear and socks), a good multi-tool or fixed-blade knife (no need to go crazy, just get a decent full-tang no-frills knife from a flea market or something), hygiene products (moist towelettes and baby wipes are great), water, and snacks (try to focus on really energy dense stuff like peanut butter). Small tarps and mylar/wool blankets probably are good ideas too. Water should also be its own container, ideally a large canteen, or a backpack if you can swing it. I'd also recommend a handful of dice or playing cards to keep you sane.
Have a plan with anyone who's going with you on where to meet up and how long to wait and don't tell another soul about it. If they miss the deadline, just go ahead and follow the rest of the plan.
Also, part of this is upskilling. Learn how to repair tears in your clothing, how to talk to people, how to do first aid, stuff like that. You've got to be ready to rely on yourself to get yourself out of a jam. At the point of running, this is the worst scenario, and you need to treat it as such.
Hide- DITCH YOUR FUCKING ELECTRONICS. Never go on social media ever again ever, don't log into Google, don't check your email, don't log into Lemmy, just quit this shit altogether. The NSA already has a full database of basically anything you've ever communicated over a phone or the internet, and law enforcement absolutely will use it via parallel construction. Don't use debit cards or credit cards, pay in cash. You wouldn't believe the shit they collect on you all the time. You can worry about contacting people once you're safe.
Fight- There is still a second amendment. If it's a choice between dying in a firefight with some fascists or going to the boxcars, I think that choice seems obvious. Speaking as a gun owner: If you get a gun, you MUST practice with it at least a few times. Get familiar with it and understand how to handle it, you really don't want the first time you've ever shot your gun to be when you're trying to fight the Nazis. Personally, I'd recommend a pump action 12 gauge shotgun; it's practical for many, many use cases, the ammo is easy to come by and very common, it's dead easy to service and maintain, and aiming at close quarters is as simple as point and click.
I won't say just vote, but you should do that, too, at every level!
Depending on how much time and money you have:
- Join a union (and give time and money to organising the union)
- Join an antifascist political party (and give time and money to organising the party)
- Lobby your representatives to demand they oppose fascism
- Join protests against fascism
- Join civil society groups that are antifascist (either directly or because they're pro human rights or anti-racist, or what-have-you) (and give time and money etc.)
- Boycott businesses that are owned by or enable fascists
- Join co-operatives (and give time and money etc.)
- Join community groups (these don't even have to be political)
- Support local, independent media and good freelance journalists
- Spread the word about all of the above
I've ordered these roughly by how effective I think they're likely to be (this is of course just one guy's opinion); you should pick the one(s) that are most attractive to you and best fit your current situation.
Fair warning, none of the above will instantly fix the problem and I grant that some of them probably seem pretty weak sauce in the face of fascism, but the more people do them, the weaker the fascists will get.
The ear guy tried.
By making every single step they try to take excruciatingly painful by any means necessary.
- Don't do fascism yourself. (This is harder than you think.)
- If it is within your power, prevent others from doing fascism.
- Help others that have had fascism done to them.
- Grow your power, in order to do #2 more often.
Avoid creating or growing an organization that has a strong hierarchical structure, as they are easier for fascists to convert/infiltrate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agzNANfNlTs Democratic structure can be better, but beware giving any power to the intolerant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance#Paradox_of_freedom_and_paradox_of_democracy
If you are comfortable, #4 might involve physical, martial, melee, firearm, etc. training. It is not unlikely that the current fascists in power use violence to grow/retain power, and that might require violence as part of the fight. That said, I feel there's plenty of non-violent ways to fight fascism, for now.
Organize people in groups small to big.
Wrong comm to ask this on. The only historically backed answer that has been repeatedly proven to work is against lemmy.world's TOS to discuss.
Came across this a couple days ago. Haven’t read it yet, but might have some useful stuff.
I'm buying some stickers to put on every tesla I see.
We need to make detentions and deportations difficult. For a group and keep your eyes peeled. Report any activity that you see by CBP in your area. Be a nuisance. Film them. Shout at them. Drive slow in front of their vehicles. If you can, do more that I won't say online.
Buy a gun.
Sherman tanks and M1 Garands were quite effective once.
I think the solution is attack the systems themselves and when that isn't sufficient there are only a few people at the top with power.
I am leaving or unsubscribing from as many monopoly powers as possible: Google, Amazon, meta, Twitter, Netflix, etc etc. Be vocal about it, take friends and family with you if you can. I'm choosing open source when possible over more polished closed source, like jellyfin and Linux (transitioning this weekend 🤞), and donate. These actions take a small fraction of their income from them and if enough people do it I believe it will cause them issues.
I'm trying to not just leave these things but build communities for when we leave. For me this looks like trying to get a blog off the ground for friends and family, developing friend circles that have these discussions frequently, and then contributing/volunteering within my direct neighborhood or community (working on this one as I'm new in Germany and that comes with it's own time taxes).
Also, if you can afford to, buy local. Buy from someone you know. Buy from people with good supply lines. Be vocal about how this is critical and necessary. The more money that goes to our neighbors instead of the 1% somewhere else in the world, the better. That's all the shift of power, and it starts with not shopping at whole foods or Walmart and buying bespoke or sometimes worse products for sometimes more money so that those good people can work on their process and products.
But these are small steps, and personally I don't have any idea of the connective tissues between a person or group of people and the political systems most of us exist in. I guess in the past political parties were more grassroots driven, like get in a room with your neighbors and develop policies and debate. I've never lived in that reality. Getting back to that is probably incredibly important. I guess new age political parties and old school unions are the best path forward there.
But the inevitable path, if all else fails, is violence. That is the reality. That becomes a lot less personally risky the larger a community you have before starting it, but as we've seen one Super Mario brother is sufficient to make changes.
Nice try, FBI.
M3 grease guns proved effective last time we tried it.
I didn't say this in my other comment, but it's important enough to be its own:
If you think you're going to be targeted, use the buddy system. Don't go anywhere alone, for any reason, ever. One person is an easy target, two and especially three people are a lot harder to deal with.
Be more precise with your language and you have the answer. Fight is too vague. Punch a nazi in the face.
You're going to find a lot of support when the police can't help themselves but be openly brutal, the way the occupying Germans did in Paris France, during the rise and fall of Vichy. The early Résistance started small, tearing down propaganda, slashing tires, cutting phone lines, as they got organized into a formidable fighting force.
It's not popular to advocate for violence, and some revolutions can happen without violence when they're properly organized. Martin Luther King Jr. would sucker the police into attacking non-violent protests (which they were keen to do) to appeal to the sympathy of the public and to challenge them in court. BLM is using the same means, with more emphasis on using those ubiquitous phone cameras everyone has to record it as it goes down, for the internet to view in horror.
But the Mahsa Amini protests in Iran reminded me of the adage Violence is unthinkable until the hour it is inevitable. After the death of Amini by the morality police for a minor hijab violation, Iranians protested by forgoing hijab and tipping the headcovers of VIPs (imans and government officials.) They responded with brutal reprisals from police and loyalists, which is when the protesters started flinging Molotov Cocktails at government buildings. Hangings of protestors resulted in live fire combat in the streets which resulted in Islamist loyalists poison-gas bombing girls' schools, which is a bad look worldwide.
But don't worry, when we see what law enforcement intends to do in the states, especially the anti-immigration and round up teams, the call to arms will be crystal clear.
Tactical nukes.
Build a network of friends/neighbors etc. conceive plans to protect the ones who will be targeted first (POC, LGBTQI, ...) eventually either go underground or leave the country.
Ok you don't want the way answer vote sonit doesn't happen. The second way guns.
Experts in the field may be more knowledgeable, but there seem to be multiple attack vectors to me:
- Fight and advocate to reduce social injustice; people who feel powerless or left out vote right [even against their own interest]
- Support quality education that critically explores fascism and history, that improves media literacy, and logical fallacies etc
- Support social programs that help people in the scene get out
- Support social programs that prevent people from drifting into that scene
- Be a voice in criticism and watchdogging media, orgs, and [public] people
One way I've been trying personally is just gathering as much information as possible and remembering it. I've always been super bad at history and biology because of my resistance to memorization, but I'm slowly keeping up while trying not the get burnt out.
Of course, after I have enough info, that'll inform me of what the next move is, I hope, because if I do anymore now I'll just crumble
Form a new grassroots party and encourage voters to demand change in exchange for their vote.
This is a tried and true method that has succeeded in multiple countries with much worse electoral systems than the US (I can vouch for PTI in Pakistan, it took them about 20 years including 10 years of military rule)
Unfortunately, it is too radical for the folks over at c/Politics, even though it was literally what Malcolm X often suggested and what MLK did before they were both shot (albeit MLK preferred endorsing individual candidates regardless of party rather than trying to form a new one since that would be slower).
So the real answer is unfortunately to sit back, relax, and enjoy the flames.
I don't live in the US and guns aren't a thing here, but from what I know from my antifascist friends, owning firearms is a very good idea. They're all armed to the teeth.
That depends. How are we defining fascism here? That's the first step.
Would it be a stretch to suggest engaging in missionary activity as a solution?
I want to do some more radical stuff without getting arrested. What should i do? I live in sweden and the right has been creeping up here as well(not as bad as the us but still a shit situation). I already did the first steps like trying to wake up friends to the reality(family already "woke" so thats nice, less work) of the situation.
Ridicule them.
Lol these ppl acting like the SS division were on the way
Make these wusses scared again.
just don't vote. Its not my method but I heard from a lot of folks who feel that can fight fascism. you mileage may very.
Burning things down is "semi violent" but effective cost imposition on oligarchy. It may very well result in highly violent response though.
