On Feb. 15, 2003, millions of people marched in over 600 cities against the plans of U.S. President George W. Bush to invade Iraq.
First time?
Many of those protests were shut down too. I was up in MA for the Blood for Oil/WMD protest. We were shut down due to a ‘bad actor’ that not one of us witnessed. Neither the bad actor nor the protest made the papers.
Props to the AP, Newsweek, and USA Today for covering 50501 while the rest show where their loyalty lies.
But there was a massive amount of coverage on how disliked Bush was (man, in fucking comparison...) whereas op's post is about how major the protest is vs. how little coverage there is of it.
Was it all 50 states simultaneously?
That was my first experience organizing a protest. Fack I am old now.
Fifty states, one message: we see through the facade. Simultaneous protests coast-to-coast, and the propaganda machines are in stealth mode. Convenient, isn’t it? A nation erupts, and the so-called “free press” opts for strategic amnesia.
This isn’t apathy—it’s suppression. When every state rises up, the system panics. The Capitol steps become battlegrounds, yet the narrative is buried under celebrity gossip and stock market fluff. They’re scared. Scared of what happens when people realize that unity in dissent is their greatest weapon.
Keep marching. If they won’t cover it, we’ll document it ourselves. The truth doesn’t need their permission to exist.
Then we start picketing them, too. Right outside their media buildings, asking when they plan to grow a spine and start covering what’s happening. Add media companies to the places being protested and show what cowards they are.
Why don't we start confronting news anchors? Start calling them out specifically for being silent. This could be in person or online or both.
The largest protests in the history of the world were in opposition to the invasion of Iraq. The invasion of Iraq still happened.
Protesting sends a message but it isn't enough.
If protests aren't enough to sway a democratic system, then the democratic system is broken and resistance becomes mandatory. To quote what the german constitution established after Hitler to prevent exactly what's currently happening again in the US:
Article 20 [Constitutional principles - Right of resistance]
[...]
(4) All Germans shall have the right to resist any person seeking to abolish this constitutional order if no other remedy is available.
I do not know if there's something akin to this in the US constitution (I know your culture very much thinks there is every time it's about guns though). But even if it isn't, fuck it. The system is evidently broken, do what's necessary to regain the power of the people. Do it the French way if you must.
(4) All Germans shall have the right to resist any person seeking to abolish this constitutional order if no other remedy is available.
Wow I love this.
The media did the exact same thing too they had a bunch of Iraq war experts and nobody about why we shouldn't go to war..
As much as I hate riots, I mean, yeah?
Anyone who knows anything about history has seen this story before
By all means, protest. Push these bad actors. Stick up for democracy! But Is anyone else mildly anxious that JD Vance’s hero, Curtis Yarvin, suggested in 2022, that all Trump needs to do is declare a state of emergency to extend executive immunity to prosecution, and to do it early on? So far, project 2025 combined with the manifestos of Dark Gothic Tech Bros are aligned.
“If the institutions deny the President the Constitutional position he has legally won in the election, the voters will have to act directly. Trump will call his people into the streets—not at the end of his term, when he is most powerless; at the start, when he is most powerful. No one wants to see this nuclear option happen. Preparing for it and demonstrating the capacity to execute it will prevent it from having to happen.”
But Is anyone else mildly anxious that JD Vance’s hero, Curtis Yarvin, suggested in 2022, that all Trump needs to do is declare a state of emergency to extend executive immunity to prosecution, and to do it early on? So far, project 2025 combined with the manifestos of Dark Gothic Tech Bros are aligned.
Elon and the felon: "Does their protesting stop what we're doing in any way? No? Then why would I care?"
fElon
When you own the media...
A couple weeks ago Trump stated the following: “and he (Musk) knows those computers better than anybody, all those computers, those vote counting computers, and we ended up winning Pennsylvania like in a landslide it was pretty good”.
No mainstream news source reported on it despite the fact that it's a borderline confession, and the fact that back in 2020 they gave an insane amount of attention and signal boosting to election fraud claims that had 0 evidence.
Media is on the side of the money, they're not a friend.
And here are some hard numbers on the Republicans suppressing enough Harris votes to cost America the democratic outcome
After Elon's announcement about the department of Ed, I'm feeling indescribable despair. The systematic dismantling of public education in the U.S. has been happening for decades and is a huge part of the reason we're in this mess.
I know that's what they want. For us to feel paralyzed. I'm trying to fight it. But as someone who is convinced the election was tampered with*, I am sick over the fact that they let him in again. Someone should have objected before the inauguration, when an objection actually might have achieved something. I worry that the protests are not going to be enough, as they stay locked in their ivory towers. I'm terrified that a distress signal at the state department was quickly swept under the rug. I thought this is why we developed so many international alliances and treaties after WWII. To prevent fascism from taking hold in our countries. But they're not doing anything. I live in a blue state and haven't heard a peep out of my governor. Why? Are they waiting for things to get worse? Does a certain person in a specific role have to contact outside help? If so, who? We know this is going to be disastrous for more than the U.S., we can already see it happening.
I feel like I'm doing everything in my power and it's still not enough. I have friends who work for the government and they are just as scared and lost as I am. All I can think to do is be prepared for extreme hardship and try to stay involved in my community. What else is there?
*I'm just too tired to debate. If you disagree but are open to changing your mind, I have links in another comment that I encourage you to check out.
"Our little secret" and "he's very good with computers" "like those counting computers" "landslide in PA"...
I'm rift there with you, man. He openly admitted it because he can't ever fucking help it, either.
We have always known that all broadcast and cable news media is tightly controlled. Hundreds of stations across America literally parrot word for word what each other says.
Now we also know that all social media can also be controlled. There is nowhere safe except small communities that are not controlled by corporations or the government.
They want us disorganized, poor, uneducated, and religious. This is their plan to reduce us to their serfs to be controlled and abused.
This morning, I hear reports from neighbors that our "local" newspaper website has experienced some sort of breakdown, and it's showing the "local" paper from somewhere in Virginia, or Tennessee. They're all owned by the same company. The media outlets aren't parroting each other when they are literally the same entity behind the scenes.
Really?! The worlds largest propaganda machine is playing tricks on us?!1!
Facebook knows who is sensitive to this kind of news, they know who would join a protest and who not. And they can decide to whom to show which news. How many people use Facebook & co. as their main source of information? Or main medium to organize?
Meta has the Meta(data)
It was on the 5th, not the 6th like in your title.
Thanks, fixed.
The only language fascist speak is violence
Does DuoLingo teach that? I need to brush up.
Fuck around with that owl and find out.
My partner trying to keep their streak going at 11:57 in bed definitely promotes violence. Also a lesson in anger management. An app that has trained me without installing it is rare.
Protests alone will not stop the nazis. They also didn't in Germany ~90 years ago. I hooe people get that and organize. Fast.
Great work to everyone who stands up to hatred and fascism! ❤️
I watched some of the protests when they were live on YouTube. The fact there was apparently so little media coverage of people protesting against a fascist racist who appointed a Nazi as a special government employee and wants to annex Canada is simply mindboggling.
Feb 5* also thank you for this post I am glad it is getting reach.
On February 5 (when this was happening) there was an infuriating number of posts saying “why aren’t pro-Palestine protesting?”
And then I’d get downvotes for pointing out people, in fact, protesting.
So many people with their eyes intentionally closed… felt so hopeless.
It took an elected Nazi to unite a country, agaisnt the Nazi.
For y'all who've never protested before... The reason why they don't cover it is because they never cover protests (unless people actually FSU then it's a "riot")... Maybe if libs cared when it happened to activists for BLM, anti-genocide, etc... Now it's just completely normal.
Leopards eat your face much Midwest?
There are people in every state that hate Trump. Unfortunately, in some states, those people are greatly outnumbered.
Tell me how many people first.
A handful of people in every state is not impressive.
If the people on lemmy constantly (CONSTANTLY) talking about how small/badly timed/ineffective/waste of time these were actually went to them, or set up their own, man what a sight that would have been.
But no, go to work, that'll save you next month when 'people who use leftist platforms' are put in camps instead of immigrants.
There were a few thousand in California. Not crazy numbers but much more than i expected to see on a Wednesday in Sacramento. There were also protests in Oakland, San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego, but idk about numbers for those.
LA also had a protest the Saturday before, but it got drowned out in the news by the Grammy's 🙃
If it's useless, then why are you spending so much time downplaying them?
If you plan to do protesting - i wpuld highly recommend getting a Faraday bag gor your phone. Just turning it off isn't good enough
Protest by going out to vote. Only 64% of eligible voters participated in the 2024 election. Trump won the popular vote by a slim margin but got less votes than Biden did in 2020. Had more Democrats voted, we would have won the election.
I was talking to my brother about this the other day and tin foil hatting... Perhaps musk didn't rig the election in trumps favour by adding votes, but instead deleting the democrats votes. Thus making the left feel helpless while still guaranteeing an election
Yep. You're not 'tin foil hatting', this is just what happened. Can't believe this still needs to be said, but here's a post I just made : https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/21747932
protests accomplish nothing, people. when are yall gonna figure that out?
"but it's cause the media doesn't cover them!" - do you own the media? can you change that? then they accomplish nothing. like i said.
Nice of the shitlibs in the comments to out themselves as not just do-nothing cowards, but active agents against dissent.
Now if only all these people upset at Trump could have done something useful about it when they had the chance, like I dunno, voting against him...
Remember the BLM protests under his watch? He just had them gassed so he could have a photo op. I don't doubt he'd go further this time around. And with him gutting every federal agency that could protect Americans from foreign influence, they're not getting a useful opposition any time soon...
I asked before, why was the set up to be the middle of the work week, in the middle of the day?
Protests need to be disruptive and get coverage to work. They must be inconvient for everyone involved. Think of it like a Union strike there is a reason you generally hear about package delivery strikes around the holidays and not just in the middle of the year. The issue is most people in the US cant afford to just leave their job in the middle of the day currently cause they have something to lose. Though the less they have to lose the more they will skip their jobs to show up and protest. The average US citizen has not gotten desperate enough for these protests to rally enough people and as such work. There is also a problem with how the news and people in power have portrayed these strikes and protests as inconveniences to the common person, which reduces the solidarity the working class should have for each other.
It could be covered in social media but not by mainstream news. The real source of information these days is from the former, whether one likes it or not.
"oh my god we did this thing for attention and no one is paying attention to us"
Maybe because we're burnt out because people are outraged every couple of minutes.
And they're still in control and breaking things...
