Over the last week, the guide has surged to become the 5th-most-accessed book on Project Gutenberg, an open source repository of free and public domain ebooks. It is also the fifth most popular ebook on the site over the last 30 days, having been accessed nearly 60,000 times over the last month (just behind Romeo and Juliet).
Direct link to the book (without the backref):
Unfortunately, “making life hell for people” is part of how you stop any government from working. Reduce efficiency, increase disorder and confusion, and make people angry enough to actually want to tear down the system.
Governments where everyone is chipper and basically have their needs met don’t collapse, and people don’t fight to collapse them.
It’s like the people who say that protests shouldn’t inconvenience anyone. The inconvenience is the point.
Happy people don’t kneel cops in the Dunkin donuts parking lot.
If people are dumb enough to think inflation was 100% Bidens fault and electing a 2016 President will bring back 2016 prices then they’ll blame empty napkin dispensers and clogged toilets on Trump.
People are too dumb to associate protesters in the street to a problem that can be fixed by the government. The rulers want you to think that protesting works, because it makes the fight between the people. They want you inconveniencing on your level, so that they can make us fight each other.
You will never convince people to tear down the system by screaming in a street.
I just don’t think that history aligns with that view. Arab spring is an example just from the past decade of a series of protest movements that escalated into armed rebellion.
Actually going and looking at the handy list of revolutions shows that it’s pretty easy to find protest movements that escalate like that.
This article in particular has the preamble that kind of sums it up: ”This article is about the nonviolent protests. For the ongoing civil war, see Myanmar civil war (2021–present)."
People in the US don’t currently connect protestors to the problem because they’re not angry. At some point you don’t see protesters as “them” yelling and making noise, and you join them because you’re also angry.
Revolution and rebellion aren’t polite and orderly. Thinking you can scare fascists in power into behaving isn’t going to work. Part of their entire “thing” is that people are a danger and they need to crack down on dangerous elements to keep society functioning. If society stops functioning and gets materially worse without a balaclava wearing gang of insurgents throwing cartoon spherical black powder bombs, people see the people in charge as the problem and are more willing to do a Mussolini.
History in the US aligns. If it slid back, it didn’t work. And, everything is sliding, therefore it did not create lasting change. The time for peaceful protesting is over. It’s time for action.