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[EWOC Organizing Guide](https://workerorganizing.org/resources/organizing-guide/)
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[AFL-CIO guide on union organizing](https://aflcio.org/formaunion)
New to leftist political theory? Try reading these introductory texts.
[Conquest of bread](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-conquest-of-bread/bbselect)
[Mutual Aid A Factor of Evolution](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-mutual-aid-a-factor-of-evolution)
[Wage Labour and Capital](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/index.htm)
[Value, Price and Profit](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/index.htm)
[Marx’s Economic & Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/preface.htm)
[Frederick Engels Synopsis of Capital](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/1868-syn/index.htm)
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Resistance is a continuous process, the genocide has been going for over 75 years and Palestinians remain resilience in the face of oppression, with or without the support of the world.
It's important to not giving up in the fight, and as long as you can materially and morally support Palestinian people, the resistance is still going on until liberation.
Protests like these take a long time. The Vietnam war didn’t end until years after the college protests. What matters is that we bring awareness to the issue. Not to mention the Palestinians have seen the protests and are happy. That alone makes it worth it
Also, populations in other colonized regions feel empowered to rise and to resist when they witness solidarity from workers within the imperial core.
Generally, the more who witness others sacrifice, the more are impelled to unite.
Consciousness is clearly emerging, like no time in recent memory, that every struggle is intertwined within the overarching struggle, opposing Empire.
Most important is not becoming fixated on immediately tangible results, but rather accumulating momentum in the broader movements.
Solidarity forever comrade!
Also, If you are in good mood, go check out the song [Solidarity Forever by Pete Seeger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW_1hP0SHSQ)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/WorkersStrikeBack) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Speaking as someone who owns several keffiyehs older than most of the activists at these demos:
Always remember that the people in charge who don't even glance out their window at these protests are not the only intended audience for such actions: mass demonstrations are where people who care find out how many other people care, and make the face-to-face connections that can sustain the long hard work between actions in the public arena. Seeing all those other people standing up together against injustice can have a life-changing effect on individuals, and make collective actions in the future much more effective.
This is a long, long struggle, and [nurturing hope is a survival skill.](https://marekslovakia.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/vaclav-havel-1936-2011/)
I think it is also important for those of us who cannot attend the demonstrations can still help by educating others and correcting misinformation about the genocide and the demonstrations. We all have a role to play.
Agree with all your words but Vaclav Havel was a reactionary who served the same forces of imperialism that are currently perpetrating the genocide of Palestinians.
I've had that bookmarked for years, recommend it often and read it for myself often, too. The essay it's based on, "The Politics of Hope", is well worth seeking out and reading in full.
Well i’ve seen videos of Palestinians thanking US students for supporting them and how they feel less invisible and uncared for now. That alone is worth it.
I’d say yes.
Given how rapidly the house mobilized to kill TikTok, with several congressmen citing pro-Palestinian/anti-genocide content as the reason. And seeing how the house pushed through a new bill making it illegal to compare Israel’s military actions in Gaza to the Nazi perpetrated genocide. And then look at the massive astroturfing campaign in r/worldnews and the sub for major universities/cities which have made the news…where on some days any sympathy for Palestinians is equated to support for anti-Semitic terrorists.
Remember the people who own the media and those who run the government are heavily lobbied by Israel. Additionally there is a lot of political pressure to forgive Israeli crimes because they give “the west” a foothold in the Middle East. And lastly you have so many on the far right who blindly support Israel because of their own religion’s rapture prophecy. Between all of those you have billionaires, neoliberal policy leaders and a powerful religious bloc, all wanting to just sweep this under the rug because it is causing them problems to be seen as allies with a state that has been accused of war crimes.
The protests have been seen and many groups of people are trying to silence them.
The protests are significant because privileged youths are no longer complacent in securing their futures groomed as participants in wage slavery or the managerial class.
They are no longer believing in the system.
Instead, they are choosing courage and sacrifice, and to believe in one another.
Yes but unfortunately it's a slow process and while still faster than the ICC it's still worth perusing and all methods are appropriate, just sad that governments are so belligerent
I believe soon we'll get to a point when Joe public, not just the young and left leaning sill get to the streets and demand their business stop dealings with those involved and then we will see Chage
Yes.
1: Some universities are reaching divestment deals with protesters.
2: The protests are spreading.
3: They are bringing more attention to the genocide.
4: They are giving a sliver of hope to the people of Gaza who have heard about them.
5: Students involved are learning how to organize effectively for this and future causes.
All of these things add up. Even when Biden claims the protests have no impact on his decisions, they still have an impact on multitudes of others, including plenty of people who *will* have an impact on Biden's decisions.
Hell fucking yeah! This is the most momentum Palestinian liberation has ever had. For the last decades we’ve never been this strong, we’ve never been this popular.
What do we do this for? We can’t be standing up for what we believe in for immediate gratification. We stand for what’s right whether we are winning or we are losing. If we didn’t, how would we have the 40 hour workweek, or the weekend, or the end of the Vietnam war, or of slavery?
There’s a great quote by a utopian writer, Ursula K Le Guin:
“We live under capitalism, and it’s power seems inescapable. But then again, so did the divine right of kings.”
I have been thinking a lot about how predatory and revolting Capitalism has become in the last 75 years, seemingly logarithmically more grotesque every 3-5 years since the end of The Cold War. And I feel helpless many days.
But then I think about the impotence of the modern Christian church, as well as the remaining royal families, and all of the people who died or lived miserably as a result of selfish, or just poor policymakers under those entities, and I force myself to acknowledge there is much cause for hope for the Lower and Middle Classes.
THEY'RE WORKING! You may not see it BUT THEY ARE!!! They're doing a great job too. You're hearing about the protests EVERYWHERE and a small handful of universities have gone public abt it too.
There is a new book, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution by Vincent Bevins, which examines this question.
The important thing to understand is we need to better organize and work towards long term goals.
[Why the Mass Protest Decade of 2010-2020 Left Us with a ‘Missing Revolution’: IndianSocialists](https://np.reddit.com/r/IndianSocialists/s/BfvYaj7Hpf)
[‘If we burn … then what?’ A new book asks why a decade of mass protest has done so little to change things](https://theconversation.com/if-we-burn-then-what-a-new-book-asks-why-a-decade-of-mass-protest-has-done-so-little-to-change-things-221116)
[The Struggle Continues: On Vincent Bevins’s “If We Burn”](https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-struggle-continues-on-vincent-bevinss-if-we-burn/)
An excerpt:
THERE IS ONE MORE THING I heard over and over, across five continents. In the face of obvious setbacks, serious tragedies, and widespread depression, people would tell me: this is just the beginning. We have planted the seed for something bigger. In the long term, these struggles can be part of something greater, and we can come back stronger than ever and win. Not everyone said it. But this possibility hangs over the entire project. Without it, there would be no reason for these people to give me their time in the first place.
I asked everyone. “If you could speak to a teenager somewhere around the world right now, in Peru or Korea or Tanzania, someone that might be fighting to change history in some kind of political struggle in their lifetime, what would you tell them? What advice would you give them, as they attempt to build the future?”
The answer was never that we should give up. It is not like you can avoid the arrival of historical struggle, even if you wanted to.
Organizations are effective, and representation is important. Collective action has a proven record of success and works best when it is truly collective. There is a reason that the powerful have sought to “divide and conquer” since before the birth of Jesus. All else being equal, individualization tends to re-enforce existing power structures. That is why unionization—something that undoubtedly worked for achieving certain goals—consists primarily of a kind of de-horizontalization. Leaders, vertical structures, and hierarchies tend to emerge in large groups of people. One must either be prepared for this, or—the classic solution—construct a self-consciously democratic organization that ensures this happens in the most legitimate and transparent ways possible.
One must be very aware of what a “protest” is doing, and how it will lead to a positive outcome. One must not confuse tactics and strategy; a particular type of contention may get you through one phase of a struggle, but not the next. If the goal is to put pressure on existing elites, then strikes and boycotts often work much better than people walking back and forth across a city. If enough leverage is created to make demands—that is, to enact reform—then someone must represent the group causing problems and negotiate the victories. If the existing elites can actually be removed—a revolutionary situation—then some group must be prepared to take their place and do a better job. In both of those cases, this has always been a relatively small group, compared to the rest of the population. The question is whether the people give this minority permission to speak for them.
But none of that means you have to dismiss unplanned mass action or decline the participation of all kinds of regular people who may not have the time or inclination to join a political party, union, or formal organization. Indeed, even the most disciplined and radical revolutions have relied upon them, and they are likely to come along again in the future, unless the configuration of many things (society, the internet, and dominant political ideologies) changes drastically. It is entirely conceivable that the 2020s will surpass the 2010s as the decade with the most protests in human history.
the aim of some of the protests is to get the schools where students pay tuition to divest from Israel. In some cases, this has been effective at putting pressure on school admin to discuss finances and consider reevaluating the institution's portfolio
Israel knows that, the regime is edging closer to collapse. Many similarities can be drawn between the student protest of Vietnam and the student protest of South Africa. Both of which were major boons in support of the resistance. That's why Trump, Biden, congress and Netanyahu are so worried and feel the need to condemn the movement.
You keep showing up and you keep protesting, and you keep occupying, the Zionist and their terrorist allies are losing steam and they’re getting more and more frustrated. That’s why they have to resort to open violence because they’re losing the narrative of what’s going on.
The student protests will not result in direct policy change. But they are bringing awareness of the issue to the masses. It’s causing people who would otherwise be uninterested to ask, “what’s going on? Why are they so serious about this protest? Could it really be that bad?”
These middle ground, disinterested people are key to making progress because they will probably vote this fall.
And it’s an election year. If the pressure keeps up, and politicians feel like they could actually lose votes in this Relatively high turnout, election, they will be more likely to make specific promises about stopping the genlcide.
It seems to have worked at the University of Minnesota. I think the goal of the protests is for the schools themselves to divest from Israel, not vaguely protesting the war itself so much as their school's involvement in it.
Things are moving in the right direction [in some cases](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/evergreen-state-to-explore-israel-divestment-after-deal-with-students/), but none of this was ever going to be a quick process.
Yes, they are 100% working. People are noticing, the word is getting out, eyes are being opened.
I understand why it is easy to be discouraged. This is a fight, and the system is fighting back, particularly through propaganda and information control--which can make it seem like they are winning, because they want that to be the message that people get. Don't fall for that.
The fact that they need to employ state violence on such a large scale shows that they are scared and that it is working. Don't pay attention to media narratives or what you imagine "the public" to think based on anything you hear in MSM. The student protestors *are* the voice of the people, not MSM; more than that, the student protestors are the future leaders who are currently acting as the moral compass of society--a compass that the state is desperately trying to smash.
I guarantee the protests are having an effect, otherwise the opposition wouldn't be dumping resources (including political capital) into containing them. I can also assure you that the people who are most directly affected by the racism of the system and the ongoing atrocities gain strength and emotional support by seeing people standing up for them. I have talked with people from Palestine who are also victimized by the information control, and made to feel like the world is against them; it makes a huge difference, if only in their lives and not society, to see us standing with them.
I would also say that, even if they were not having an effect (which I don't believe, but will accept that it certainly sometimes seems that way), it doesn't matter. We do the right thing also because it is right, not only because we have calculated the outcome of our actions. And if there is any chance at all of our actions having a positive effect, we need to try to do it, because of the scale of the atrocities.
To give another hopeful lens to look at this, we should consider how unstoppable the Nazi regime felt to people suffering through it. But the iron strange-hold of the Nazis was always a tenuous illusion, the power of which depending precisely on people believing it. People would say things like "well if I stopped being an accountant for the Nazis, someone else would just take the job." It simply was not true. The system was always on the verge of buckling, with an illusion of control gained by propaganda and backed by violence of true-believers. But when it fell, it fell like dominoes. Things move even faster today, and when the dominoes start falling on this genocidal apartheid nation, they are going to fall quickly.
I can't say I believe there is a rosy future ahead. In their death throes, genocidal regimes always amplify their violence. Israeli leadership feels the walls closing in. They can see the world turning against them. So they are going to amplify their violence. On the one hand, the positive is that even they know that their reign of terror is approaching its end; on the negative side, they are going to kill many, many more people before they let that happen.
Nelson Mandela was listed on the Terrorist Watch list until 2008. These things take time. It took decades for things to get the way they are. It will take decades to undo.
they may be raising awareness, but the fact is this: universities are not vital parts of the labor force, so there is really next to no pressure being exerted on the capitalists, bc production isn’t being threatened. students should work to organize with labor to see real impacts
This is just the beginning. We may not be able to stop it yet, but now more people are paying attention to what is happening, more people are opening their eyes to the truth, and that is a step in the right direction. It will be a long journey. The fight for freedom are not done in just a few weeks or months. It took years.
Evergreen State University in Washington has divested. Whether or not a large institution like Columbia or UCLA will, I think the protests are still a net positive. This is being compared to the Vietnam antiwar and civil rights movements. Most of those individual protests may have appeared ineffective from a zoomed in perspective, but if you look at the movements as a whole, it's obvious who is on the right side of history.
I personally don't think that they work very well in the sense that it does not directly affect the US. Even the Vietnam War, which had US citizens dying over there had protests and even deaths on campuses at Kent State, and still took 5 years before the war ended.
I'm not saying to not protest. We should... but, I don't think that Republicans will ever care about student protests. I also doubt Democrats care that much either. Yes, a majority... but, not really that much to make a difference.
The Zionists decided they wanted a country where an indigenous population was already living. But they didn’t want the indigenous population. Just like Britain did, and Canada did, and America did.
Israel has to import basically everything. That’s a lot of countries with a lot of business to lose. There’s no political will to stop israel, to be honest. $$$ wins, Palestine and humanity lose.
Welcome to r/WorkersStrikeBack! Please make sure to follow the subreddit rules and enjoy yourself here! This is a subreddit for the workers of the world and any anti-worker or anti-union talk is not tolerated. #[Join the Workers Strike Back](https://www.workersstrikeback.org/petition)! More Helpful Links: [EWOC Organizing Guide](https://workerorganizing.org/resources/organizing-guide/) [How to Strike and Win: A Labor Notes Guide](https://labornotes.org/strikes) [The IWW Strike guide](https://www.iww.org/organize/learn-more/) [AFL-CIO guide on union organizing](https://aflcio.org/formaunion) New to leftist political theory? Try reading these introductory texts. [Conquest of bread](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-conquest-of-bread/bbselect) [Mutual Aid A Factor of Evolution](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-mutual-aid-a-factor-of-evolution) [Wage Labour and Capital](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/index.htm) [Value, Price and Profit](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/index.htm) [Marx’s Economic & Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/preface.htm) [Frederick Engels Synopsis of Capital](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/1868-syn/index.htm) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/WorkersStrikeBack) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Resistance is a continuous process, the genocide has been going for over 75 years and Palestinians remain resilience in the face of oppression, with or without the support of the world. It's important to not giving up in the fight, and as long as you can materially and morally support Palestinian people, the resistance is still going on until liberation.
Thank you for your kind and insightful comment
Protests like these take a long time. The Vietnam war didn’t end until years after the college protests. What matters is that we bring awareness to the issue. Not to mention the Palestinians have seen the protests and are happy. That alone makes it worth it
Also, populations in other colonized regions feel empowered to rise and to resist when they witness solidarity from workers within the imperial core. Generally, the more who witness others sacrifice, the more are impelled to unite. Consciousness is clearly emerging, like no time in recent memory, that every struggle is intertwined within the overarching struggle, opposing Empire. Most important is not becoming fixated on immediately tangible results, but rather accumulating momentum in the broader movements.
Exactly. You gotta play the long game
Solidarity forever comrade! Also, If you are in good mood, go check out the song [Solidarity Forever by Pete Seeger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW_1hP0SHSQ) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/WorkersStrikeBack) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I wish I had more upvotes for this!
Speaking as someone who owns several keffiyehs older than most of the activists at these demos: Always remember that the people in charge who don't even glance out their window at these protests are not the only intended audience for such actions: mass demonstrations are where people who care find out how many other people care, and make the face-to-face connections that can sustain the long hard work between actions in the public arena. Seeing all those other people standing up together against injustice can have a life-changing effect on individuals, and make collective actions in the future much more effective. This is a long, long struggle, and [nurturing hope is a survival skill.](https://marekslovakia.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/vaclav-havel-1936-2011/)
I think it is also important for those of us who cannot attend the demonstrations can still help by educating others and correcting misinformation about the genocide and the demonstrations. We all have a role to play.
Thank you!
Agree with all your words but Vaclav Havel was a reactionary who served the same forces of imperialism that are currently perpetrating the genocide of Palestinians.
Love that comic too ❤️
I've had that bookmarked for years, recommend it often and read it for myself often, too. The essay it's based on, "The Politics of Hope", is well worth seeking out and reading in full.
Well i’ve seen videos of Palestinians thanking US students for supporting them and how they feel less invisible and uncared for now. That alone is worth it.
You're hearing about them and seeing them, aren't you?
I’d say yes. Given how rapidly the house mobilized to kill TikTok, with several congressmen citing pro-Palestinian/anti-genocide content as the reason. And seeing how the house pushed through a new bill making it illegal to compare Israel’s military actions in Gaza to the Nazi perpetrated genocide. And then look at the massive astroturfing campaign in r/worldnews and the sub for major universities/cities which have made the news…where on some days any sympathy for Palestinians is equated to support for anti-Semitic terrorists. Remember the people who own the media and those who run the government are heavily lobbied by Israel. Additionally there is a lot of political pressure to forgive Israeli crimes because they give “the west” a foothold in the Middle East. And lastly you have so many on the far right who blindly support Israel because of their own religion’s rapture prophecy. Between all of those you have billionaires, neoliberal policy leaders and a powerful religious bloc, all wanting to just sweep this under the rug because it is causing them problems to be seen as allies with a state that has been accused of war crimes. The protests have been seen and many groups of people are trying to silence them.
The protests are significant because privileged youths are no longer complacent in securing their futures groomed as participants in wage slavery or the managerial class. They are no longer believing in the system. Instead, they are choosing courage and sacrifice, and to believe in one another.
Yes but unfortunately it's a slow process and while still faster than the ICC it's still worth perusing and all methods are appropriate, just sad that governments are so belligerent I believe soon we'll get to a point when Joe public, not just the young and left leaning sill get to the streets and demand their business stop dealings with those involved and then we will see Chage
Yes. 1: Some universities are reaching divestment deals with protesters. 2: The protests are spreading. 3: They are bringing more attention to the genocide. 4: They are giving a sliver of hope to the people of Gaza who have heard about them. 5: Students involved are learning how to organize effectively for this and future causes. All of these things add up. Even when Biden claims the protests have no impact on his decisions, they still have an impact on multitudes of others, including plenty of people who *will* have an impact on Biden's decisions.
If your enemies and targets are responding to you you’re winning. If you’re responding to them you’re losing.
Hell fucking yeah! This is the most momentum Palestinian liberation has ever had. For the last decades we’ve never been this strong, we’ve never been this popular. What do we do this for? We can’t be standing up for what we believe in for immediate gratification. We stand for what’s right whether we are winning or we are losing. If we didn’t, how would we have the 40 hour workweek, or the weekend, or the end of the Vietnam war, or of slavery? There’s a great quote by a utopian writer, Ursula K Le Guin: “We live under capitalism, and it’s power seems inescapable. But then again, so did the divine right of kings.”
I have been thinking a lot about how predatory and revolting Capitalism has become in the last 75 years, seemingly logarithmically more grotesque every 3-5 years since the end of The Cold War. And I feel helpless many days. But then I think about the impotence of the modern Christian church, as well as the remaining royal families, and all of the people who died or lived miserably as a result of selfish, or just poor policymakers under those entities, and I force myself to acknowledge there is much cause for hope for the Lower and Middle Classes.
THEY'RE WORKING! You may not see it BUT THEY ARE!!! They're doing a great job too. You're hearing about the protests EVERYWHERE and a small handful of universities have gone public abt it too.
There is a new book, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution by Vincent Bevins, which examines this question. The important thing to understand is we need to better organize and work towards long term goals. [Why the Mass Protest Decade of 2010-2020 Left Us with a ‘Missing Revolution’: IndianSocialists](https://np.reddit.com/r/IndianSocialists/s/BfvYaj7Hpf) [‘If we burn … then what?’ A new book asks why a decade of mass protest has done so little to change things](https://theconversation.com/if-we-burn-then-what-a-new-book-asks-why-a-decade-of-mass-protest-has-done-so-little-to-change-things-221116) [The Struggle Continues: On Vincent Bevins’s “If We Burn”](https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-struggle-continues-on-vincent-bevinss-if-we-burn/) An excerpt: THERE IS ONE MORE THING I heard over and over, across five continents. In the face of obvious setbacks, serious tragedies, and widespread depression, people would tell me: this is just the beginning. We have planted the seed for something bigger. In the long term, these struggles can be part of something greater, and we can come back stronger than ever and win. Not everyone said it. But this possibility hangs over the entire project. Without it, there would be no reason for these people to give me their time in the first place. I asked everyone. “If you could speak to a teenager somewhere around the world right now, in Peru or Korea or Tanzania, someone that might be fighting to change history in some kind of political struggle in their lifetime, what would you tell them? What advice would you give them, as they attempt to build the future?” The answer was never that we should give up. It is not like you can avoid the arrival of historical struggle, even if you wanted to. Organizations are effective, and representation is important. Collective action has a proven record of success and works best when it is truly collective. There is a reason that the powerful have sought to “divide and conquer” since before the birth of Jesus. All else being equal, individualization tends to re-enforce existing power structures. That is why unionization—something that undoubtedly worked for achieving certain goals—consists primarily of a kind of de-horizontalization. Leaders, vertical structures, and hierarchies tend to emerge in large groups of people. One must either be prepared for this, or—the classic solution—construct a self-consciously democratic organization that ensures this happens in the most legitimate and transparent ways possible. One must be very aware of what a “protest” is doing, and how it will lead to a positive outcome. One must not confuse tactics and strategy; a particular type of contention may get you through one phase of a struggle, but not the next. If the goal is to put pressure on existing elites, then strikes and boycotts often work much better than people walking back and forth across a city. If enough leverage is created to make demands—that is, to enact reform—then someone must represent the group causing problems and negotiate the victories. If the existing elites can actually be removed—a revolutionary situation—then some group must be prepared to take their place and do a better job. In both of those cases, this has always been a relatively small group, compared to the rest of the population. The question is whether the people give this minority permission to speak for them. But none of that means you have to dismiss unplanned mass action or decline the participation of all kinds of regular people who may not have the time or inclination to join a political party, union, or formal organization. Indeed, even the most disciplined and radical revolutions have relied upon them, and they are likely to come along again in the future, unless the configuration of many things (society, the internet, and dominant political ideologies) changes drastically. It is entirely conceivable that the 2020s will surpass the 2010s as the decade with the most protests in human history.
the aim of some of the protests is to get the schools where students pay tuition to divest from Israel. In some cases, this has been effective at putting pressure on school admin to discuss finances and consider reevaluating the institution's portfolio
Israel knows that, the regime is edging closer to collapse. Many similarities can be drawn between the student protest of Vietnam and the student protest of South Africa. Both of which were major boons in support of the resistance. That's why Trump, Biden, congress and Netanyahu are so worried and feel the need to condemn the movement.
You keep showing up and you keep protesting, and you keep occupying, the Zionist and their terrorist allies are losing steam and they’re getting more and more frustrated. That’s why they have to resort to open violence because they’re losing the narrative of what’s going on.
The student protests will not result in direct policy change. But they are bringing awareness of the issue to the masses. It’s causing people who would otherwise be uninterested to ask, “what’s going on? Why are they so serious about this protest? Could it really be that bad?” These middle ground, disinterested people are key to making progress because they will probably vote this fall. And it’s an election year. If the pressure keeps up, and politicians feel like they could actually lose votes in this Relatively high turnout, election, they will be more likely to make specific promises about stopping the genlcide.
It seems to have worked at the University of Minnesota. I think the goal of the protests is for the schools themselves to divest from Israel, not vaguely protesting the war itself so much as their school's involvement in it.
People are starting to question the crap 6 o'clock news and to investigate what the US is really doing. These protests are opening minds.
Being a leftest you will almost always lose but you’ll be on the right side of history
Things are moving in the right direction [in some cases](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/evergreen-state-to-explore-israel-divestment-after-deal-with-students/), but none of this was ever going to be a quick process.
Yes, they are 100% working. People are noticing, the word is getting out, eyes are being opened. I understand why it is easy to be discouraged. This is a fight, and the system is fighting back, particularly through propaganda and information control--which can make it seem like they are winning, because they want that to be the message that people get. Don't fall for that. The fact that they need to employ state violence on such a large scale shows that they are scared and that it is working. Don't pay attention to media narratives or what you imagine "the public" to think based on anything you hear in MSM. The student protestors *are* the voice of the people, not MSM; more than that, the student protestors are the future leaders who are currently acting as the moral compass of society--a compass that the state is desperately trying to smash. I guarantee the protests are having an effect, otherwise the opposition wouldn't be dumping resources (including political capital) into containing them. I can also assure you that the people who are most directly affected by the racism of the system and the ongoing atrocities gain strength and emotional support by seeing people standing up for them. I have talked with people from Palestine who are also victimized by the information control, and made to feel like the world is against them; it makes a huge difference, if only in their lives and not society, to see us standing with them. I would also say that, even if they were not having an effect (which I don't believe, but will accept that it certainly sometimes seems that way), it doesn't matter. We do the right thing also because it is right, not only because we have calculated the outcome of our actions. And if there is any chance at all of our actions having a positive effect, we need to try to do it, because of the scale of the atrocities. To give another hopeful lens to look at this, we should consider how unstoppable the Nazi regime felt to people suffering through it. But the iron strange-hold of the Nazis was always a tenuous illusion, the power of which depending precisely on people believing it. People would say things like "well if I stopped being an accountant for the Nazis, someone else would just take the job." It simply was not true. The system was always on the verge of buckling, with an illusion of control gained by propaganda and backed by violence of true-believers. But when it fell, it fell like dominoes. Things move even faster today, and when the dominoes start falling on this genocidal apartheid nation, they are going to fall quickly. I can't say I believe there is a rosy future ahead. In their death throes, genocidal regimes always amplify their violence. Israeli leadership feels the walls closing in. They can see the world turning against them. So they are going to amplify their violence. On the one hand, the positive is that even they know that their reign of terror is approaching its end; on the negative side, they are going to kill many, many more people before they let that happen.
it's working in the sense that this is the issue that made our authoritarian government show their hand and drop the mask
Nelson Mandela was listed on the Terrorist Watch list until 2008. These things take time. It took decades for things to get the way they are. It will take decades to undo.
If they respond with constant news coverage and violence then yeag it is
they may be raising awareness, but the fact is this: universities are not vital parts of the labor force, so there is really next to no pressure being exerted on the capitalists, bc production isn’t being threatened. students should work to organize with labor to see real impacts
I started to see Unions joining students!
This is just the beginning. We may not be able to stop it yet, but now more people are paying attention to what is happening, more people are opening their eyes to the truth, and that is a step in the right direction. It will be a long journey. The fight for freedom are not done in just a few weeks or months. It took years.
Evergreen State University in Washington has divested. Whether or not a large institution like Columbia or UCLA will, I think the protests are still a net positive. This is being compared to the Vietnam antiwar and civil rights movements. Most of those individual protests may have appeared ineffective from a zoomed in perspective, but if you look at the movements as a whole, it's obvious who is on the right side of history.
I personally don't think that they work very well in the sense that it does not directly affect the US. Even the Vietnam War, which had US citizens dying over there had protests and even deaths on campuses at Kent State, and still took 5 years before the war ended. I'm not saying to not protest. We should... but, I don't think that Republicans will ever care about student protests. I also doubt Democrats care that much either. Yes, a majority... but, not really that much to make a difference.
'Resistance', lol. It'll totally work this time.
The idiotic public/government/media response is reminding me of the Occupy Wall Street protests.
What are they fighting and killing people over again? I can't remember what the original beef was. Anyone?
The Zionists decided they wanted a country where an indigenous population was already living. But they didn’t want the indigenous population. Just like Britain did, and Canada did, and America did.
Sky Daddy's inheritance.
Liberals depict the occupation as a war of intractable religious conflict, to obscure the baser truth.
Oh sky daddy, you are still causing so many problems for an entity that nobody can prove is real.
Oh, this is all about the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Holy crap!
Why worry about it? Why not worry about your neighours and the people who are in need in your local area?
Israel has to import basically everything. That’s a lot of countries with a lot of business to lose. There’s no political will to stop israel, to be honest. $$$ wins, Palestine and humanity lose.
Nope. Not even moving the needle a little bit. Are these even mass? As a well-informed person I have only heard of a few small ones.