this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2025
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Originally Posted By u/itsCS117 At 2025-08-08 11:09:52 AM | Source


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[–] notabot@piefed.social 1 points 2 weeks ago

Non-violent protests are good ways to bring people together, but they don't achieve much because whoever's planning them sticks to the same tried, tested, and minimally effective playbook each time.

Instead, imagine instead of a protest of, say, 1000 people, have 10 simultaneous protests of 100 people at key, public, locations. Now people who aren't involved, instead of seeing one big, noisy, "scary" protest, see you everywhere but in more approachable numbers. You also spread the inevitable police response very thin, and make it easier to disperse and reassemble should things get risky.

If you don't mind being a little more confrontational, gum up key businesses in creative ways. Have 100 people go into, say, a Walmart in small groups and rearrange the good on the shelves so noone can find anything, but the staff can't fix it because new groups keep messing things up more. Have each person send a particular business a letter telling them how much the business is on the wrong side of history, oh and, P.S. at least one of the letters you're receiving contains a request you must legally respond to (a GDPR or FOIA request maybe). Yes, sorting these sorts of things out falls on the staff of the business, who probably don't personally deserve it, but it means they can't carry out their normal job of making the company money.

It's late, but I feel sure that there are plenty of other "non-violent" ways to harass and degrade the systems that support "the system", and that seems the surest way to make it change.

The nice thing about capitalism is that the persuit of profit makes for an understandable, and manipulable, opponent. Change the equasion so that the current course isn't as profitable as another, and businesses will pivot towards the highest (typically short term) return strategy. We've already seen that with businesses changing from pretending to be progressive to groveling to the orange one because it was expedient. Actually threaten their profits and you have leverage.