Peaceful protests in France today

[u/Anulisdotexe]

[u/therallykiller]

I hope that in between rock throws, these folks thank their lucky stars this is France and not China.

[u/Ironmallet_EU → u/therallykiller]

Very optimistic of you to assume they possess such awareness.

[u/Anarcho_Communists → u/therallykiller]

Maybe if this did happen in China, the CCP wouldn’t overstep so much.

[u/lostquant27182818 → u/Anarcho_Communists]

This. The relationship between government and the people goes both ways.

[u/Anarcho_Communists → u/lostquant27182818]

They literally built a surveillance state in broad daylight, and the Chinese people didn’t do anything about it. I don’t blame the government for that, because all governments eventually attempt to become a authoritarian more than they already are by nature.

(Mask off moment🏴) This is the problem with ALL hierarchical societies. It doesn’t matter if it’s a socialist or capitalist one. And the CCP rolls back all modicum attempts at aiming towards socialism anyway. They’re stuck at State Capitalism; like the USSR.

Capitalist societies will consistently strive to consolidate and sustain their power by oppressing the masses to the extent they can get away with. Sometimes the people suck, not just the government. I wish George Carlin lived longer...

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[u/Ironmallet_EU → u/Anarcho_Communists]

Or it would give them an excuse to overstep even more.

[u/Anarcho_Communists → u/Ironmallet_EU]

Against over 1 billion people? Good luck to the CCP, then. Every group of people have the government that they deserve. If you tolerate authoritarianism, you do not have the right to complain against it.

If more countries acted like the French people, the Catalonian Anarchists, early Soviet people, or the Ukrainian Libertarian Socialists, authoritarian government probably would not even be as much of a problem as it is today.

The Chinese proletariat already had resisted the previous authoritarian regimes, with an “S”. They absolutely still have that defiant spirit in them if someone would simply bring it out. Better yet, if they realize that it’s never been smothered. Some of those fighters are still alive!

Yes, it gets worse before it gets better. The problem is that the average person understandably doesn’t want to put their life at risk like that. I sympathize with that; so long as they stay out the way & stay neutral.

Because the struggle is never supposed to be easy or fun. If you can not accept that, you probably should just stay at home & wait for a winner.

[u/therallykiller → u/Anarcho_Communists]

I think the caveat is that one billion is untenable to lead and organize ad hoc -- especially in a culture currently steeped with incentives (social credits) to ally with the government vs. rebel.

But I see your point and I sense Xi is prudent enough to walk the tightrope successfully if there was ever a situation like this there.

[u/Anarcho_Communists → u/therallykiller]

One billion people don't need a single leader or a synchronized plan. They just need a shared breaking point. I don’t think you understand how revolutions happen, work, sustain themselves, or what sparks them in the first place.

Autonomous, decentralized networks have repeatedly overwhelmed massive state structures throughout history; from post WW1 Ukraine to China itself. Even with liberal (meaning Liberalism broadly speaking) the bourgeois revolutionary movements in Colonial America and the Kingdom of France did something similar. Hell, even Germany itself very nearly went Leftist in 1919, but it was averted. Not because of military forced by the way.

The most effective way to stop revolutions is when the bourgeois counter revolutionaries turn the proletarian against itself. Or when they give into minor concessions just to take them away again in the future. Like with the New Deal in the USA being dismantled slowly. Regan officially killed most of it; that’s part of the reason why richer Republicans love him so much.

Social credit scores are completely useless incentives when people are pushed to a material breaking point. A high score won't feed your family or give you back stolen labor. This is not an argument against a revolution. It’s an illusion of power that the state wants you to believe in.

And the CCP isn't walking a tightrope out of sheer brilliance; they are walking it out of fear. It’s obvious if you pay attention enough. The moment the proletariat organizes horizontally, that tightrope snaps 🫰. just like it did when spontaneous protests forced them to drop Zero-COVID overnight, lmao. Like I said, that spirit is still there. Some of the generations that brought it out in China are still alive & remember the struggle too.

[u/Anarcho_Communists → u/therallykiller]

The point I’m also making is to resist before the situation becomes seemingly unwinnable. You want to deal with them while their in the middle of, or building into, the political science concepts called authoritarian consolidation. Which the CCP is still in the middle of. Still, it is impossible for them to counter a massive scale protest. If even 10% actively fights the state, the CCP is probably screwed

When a population stays compliant out of fear of state backlash, the regime uses that quiet period to build more sophisticated tools of control (such as China's social credit ideas, digital surveillance, and grid-management policing). We literally see that happening in the United States.

Waiting until the state "squeezes too tightly" makes future resistance exponentially harder because the infrastructure of control becomes nearly total. However, the White Paper protests proved that even under a total surveillance apparatus, systemic pressure eventually creates cracks where mass organization can, and does, happen.

Also, Authoritarian regimes appear rock-solid right up until the second they collapse. Tsarism looked permanent before 1917; the Soviet state apparatus looked invincible in the 1980s.

Makhno's Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine also proved that autonomous, highly localized cells can act simultaneously without a top-down leadership structure.

Xi Jinping is not immune to pressure. Not even close. The White Paper protests forced the CCP's hand, compelling an abrupt and chaotic reversal of the Zero-COVID policy. The state backed down because they recognized that continuous, widespread ad hocdefiance from the working class poses a lethal threat to their monopoly on power. That huge military that they have is really for their own population. Outside their massive navy.

[u/SendMeGamerTwunkAbs → u/therallykiller]

Seeing as the rocks which started it were thrown by policemen in civilian clothing, I'm pretty sure they want it to be more like China and sure are acting like it with their current weaponry

[u/therallykiller → u/SendMeGamerTwunkAbs]

Well then I concede to those with superior information.

Is that common? Are these state / provincial or municipal police?

Crazy!

[u/Skoyatt → u/therallykiller]

More like chinese leaders needs to thank their luck they're not governing the french.

[u/struct999 → u/therallykiller]

France is France because french people are willing to actually fight for their rights, they are able to fight for their rights because it is France. The second french people stop fighting is the second they lose the right to do it in the first place, and it is also the second France stops being France.

Some countries like china or the usa have fallen long ago, France still stands.

[u/clephne → u/therallykiller]

Way to make absolutely no fucking point, this is France, not China.