Source on this? https://fiftyfifty.one/ appears to be down right now.
Edit, because I was unclear: This is not a suggestion that these events should be avoided. On the contrary, I just think that having more information will motivate more people to participate and to share the invitation, making these more successful events.
What sources might it be sourced from? I’d like to get more involved with protest movements if there are some that like to publicize events like this.
The group that arranged the state capitol protests not long ago started on reddit at r/50501. Their initial site is https://50501movement.carrd.co/ and they’ve recently added a “website” link there which is https://fiftyfifty.one/ - down right now, but it was up yesterday.
If these were events started or promoted by them, I would be more comfortable participating than if it was from (for example) “American Opposition”, which appears to be less trustworthy.
https://fedia.io/m/Resist/t/1772186/American-Opposition-Not-sure-I-trust-this-organization
Knowing more is better than knowing less.
Interesting. A post about the 50501 protest itself also had a whole bunch of people coming into the comments and saying that the protest looked suspicious, and that friends of theirs who were plugged-in were telling them it looked like it might be a “false flag”.
https://ponder.cat/post/1528582?sort=Old
I’m skeptical of this one.
I’ve heard from some of my more active friends that none of the usual leaders or orgs they know of were a part of founding this and there’s some suspicion it was created by right wingers to collect data; can anyone speak to this?
There was no information on who was organizing this, who is backing it, and most importantly, who to contact. From an OPSEC standpoint, without a clear contact on who was organizing, it read like a false flag.
I feel like the enemy started this so they then say “see nobody cares, nobody showed up” because we saw through their bullshit.
The lack of organizer info after a whole bunch of people have tried to find it is a huge red flag to me.
I’m sorry to hear you’re “not comfortable” attending this one. I am planning to. To me, the risk of whatever is making you not comfortable about it is absolutely dwarfed by the risk of the police and governmental reaction to it, whether it is “well sourced” or not. It honestly just doesn’t matter which way, in terms of risk, I think, although the risk is of course significant in both cases. Right? What would be the increased risk of attending one that isn’t sufficiently well-sourced?
Sorry, I didn’t mean to raise any hackles. It’s really just me liking to have some kind of source for things proclaimed by screenshots in general.
… “not comfortable” …
I didn’t say that. I said I would be more comfortable if it was associated with 50501 than if it was associated with American Opposition.
Yes, the risk is relatively small in any case. There’s still nothing wrong with asking for more information, especially with (what I think is) the high likelihood of things going sideways at one of these events at some point.
And questioning unsourced information is just a good habit to be in. Of course, we’re often going to have to make decisions without complete information. That’s kind of part of being a person in general. More information is better.
I am far more interested in looking into the source for the claims from “some of my more active friends” and so on, than I am in the source for this. When those people were trying to throw cold water on the idea of attending that protest, I asked all of those people what protests their more active friends would recommend instead, and none of them pointed me to one or to any further information. You would think that the active friends would be interested in disseminating that kind of information of course. Strange that they are not.
It took all of thirty seconds of searching to find:
https://jointhepeoplesunion.com/
Is this legit? I have no idea. Of course questioning unsourced information is good. But like I said, I don’t think it really matters all that much in terms of whether it’s a good idea to attend the protest itself, and I think it’s strange that there is this sudden extreme tension and discomfort with the idea of attending protests, sourced from several people’s more active friends or similar, none of whom are interested in sharing more information about any protests that they would feel more comfortable with.
Edit: Actually, probably the safest of all possible ways you can get involved in some kind of resistance to Trump is to see one of these images with just a place and time, show up in person to the thing, and talk with the people who happen to be near you and make some random connections. It won’t be completely safe of course. But it will be far better than blabbing all over the internet, or signing up for some kind of mailing list, or subscribing to whoever’s feed on Bluesky, or whatever. I think any “group” you’re likely to interact with on the internet might wind up leading to you getting put on a list, eventually, one way or another. Showing up in person and meeting random people is an infinitely better way to get plugged in.
Oh, I definitely was unclear then. My hope is that with more information, more people might be motivated to share and participate, making these events more impactful.
Yeah, fair enough. A lot of the sharpness of my reaction was because of what happened on the last post, which to me was hella suspicious. You were just asking an interested question and I used it as an opportunity to talk about some stuff that bothered me the last time.
I did find more stuff about who’s behind this group, but as I said in my edit, I actually think just showing up is probably better than poking around and doing a bunch of internet interaction with “resistance” or protest groups.
Also, the EFF’s guide to safely attending a protest: https://ssd.eff.org/module/attending-protest
Print them out and tape them up. Online only goes so far.
Going off the assumption there aren’t any bad actors at play, these seem like a good approach and I’d gladly participate.
Only thing I’d question is a 24 hour economic blackout. The striking part is impactful, but putting off buying a TV for one day is negligible. Hell, you probably already paid for a full month of Netflix already.
I’d prefer a stronger commitment to progressively tightening the noose. Ramp up the economic pressure indefinitely until demands are met, you won’t die from not spending money.
Yeah, you’re not wrong. I absolutely think that having one day where every restaurant was empty, every Wal-Mart had 2 shoppers in it, all the balance sheets went down to single digits for a single sustained interval of time, would make an impact. Even if it gets made up for over the rest of the week because people still need to buy stuff. But, that being said… it’s something. You have to talk before you can yell, you have to yell before you start pushing. I do get the concept of it and I think trying is a good idea.
Personally, I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but I do think the sum total amount of not-buying that happens that day is not going to produce an impact like that. I would like it to, but I think realistically, there’s enough of a stranglehold on our media that it’ll be difficult to have it go above 1% of 0.1% of the people. I definitely plan to be part of that 1% though. Sometimes you have to play it out in your head a little bit, before you can talk. You have to start somewhere.
Yeah, and there’s already people who keep consumption to a minimum. And I also hate being a downer but I think some of those are pretty big asks. People won’t call out of work, they just won’t. Not in a large enough number to make it matter.
But not spending any money? That could seriously take off. Just for a day? Not do something that has no negative consequences? Get everyone together doing something. Doesn’t matter much what, just that it’s a collective thing.
Maybe leave local restaurants/businesses alone? Idk. It just seems like that’s an idea where people have less to do and a lot less to lose to participate so it could take off.
March 15th is a Saturday, there’s already a lot of people not working
Could be almost more impactful, shutting down retail and food service on a Saturday.
Global economic blackout? I don’t think my small farm business in Japan is going to contribute to the idiocy of the US government. Wording quibble aside, I’m happy to not support US companies on that day.
I think Global refers to “globally within the US”.
It is an intersting question, but I think it is better for the reaistance movement if people outside of the US continued to work and buy things (that dont support the US).
It’s a holiday in Canada, so no work for US companies. And many Canadians are already going hard on boycotting american products. Solidarity.
“Global” in the sense meaning broad in scope. In this case, not spending money anywhere for those of us in the US.
Is this backed by any big groups?
Why would it need to be?
Which groups could it be backed by? I’d like to get more involved with protest movements if there are some that like to publicize events like this.
I think you are missing the point of @clay_pidgin’s reply.
This is about achieving critical mass. This type of protest can carry significant costs to the protestor: job loss, being targetted, etc. Achieving a critical mass is to get a protest large enough that either makes those costs worth it, or removes those costs (it is easier to fire one person than it is to fire 100000 people).
I think you are missing the point of my reply to clay_pidgin’s reply.
“Is this backed by any big groups?” is a weird way to ask what they and you have now clarified what was the point of the question. “Who’s organizing this protest?” or “Do you have any more information?” is accomplishing the same purpose, without a subtle bias in favor of the idea “Maybe this isn’t organized by a ‘big group’” or “I shouldn’t go to a protest that isn’t organized by a big group” or “I might lose my job if I go to this protest, unless I make sure that it’s going to be attended by at least 100000 people.”
Actually, a big protest is probably less safe, in my experience, since it’s more likely to escalate into something that leads to excitement which leads to charges, arrests, and so on. The protests so far have been small, and as far as I know it’s been surprisingly calm. The BLM protests were absolutely historic, and among other things a bunch of people got killed. The bigger they are, the more shit pops off, which is to a certain extent the point.
Then add to this all the nonsense I talked about in https://ponder.cat/post/1638711/1864149 about unnamed knowledgeable friends telling people that a protest was a “false flag” or other general suspicion-raising innuendos, and you can see why I might have some questions about someone who’s reacting not with “hell yeah I’m glad we are protesting, stay safe, tell me more so I can decide whether to go” or something along those lines but instead with “oh no! a protest! well, is it one of the safe kind? because it might be the other kind in which case I won’t go” or something along those lines.
Am I overreacting? Yeah, maybe. clay_pidgin was the first person who I have asked the question of, who actually clarified what would be a good type of protest to go to, which is good. The other people weren’t that interested in publicizing any protests, just in de-publicizing the 50501 protests, because people had assured them it was the bad kind of protest.
Because I want there to be more than just you and me at the protest!
Which big groups should I be looking for protests from, instead?
The ones I know are Moveon and Indivisible. The 50501 protests were decent too.
Unions.
