I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. I’m sure a lot of you have. For my part, I’ve been finally writing down my political experience, what I saw, etc…in a way that I think might be able to move some people on the right. But I also agree with this post. People always talk/write, etc…and rarely actually take action.
So, with that in mind, can we talk about what that looks like? Very specifically?
I suppose I’m hoping we can go a step beyond “go protest,” having unanimously agreed that we should all be out en masse to make it clear we’re pissed about…well…kinda everything.
But this is a fairly radical bunch. So, what do you all know about this? What concrete advice/tips/plans/ideas can we dumbass individual Americans learn from historic examples, political movements, etc…? Indeed, one of those questions might be: is this even the place to talk about this? If not, where? Does that already exist somewhere in the aether out there? Communications is always an interesting to me (I’ve wondered whether something like LoRa could be useful to setup in my area).
If I want to start a group locally, are there things I should think about? Practical tips beyond “talk to everyone you know?” Books to read? Etc…? Even if you get a group, it’s easy for it to mean nothing. How do you make it not mean nothing?
Find people in your area. Do tangible organizational things in real life.
Don’t waste time making solutions in search of problems. Some doodad isn’t going to help anyone. Nobody is wiring up an arduino lora whatever gadget. ‘B-but just buy the modules and conn…’ Stop. It’s useless. Doesn’t help anyone. No on is fidgeting with an Arduino sketch and some antenna wires and checking the 18650 battery while trying send packets to a guy over there. None of this matters when you’re all getting pepper sprayed with boots on your neck.
You can pull out the RF gear when the nukes have sent us back to the stone age.
I think you’re right. Good call. I shouldn’t have even mentioned the LoRa thing. It’s one of those romantic notions I’ve had in the back of my head and I don’t even know enough about it to suggest it as a practical solution to anything, much less here. I guess I was just getting at, “ARE there communications tools/platforms/organizational structures worth considering for an effort of this sort?”
Probably should have asked that instead of, “How to La Resistance!?”
I think it’s still a valid question if you frame it along the lines of “something useful at protests, but also in everyday peaceful life”.
Meshtastic LoRa is worth looking into if you’re going to protests with friends/family/cohorts. You can get a waterproof, GPS enabled, credit-card sized module with multi-day battery life and no flashing required for $35 (T1000-E). That’s specifically because it can also be used when hiking, going to festivals, or just for fun.
I was just at a Mardi Gras parade and text messages couldn’t go through due to network congestion from too many people. With a couple of meshtastic devices our phones could still text each other and see our GPS positions on a map. All with encryption enabled.