Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/11/14/john-oliver-how-to-resist-the.html
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I watched this earlier today. The last part was especially excellent.
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Not available in Canada. Work-around needed, please.
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Blocked worldwide. It’s a “build the wall” metaphor, get it?
Here’s a homebrew image-messed version, because that’s all we filthy worlders deserve apparently.
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Me too, and yes. Also, I was in stitches.
Also, why do you people think we would share our secrets with Canada? Some very shady people up there, day one they need to be investigated. That whole maple syrup thing, it’s a disgrace.
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wait until the invasion to rescue all the tasty tar sands bring democracy?
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I just watched this earlier this morning.
It was a real gut punch, especially the ending which I’m sure anybody regardless of political leanings can get behind.
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Well, to be honest, Trump himself isn’t available in Canada either.
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If ever there was a time when geo-locked content was especially unwelcome, this is that time. I saw a watchable version than the one posted further up but it appears to have already been nuked, that zoomed-in version is unwatchable.
Cathartic ending for personal and global reasons; i want 2016 in the shredder of history already but 2017 is coming - article 50 getting triggered, le pen and the rise of euro-fascism and what else… oh yeah, herr drumpf.
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I know it shouldn’t be, but it still is mind-boggling to me that adults choose to get their news exclusively through bloody Facebook. I imagine them as the kind of adults who get their calories exclusively from Jack in the Box.
To the list of causes he provides to support during the coming four years I’d add the ACLU, an organisation of which I am a proud card-carrying member. They are relentless in standing up to the kind of unConstitutional BS that is going to be pulled by this administration.
And finally, yes, good riddance to a fucking heinous and rotten year.
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I really thought the one organisation notable by its absence was the EFF. I agree with cory on this, it might not be as important as fighting gay rights, the right to choose, universal healthcare etc., but all those things will be fought on the internet and we’re fucked if we haven’t got a safe online space free from censorship and surveillance.
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Well, except that people managed to organize successful resistance to oppression without the internet for several centuries. Not that I don’t think internet freedom isn’t important, but it’s not as critical to freedom movements as some things which other organizations who’ve been around longer and have managed to thrive long before the internet was around.
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Thanks for adding the EFF, another great organisation. I think the most effective approach is to ask people who have the means to do so to choose one cause that’s meaningful to them and donate between $5-20 per month for the next 4 years.
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Well yeah, you can still do it but i can’t imagine going back to that protest model now, it’s just too slow and inefficient. Protest movements in the past spent most of their time doing the damn admin instead of getting out there.
You’re not going to get movement on any issues unless there is a constellation of tactics employed. Including being out in the streets physically. The anti-Mubarak movement in Egypt did not reach critical mass until he shut off the internet and people came out on the streets en mass. It really is the tactic that is time tested and proven historically to work.
That doesn’t meant that the internet doesn’t matter or that it can’t be a major organizing tool for other kinds of actions. But BLM, for example, didn’t get the attention it has gotten just by organizing online - it used online tools to organize on the street.
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Hey John, remember when you urged Donald to run, and offered to contribute to his campaign?
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You need the admin to get out there 364 days out of the year. You can just throw up flyers and expect people to show unless things are really bad and there’s already mass in motion which might happen that remaining one day a year. RFRA last year in Indiana, and Trump’s election come to mind as rare events that essentially motivated spontaneous organization. But, these are the exception. At the end of the day, people have to go home again, unless it’s really bad- c.f. Tahrir Square.
The real problem you see with admin is too many sergeants and not enough soldiers. That bogs things down heavily. Strangely it’s not because of a surplus of bad, power-hungry people. Actually it’s a lack of leadership that presents a problem. There often aren’t strong central personalities, and everyone is sort of hesitant to take the initiative for fear of seeming way too forward or egotistical. There’s also a strong sense in lefty circles that everyone’s voice must be heard. That’s fine if there are five or six people, but it grows time-consuming quickly. And before someone brings it up, I’m well aware of the mechanisms and meeting protocols that exist and are used to create consensus. The issue is that consensus is inefficient and often wrong.
To be clear, I’m certainly not advocating that every protest movement have a dictator-king and there’s no value in hearing people out, but you do need people who you can count on to be there every day, shoveling the shit no one else wants to. I’ve often been of the mind that managers are really janitors. Their job is to make sure everyone in the organization is as effective as possible. That’s what every protest movement needs to be sustained long-term. BLM is an interesting example of that. It started off being very grassroots but it is increasingly evolving into chapters and networks.
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[quote=“anon61221983, post:15, topic:89424”]
But BLM, for example, didn’t get the attention it has gotten just by organizing online - it used online tools to organize on the street.[/quote]
That’s it right there, you take those online tools away from people and can you have an effective movement in the 21st century? I don’t really think you can personally, surely the internet is the foundation of that ‘constellation of tactics’. But it doesn’t stop there, it gives you a means to show the results and when you have countries with very poor net access it can be ignored by the world. Not all the time but i’m thinking of workers rights protests in india for example: vast numbers of people but little media coverage, is there a correlation with poor net access?
My point is that they’d survive without it. Once again, some of the most effective rights movements in history got along fine with out. I don’t think the constellation of tactics have changed, just how people communicate about those tactics.
Little media coverage here or in India? [quote=“politeruin, post:18, topic:89424”]
is there a correlation with poor net access?
[/quote]
I don’t know. I do know that Gandhi did just fine without the internet. And that Modi has successfully used the media to organize his movement.
These things are tools for organizing, not the organizing itself.
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He does, yes. He’s mentioned that.
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