Yeah that has always been a threat while protesting and revolutions in general and I totally understand the fear. But the point is that people are currently dying, so when is the time that people will no longer have anything to lose? As the contradictions continue to sharpen and living there gets harder and harder, Americans will only have two options: revolution or continued death and destruction. I just hope that the former is sometime soon.

I don’t think that all of these protests are completely useless or pointless, I just think that they need real organisation and concrete goals they want to achieve, because otherwise, it’s just a parade rather than an actual protest. They could serve as funnels into genuine action like mutual aid (that needs an end goal like getting more people into leftist theory and gaining class consciousness and solidarity so these networks grow, not just for the sake of it), civil disobedience and actual direct action.

Think of the civil rights movement with Malcolm X or the Black Panther Party, or other movements like Occupy Wall Street (which could’ve done something if not for the lack of cohesive ideological foundations, real leadership and concrete goals that made it easy for outside agitators to co-opt) or even the Black Lives Matter protests. Obviously of these need to be looked at with today’s hindsight in evaluating where things might have gone wrong (which has been done ad nauseam: another reason reading is a big part of making these things effective).

I really think that Americans could build real movements if there was a long term goal in mind and proper organising was done to radicalise people into actual action that has effects on the world (just look at the coordinate action European dock workers have been doing in stopping arms reaching Israel).

Just my two cents, but I do understand the fear. I just think it needs to be used as fuel for building a real movement. 8 million people is extremely significant, and it would be amazing if that could be used to do something. Everyone’s scared, I’d say people in the civil rights movement were too, and the people resisting in Gaza are probably terrified, but from a pragmatic point of view, there do need to be some sacrifices (not just life but of losing material comforts). Liberation is an uphill battle, and it certainly isn’t painless.