Can someone please tranacribe the sign for blind folks?
this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
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Resist: It's Time
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We are still in this together, but "this" is going to be real different in the very near future. This demands a different kind of "we."
The French Resistance during Nazi occupation played important roles delivering downed Allied airmen back to safety, supplying military intelligence, and acts of sabotage.
The Underground Railroad is estimated to have brought 100,000 freedom seekers to safety between 1810 and 1850.
It's time.
Rules
- Do not gatekeep resistance
- Do not organize specific subversive plans here.
- Do not identify yourself or anyone else here.
- Do brainstorm general ideas about how to support people who need it and stymie the efforts of fascists
- Do share thoughts on how to be personally prepared for subversive action
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The photograph doesn't show the front of the sign, so we don't see what it says. I'll try describing the image:
The image in the post here is a screenshot of a social media post with a caption that says "when you participate in a peaceful protest, but are prepared for the alternative." Underneath the caption is a photo taken from behind of a person at a protest who is holding a sign. We only see the plain white back of the sign, but we can see that the stick they used to hold up the sign is a baseball bat taped to the back of it.
The sign is facing away in the picture but is taped to a baseball bat.
Fun fact baseball bats are actually not great weapons. Better than nothing, but they're designed to hit baseballs, not withstand heavy impact. Wooden bats will quickly shatter, aluminum bats are too light and will bend easily.
Use steel pipes, like from the frame of a chain-link fence (wear gloves for the vibration). Hammers. Go ye olde school and use garden tools like shovels, hoes, pitchforks. You can get police surplus tonfas for pretty cheap.
Fun historical stat, in Russia during 2016, half a million baseball bats were reported to have been sold around the country. The number of baseballs reported to have sold was 1.
Liberals need to start buying guns. They've spent decades disarming themselves, but now we've got fascists co trolling the government, and their supporters have 90% of the guns.
Guns seem evil until you need them, and there's a very real chance that day is coming soon.
Yes. But...
- In the context of a protest, using guns is the most extreme escalation. You start shooting at cops, cops start shooting at you, and most likely everyone around you. It's an option but it requires restraint.
- Not everyone is mentally, legally, or financially able to take that burden on.
you should check out the John Brown Gun Club!
Using guns is escalation but showing guns can keep people safe when there's nazis about.
I'm not saying show up and start shooting cops. But if you can openly carry a baseball bat without the police shooting you, you can carry a concealed pistol (in states where it's legal) without escalating anything until escalation is required.
If you go black panthers and just have 25 people with ARs (where open carry is legal) they will be concerned about escalating with you
I tell people as often as I can, especially my trans and bipoc friends; now is the time. Get a couple guns (a long one and a short one) and learn how to use them. Learn some basic first aid, you really just need to know how to stabilize someone. Start networking with like-minded people in your communities. The police will not protect us, they’ve proven they’ll happily club senior citizens to the ground and shoot any protesters in the face with rubber bullets while escorting a rightwing murderer to safety.
Iran was a secular, liberal state until almost 1980 when they (mostly legitimately) elected an Islamist theocracy; it could happen here.
Get to know people in your community. Take an interest in growing food, learn how to fix things. Get a gun (or two) and learn how to use them. Establish secondary lines of communication and start preparing.
https://mutualaiddisasterrelief.org/
https://afsc.org/news/how-create-mutual-aid-network
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In the context of a protest, you're right.
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People who are unable or unwilling for whatever reason to arm themselves shouldn't. But it's definitely a good idea to consciously reevaluate your ability or willingness on a fairly regular basis, considering the rapidly changing circumstances. And just because a particular course of action isn't right for everyone doesn't mean it's wrong for everyone.
If Ukraine has taught us anything, it’s that we need cheap drones and hand grenades.
Guns only work after they’re too close. FPV drones work from a good distance.
Also we should be designing these without GPS and with frequency hopping and weird spectrum use to avoid easy jamming.
While you're 100% right about the drones,
Guns only work after they’re too close.
Handguns only work after they're too close. You want a rifle, too. Handguns have their place in that they are concealable, lighter, "last ditch" alongside a rifle
And you want it now. The best time to get a firearm is before you need a firearm. You need to learn how to operate it safely, field strip it, clean it, manage clearing jams. And you need to practice; you will want to send hundreds of rounds through it so that you know how it aims and behaves, and so you can have some confidence that you're going to hit what you aim at. You'll want to find out what ammo your gun "doesn't like," and you'll be spending a bit of money on ammo, cleaning supplies, range case, holster (for a handgun), hearing and eye protection, maybe even tools if you need to fix something.
You can't practice enough, and you can't practice at all without a gun. Unfortunately, there are a good number of shops/ranges that feel real skeevy, in a "we cater to fascists" way. I'm lucky to have a clean, well-lighted chain store in my area. Find a place like that.
But always wear gloves. The recoil and vibration can easily break your hand even with a wooden gardening tool.
How do gloves help with recoil and vibration? What kind of gloves are we talking about?
I'm just now realizing you always see people using gloves for yard work and such, and that they were probably doing that for a reason. What am I missing out on?
gloves for yard work protects your hands from dirt, scrapes and cuts, the nice ones are thick leather but you wouldn't really want much padding because it gets in the way of fine work. gardening requires only thin gloves because mostly it's just the dirt you're dealing with.
Padded work gloves will offer some protection from vibrations; think of using a fiberglass handled maul to do building demo the difference between having padded work gloves and not is massive. The pads are slightly cumbersome but if you're just gripping and slamming that won't matter much!
Discarded rebar.
Thanks :D
every protest is a show of force. this is how many people you will have to deal with, minimum, if you don't take it seriously.
a protest without threat of escalation is no protest at all.
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So many sportball options. Hockey. Golf. Lacrosse. Tennis. Target shooting. Cricket. Billiards. Skiing.
… javelin, pole vault, darts…
Fencing, skeet, caber toss...
caber
A sign on a whole tree trunk would be both the least and most threatening sign of the lot.
Kinda high potential for an own-goal though. As a Canadian adjacent dude, I’m picking hockey stick. I have an old carbon one that’s light, strong, and keeps assholes at 2+ arms length.
It's almost as if a huge number of sports evolved from military training...
We could keep going; pankration, hoplidromos...
There's a whole section of the Aeneid that talks about their impromptu sporting matches (the description of the boxing gauntlets is particularly spicy).
"Romance of the Three Kingdoms" has multiple instances where generals arrange for games among their troops.