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Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

You cannot throw out the current neoliberal political regimes based on peaceful protests alone, I thought that by now that would have been obvious for most of us adults in the room who went through Occupy and the peaceful protests of the early 2010s. Tahrir wasn’t peaceful, throwing out Assad wasn’t peaceful, why do people still have the expectation that throwing out a regime that puts an investment banker as its leader is supposed to be peaceful?

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Presumably, because the people who want to change things do have in-system ways to do so: joining into a new Party, preaching their views, getting elected, growing, until they convince enough people to give them the power they need to change things.

In practice there may be many roadblocks in that, so this isn't absolute. But if that's the case, it's still on the people who notice the roadblocks to convince most everyone these are real. Without that any protest will lack widespread support and be suppressed regardless.

Empirical history contradicts your claim. In reality people protest when life feels bad and when life feels bad for many many people, there are really big protests. If it gets to this point, the system has already failed, because life already feels bad.

Arguing that the system has escape hatches is just an excuse. The escape hatches have also failed, clearly, since they either haven't been used (which is their fault) or their use did not fix the system.

I don't disagree with you. I'd say this fits what I alluded to in my second paragraph.

political movements that pose a threat to the regime's interests are suppressed much more aggressively and in much earlier stages, debanking etc.

there are many NGOs aligned with the current protests, and they receive substantial government funding, because they are in symbiosis. the regime doesn't provide funding for ideologies that actually threaten its interests.

public opinion has now reached a tipping point, any further vandalism/arson/violence will not provide a net benefit to the regime. that's why now they finally try to stop it.

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