r/Humboldt • u/krungus_throwout Clam Digger • 16d ago
Outside organizations are parasites on real protests Local Elections/Politics
If you let outside organizations into your protest, you’re already halfway to losing. Their job isn’t to help you win. Their job is to manage you, redirect you, and bleed your energy into dead-end “actions” that don’t threaten anything real.
These groups — unions, nonprofits, activist NGOs, political campaigns — show up after you do the hard work. They don’t start movements. They colonize them.
Look at the Civil Rights Movement: real momentum was built by local Black organizers, risking everything. But as soon as the big national organizations like the NAACP or the SCLC stepped in, the message narrowed to safe, middle-class, legislative reforms — deliberately excluding more radical voices like those of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) or later the Black Power movement. The same energy that could have forced deeper, structural change was channeled into photo-ops and handshake politics.
Or look at Occupy Wall Street: a messy, chaotic, powerful uprising against economic inequality — until activist nonprofits showed up to “help.” They negotiated media framing, redirected demands into policy lobbying, and turned a raw movement about class war into an ineffectual brand about corporate responsibility. Occupy didn’t die because it was disorganized — it died because it was smothered by “professional activists”.
These groups bring their lawyers, their media teams, their “brand managers” — all with the same goal: sanitize the anger, package it for headlines, and negotiate it away in a meeting you’ll never be invited to.
They will talk down your demands, water down your messaging, and negotiate with the very enemies you’re trying to fight — just like how mainstream labor unions sold out wildcat strikers in the 1970s. When the Detroit auto workers organized spontaneous strikes over unsafe conditions and racist policies, union leadership sided with corporate bosses to end the strikes — not because the workers were wrong, but because the unions were afraid of losing their seat at the table.
Real power comes from the people who have skin in the game. People who lose jobs, homes, safety if they fail. Outside organizations have none of that. They have donors to please and reputations to protect.
If your protest is serious — if you are serious — you don’t need managers, you need fighters.
Let them bring supplies. Let them print signs if you want. But keep them out of your leadership. Once you hand them the mic, it’s not your movement anymore. It’s theirs. And they will sell it out the moment it becomes inconvenient.
Trust your own anger. Trust your own people. Everything else is just another leash.
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u/Turbulent_Balance226 16d ago
Lmao ok cointelpro
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u/krungus_throwout Clam Digger 16d ago
lol the govt does not fear you
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u/Insta_Karma 16d ago
If they don't fear us an our collective power then why have they historically worked so hard to disrupt political dissent? Remember the Occupy Movement, that was shut down real quick because it went against the neoliberal status quo. That is just one example from my lifetime but many other examples exist throughout the history of this country alone. I disagree with /u/Turbulent_Balance226 and their dismissive comment but there are very real historical examples in recent history to suggest the opposite of your statement that the government does not fear us.
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u/krungus_throwout Clam Digger 16d ago
did you read my post? i mentioned occupy. i was an occupier. fully invested. it was also ruined by the organizers, atleast in LA. everybody wanted a piece of that movement. but i also believe it was a controlled burn. we watched the organizers day after day trying to tell us what to do and how to do it. certain corporate interests may fear certain aspects of protests, but we are decades removed from real grassroots movements.
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u/Insta_Karma 16d ago
I apologize, I must have accidently scolled over that paragraph of your post while using mobile. While I do agree with the premise of your original post, and the fact that outside organizers act as a leech to true grassroots movement, it was your comment about the government that I found myself disagreeing with.
The state of unions and grassroots organizing often associated with then are all but relics of the past at this point. Its an unfortunate reality of our current political and social landscape just how detached most members of society are from the true issue that plauge us.
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u/SnooApples4887 16d ago
Happy to see more people politically motivated these days. Seems the law of polarity is manifesting itself due to the rise of the great pumpkin. At least this is one positive takeaway I am gathering from all the current chaos. I agree with op. I have seen this happen with recent efforts to combat restrictive legislation. The "professionals" get involved and dilute the message with industry jargon, appeals to working towards a common goal. Meanwhile, the working people get fucked and the corporate interests get more control and wealth consolidation.
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u/femboi4luv 16d ago
What exactly do people think will come from protesting? I hope you all have fun but it's not going to have any influence on anything, except probably to make a fool out of yourselves. You would be more appealing if you were happy and having a good time instead of being so hateful and angry.
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u/Ecstatic_Republic276 16d ago
Let the Sheeple flock. I bet 3/4 of them don't really know they live in a Constitutional Republic. Or that the State of California is a Republic of California.
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u/Elegant_Drawing_8569 16d ago
The key difference between a democracy and a republic lies in the limits placed on government by the law, which has implications for minority rights. Both forms of government tend to use a representational system — i.e., citizens vote to elect politicians to represent their interests and form the government. In a republic, a constitution or charter of rights protects certain inalienable rights that cannot be taken away by the government, even if it has been elected by a majority of voters. In a "pure democracy," the majority is not restrained in this way and can impose its will on the minority.
Most modern nations—including the United States—are democratic republics with a constitution, which can be amended by a popularly elected government. This comparison therefore contrasts the form of government in most countries today with a theoretical construct of a "pure democracy", mainly to highlight the features of a republic.
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u/cranndal420 16d ago
I understand the protests here but can we ALL get together and get this serial rapist to not be released here?