During the Great Depression, when banks foreclosed on farms, neighbors often showed up at the auctions together.

They’d bid only a few cents, and return the land to the family that lost it. Sometimes a noose hung nearby as a warning to outsiders not to profit from someone else’s ruin.

It was rough, but it worked, communities protected each other when the system wouldn’t.

If a collapse like that happened today, do you think people would still stand together or has that kind of solidarity disappeared? Could it happen again?

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[–] 37 points 1 year ago (11 children)

At that point the community can just refuse to recognize the sale and not let the company onto the property after the sale. The key to these kinds of protests is to make the fight unprofitable.

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  • [–] 46 points 1 year ago* (8 children)

    Yea, which will work for about 30 minutes until the police show up, who are already used to defending property over lives.

    The government doesn't have to be profitable. That's part of socializing business cost, just like how many people that work at walmart are on food stamps. A corrupt government loves to subsidize the rich.

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  • [+] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (1 child)

    I hope you don't have to find out how naive that view is.

    So you burn down the farm house. What about the fields? The equipment? The person who was kicked off the land already by then is still destitute. Now you've burned their old home down.

    Now what? MAD only works when the damage can be equally devastating, and the community will already be devastated by then.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    People from many countries have fought against worse abuse of power than just corrupt cops, heck this country was founded after fighting and defeating it's colonial ruler in civil war, why can't people fight back again.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (2 children)

    If you think fighting rich corporations with guns by the time they're scooping up farms is how it should be fought, you've already lost.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Just because you've lost doesn't mean you should give up, that's how they keep you down, you need to have a positive outlook as well while acknowledge that there issues and keep arguing for things to get better.

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