There was an interesting event in the ever-continuous French riots where some protestors stormed Blackrock headquarters. This is in retaliation of the French Government increasing he retirement age from 62 o 64 to deal with the ever-increasing burden on their social services system.
Anyone paying attention will remember how the governments were telling the citizens that migration was the only way to keep these services afloat, and their added value to the labor market will keep these services going as the native population goes into old age. That, of course, was a lie, and not even a well-meaning one, so here we are.
While storming Blackrock is a good first step, it will be ineffective, as taking over a building in this digital age is pretty useless, unless said building has a massive data center of computers they are willing to destroy. The citizens are coming to the realization their elected officials are just the front face of the shadowy organizations pulling their strings, and that their Democracy is just a tug-of-war of these shadow orgs trying to gain control of the population under the illusion of choice.
To truly gain power back, the only options for a mob is the foster a counter-elite that can outmaneuver the current elite, or take some actions that can not be posted on Substack. While politicians can be replaced on a whim, the people funding these NGO’s have names and addresses, and they would be more fruitful giving them an uninvited visit. Burning stuff makes for good theatre, but is ultimately just letting off steam, like the yellow vests figured out.
The mass protests are just making it easier to find enemies of the regime, and allowing some of the more bloodthirsty of the police departments to get a few cracks to the skull in. An interesting counter-example is during the revolutionary war, where the Sons of Liberty would congregate in a public venue, make fun of the King, and disappear into the night before any authority could arrive. It struck terror, a there was a well-organized group that could congregate and disappear like a ghost. Imagine that instead of mass protests, there were simply flash acts of rebellion, happening without warning all over the country.
Instead of marching and allowing infiltration, imagine making pinpoint attacks on your enemy that leaves him dazed, confused, and demoralized. Imagine people in organizations intentionally stymying efforts to keep things under control through mass bureaucratic manipulation, while showing a blind eye when one of our guys breaks the rules with impunity.
Once you’re mocked so many times and have shown you can’t keep order, you become to seem like the losing side, and a loser. Regular people who would just go along would want no part of it, and will become mused spectators in the humiliation of heir elites. The actions don’t need to even be anything illegal, just simple ways to poke a stick in the eyes of our adversaries and create counter-institutions in the chaos.
In this new form of warfare, knowledge and speed is everything, and prudent use of it on our side while eliminating it in the other can cause a people to punch far above their weight.