Salem Brought a Guillotine To Oppose New Data Center. Company Reps Left, Feeling “Unsafe”.
10 days ago by ViceroTempus to c/politics
Someone brought a guillotine to a city council meeting in Salem, Oregon on July 27, 2026. Not a sign shaped like one. Not a drawing. According to community accounts and social media posts, an actual guillotine structure appeared at the protest outside Loucks Auditorium, where hundreds of residents had gathered to oppose a proposed multi-billion-dollar AI data center. Company representatives reportedly assessed the scene and left, citing safety concerns — though that detail hasn't appeared in formal news coverage or official minutes.
I believe the consensus is that a successful popular movement needs 3 elements:
- a nonviolent protest movement to communicate and build support with the broader population
- a political party to communicate and enable negotiations with the opposing group
- a militant wing to provide a threat that incentivizes negotiations
Without the popular front, the political and militant groups will lose support of the population as well as their recruitment pipeline.
The political party can reduce the amount of violence and deprivation required to achieve objectives, by setting clear goals.
Without the militants, the opposing power already has a monopoly on violence and has no incentive to come to the table peacefully.
Ethiopia managed to keep the British out with something very similar.
There was a bit of a snafu, and the British sent soldiers to accompany a diplomatic envoy.
The Ethiopians made a big show of marching soldiers around the British while the diplomats negotiated.
The message was clear "we are not interested in violence, we will however use it."
The British left. They managed to keep the Italians out by kicking their ass. Repeatedly.
Non violent protest can work, if the implicit message is that "We will resort to violence if we need to. We are doing you a favor by being peaceful, do not mistake our kindness for submission."
Non violent protest can work, if the implicit message is that "We will resort to violence if we need to. We are doing you a favor by being peaceful, do not mistake our kindness for submission."
I think this is the key, unfortunately.
That's one model!
Still gotta kill the wealthy.
That can be negotiated! As a century+ of American foreign policy demonstrates, you can't just ride up and wax the existing power structures and call it a day.
You have to have something ready to replace it or you'll get the same thing again but worse.
I got it. We keep exactly the same system, except every time someone amasses a net worth exceeding say, 100 million dollars, we drag them behind a truck in front of everyone who considers themselves "upper" middle class. Every year we pick someone at random who's worth at last 50 million and do the same thing.
You know, like The Lottery, but all you have to do to avoid it is not hoard wealth.
The thing is there's like a hundred things yo do instead.
I'm not telling you how to live your life. I'm telling you that if you keep going like this, you won't have one.
It's how the Suffragists finally got heard.
It's literally the only way to negotiate with the powerful.
Always was.
They fear ONLY for their personal well-being, they don't even care about their own kids.
That's just not true. Its the closest they cone to fucking someone who looks like they do, without the person they're fucking being old (12+) and gross! They care a little!
You must speak before you fight, its the first step on the escalation ladder.
That's with people,cwho could possibly hive a shit what you have to say.
For the wealthy or conservative violence is speech. It's the only speech.
Dammit which one of you guys gave them permission?
Suing does not work and is not worth the cost when it pretends to.
Oh, it stopped them?
And I'm not rich enough to have a country.
Power to the people. When the government fails is it is the duty of the people to exercise their power
I'm ok with them feeling unsafe.
I want them to feel unsafe all the way up to the blade drop. Actually they say the brain stays on for a few seconds after so until the eyes stop blinking.
@thethrilloftime69 @ViceroTempus I'm with you. Hope it propagates to the rest of the mob family.
So do the citizens...
That's why they brought a fucking guillotine.
Like, this is the result of all the shit they're pulling with bribing politicians and having them arrest anyone who talks back at meetings.
People aren't just going to lay down and take, at a certain point when the 0.01% keep violating the social contract, everyone else adapts to the new reality
It's like a little kid who cheats at Monopoly and loves the game, nothing can make them stop cheating and they always insistnon playing.
You fix that by cheating back just as hard, ruin the kids game, and teach them that if everyone plays by the rules we all have fun.
If a few refuse the rules, everyone else refuses the game.
If the rich fascists are scared now, wait til we start using the fucking things.
I don't like the comparison this suggests, because it paints the data-center protestors as fascist overlords.
Person who posted the meme doesn’t understand the movie on that level lol
They just remember a scene when the good guys confront the big bad and the movie’s psychic golden boy announces that it’s scaewed.
Good analogy. One ugly creature is scared but were still fucked...
Good.
Good
and STAY out.
This is really shitty reporting.
It doesn't mention anywhere that the guillotine was not functional. They make it sound like it could have been used. It was a prop.
Better that the shitheads think it's operational. Let them lose sleep over what's coming.
Maybe. I personally prefer accurate reporting. We don't need more misinformation
But you could grab the overlords and put them in the prop and try?
It might even hurt more that way!
Death by a thousand bludgeons?
Not in favor of murder, but suffering is a whole different thing!
It doesn’t mention anywhere that the guillotine was not functional.
I just looked at the social media post. It's a tiny scale guillotine. It'd struggle to slice anything larger than a carrot. The blade probably isn't even real, nor made to come down.
Whoa. I still have to admit that I'm not quite clear on just why AI data centers are what has galvanized resistance so much.
Of all things, why those, I wonder?
It's a bipartisan issue. The Left likes having clean air, clean water, and a safe environment for wildlife. The Right likes lower energy prices and hates government surveillance. There's also a lot of crossover in those concerns to different degrees. In some cases, local officials appear to be signing NDAs, accepting bribes, and other corrupt hijinks that benefit themselves over their constituencies. Corporations and billionaires will make billions at a tax discount or tax free on the backs of local taxpayers. There's really a lot to hate about building more of them.
It's the whole package. It's the unsightly huge buildings, the taking of jobs, the AI slop, the environmental destruction, the electricity cost increase, the noise, the pollution. There are few good things AI does, and none of them offset the negatives.
They’re building data centres in the idiots’ backyards, that’s why. Rural voters vote Red because they’re disconnected from society and have no tolerance for people different than themselves. This issue affects them so they care. The people on the left care about the environment and oppose them despite not being directly affected. Because they have empathy and the capacity for critical thinking.
I’m not sure this issue “unites” people against anything other than data centres specifically, but time will tell.
Because there's literally nothing to gain and everything to lose. Not even "jobs" as the common narrative is for company tax breaks.
So yeah, it's the pinnacle of how this isn't a partisan war, but a class war. And the tech industry has done a shift job with PR trying to convince otherwise; the left are disillusioned and the right never trusted big tech coastal elites to begin with.
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Violence is literally the only thing that works on the wealthy and the right wing. Don't even bother speaking.
save