[I originally posted this in chapotraphouse, but it was deleted for being “pro-cop” even though that very much wasn’t the case. (I believe PSL was actually involved in organizing the protest if I’m not mistaken.) The mod that deleted it openly broke the sectarian rule too.]
Been seeing a lot of people hating on what the protest marshals did during the pro-Gaza protests at the DNC and I feel they definitely did the right thing. Instigating stuff like going up against the cops under the guise of “revolutionary” action just gets a lot of people arrested and doesn’t accomplish anything.
EDIT: Users who were present at the protests have said, counter to what is claimed in the screenshot, that the protest marshals did NOT call for the police. Thank you for clearing this up, comrades!
Nah I’m with you. I’ve been at actions in the past where a faction of people start pushing for intense escalation in the heat of the moment, and it’s never sat right with me. What’s the desired outcome? Optics?
Pushing people who aren’t ready or trained in any way to risk getting brutalized by the cops (and then potentially felonies after it’s all said and done) for no real outcome seems stupid and adventurist, and that’s what this smells like to me. People getting the shit kicked out of them and facing charges will do a lot to de-activate them and the people around them, which is directly counterproductive.
people start pushing for intense escalation in the heat of the moment
It's a "do you believe in democratic centralism or not?" moment. Sometimes that is going to mean supporting an action even if you think the org should have gone another way.
Yeah I'm disappointed with some of the responses here. This action was obviously planned as a peaceful protest/march, and whether you agree with that tactic or not (I think we should be past that, but I'm not in Chicago), the time to push for escalation is long before the action is currently taking place. Otherwise you just needlessly endanger people (and there were people with children at this event, apparently), and it comes off as wrecker behavior. Again, what was to be gained materially in that moment by pushing for confrontation with the police? Some broken bones and some felony charges? Unserious behavior AND mindset.
it comes off as wrecker behavior
It doesn't just come off as wrecking, it definionally is wrecking. We're talking:
- Org plans action.
- Someone shows up and attempts to wreck the plan on the fly.
If that's not wrecking, nothing is!
This is kind of the leftist version of the "dig the fucking coal" meme: if you are part of an org, you have to follow the party line. You have to have some level of discipline. You get democratic input in decisions, but once the decision is made you can't just say "fuck it I do what I want."
I'm also disappointed in the responses. This was organized with little Palestine, the largest enclave of Palestinian refugees in the country and was founded by literal Nakba survivors.
Oh yea I forgot the terminally online leftist dip shit knows better how to organize than the literal survivors of an ongoing genocide.
lucky me, i sure fuckin don't, and neither do most people. when you encounter someone who isn't bound by your binding resolutions and committees, are you always going to side with your enemy against them?
What was to be gained in that moment by escalating the action (which was billed as a peaceful protest/march) to direct confrontation with the police?
probably nothing. but measure it against what is to be lost by doing cop work for the cops.
Maybe this makes me a LARPer or some shit but I was really hoping to see less peaceful demonstration and more “bricks through the convention center windows”
I wanted the protestors to make it so difficult and unsafe to be inside the convention that they were unable to continue
There’s a genocide happening and the people committing it were inside that building. Draw your own conclusions on how that might’ve ended in a just world.
I (and a lot of the groups that planned this march) would probably agree. If you look at that list you will see a lot of groups that aren't committed in principle to only nonviolent actions. But they made a strategic decision to have a large demonstration on the first day of the convention and they executed the plan. You're not going to get 17k people to come out for bricks through windows simply because the libs won't show and neither will the people who can't afford to get arrested
Yeah like I was hoping to see things on the level of the George Floyd protests, or Jan 6 but good.
It feels like the student encampments got both more attention and more actual concessions and those were in places that should’ve been incredibly easy to ignore, whereas this was where the people with the power actually were.
Maybe I just fundamentally think having a large peaceful demonstration instead of a smaller non-peaceful one was a bad decision
But I’m not there, who am I to judge, I’m just armchair quarterbacking protests
I think it's fine to disagree with the overall strategy, but they did plan and execute it effectively. What I take issue with is the people (including in this thread) in high dudgeon to demand that the organizers allow contingents of wreckers to hijack the action. Nobody was prevented from planning more radical actions, only from using this one as cover.
Are you saying that because one org got the permits no other groups are allowed to be there on the same day? Because then the best way to prevent any real action is to plan 'peaceful protests' at any event someone might want to do more at.
Nobody was prevented from planning a separate action on the same day or on one of the other days of the convention. Wonder why these mysterious other groups you're referencing didn't just do that
One org in the sense that it was one planned event. Sorry its a coalition of groups that all got their own permits.
Youre right, they should have made their own direct action facebook event and got their own permit if they wanted to do anything outside of those in charge. Turning people over to the cops is important because they didnt listen to the leaders of the coalition.
Youre right, they should have made their own direct action facebook event and got their own permit if they wanted to do anything outside of those in charge.
So you're saying the only way these "groups" (who are they again? I don't believe you've said) can operate is by hijacking someone else's planned event. Interesting
Turning people over to the cops is important because they didnt listen to the leaders of the coalition.
I don't endorse that and it didn't happen
The problem isn’t that other unspecified groups were prevented from doing things, but that all of the major orgs agreed to a neutered strategy
I don't have any problem with disagreeing with the overall strategy. I would prefer if protestors had burned the DNC to the ground, frankly. But there's no reason to believe that would have happened if this march hadn't been planned and executed on the first day of the convention. The numbers weren't there for effective violent action, and if people want to get their heads stomped in a police riot to no effect they can do it any other time and place
The approved-route protest where protestors mustn't get too close TO A FUCKING FENCE or else the cops need to be called
I feel like both your positions are valid and this discourse is as old as time, but this person on twitter is making the optics argument.
The optics are there’s a fucking ongoing genocide and we’re causing it. People have the right to do whatever they think will stop it. There’s no right way to protest.
So not a peaceful march that doesn’t even get that close to the convention?
Effectiveness of protest can only really be judged after the protest. One constant is that the less disruptive a protest is, the less effective it is though.
Non-violent protest isn't necessarily undisruptive, but "peaceful" protest where you avoid disrupting anything is fruitless. It's only really effective when your sole goal is to build awareness and your organization can't take the hit of a large portion of it's membership being arrested or detained.
Once a movement has grown past the need for awareness, it needs to begin engaging in only disruptive forms of protest. A combination of violent and non-violent depending on the circumstance.
If getting too close to the DNC's fence is "wrecker activity" and "adventurism" now, then what's it going to be in a few years?
"Protesting in public is adventurism! Don't you know a quiet inside protest is the respectable thing to do now?"
I mean, they wanted to confront the police head-on and implicate a bunch of people in the process. It isn’t just “going up to the fence” lol
Show
The issue is that in the US it's gotten to the point where being too close to a cop is "confrontation," and protestors in the US keep ceding more ground each time. You're going to end up in a situation where any form of civil disobedience is considered "too confrontational"
Even MLK's civil disobedience was seen as "too confrontational." People threw a shitfit over sit-ins, freedom riders, bus boycotts, and the Million Man March lol
It’s only not too confrontational if it’s quiet and out of the way and able to be ignored completely
@SxarletRed@twitter.com is the kind of person who would have taken down the tents and moved them off the quad in compliance with campus police, for the sake of "keeping activists safe".
Fighting the police in a position they've got extremely well-fortified is silly, but turning on anyone who wants to do that is ten times worse.
Fighting the police in a position they’ve got extremely well-fortified is silly, but turning on anyone who wants to do that is ten times worse.
Just... what?
Thousands showed up for what they intended as a peaceful march. A few wanted to make it violent -- something you agree is not a good idea -- and were deescalated without any injuries or arrests.
This is supposed to be "ten times worse" than letting a few people get thousands (who did not sign up to get attacked by cops) attacked by cops? When you yourself said fighting the cops here would be silly?
If you don't want to throw bricks and fight cops, no one is interfering to force you to. If the cops attack everyone, that is the fault of the cops, not of the small agitating minority of protestors. You are ceding all ethical judgment to the police.
The stance here is against people who would split their own movement into "good protestors" and "bad protestors" for the sake of optics that will be promptly ignored or discarded. The subtext of what you are saying is that there was a tacit agreement with the authorities not to escalate- an admission and commitment to impotence. What's the point of protesting the DNC at all if you're just going to follow a script that you know will just be ignored because it's played out a thousand times already?
Throwing burning things into the Third Precinct was inadvisable too, but it worked. Leaving room for people to protest in their own way is how you sustain the life of a protest movement, instead of strangling it.
We celebrate Palestinians who throw rocks at Israeli tanks, for not accepting the premise that disproportionate revenge is "the adversary's hand being forced (by the less powerful)". We shouldn't conceptually exclude this attitude from the imperial core.
Leaving room for people to protest in their own way is how you sustain the life of a protest movement, instead of strangling it.
At some point an org can't just let people do whatever they want. The whole point of organizing is to plan what you are doing and then follow the plan. Party/movement discipline is necessary.
Leaving aside how no plan survives first contact, the whole point of organizing is to be transformative. If you are trying to change the world, you leave room for adaptation and change in your own movement. The majority of what becomes possible is not something you can rigidly or linearly plan for beforehand.
The Left in America has largely been "following the plan" for 100 years; the FBI reads their plan and runs circles around them.
When the plan is obviously going nowhere, what do you do? More of the same?
no plan survives first contact
The response to this isn't to abandon planning and say "everyone do whatever they want when we arrive." The response is to make simpler plans, figure out how to communicate during the action, establish contingencies, etc. You do want to have a plan and stick to it -- "no plan survives" is a statement about how difficult that is, no more.
The majority of what becomes possible is not something you can rigidly or linearly plan for beforehand.
What do you think was possible here that fighting cops would have accomplished?
I don't think that "fighting cops", fun and righteous as it may be, accomplishes anything in and of itself. I wouldn't have picked a fight there; what I would have done is a tactical matter that I'd share only on private channels. But I sure as hell wouldn't have turned on the people I went to a demo with.
I won't try to say that everyone should do as I do; I'm specifically arguing for the opposite of that, to have coordination without subordination. It's not one single party structure pulling it off, and never was.
My position is that if there's a diverse composition at your rally, and there have been stirrings of confrontation for a while, if you see people getting physically combative against the cops or against property and you act to impair them or to facilitate their arrest by police, you are becoming part and parcel of policing.
This is an ethical matter of "do you turn to the ruling authority to resolve division in your movement". For anyone to call themself a genuine leftist, the answer must be an unambiguous "no".
Iff you feel the need to control people using the tide of law enforcement rather than denouncing them or dissociating from them, you show that you're not only unfit for allying with, on top of this you've got more in common with the forces of repression than the forces of liberation.
I mean they actually went to the encampments, posted about what they saw and supported them, so your analogy doesn’t work lol
"Nooooooo you're ruining my designated pressure outlet where I get a feeling of catharsis from doing something purely performative! How dare you give people a practical introduction to escalation, that wasn't in the plan!"
Nobody called the cops. There were 17k people there because it was planned as a peaceful march by a coalition of groups and those groups worked to keep it peaceful. People brought their kids. You're not going to get these numbers at for violent confrontation with the police.
Both sides sucked. The planned protest sucked because it was far too passive and the adventurists sucked because they tried to hijack another protest instead of doing their own thing.
The planned protest sucking:
It's not going to accomplish a single thing outside of "raising awareness" for the simple fact that it's not militant enough. One easy litmus test is to ask whether the pigs actually feel threatened by the demonstration and the very easy answer is that they do not feel threatened whatsoever. They see it as easy overtime pay. The pigs are laughing it up to the bank as they cash their fat overtime paychecks.
The adventurists sucking:
It's very obvious they tried hijacking the peaceful demonstration because they lack numbers. They have <30 people, and obviously, you're not going to accomplish much with that little people. That's less than a platoon of troops. This is pathetic in its own way since the adventurists tried to use the peace demonstrators as cannon fodder and when their adventurism inevitably fails because they lack numbers, the adventurists can always quietly slip away as the pigs beat the shit out of the cannon fodder that didn't sign up to be militant.
It's the classic dilemma. The numerous demonstrators lack militancy and the few militants lack numbers.
One easy litmus test is to ask whether the pigs actually feel threatened
The goal isn't to get in fights with cops. The goal is to stop the genocide. If getting in fights with cops is necessary to accomplish that, it should be done, but if getting in fights with cops doesn't move the needle much, it's not some intrinsic good we should be doing anyway.
It's also important to think of how you pipeline people into more radical actions. If someone goes to their very first protest expecting a peaceful march, marchers start fighting the police, and that person ends up tear gassed, beaten, and out of a job because they spent time in jail, they might never do anything like that again. You don't throw someone into the deep end if you want to teach them to swim. You have to bring people along step by step, not all at once.
If the ultimate goal is to stop the genocide, then neither side is approaching it correctly. The Zionist entity is an extension of the US. It's pretty much the 51st state and I would argue it's more important to the US than some states like Montana. So, demonstrating/doing adventurism for the sake of getting the US political class to abandon a de facto US state that they consider more valuable to the US project than Montana is a complete dead end.
Palestine Action shows us the way forward. They don't bother with demonstrating in front of Parliament or their inbred German king. They simply break into factories to smash the drones and vandalize bank offices that closely collaborate with the Zionist entity. I don't think we should completely copy them, but their strategy deserves close study. For one, demonstrations should be focused on the site of production and distribution of weapons (eg factories, ports, railway lines) rather than the site of the political class. A worker strike can shut down a port preventing weapons from being shipped to the Zionist entity. We don't have to imagine it because it has already happened before. Anti-Zionist demonstrators along with sympathetic port workers actually got a port shut down at Oakland. This is great and the way forward.
I think people need to recognize that the US political class is irredeemably Zionist and move forward from there.
Youre acting like the people that organize these arent also doing other stuff while acting above it all.
It’s pretty much the 51st state
I read the phrase "51st state" here as the U.S. cares about Israel more than their colony Puerto Rico, and I think that works pretty well
I just don't understand why the marshals actively stopped them and helped the cops ID them instead of keeping them away from the rest of the protest. It's all about the diversity of tactics for these organizers until someone tries to do something effective, and if there wasn't active peace policing or infantile organizers "leading" maybe there could've been more genuine unrest that was much more unpredictable to the DNC attendees at the very least. You are right in that the action is adventurist but I have so much more empathy with them than the organizers that think peaceful protests are anything but a spit in the face to the gravity of the situation
Kettling and restricting the movement of protesters in the direct line of site of kkkops does help them ID you, and shit like this would be truly unacceptable to a marshal trying to keep comrades safe
Hold on I've got to go find those goalposts you moved
We're also equating "hey don't fight the cops at our peaceful protest" to kettling, now.
Helping the cops id people is not an incorrect statement though? They're helping the cops contain the protest, letting them stand back and do their job where theyre inevitably IDing people especially the people the marshalls are physically singling out for doing "bad protesting"??? Shows a lot you care more about the technical definition of ID-ing than the overall evidence towards collaboration with fascist cops
Shows a lot you care more about the technical definition of ID-ing than the overall evidence towards collaboration with fascist cops
Yeah, I'll call out fedjacketing when I see it. If you disagree with the tactics you can just say so rather than trying to smear people
It's not smearing, I'm calling out individual actions that are collaborative with cops. I genuinely believe it's because americans are generally fascists with more sympathy towards cops and peace keepers than the victims of genocide and those that know we need to do much more to stop it. Also, as a movement with a history of infiltration and co-optation when did you get the idea in your head that fedjacketing is a bad thing?
You've indicated that if you feel a tactic is counterproductive then it's the same as collaboration with the police. This is not a view to be taken seriously
- ShowYou're making the same argument people make when we say America is bad and they say "You're saying everything America does is bad, like the meme we shouldn't take seriously". There's no essence to my comment that makes it not worthy of being taken seriously, I'm much more worried if we're not taking it seriously even if it isn't true we need to be critical not dismissing anything outright because of the way it sounds
Are you uncritically citing a Chicago PD press conference in support of your argument? Have you heard of this thing called irony?
They said that they were benefited from the internal policing and personally thanked them for working with them? Like... I don't even know what you're trying to say that the police are lying to syke us on the marshals? That's beyond reason, I really don't think I can convince you
I really don't think I can convince you
You have repeatedly demonstrated this fact
oh my god they actually snitched? fucking worms. luckily now that the unseemly "adventurist" element has been quashed, the fascists will have no choice but to listen to our chanting!
helped the cops ID them
Is there evidence of this? There's a vague line at the end of this screenshot about "participants and marshals called out for cops to intervene," but that's all we have here, and it's a big leap to read that as "they helped the cops ID people."
Sorry for the Twitter link but this is also predictable as shit. Every protest where someone can yell at a cop to "come get" someone and not get thrown out at the MINIMUM for it is a controlled resistance rally with more fascists than not. Seen this happen a lot at encampments with unelected leaders propped up by orgs like the palestinian youth movement and the tahrir coalition where they literally work with police while spouting "We keep us safe" as if they know what it means
It's hard to make out what's happening or being said there, but the person that link refers to -- the guy in the baseball helmet, who supposedly says "come get" someone, to someone (I can't really hear it or see who it was yelled at) -- doesn't have a yellow vest on, so I don't think he's one of the marshals.
Even taking exactly what that link alleges as the truth (that a marshal, not the baseball helmet guy, asked the cops to "come get" a protester), that's not helping cops ID anyone. It's not giving a name or any other identifying information, and the cops can already see the person because it's in public.
We should be very deliberate about accusing other leftists of things like this. We shouldn't be stretching the facts even a little against each other.
I do not have solidarity with Amerikkkan "leftists" whatever that term means and I sure as hell will criticize them for the endless list of things they do because they were brought up in the fourth fucking reich. This person asked the armed vanguard of genocide to take a man trying to do something the protest should be about and the marshall didn't throw that person out. The marshall and seemingly majority of the protesters felt closer aligned with the kop than the actionist, and there's nothing more symbolic of amerikkkan "leftism" than that
I just don’t understand why the marshals actively stopped them and helped the cops ID them
So we're agreeing that the marshals did not help the cops ID anyone in this video, right? That's what we're talking about.
As for the marshals not throwing that guy out: is that even possible in this large of a crowd? It's not a club with a door 40 feet away. I'm guessing the marshals were trained/instructed to keep the peace, not police everything every random person was shouting.
Again, kettling protesters is a tactic the police use for the purpose (among many other things) of restricting your movement to get pics/identifying information to ID you and doing that to actionists in front of kops is going to produce some door knocks in the future. Regardless the definition of what is and isn't "helping IDing" we might disagree on fine, I feel like I've seen this lead to investigations enough to say that but whatever.
That aside police collaboration is a theme considering the statement that a protester made as well and the fact they felt comfortable to say it (with good reason it seems). That person is a pro-cop snitch that actively is posing a danger to a comrade, what should the purpose of a marshall be other than to keep fascists out? The answer is to be the peace police clearly and prevent actions like this in a way that we'll argue about "the right way to protest" here instead of rightfully blaming the kkkops and everything they represent.
The heart of what I'm trying to say is this, if this kind of peaceful protest isn't producing any material change and is actively preventing more radical actions from occurring, maybe it, its marshalls and organizers, and fascist attendees are doing more to prevent the movement from progressing than helping it.
I think this really sealed the deal for me. I have been struggling all week internally about not getting out to these protests. Maybe this is the moment. Maybe I should be there. Maybe I can make a difference this time. Maybe this is the one. Yeah I'm tired as hell. Yeah all the other major actions I've done over the years have accomplished absolutely fucking nothing. But maybe this time. This could be important. This could mean something.
Oh, we aren't even getting too close to the fence, because "it's not that kind of action?" Oh the marshals would rather work with the cops than allow a minor escalation? Okay then. So it's an action fully within the rules. Those are historically super effective, when you just walk and yell where nobody can hear you and make no impact at all except some minor footnote in the local paper about how you did the thing. Great job folks really made an impact by completely and utterly following the rules.
I'll save my energy for the next one. This one is clearly meaningless.
Thanks OP for making me feel validated in my decision to stay home from this nonsense
It explains why I haven’t seen any fucking news about them that’s for sure
Like, I specifically seek out clips and interviews and news about these kinds of actions and I haven’t seen shit
"A bunch of people quietly do their thing out of sight" doesn't really bring in a headline
The student encampments got both more attention and more actual concessions and those should’ve been super easy to ignore. This should’ve been impossible.
The student encampments occurred nationwide and lasted months. I would hope a much larger-scale protest would have more of an effect than one march. The student protests were not organized to fight police, either.
What concessions did they get, anyway? Maybe some disinvestment from some schools, but zero major policy changes, and some places got no concessions at all.
No tactic works every time, or even most of the time. Getting arrested or worse is a real cost, and if we're going to ask people to pay it we should carefully examine what it actually accomplishes.
And I went out to some of those and helped out. Those felt like they were impactful and those were definitely protests that were out of bounds. Those are the only ones that get the goods.
Most of the people I've met at the encampments got nothing materially changed and felt like they won when biden dropped out. They still condemn hamas, and now condemn people that don't want to vote for kamala because you're anti-black and homophobic (lots of queer once friends are now happy and PROUD to be pro-genocide fascists in my blue state). I really feel like these imperial core protests especially the ones centering the particularly privledged (new york college students) are there to give an illusion that we're helping so when shaprio gets dropped in favor of walz or in the future when hamas eliminates israel we can say our tactics won out because we somehow weakened the zionist entity by going camping for a few days. IMO the definition of controlled resistance going off of the great exodus of anti-imperialist-curious becoming full blown fascist democrats that's happened since Kamala's became the nominee and the general aura of impermeable american unseriousness that makes so suggesting any actual actions in these encampments labels you a wrecker and got so many people thrown out for daring to suggest we not let zionists roam the encampment
i listened to Democracy Now's coverage of the protest, and they also played recordings of the 1968 anti-Vietnam war protests and the contrast was shocking. I don't know what it is but something in the culture shifted in the last 50 years like there's this dominant anxious affect where we have thousands of kids on the internet getting "radicalized" in their politics but the idea of actually doing something, anything is just too nasty and crass and weird
1968 is honestly what I was expecting this to be like. That’s why I feel so deflated.
1968 was a police riot, so I'm not disappointed it didn't happen this time around
but it's movement building! 3 or 4 of those people are definitely signing up to go through the PSL's rigorous political education program so they can be a perfectly honed tool of
doing more recruitmentthe revolutionary vanguard! not at all like the trots handing out newpapers.Honestly I don't even mind the PSL keeping peaceful protests in most instances. It definitely depends on what's going on, I've fully supported some green actions that PSL have put on. But stopping people from getting up against a fence is absurd
To note, they do happen to be a splinter from a splinter of a Trotskyist party. It's not determinative, but it is a funny coincidence.
i know, they're totally different! one is an ineffectual taillist org that captures and redirects class rage and anger at injustice towards book clubs and the other is wait hold on lemme try again
Comically unserious, if your critique of a socialist organization is that they're focused on giving people a strong political education and growth of the movement, your critique might not be meaningful
As someone who was there, the "anarchists" seemed more eager just to divert half the march into a wall of cops. Tell me you like kettling without telling me you like kettling.
I like a good black bloc smashing through police lines as much as anyone but I think in this case it was correct to oppose it, even if I'd not have prevented them from breaking away.
In fact my general line for escalations in mass protest is "I'd rather you didn't, but if it all goes south I'll back you to the hilt."
It may be the case that the police had the complete ability to secure the building against anything short of the whole city stampeding.
But still, miss me with that "good-protester-bad-protester" :LIB: shit. Too amped up on respectability and the illusion of "free speech changing the course of history" to allow for their conflict to actually take form, to the point where they will turn their opposition inward on their own movement.
It's like we learned nothing from the past few years of history. Does the phrase "diversity of tactics" mean nothing to you?
"Oh but there were children there" yeah I'm really fucking glad that there is a universal standard, where cops and the IDF never conduct violence within a 200-meter proximity of a minor.
I will not condemn Hamas.
I will also not condemn the demonstrators trying to fight cops.The only thing I've seen out of this protest has been a deeply unserious person flying an anarcho-brat flag and organizers/members of related orgs (PSL, FRSO) celebrating their wide turnout despite little to none material gains. It really feels like protests are the husk of what was once popular mobilization that represented a genuine threat to the ruling classes ability to ignore the popular masses. It's not nothing, but this is barely the baby steps of a real movement and we should all be deeply ashamed we aren't doing more 11 months into a genocide, not actively helping police ID those wanting to escalate!
I've met wreckers that look to escalate in inappropriate scenarios, it's never good to get arrested but I've been following this whole discourse on twitter and this line of "wreckers looking to get symbolically arrested" is completely detached from what actually happened and what people are actually advocating for (ANY kind of genuine disruptment or even threat of disruptment) and feels, ironically, more wrecker than what's being accused
celebrating their wide turnout despite little to none material gains
It’s not nothing, but this is barely the baby steps of a real movement
You're right -- these are baby steps. But when you have no existing, large organization, the way you start building one is... baby steps.
If a genocide can't push America beyond the baby steps it's been walking for decades now I really struggle to empathize with anyone that thinks protests should continue to be peaceful. I don't think there's any pride in a protest that serves as an impotent release of our rage that we should be doing much more with, it's like we treat americans as if they're taking their first steps everytime they walk and are surprised when the don't move onto running
This was actually really disappointing. Sucks to see that people in neon vests will step in and shut anything down and work with cops if they feel uncomfortable. Sucks that during a protest to stop genocide, getting too close to a fence is too much. Really disappointed in US liberals pretending to be anything more than that.
Reason I removed this from cth yesterday was specifically because of that last line. Anytime protest organizers start calling for pigs to intervene they have forfeited any legitimacy regardless of whether it was supposed to be peaceful.
If there are "wreckers trying to escalate" then you handle them internally you don't call for police intervention. If they really are wreckers then the cops will just let them instigate until the feel they can justify going after the whole protest group, if they are just some overzealous young people caught up in the heat of the moment all you are doing is inviting the cops to escalate instead and throwing possible comrades under the bus.
That is fundamentally worse than just being peace police at a lib march.
Can't believe don't call on cops to fuck with your protest is being met with such lib responses here ffs.
Can't believe don't call on cops to fuck with your protest is being met with such lib responses here ffs.
Fortunately this did not happen
Te op stats that it did and they didn't even provide any counters to this. "Some users" can't really anecdotally refute what the OP states and that is what I took issue with.
Also getting too close to a fence is flimsy justification for peace policing. Not like people were advocating violence or even property destruction from the evidence in this post.
Personally, I'm listening to my comrades on the ground, which is why I say it didn't happen.
https://xcancel.com/killerguerilla/status/1826331272106402261
Thanks for sharing this.
Unrelated, but this XCancelled site is awesome! Quote from the about section for anyone like me who didn't know about this:
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I mean I didn't make the post. I dug up this thread for you because you said you wanted additional info
A lot of people in the communities we mobilize can't go to a march if there's a high chance of arrests, so we take steps to protect people from the cops. We don't disrupt other people's actions, but we do stop people from disrupting ours.
What a great common sense point, derived from actually organizing people. And just one great point among many in that thread.
Also getting too close to a fence is flimsy justification for peace policing. Not like people were advocating violence or even property destruction from the evidence in this post.
I mean…
This is an activist who was on the ground.
Show
This is a cropped screenshot with incomplete information that doesn't support or refute anything said here.
Quit being lazy with screenshot cropping and link actual sources ffs
What "incomplete information"? What sources do you want? Twitter links? lol
Get over yourself. Even if I gave you what you wanted, you would come up with another excuse and another and another. All to prove you were right in deleting my post.
What the hell? You provide no material argument and instead give empty snarky responses and expect them just to understand your point at all? Lazy and rude, get over yourself and stop being so easily placated by people telling you a cop and politician sanctioned parade might not have been the most effective and well planned protest, this is barely a step above the ppl running to tail ilhan omar rn god amerikkka is cooked
No I earnestly want more concrete details because as of now all we have are third hand anecdotes and these cropped screenshots.
- ShowIt shouldnt be this hard, but americans are gonna be americans
Arrest them all, force is authorized.
But this didn't happen.
You're posting a theory about how cops respond to different protest tactics. People went out and tried one tactic out, and your theory didn't accurately predict what happened.
You can either adjust your theory or insist that it's right despite the results.
Well as it turns out from users who were actually there and are active in these orgs, they didn’t call the police on them, so…
So did they or did they not call for police to intervene as your own post states?
The cops were there already, nobody had to literally call them. Your post outright states that they were present and asked to intervene?
So this unsourced claim here already has falsehoods. Just saying your own post contains no sources but if taken at face value people did in fact call for police intervention.
If that isn't the case it is your responsibility to present accurate information or clarify that when you posted this it contained at least some misinformation.
Also nowhere was I being sectarian. I actually like a lot of PSL folks.
I didn't post that the police intervened. The screenshot did and I only used it because that was the main post that was gaining traction on social media (it was from Unicorn Riot). Of course, in the time since, new information has come to light that changes how the events happened (this info may have come up sooner if you didn't delete my initial post).
Also nowhere was I being sectarian. I actually like a lot of PSL folks.
Whatever makes you sleep well, I guess.
So what is this new information that changes the nature of this post? Feel like that should be included for whatever point you are trying to make.
Reminder that nonviolent action was literally a CIA funded Psyop so successful it is now permanently baked into the way protests work worldwide.
...you're way overstating this.
Nonviolence is a tactic that has been used all over the world, and uses of it predate the existence of the CIA (see India and South Africa). Of course states have latched onto it as a way of criticizing dissenters ("you're not protesting the right way"), but that doesn't mean it's a useless tactic invented as a means of control. It has its uses, just like other tactics.
Even in genuinely revolutionary situations where violent overthrow is an immediate goal, discipline is absolutely key.
And that's one of the uses of nonviolence -- you get people to start building that discipline even in tense situations where violence may break out.
no im not.
Please read the following, thanks.
Debunking the myths around nonviolent resistance by Peter Gelderloos How Nonviolence Protects the State by Peter Gelderloos Full Spectrum Resistance by Aric McBay Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching by various authors (many concepts that can be applied beyond just resisting ecocide)
I give a lot of deference to people out there trying something, and that goes double for people putting in the effort to organize that something. That's doing praxis and then learning from it, something we all agree on until we have things to say about an action we did not organize or attend.
wow, i'm so glad our protests can be Peaceful and follow the pre-approved routes, thank you to our beautiful self-appointed law enforcement officers for making sure we can participate in the democratic process safely and with minimal fuss!
like fuck, maybe fighting cops isn't always about Doing The Revolution. maybe i just want to fight a cop. maybe i don't like how he's looking at me. what fucking business is it of yours? whose side are you fucking on?
Fine for you, I guess. Not fine for the other people present who don’t want things to escalate that way.
A person being violent is not forcing everyone in the vicinity to be violent.
A "protest marshal" corraling someone for the police is an attempt to force them to be nonviolent.
Do you understand the difference here in terms of autonomy and coercion?
You probably have "but the media will smear everyone as being violent" up your sleeve. Sure, that can and will happen. A corollary of this is that they don't even need any real material; cops could send anyone in to throw hands or rocks and invoke the same media treatment on a 100% peaceful protest.
I wish you well. I'm a fucking coward. Given how Illinois cops will execute a woman for leaving on a kettle, not sure how much I got it in me to throw hands.
