This is what putting people in a pressure cooker of $8/hr minimum wage, state violence and $1500/mo rents yields.
Also, whatever you think of this action (I happen to be against it because it's illegal.), acknowledge that mobilizing this many people is the result of invisible forms of organizing, not neccesarily legible to the "left" whose traditions cross-polinate with the professionalized activism of ngos, labor unions and political parties.
It's just a shame that it was expressed this way. We need major social democratic reforms and avenues for disenfranchised people to exercise political power so these kinds of desperate actions don't disrupt our lives.
The provocative title is a way to call attention to the ways that overseas reporting and domestic reporting on social conflict differ. A detournament of imperialist propaganda if you will.
“I happen to be against it because it’s illegal” do we a Letter from Birmingham Jail sticker for this lib
Would you post something advocating criminal activity on a public forum? I sure wouldn't, because I'm a staunch defender of law and order.
we literally have a comm for digital piracy and I could have sworn we had one for shoplifting advice, but apparently not?
please link to the shoplifting comm so i can report it to the proper authorities
Digital privacy has legitimate uses for lawyers, journalists and pen testers. If we used to have a shoplifting comm that's very unfortunate.
piracy not privacy. And the shoplifting thing has been suggested many times but idr if it ever actually happened
I hope that the people over there do as much as physically possible to go as close to the legal limit of what they are allowed to do in their protests that are legal and good
Its like what Malcolm X said "By any [legal] means necessary
I advocate for the death of my enemies on here all the time too: Colonizers nazis and slave owners
Bruh the FBI is not coming for you because you say looting is cool and good online.
No, I'm on a mission from my youth group to bring morality to the most depraved places on the internet
I'm a staunch defender of law and order
What does this mean in the context of US policies about “law and order” usually meaning brutality and extrajudicial executions on the streets particularly of black people…
He says that whenever those thoughts come he prays really hard until they go away. The only problem is that Jesus was a hard-body twink, so sometimes that doesn't work either.
Jesus was a himbo how fucking dare you insinuate he was a twink you heathen
This is misleading. The national law had the age of consent at 13, but as far as I know every prefecture in the country had long since raised the age of consent to I believe 18.
I happen to be against it because it's illegal
Death to America
I'm for it because its illegal. Who cares about laws like that in an unjust society?
Who cares about laws like that in an unjust society?
socdem nerds, apparently
"Why yes I do derive all my morals from legality and also have a brain the size of a pea"
Some people really never got into the abstract thought stage of development and it shows
You can absolutely get good resale value from iPads/iPhones, they don't know what they're talking about.
They’re all traceable and nearly impossible to disable unless you find someone who’s willing to strip it for parts which I’m not sure if that’s something people do
Lot harder when you take it from an apple store where they've got a list of serial numbers and they can brick it.
All 'made to be thrown away' products, clothes esp included, must delenda est
It's really weird that most, of not all, advancements of the welfare of the proletariat in America came about through violence and not peaceful protest.
I just think it's neat.
It's just a shame that it was expressed this way. We need major social democratic reforms and avenues for disenfranchised people to exercise political power so these kinds of desperate actions don't disrupt our lives
i think we need actions that disrupt our lives. Specifically the lives of the oppressor class. Direct action gets the goodsI have wanted nothing more my entire life than for it to be disrupted. Can't actually seem to change anything for shit
"normal" life is what's killing us. I want it disrupted as much as possible
I want us all to reflect just a minute,
On all that it took just to get one convicted.
We voted, we won, but we still lost the Senate.
Turns out it don't matter who we got elected.
We rallied, retweeted. We let it get heated.
We called out this country and the whole world had heeded.
No matter how filthy nor hilly or chilly,
Millions had marched in hundreds of cities,
Just to find a single U.S. cop guilty
Of a murder we all watched on Instagram.
-Faith Santilla, For Bella & Robert, Diana, Cassandra
mobilizing this many people is the result of invisible forms of organizing, not neccesarily legible to the "left" whose traditions cross-polinate with the professionalized activism of ngos, labor unions and political parties.
Encrypted text messaging programs are pretty cool. I'm kind of in aww at how quickly theses
"I saw a bunch of people like go into the Lululemon, clothes everywhere,"
Oh, the humanity!
A total of 52 arrests have been made so far, police said Wednesday. Of those, 49 are adults and three are juveniles.
Shit. : (
Copping whatever charges they're going to throw at all these people over some yoga pants and iPhones sucks. : (
I'm kind of in aww at how quickly theses
What was this supposed to say?
Nailing your theses to a church
throwing your feces at your political opponentsLuther was famous for having some sort of scatalogical fixation when he flew into his rages writing diatribes about people he hated
Shit like this is red meat for the libs and chuds that think crime is on the rise and that cities are warzones.
True, but if we were all on our best behavior they'd still lie and say we're razing cities. They'll integrate real events into their worldview if they fit well enough, but they don't actually need anything real
Nailed it. Damned if we do, damned if we don't; so hit 'em in the wallets cause it's the only language they understand
You're right that bad-faith opponents will demonize anything we do (or even the things we don't do). Having a coherent, defensible set of tactics is important for people on your side or who might join your side, though.
I don't care what Fox News thinks about the left, but I do care what someone going to DSA meetings and wondering if thats's too lib thinks.
I do too, but I don't think that means we should denounce riots. If there was a leftist organization deploying its members to loot stores I might have some critiques, but riots over police violence are an organic result of US domestic policy.
I look at riots as an opportunity to talk to other leftist and leftish folks about how we got here. Namely, thousands of non-violent protests against the same institutions that these riots are against - all ignored, crushed or defanged. When we as a country purge every mass organizer we can find, it isn't surprising that righteous anger is expressed in a mostly undirected way
If there was a leftist organization deploying its members to loot stores I might have some critiques
This is actually the type of looting I'd support -- explicitly political and to the benefit of a larger movement. The stuff I don't think is worth supporting (note that this is different than condemnation) is someone seeing a chaotic situation and thinking "I can grab something for myself and probably get away with it." I'm not losing sleep over Apple's bottom line, but I'm also not eager to run coverage for opportunists.
Just as there are good things that aren't leftism, there are responses to the pressures of capitalism that aren't leftism.
I mean that there would be a set of tactics to critique in the first place, as opposed to a broader social phenomenon being exploited by the state. As it stands, police murder a person and people protest. Police show up and escalate things to riot conditions, and then a riot can break out among the mostly politically inactive lumpenproletariat
There are coherent and defensible sets of tactics for disciplined mass action already in use by leftist organizers, and they're designed to prevent chaos under pressure. That's what I would present to a socdem with doubts, not "we riot." When a riot is incited in the US (always by the US), lumpens are callously used as tools to menace and energize the support base for our police state. Then they're rounded up and punished.
That's where I'm not willing to hide my indignation for optics. People who have systemically been pushed to the margins of our society and entrapped into a crime that couldn't possibly matter less, then have their lives torn apart over some piece of shit's storefront
Yeah. Most people believe interpersonal violence and violent crime have gotten much, much worse, despite violent crime trending downwards for like 30 years. Conservatives are convinced that every city in America is like the opening scene in Demolition Man and are terrified to set foot in them. A couple years back the media spat out apparently hundreds of articles about one act of shoplifting as part of the giant propaganda blitz accusing homeless people of forcing drug stores to close in Cali. They just make shit up.
Yeah, absolutely, it's why this shit gets coverage and not things like wage theft or union busting most of the time.
That said, bad optics aren't going to stop the working class from self organizing.
They believe that no matter what happens. Remember that one shoplifting incident that had hundreds of articlesa about it a few years back?>
They say crime is out of control anyway. But yeah they'll freak out about their precious property being hurt.
They make a good point, this is going to be spun to make sure the Philidelphia police get massive increases in resources. We're cheering it yes, because we understand that this is a justified reaction to the conditions we're forced into.
This small victory without greater organization will become an even greater loss. Or at least expedite the planned expansion of state violence.
Being nice to comrades while trying to have a discussion is liberalism
You can't really live off of welfare. It barely exists anymore after every admin since Reagan has been parting it out. I suspect there's a lot of mutual aid going on to keep people from starving.
Philadelphia is the poorest large city in Amerikkka with a very long history of radical movements. There's tons of mutual aid going on in the city and affinity groups of all types that work to provide food, housing and legal services in a kind of grey zone. This includes multiple anarchist libraries/community centers across the city in different neighborhoods that have been providing community services for decades at this point. Real dual power hours.
I happen to be against it because it's illegal
There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
acknowledge that mobilizing this many people is the result of invisible forms of organizing
This is unfalsifiable even in the best possible light. I think there's a strong possibility this is more spontaneous than organized, and more opportunistic than political.
Yeaaa flash mob lootings are started mostly from mass sending Snaps or even Insta/Snap stories and people just show up
The only political group I can see organizing this are anarchists but I doubt it since they'll show up in black bloc for anything, especially if they were gonna loot
OP is definitely right that the anger being spent on this is a waste though instead of being herded and organized by communists
It’s not a waste. It’s directly fighting back and putting pressure on the powerful to demand the city stop killing people so their businesses don’t get looted anymore.
Getting people accustomed to going into the cool zone as a community is also a plus
Has this worked in practice in America though? Looting causing change?
If it did I'd join in in a heartbeat but I haven't seen evidence of it working like that
Yeah. Any time anything good has happened in this wretched country it's because people burned shit down.
Pick up "This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed" by Charles Cobb. it's a real eye opener about what was sanitized out of the official history of the Civil Rights movement.
Also countless labor actions in the early 20th. And it's worth remembering - The US traditionally has used it's vast amount of "free" land to let off the pressure of proletarian revolt. Whenever things came to a boiling point the government gave out a bunch of cheap land to white people to get them out of the cities. That situation doesn't exist anymore. One of the tactics the US used in the past to shut down popular unrest is no longer available.
has anything else?
looting has been one portion of lots of movements that resulted in changes but I suppose no it hasnt solely or directly lead to changes on its own
has anything else?
If we have a few options that don't work, that means we need to find new options. I don't see how trying one thing that doesn't work makes sense just because other things don't work.
If we have a few options that don't work, that means we need to find new options.
such as
?That falls under options that don't work, or at least don't work very well.
We clown on libs for deifying elections despite how little they change. Protests and looting have a similar effect but we don't hold them to the same level of scrutiny.
yes. see womens suffrage, civil rights movement, etc etc. read pacifism as pathology
Looting itself? No. In the past looting was often accompanied with organizations saying “you can stop this any time” - hell even JFK admitted that if the US kept oppressing other nations, violent revolution will be inevitable.
But nowadays every activist organization denounces anything that isn’t holding a sign and chanting, so there’s no cohesion. Is it any surprise there hasn’t been any meaningful changes in the past two decades?
We’ve seen back to back killings and protesting and rioting for so many years. Not a thing has changed.
and more opportunistic than political.
it's obviously political, otherwise it wouldn't happen right after a police shooting
oh wait there's so many police shootings that it's impossible to observe any causality with them isn't there
That could mean it's political, or it could mean people anticipate a chaotic situation and see a chance to grab something. There's almost certainly some of both, so the question is what's the prevailing reason.
I think there's a thin line between the opportunistic and and the political in working class politics. The goal of looting is to improve the lives of working class people. The goal of striking is to improve the lives of working class people. They both do it by taking from the profits of buisnesses and by disrupting norms like working-for-a-wage and purchasing-commodities.
When anarchists organize looting as political protest, they're pointing out just how thin that line is.
Is there any evidence that anarchists (or other leftists) organized this? I've seen nothing along those lines.
Say there is, and say, for the sake of argument, all the 2020 protests (as well as the violence started by police) were planned by the left. Maybe one major city (Minneapolis?) slightly reduced its police budget in response to the protests and the modest demand to defund the police? It wasn't effective. If we don't evaluate what works and what doesn't we're just libs riffing off ideology.
You don't need to read theory to understand mutual aid and property as theft. Lots of people know that stuff, they just don't have an articulated theory to give names to it and put it in the frame of wider political action. Folks are smart. Minority communities live and die on mutual aid, even if they don't call it that.
Minneapolis had a highly motivated anti-cop movement for as long as I can remember. Certainly by the time Black Lives Matter started during Ferguson. Burning down the 3rd Precinct wasn't even close to the first community action against the police, it's just the most dramatic. There was organizing against police violence going on the whole time. Large segments of the African American community, the Native American community, the Somali community, and a fair number of white people had been involved in it for years and years.
As for effects - I haven't looked in to it because PTSD, but last I checked the Minneapolis Police Department was hemmoraging cops. Lots of cops quit, lots retired, and the city can't find replacements because apparently the pay isn't good enough to become a hated fascist. Their budget didn't drop, but their operational capability was severely eroded by poor morale and overwork. idk if they've recovered, but Frey is deeply unpopular with the city and his blatant failures to control the cops are well known. It's not like the cops have become any less hated. There's currently a fight going on; The city wants to re-build the 3rd Precinct, the community absolutely does not want that, and politically organized communities are having it out with the city right now.
I don't care if anarchists organized this or local teens organized it. Either way it's working class self activity. We aren't some special group floating above the working class and directing it, we're workers fighting for our own interests.
This kind of thinking about the left as separate from the class comes from the professionalization of politics and while it's sometimes neccesary to pay staff, we should not do it uncritically.
In college like a decade ago I was spending like 1200/mo in a studio apartment in Philadelphia that was smaller than the bedroom I'm currently sitting in. There was hardly any maintenance done on the place, there were giant roaches, my shower was broken for like 3 months where you couldn't actually turn the water on in it basically forcing me to live elsewhere. That's what you got in a semi-decent part of the city but not ritzy part. Can't imagine it's any better with rents skyrocketing with wages not budging.
glad to be had lol, sorry for being confused
If only he wasn't stopped there 
