The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (U.S Protests)

[faxman75]

I fail to see why you use the Freedom Riders, Black Panthers, and Malcolm X as examples of violent activists. The Black Panthers did in fact engage in violent confrontations with police or bad cops which they termed as "pigs". They never put out a call to go kill all cops or even to violently overthrow the state. They only used violence when violence was used against them or black residents who were brutally harassed by white cops.

Malcolm X from my understanding never engaged in any violent protest. He did however advocated using violence if violence was first used against his people. There is an interview where he draws that distinction and says that he only advocates the use of violence when unprovoked violence is used against his people.

I don't know much about the Freedom Riders but what I do know is that they were attacked and brutally beaten even in an organized fashion by the state when it was allowed for the KKK to systematically attack them without fear of persecution. So if the Freedom Riders used violence then it was done in self defense.

I agree that they only acted in self defense but Malcolm X isn't known for non violence as MLK was. Malcolm X as a leader of the movement always preached "by any means necessary" and argued for fighting back physically and this is how he contrasted with MLK. The same can be said for the Black Panthers. My question is why do we have the mentality that non-violence which is ultimately submission the only way forward and why do we condemn violent retaliations when they are in self defense, why does society as a whole seem to find violence by the state to be an acceptable to reaction to 1st amendment protests?

You bring up violent organizations and activists whose tactics are often to strike first with violence which begs a larger question. Is it wrong or acceptable to use previous use of violence by the state against protesters and the fact that the state bombs and kills civilians over seas in mass as justification for these bombing and other violent plots that aren't actually in the moment like what we are discussing at a protest or other action?

Now this is on another note but I also find it interesting that whenever people talk about violent groups, domestic terrorists, foreign terrorists, etc., people of color are always referenced. In reality most of the violence that has ever been carried out or advocated against our government have come from white people. An example is the Weather Underground who strictly stated that they would use violent actions against the state if war crimes were committed against the people of Vietnam. They carried out several bombings against federal targets. SLO is another group that committed murder, kidnapping and robbery.

More recent examples would be that of the unabomber Ted Kaczynski who went two decades bombing a variety of targets. Also Timothy McVeigh who bombed OKC in retaliation for the Ruby Ridge incident and Waco.

I bring that up too because when the groups/individual you mentioned advocated violence it was in the name of self defense and was only used when violence was used against them. In contrast the Weather Underground and the other folk I mentioned used violence right off the bat to prove a point or to meet a determined goal against the state who they perceived as their enemy.

I know that you were referencing my civil rights era comment but just decided to throw in that last part to get people's thoughts on why we seem to only remember violent acts carried out by people of color but not by whites in this country.

I think it stems from fear. The same fear that drives those who want all the Mexicans out of this country. The state also uses a lot of propaganda to facilitate and perpetuate this fear and my state is a prime example of that. I also think historically this country has always had a segment of the populace who has feared anything that wasn't a wasp. We've certainly oppressed more than people of color. Throughout our history we have pretended to be accepting of all people and even with the 14th amendment the country has forced every non white male to fight for it's rights from the native Americans to blacks to women and gays. There has always been a fear of Muslims too. Do we blame the media for how they display these violent acts by white people and white groups or have they in fact been fair about negatively portraying all violent groups regardless of color?

[jackstraw94086]

non-violence which is ultimately submission

nuclear facepalm

why does anyone bother talking to someone for whom this makes any sense at all?

[theresalwaysone]

His avatar is my reaction.

[TomAz]

non-violence which is ultimately submission

Tell that to the British Raj.

why does society as a whole seem to find violence by the state to be an acceptable to reaction to 1st amendment protests?

I can't even begin to fathom what you're getting at here.

[faxman75]

nuclear facepalm

why does anyone bother talking to someone for whom this makes any sense at all?

God you're a prick. Would you prefer I used passive or non aggressive? As I said all along i'm speaking about non-violence in the way MLK and Gandhi spoke of it. It's funny you keep dwelling on this and ignoring the fact that i've said over and over that non-violence also works. Go cry and kick more rocks. lol.

[faxman75]

I can't even begin to fathom what you're getting at here.

Just the use of pepper spray, clubs, flash bangs and whatever else the police use during protests. The general public seems to sympathize more with the police than those fighting for whatever cause they are in the streets for. Using violence to evict people from parks and get them out of the streets when they are marching.

Not to change the subject but has anyone read or seen any news on the students in Montreal who have been protesting for 102 days? I just recently started paying attention to it but it appears to be non violent and even jovial and parade like. The just passed a law this week making protests illegal for students and also outlawing wearing masks during a protest. The other night police kettled 500+ particpants and issued them tickets for illegal demonstrations. One girl was holding up her tickets and laughing saying "you don't pay tickets for fascist laws". They also found irony in this government response to a protest about college debt.

theresalwaysone, you should read my posts in you head with Gene Wilder's voice too.

[TomAz]

Just the use of pepper spray, clubs, flash bangs and whatever else the police use during protests. The general public seems to sympathize more with the police than those fighting for whatever cause they are in the streets for. Using violence to evict people from parks and get them out of the streets when they are marching.

The general public gets pissed off to have their parks taken from them, their daily lives disrupted, their shop windows smashed in, yes. The general public tends to believe the protesters should take a fucking shower, yes. The inability of protesters to grasp this simple reality is why they fail to actually achieve anything toward their alleged goals.

[jackstraw94086]

God you're a prick. Would you prefer I used passive or non aggressive? As I said all along i'm speaking about non-violence in the way MLK and Gandhi spoke of it. It's funny you keep dwelling on this and ignoring the fact that i've said over and over that non-violence also works. Go cry and kick more rocks. lol.

You know if Descartes ever met you he'd have had no problem proving the existence of other minds. Because the notion that you could be a product of his own would have been too difficult to bear.

Are you repeating what you're writing back to yourself? "non-violence in the way that MLK and Gandhi spoke of it". In reference to "non-violence which is ultimately submission". Does this really flow cleanly in your head? really? MLK and Gandhi's preferred tactics were "ultimately submissive"?

Please do something that would actually make me cry. I'm exhausted from all this laughter.

[faxman75]

I see your mood has lightened. I'll make an effort to clean up the flow too. I'm not being snarky. I mean that. I just wish you could go one post without being confrontational. Every fucking post with you reads like a rant.

[faxman75]

The general public gets pissed off to have their parks taken from them, their daily lives disrupted, their shop windows smashed in, yes. The general public tends to believe the protesters should take a fucking shower, yes. The inability of protesters to grasp this simple reality is why they fail to actually achieve anything toward their alleged goals.

What effective protests that have created any kind of change in this country came without any disruption to the public? Maybe that's the issue, people are more concerned with a trffic delay and shopping than social injustices and human rights. Complancency.

[TomAz]

Not complacency. No. People are more concerned with the basic necessities of their own lives first. You make it so they can't get to work, or can't get to the store to get a gallon of milk, and you expect them to be sympathetic to your cause? That's beyond naive, it's just plain dumb. Which is why no protests ever succeed at anything ever.

[downingthief]

Not complacency. No. People are more concerned with the basic necessities of their own lives first. You make it so they can't get to work, or can't get to the store to get a gallon of milk, and you expect them to be sympathetic to your cause? That's beyond naive, it's just plain dumb. Which is why no protests ever succeed at anything ever.

Funny, I was in the middle of typing something similar, but you said it better. I fully support anyone's right to protest/march, etc. I've done it. But, need to be realistic about it. Keeping average citizens away from their jobs, stores, schools, etc is not going to work.

Faxy, give some examples of protests that you feel have ultimately accomplished their goals.

[TomAz]

If he says Vietnam he is going to face a shitstorm of facts from me. LOL.

[faxman75]

Women's Rights
Labor Rights
Civil Rights

I'm fairly certain all of these protests inconvenienced the public at one time or another and had people not organized and marched for their rights at the very least they would not have come until much later. People expressing themsevles is what brought about change.

I'm going to step back and I would like to see what other people think about protesting in this thread too. I have to admit, i didn't expect an argument to be made for protests never working for anything ever.

How many people would agree with that?

[Shaxspear]

Not to change the subject but has anyone read or seen any news on the students in Montreal who have been protesting for 102 days? I just recently started paying attention to it but it appears to be non violent and even jovial and parade like.

There has been violence from both sides. The mob mentality has been taking over the protesters and there have been several cases of excessive force from police. I'm on the fence about the whole thing because Quebec students don't pay anywhere near the same tution as the rest of the country, but that said they're the only ones with balls to stand up to the hikes. That should have happened in the west a long time ago.

[PotVsKtl]

The general public gets pissed off to have their parks taken from them, their daily lives disrupted, their shop windows smashed in, yes. The general public tends to believe the protesters should take a fucking shower, yes.

You're not talking about the general public. You're talking about the very specific park-adjacent public.

[PlayaDelWes]

Women's Rights
Labor Rights
Civil Rights

I'm fairly certain all of these protests inconvenienced the public at one time or another and had people not organized and marched for their rights at the very least they would not have come until much later. People expressing themsevles is what brought about change.

I'm going to step back and I would like to see what other people think about protesting in this thread too. I have to admit, i didn't expect an argument to be made for protests never working for anything ever.

How many people would agree with that?

I'm pretty sure traffic wasn't as big of an issue back then and open space wasn't so limited.

[TomAz]

You're not talking about the general public. You're talking about the very specific park-adjacent public.

No. The general public sees it on TV and they think, gosh, if I were park-adjacent this would piss me off too.

[faxman75]

I'm pretty sure traffic wasn't as big of an issue back then and open space wasn't so limited.

I'm pretty sure I purposely said "inconvenienced the public" in this post and not traffic specifically.

There has been violence from both sides. The mob mentality has been taking over the protesters and there have been several cases of excessive force from police. I'm on the fence about the whole thing because Quebec students don't pay anywhere near the same tution as the rest of the country, but that said they're the only ones with balls to stand up to the hikes. That should have happened in the west a long time ago.

This is what I was reading about. I think it's good that they find these hikes unacceptable. Was this emergency protest law, expected? I think it's only going to bring more support to an already popular movement.

[PotVsKtl]

No. The general public sees it on TV and they think, gosh, if I were park-adjacent this would piss me off too.

Polling doesn't support your assertion.

[jackstraw94086]

What effective protests that have created any kind of change in this country came without any disruption to the public? Maybe that's the issue, people are more concerned with a trffic delay and shopping than social injustices and human rights. Complancency.

broseph my mood is always sunnier than a Fire Island ass crack. ease on the "painted yourself in a corner" and troll business, and you'll find less coming back at ya.

This business about non-violent vs. violent protest is largely semantics. I call it violent protest if is generally observed to start that way and it appears to be the intent of the protestors to start shit. You seem to define it as any protest that becomes violent regardless of how it starts.
whatever, that's not really the point of the argument. What we're really arguing is the value of violence in any case (even when retaliatory).


In an attempt to clean up your view of non-violence, consider Gandhi's satyagraha movement as pretty much the definition. Hundreds of his followers were savagely beaten at the end of the salt march, and they probably took beatings at all over the country dozens or hundreds of other events. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt as far as whether you would consider that "submissive", that issue is dropped. To Tom's point, if the satyagrahas were violent they would have not have been anywhere near as popular amongst the general public, who are, by and large, ready to accept whatever will make their lives the most comfortable. When a violent regime is opposed with violent force the general public will probably more indifferent to the outcome as it becomes viewed as a lesser of two evils situation. Protest movements should endeavor to do harm to institutions and systems, not people. When you harm the people you humanize the oppressors and create fear and doubt which plays into their hands. You might come up with examples that counter this idea but in general I hope you believe that this is true.

in case you're curious about my tone, let me assure you this is not a rant. I feel like I have to add that disclaimer until you accept it.

[jackstraw94086]

Polling doesn't support your assertion.

your polls more accurately reflect the opinion of the current situation and shortcomings of the systems being protested, not necessarily approval of the protesters themselves. There actually is a difference.

[PotVsKtl]

your polls more accurately reflect the opinion of the current situation and shortcomings of the systems being protested, not necessarily approval of the protesters themselves. There actually is a difference.

Well if we're talking about the "general public" we have to base assertions on something. Simply stating that everyone watching protests on television thinks they should take a shower is meaningless.

[jackstraw94086]

Well if we're talking about the "general public" we have to base assertions on something. Simply stating that everyone watching protests on television thinks they should take a shower is meaningless.

well I couldn't argue with that particular point. However that OSF camp by the Ferry building sure made me and everyone with cause to pass wish for an ivory soap tsunami.

[JebusLives]

well I couldn't argue with that particular point.

Oh, c'mon Jack! Having an off day?

[hippityhip]

Protest movements should endeavor to do harm to institutions and systems, not people. When you harm the people you humanize the oppressors and create fear and doubt which plays into their hands.

Indeed.

[RotationSlimWang]

I'm gonna hop in here for a second and argue the basis of one of my movies: it is a waste of time to try to exact revolution by only damaging those who are guilty.

The truth is any protests that merely disrupts the lives of those responsible will always be swept under the rug. The powerful will smite the angry few rising up against them unless the people trying to inspire revolution manage to get the general populous fucking ANGRY. And the truth is that people don't just get angry at the protesters--they see the failure of the state to either appease or quell the rising protests as the state's fault, not the fault of the revolution for picking the wrong battle.

Allow me to rephrase in another way: you could never stage a successful revolution in the USA unless you managed to get the vast majority of the state's force occupied inside the cities. The military is simply too powerful, too large, too effective to ever be beaten EXCEPT inside our own cities where there are millions of people. In order for any true attempt to change the system to actually be carried out, first there must be launched a threat against the general peace of the nation great enough to justify pulling all of our forces into the urban centers to control it--from there, they could be overwhelmed and defeated.

[faxman75]

In an attempt to clean up your view of non-violence, consider Gandhi's satyagraha movement as pretty much the definition. Hundreds of his followers were savagely beaten at the end of the salt march, and they probably took beatings at all over the country dozens or hundreds of other events. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt as far as whether you would consider that "submissive", that issue is dropped. To Tom's point, if the satyagrahas were violent they would have not have been anywhere near as popular amongst the general public, who are, by and large, ready to accept whatever will make their lives the most comfortable. When a violent regime is opposed with violent force the general public will probably more indifferent to the outcome as it becomes viewed as a lesser of two evils situation. Protest movements should endeavor to do harm to institutions and systems, not people. When you harm the people you humanize the oppressors and create fear and doubt which plays into their hands. You might come up with examples that counter this idea but in general I hope you believe that this is true.

in case you're curious about my tone, let me assure you this is not a rant. I feel like I have to add that disclaimer until you accept it.

You didn't even need the disclaimer!

The issue I have with your point is that you are making assumptions on how the general public in those examples would have perceived violence against opression. I don't need to provide counter examples because you are offering hypotheticals. Now I must ask how you define "harm" when you say 'when you harm the people you humanize the opressors'. In this discussion we have been talking about park rules nad marching permits. Disruption of traffic and the 24/7 use of public space like a park. If that's harm then I say harm all day every day.

Maybe the stench of the homeless at Occupy encampents, which were mentioned more than once by multiple people in this thread, should beg the question of why the city has so much money to spend on police enforcing park rules rather than creating more shelters for the homeless. How about we question why so many laws to criminalize and dehumanize the homeless population are in place to begin with rather than hold them in contempt or maybe you don't think there were many homeless people in occupy encampments.

[TomAz]

If that's harm then I say harm all day every day.

Is your goal to actually effect change, or just to be annoying? Because this strategy only makes sense for the latter.

[jackstraw94086]

You didn't even need the disclaimer!

The issue I have with your point is that you are making assumptions on how the general public in those examples would have perceived violence against opression. I don't need to provide counter examples because you are offering hypotheticals. Now I must ask how you define "harm" when you say 'when you harm the people you humanize the opressors'. In this discussion we have been talking about park rules nad marching permits. Disruption of traffic and the 24/7 use of public space like a park. If that's harm then I say harm all day every day.

Maybe the stench of the homeless at Occupy encampents, which were mentioned more than once by multiple people in this thread, should beg the question of why the city has so much money to spend on police enforcing park rules rather than creating more shelters for the homeless. How about we question why so many laws to criminalize and dehumanize the homeless population are in place to begin with rather than hold them in contempt or maybe you don't think there were many homeless people in occupy encampments.

This is not a homeless issue, at least not as far as the SF protest was concerned. Those were not (by and large) homeless people living in the OSF camp. The homeless situation in SF is not nearly as simple as "build more shelters". The SF shelters are not full, and there are outreach programs. I doubt you would support an effort to round them up and force them into shelters.
But as I said, this particular discussion isn't a homeless issue.

And Mayor Lee bent over backwards to avoid enforcing park rules and stalled as long as he could. As far as the sizeable nationwide occupy encampments, I'll bet SF was the most lenient.

btw as true as the comments of the stench might be, at least for me personally they weren't meant to impugn the occupy movement itself. It's more of a damn joke. Lot of people round here fucking stank regardless of whatever muddled message they've got, whether it be "corporations" or chem-trails, or whatever.

As far as the violence point. I'm not really offering hypotheticals. This happens every day all over the world. I would actually welcome countering examples. I think you have this fantasy that the the general public is a perpetual powder keg that's always seething for revolution if only there was a spark to ingite it. We're very very far from that. Like it or not, relatively few people view our current situation in as dire terms as you. Even in the French Revolution it wasn't a clear majority of the national population that supported it, only a portion of the urban centers, mainly just in Paris. And the general public was arguably worse off than we are today. In fact historians have argued that if that kid hadn't spotted Loius in the carraige during his escape from Paris, there may well have been plenty enough royalist and international support to squash the whole thing and return to "normalcy". Point is that aggressive violent movements generally do not have same levels of support that non-aggressive ones do.


EDIT: btw I want to make it clear that I don't necessarily have a problem with them inhabiting parks or even disrupting traffic in order to make a noise and force someone's attention. If you're simply delaying someone's normal day than that's not a big deal. There is a line that is crossed, however, when idiots try to do things like endanger people's lives by trying to shut down the BART system.