Gaza war protesters shut down Golden Gate Bridge, block traffic in other cities - eviltoast
  • brain_in_a_box@lemmy.ml
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    7 months ago

    Direct action and disruption is necessary, but this is absolutely the wrong way to do it.

    There is no form of disruption that you wouldn’t describe this way.

    • Ace T'Ken@lemmy.ca
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      7 months ago

      But there definitely are though. Why wouldn’t you, say, protest the factories where these things are made? Not just hold up some signs outside, but blockade those businesses in.

      Maybe find out who their major shareholders are and publicly shame them. Dig up dirt on them. Do anything you can to stop them.

      Maybe find the neighbourhoods that those shareholders live in and blockade those.

      Protest at the schools that their children go to letting them know their parents are murdering people overseas.

      It took me like 3 minutes to think of those and those are far more effective than what is going on in this news story. Are protesters in America really that short-sighted but they can’t think of anything better than annoying other normal people and making enemies?

      This is like protesting the food in a prison cafeteria by beating the shit out of your cellmate, and then calling him complicit because he ate food yesterday.

      They’re not targeting the right people, they’re simply turning normal people off of their message.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        No they definitely do that too. They are capable of doing more than one thing at a time.

        • Ace T'Ken@lemmy.ca
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          7 months ago

          I had to go look them up, but it seems that some have protested manufacturing plants, though not in a terribly effective way. The protests seem to be short-term, and none of the other things I mentioned have been done anywhere I was able to find.

          I’ve seen plenty of stories involving protests uselessly blocking main thoroughfares however.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Well there you go. You can see what gets media attention. And just as the police responded to the road being blocked they’re not going to let any protest in front of a politicians residence or corporate factory keep going either. Unless it’s just a few people on a corner. Protesters in the US have been doing this a while, they know what they’re doing.

            • Ace T'Ken@lemmy.ca
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              7 months ago

              … which just means you have to get creative.

              Freeway blocking is not creative, doesn’t get people present on your side (quite literally the opposite), presents safety risks, may delay emergency vehicles, wastes natural resources, and doesn’t change minds of readers. Same with the stupid “throw soup / oil at a piece of art” shit I saw repeatedly. A throw-away headline seems to be the goal, but it accomplishes next to nothing.

              Target. Those. In. Power. Make life fucking hard for them.

              This thread (not you explicitly) reeks of this attitude I see frequently on Lemmy of “It’s a deeply stupid and astoundingly flawed thing to do, but I’ll defend it to the death because it agrees with my politics!”

              • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                You do know the emergency vehicles just drive up the other side right?

                And the polling shows it does work.

                • Ace T'Ken@lemmy.ca
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                  7 months ago

                  In this one instance they might do that. In the area where I live where it was done, there was no space for the emergency vehicles to go in the other direction. Just because there are ways they could do it in this one case doesn’t make it universal.

                  Also, are you able to provide the polling you referenced showing that highway blockades change minds? I was unable to find anything other than web and call-in polls, both of which overwhelmingly showed the exact opposite (but those are hardly scientific so I wouldn’t trust them).

                  Also, I’m not the one downvoting you. I do not do that.

                  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                    7 months ago

                    It’s been the primary mode of protesting in the US for 70 years and the issues poll better over time.

    • Veraxus@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      The protests that Google employees are doing right now is the right way.

      Protest in front of politicians homes, businesses, etc. Protest in front of companies and businesses that are complicit. Target the people who have clout.

      Actions that harm only the general public… how is that supposed to work? What do you think the end result will be?