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.

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.

The approved-route protest where protestors mustn't get too close TO A FUCKING FENCE or else the cops need to be called

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.

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

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

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.

Reminder that nonviolent action was literally a CIA funded Psyop so successful it is now permanently baked into the way protests work worldwide.