Unfortunately any protest in the US is at best constrained to stopping future weapons shipments to Israel. But as Netanyahu has already shown he doesn’t care what Biden has to say, the US is unlikely to be able to stop them from continuing to use the weapons they already have.
Bibi doesnt care what Biden says because Biden will never actually cut off the arm shipments.
The US could also do more like actually sanction Israel for committing genocide.
There has got to be a way to do this without hurting regular people.
Like I agree with the protestors 100%… but trapping people on a bridge? Blocking traffic? That’s dangerous and irresponsible.
Direct action and disruption is necessary, but this is absolutely the wrong way to do it.
Removed by mod
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.
No they definitely do that too. They are capable of doing more than one thing at a time.
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.
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.
… 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!”
You do know the emergency vehicles just drive up the other side right?
And the polling shows it does work.
Nice.
If Americans want the protests to stop, they should stop supporting genocide.
Mm and how has the average San Franciscan contributed to a war on the other side of the planet?
The same way the average American contributed to black oppression. By being silent observers to your government’s actions.
With a portion of their taxes.
So everyone’s a cunt except the church then?
Especially the church.
But the church doesn’t pay taxes?
Because the church tries to collect them.
Ah yes collective justice. Punish the population for what their government did. Hmm this feels familiar, is something like that happening somewhere else in world right now?
Be wary of fighting monsters, lest you become a monster.
yes bro. Your morning or afternoon commute becoming an hour longer is equivilant to having your people wiped off the face of the earth. Truly they can’t see this hypocrisy for what it is!!
It shows how little some people value the lives of brown people on another continent. How many people would have to die before they’d consider foregoing their mocha latte?
My mocha latte has more value than they do.
I support any protest that blocks car traffic. The fact that the protesters are protesting something important is a nice bonus.
If you hold me hostage, violence is an option.
ur not hostage you can get out of your car
That’s a pretty ableist assumption on your part.
ITT- You’re allowed your first amendment right to protest war crimes, just not where I can see or be inconvenienced. Because all of the civil rights and anti war protests in the past 70 years that were truly successful were very polite and inconvenienced no one.
I mean, the people they’re irritating aren’t the ones that can do anything about it. All you’re doing is pissing everyone off. Go to your state’s capitol and fuck that place up instead.
Nah, it’s random people who are at fault. How dare they have jobs or other things to do
Those people aren’t at fault in any meaningful sense no. But collectively their labor keeps everything running. To interrupt labor is to interrupt the means with which the capitalist class commit their atrocities.
Do you want wide support for laws allowing cops to clear these protests out of the street? Because I’m quite sure that’s what it’ll do.
Yes I expect the capitalist class to continually escalate violence against the working class rather than make meaningful compromises for the betterment of all.
Interrupting labor is the most peaceful way to threaten the capitalist class. If you object to this, you advocate for more extreme measures. Be careful what you wish for.
This argument completely ignores the impact this has on regular people. People who end up late to pick up their kids from daycare and end up owing extra money when they can barely make ends meet as it is. Yeah, this may have some marginal impact on the capitalist class, but it will be far more painful for the employees who WILL be held accountable for being late to work and may easily end up fired, and certainly will not be paid for the time they miss. Let alone the life safety issues this type of demonstration creates. This is holding your peers ransom because of something you want and you take away their autonomy to decide whether or not to take part. If you can’t convince people to join your cause willingly, maybe your cause isn’t as good as you think it is.
I have a real problem with this, and I’ve been on both sides of it. It really doesn’t do anything to help your cause by having people stuck in traffic. There are many reasons that someone could be in their car at that moment, not just commuting to or from a job. They could be on their way to a court appointment, they could have dinner in the car, they could be going to pick their child up from school, they could be on their way to a doctor’s appointment, or any of a million other reasons that make this not just an inconvenience, but a complete shithead thing for someone to put someone else through. Protestors aren’t making their case against the war by pissing off every person stuck in traffic, they are just being dickheads. If you want to protest a war, go hang out outside of a government building, or in front of an elected official’s house. Make them feel uncomfortable, not some poor schmuck who has somewhere else to be at the moment.
Edit: Ok, I guess I need to give a peaceful example. You want to block traffic? Block the exits to the parking garage where the elected officials park downtown. Do that for a week and see how much of an impact you make. Blocking commuters is a waste of energy.
/agree
I fully support the cause, but this just ain’t the way to effectively protest the system. I feel the same way about the climate activists throwing soup on art instalation (yes I know they are all protected, but to the average person you still look like an ignorant fucking asshole).
If you want to spur change, then you need to make it uncomfortable for your representatives to take a public position than conflicts with your ethics. Do so peacefully, but forcefully and as often as is feasible. You are much more likely to garner public support that way, and normies generally love anything that make politicians look bad.
The paintings were an amazing protest. Also love the protests interrupting plays. Meet complacent liberals at their stomping grounds.
The paintings were an amazing protest.
As a way to garner media exposure, sure. But not as a way to galvanize public support, which is what actually matters unless you are just interested in performative virtue signaling.
Also love the protests interrupting plays. Meet complacent liberals at their stomping grounds.
You seem like you care more about generalizing people, and antagonizing them than actually changing their minds. So, thank you for further reinforcing OP’s initial point I guess…
Thoughts and prayers for Gaza y’all
Yeah. I saw some of the posts across Lemmy trying to organize this.
There it was presented as blocking shipping ports. I thought that was odd. Wasn’t sure how that was going to affect Israel, but whatever.
Then the day comes and they’re doing this low effort reposting-of-a-meme-everyone-has-seen-already version of protest and I just rolled my eyes.
“Innocent people are being murdered in Palestine, so I’m going to go prevent someone that also hates what is happening from visiting their dying grandmother! That’ll show 'em!”
🙄
Protesters were blocking ships that were sending weapons to Israel. You wouldn’t like any form of protest because YOU DON’T CARE
Please shut up. You have no idea whether they care or not.
Their dismissive attitude towards people protesting a genocide paints the whole picture. Learn to interpret the ideologies behind what people say.
Your ‘interpretations’ are just whatever best fits the narrative you’ve made up in your mind.
Cool story bro!! So cool that the anti-protestor commenter is actually probably some amazing anti-genocide-in-gaza activist!!! I’m sure they have made national news with their protests!
-Nationally Recognized Activist, Whoreticulture.
They’re not in front of the White House, they’re not even in front of city hall, they’re hurting their own.
The King loves it when the peasants fight amongst themselves.
They’re hurting commuters from Marin county lmao. They’re not fucking peasants.
They arnt the ruling class, they are peasants and you are just angry at someone with a different outlook at you, assigning them ruling class because they dont have the exact same problems you do. this is exactly what they want you to do, attack and hate on your countrymen instead of the ruling class.
They actually are the ruling class. Seriously, look at the demographics.
Yes, look at the demographics. it is not senators and billionaires, just because these people are better off than you are I does not make them the enemy. This is the entire gameplan, you hating on people who make more than you instead of the people who are in control.
They are billionaires and multimillionaires, owners of huge corporations. It’s one of the wealthiest counties in one of the wealthiest states. Not sure if any in particular are senators, but there are powerful people.
I see you don’t understand the point of protesting.
I don’t care what you’re protesting. But it should be done in a way where I don’t have to hear about it or see it.
Direct action is super based.
