No, it turns out that resorting to violence and vandalism isn't the best course of action. In fact it confuses the issue and turns off the regular people whose support would make change an actual thing.
I have yet to see anyone here advocate violence, or say that violence is a good thing. Breaking windows is not violence.
I wouldn't exactly call breaking windows doing anything about the economy. Breaking a window doesn't close tax loopholes. It doesn't bring the people who steered us wrong to trial. It doesn't prevent it from happening again.
It does, however, give the media a pretty easy way to discredit the legitimate parts of the protest.
And not breaking windows has certainly had the effect of curtailing their influence on government, right?
That's a pretty thin argument. Neither breaking windows nor not breaking windows has fuck all to do with the economy.
There is an infinite number of options that will be more effective than vandalism.
It's not true violence. Only this application of destructive force is violence.
Look, I get why this linguistic tango goes on at all, you want to shield property destruction from delegitimization by association. It's pointless. It just taints 'vandalism' too, people have personal property that they care about, and lots of it, because you live in the fucking first world.
Smashing a banks windows is not destroying an individuals personal property.
You guys keep putting windows on a pedestal and I don't understand it.
It's the London Riots all over again. Systematic racism, abuse, and murder by the government, the people's peaceful protest was ignored, and then the entire "liberal" world turned against them because some had the audacity to steal a Television. Oh no, our precious TV.
The moral equivalency in both situations is abhorrent. A broken window is an infinitely lesser crime than what our financial institutions have done to this country, and to compare them even remotely equally is disgusting.
Privileged, bourgeois First World finger waggling.
There's a reason MLKjr had his people show up in a suit and tie and march peacefully.
And he was shot dead and racism is still as big a problem as ever.
Sheep on
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
It's not true violence. Only this application of destructive force is violence.
Look, I get why this linguistic tango goes on at all, you want to shield property destruction from delegitimization by association. It's pointless. It just taints 'vandalism' too, people have personal property that they care about, and lots of it, because you live in the fucking first world.
Smashing a banks windows is not destroying an individuals personal property.
You guys keep putting windows on a pedestal and I don't understand it.
It's the London Riots all over again. Systematic racism, abuse, and murder by the government, the people's peaceful protest was ignored, and then the entire "liberal" world turned against them because some had the audacity to steal a Television. Oh no, our precious TV.
The moral equivalency in both situations is abhorrent. A broken window is an infinitely lesser crime than what our financial institutions have done to this country, and to compare them even remotely equally is disgusting.
Privileged, bourgeois First World finger waggling.
Yeah, turns out property rights are important to a lot of people. Imagine that. Peaceful protest is good, showing up to vote is better, lobbying your representatives even more so.
You want to riot, go right ahead, but don't expect most people to bat an eye when you get clubbed in the head or sent to jail.
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
It's not true violence. Only this application of destructive force is violence.
Look, I get why this linguistic tango goes on at all, you want to shield property destruction from delegitimization by association. It's pointless. It just taints 'vandalism' too, people have personal property that they care about, and lots of it, because you live in the fucking first world.
You guys keep putting windows on a pedestal and I don't understand it.
This is probably the dumbest thing you'll say until the next time you say something dumb.
Look, if people are willing to commit a crime to protest, they could at least make it worth it. Go stage a sit-in at those banks and refuse to leave. Stage a sit-in at the political offices in your area. Take to the streets, disrupt traffic, commerce etc. These are preferable to having random crowds of people smash windows.
And for the record, does no one see the contradiction in calling vandalism civil disobedience?
Vanguard on
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
It's not true violence. Only this application of destructive force is violence.
Look, I get why this linguistic tango goes on at all, you want to shield property destruction from delegitimization by association. It's pointless. It just taints 'vandalism' too, people have personal property that they care about, and lots of it, because you live in the fucking first world.
Smashing a banks windows is not destroying an individuals personal property.
You guys keep putting windows on a pedestal and I don't understand it.
It's the London Riots all over again. Systematic racism, abuse, and murder by the government, the people's peaceful protest was ignored, and then the entire "liberal" world turned against them because some had the audacity to steal a Television. Oh no, our precious TV.
The moral equivalency in both situations is abhorrent. A broken window is an infinitely lesser crime than what our financial institutions have done to this country, and to compare them even remotely equally is disgusting.
Privileged, bourgeois First World finger waggling.
There's a reason MLKjr had his people show up in a suit and tie and march peacefully.
And he was shot dead and racism is still as big a problem as ever.
Peaceful protest is good, showing up to vote is better, lobbying your representatives even more so.
You want to riot, go right ahead, but don't expect most people to bat an eye when you get clubbed in the head or sent to jail.
Most people are already rioting because they understand that society approves state violence. Someone breaks a window? Fuck them. Cop bashes his skull in? He deserved it. One is vandalism. One is violence. One you're disgusted by, one you don't bat an eye.
And you say you can dislike them both? Even equally? Doesn't look like it.
"Showing up to vote". That's laughable. Who you gonna vote for? Bank Rep #1? How about Bank Rep #2?
Name something peaceful protest has changed in the last, oh, twenty years. The Palestinians are constantly holding peaceful protests, and it gets them nothing but shat upon. The world's largest peaceful protest took place shortly before we invaded Iraq, and it did fucking bupkis.
And I'm sorry, but my vote and my lobbying is going to have no effect in comparison to the enormous check the finance industry is willing to write Congress and the White House in order to make sure nothing ever actually gets done about them.
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
It's not true violence. Only this application of destructive force is violence.
Look, I get why this linguistic tango goes on at all, you want to shield property destruction from delegitimization by association. It's pointless. It just taints 'vandalism' too, people have personal property that they care about, and lots of it, because you live in the fucking first world.
Smashing a banks windows is not destroying an individuals personal property.
You guys keep putting windows on a pedestal and I don't understand it.
It's the London Riots all over again. Systematic racism, abuse, and murder by the government, the people's peaceful protest was ignored, and then the entire "liberal" world turned against them because some had the audacity to steal a Television. Oh no, our precious TV.
The moral equivalency in both situations is abhorrent. A broken window is an infinitely lesser crime than what our financial institutions have done to this country, and to compare them even remotely equally is disgusting.
Privileged, bourgeois First World finger waggling.
There's a reason MLKjr had his people show up in a suit and tie and march peacefully.
And he was shot dead and racism is still as big a problem as ever.
Yeah, MLK sure wasted his time.
I know, right? MLK accomplished nothing. We could all take a few lessons from Timothy Mcveigh. He knew how to get things done.
It's not true violence. Only this application of destructive force is violence.
Look, I get why this linguistic tango goes on at all, you want to shield property destruction from delegitimization by association. It's pointless. It just taints 'vandalism' too, people have personal property that they care about, and lots of it, because you live in the fucking first world.
Smashing a banks windows is not destroying an individuals personal property.
You guys keep putting windows on a pedestal and I don't understand it.
It's the London Riots all over again. Systematic racism, abuse, and murder by the government, the people's peaceful protest was ignored, and then the entire "liberal" world turned against them because some had the audacity to steal a Television. Oh no, our precious TV.
The moral equivalency in both situations is abhorrent. A broken window is an infinitely lesser crime than what our financial institutions have done to this country, and to compare them even remotely equally is disgusting.
Privileged, bourgeois First World finger waggling.
Precisely. You do live in the privileged bourgeois First World, and that's exactly it, you live in a society where the owners of personal property identify with the owners of non-personal property. And for some reason you think that breaking storefronts and looting persuades said privileged bourgeoisie that your cause is just? You do realize that capitalist messaging is not stupid and that satires of left-wing activism as self-aggrandizing destruction disguised under pompous rhetoric are already decades old and thoroughly soaked into popular culture?
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
If anyone other than crazy people would like to talk, like Boring or Thanatos, I'll be back. But if this is just another episode of the Sheep Show, I'm out.
If anyone other than crazy people would like to talk, like Boring or Thanatos, I'll be back. But if this is just another episode of the Sheep Show, I'm out.
Oh no. Someone has taken my attacks on inanimate material possessions personally.
And for some reason you think that breaking storefronts and looting persuades said privileged bourgeoisie that your cause is just?
You say this like there's a way to simply convince them otherwise.
I know, right? MLK accomplished nothing. We could all take a few lessons from Timothy Mcveigh. He knew how to get things done.
/givemeafuckingbreak
In the 60s, large, organized, peaceful protests were an awesome way to get shit done. I don't know if you've noticed, but we're not in the 60s anymore. And no one is advocating hurting anyone; windows are not people.
You know, I've got this rock that repels tigers...
What are you trying to say here?
I'm familiar with the folk saying you've posted here, but I don't think what you're trying to say and what that anachronism actually means are the same thing.
You know good and well that the Bank and the State are firmly intertwined.
8->
Overwrought rhetoric aside, you do realize that breaking windows doesn't actually deter, punish, or illegitimize banking as an industry, yes?
And playing hackey sack in the street does?
Clever words on a poster board?
Drum circles?
I would say that vandalism may be more effective on the principle that at least it doesn't curb it's behavior to appease the abusive establishment.
They abuse, use, and steal. They can't think any worse of us as is.
Which is why India is still a part of the British Empire and African Americans still don't have civil rights, because they just didn't man up and engage in large bouts of pointless vandalis.... oh wait.
Look, I don't even necessarily consider destruction to always be unhelpful, but aimless, silly destruction like breaking some windows or what have you? Doesn't really do much. I have some sympathy for groups of people who might do it out of a frustrated sense of outrage without any likely justice in sight(Not that it doesn't make it a dick thing to do, especially when its extra random). But these guys who show up at major protests and their big bleeding plan is to smash those big mean banks windows? Dumb, dumb dumb.
You feel like its so bad the way to do something about it is to break shit? You better have a game plan, and a pretty damn good one. Otherwise you are going to just be seen as a juvenile asshole and rightly so.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
I know, right? MLK accomplished nothing. We could all take a few lessons from Timothy Mcveigh. He knew how to get things done.
/givemeafuckingbreak
In the 60s, large, organized, peaceful protests were an awesome way to get shit done. I don't know if you've noticed, but we're not in the 60s anymore. And no one is advocating hurting anyone; windows are not people.
I'm not sure that's always accurate though. The Tea Party was able to take over the GOP without breaking storefront one.
We have to pay to clean up after riots, and to clarify, I don't think that simple vandalism needs to be turned into a federal case, but it is really not the only way to get your message across. If only for the fact that it doesn't get your message across.
Peaceful protest is good, showing up to vote is better, lobbying your representatives even more so.
You want to riot, go right ahead, but don't expect most people to bat an eye when you get clubbed in the head or sent to jail.
Most people are already rioting because they understand that society approves state violence. Someone breaks a window? Fuck them. Cop bashes his skull in? He deserved it. One is vandalism. One is violence. One you're disgusted by, one you don't bat an eye.
And you say you can dislike them both? Even equally? Doesn't look like it.
"Showing up to vote". That's laughable. Who you gonna vote for? Bank Rep #1? How about Bank Rep #2?
There's a Futurama gag in here, I know it.
This is how the public views it, yes. If you want to shape policy, you need to understand and accept this fact. That's why people get mad about some innocent women getting pepper-sprayed during OWS protests, but not about the police beating down G# protesters.
It's like you really want to disregard reality here or something. Effective tactics are what's needed and vandalism is not effective at anything but destroying public sympathy. And not just for your cause, but for protests in general.
It's not true violence. Only this application of destructive force is violence.
Look, I get why this linguistic tango goes on at all, you want to shield property destruction from delegitimization by association. It's pointless. It just taints 'vandalism' too, people have personal property that they care about, and lots of it, because you live in the fucking first world.
Smashing a banks windows is not destroying an individuals personal property.
You guys keep putting windows on a pedestal and I don't understand it.
It's the London Riots all over again. Systematic racism, abuse, and murder by the government, the people's peaceful protest was ignored, and then the entire "liberal" world turned against them because some had the audacity to steal a Television. Oh no, our precious TV.
The moral equivalency in both situations is abhorrent. A broken window is an infinitely lesser crime than what our financial institutions have done to this country, and to compare them even remotely equally is disgusting.
Privileged, bourgeois First World finger waggling.
Yeah, we do like the First World. Where neither my shit nor your shit gets randomly destroyed. This situation is kinda the point of civilization and human progress.
There's a reason MLKjr had his people show up in a suit and tie and march peacefully.
And he was shot dead and racism is still as big a problem as ever.
Why don't you go ask an old black man how life was back in the 50s and then come back and tell us how "racism is still as big a problem as ever".
You can't even be taken seriously anymore here if you are spouting this kind of bullshit.
You know, I've got this rock that repels tigers...
What are you trying to say here?
I'm familiar with the folk saying you've posted here, but I don't think what you're trying to say and what that anachronism actually means are the same thing.
I am guessing that you regard past incidents where protests became disorderly and caused a lot of destruction, and were followed by concessions from The Man, as proof that said destruction caused legitimization caused concessions. I do not think this is the case, and I do not think there is any reason to accept a prior belief that breaking storefronts does persuade a middle-class bourgeoisie that It's Really For Their Own Good. I defy you to identify any case where "gee, these left-wing militants are sure destroying a lot of stuff" has ever led to "we should totally vote for what they want".
In which case destruction just leaves you with a broken window and, at best, an unimpressed public. At worst, a hostile one.
Arguably the peaceful protests of the 60s wouldn't have worked without their violent brethren (the ones we don't like to talk about, Malcolm X anyone? Still don't know much about him since he was practically deleted from the history curriculum) as the combination of carrot and stick. I'm not a sociologist so I don't know.
But I'm more concerned with what looks like the police picking a fight with some guys, getting videotaped, and then hunting them down and framing them for terrorism.
Hey, guys, you know what would be a super-effective method of enacting political change? Making an impassioned speech to the gathered citizens at the ἐκκλησία.
If you're going to give examples of peaceful protest being successful, stop using Martin Luther King, Gandhi, or anyone else who died before the word "computer" referred to something that didn't require a warehouse to hold. You may as well be saying "but engraved bronze tablets sent to the representative of the Imperator worked so well!"
Which is why India is still a part of the British Empire and African Americans still don't have civil rights, because they just didn't man up and engage in large bouts of pointless vandalis.... oh wait.
India fought a war against the British Empire. African Americans armed themselves. Ghandi supported those that took up arms against the British Empire.
The Tea Party was able to take over the GOP without breaking storefront one.
Why would the people who own the stores break their own property?
I don't think that simple vandalism needs to be turned into a federal case, but it is really not the only way to get your message across.
Agree. It's not the only way to protest. I said earlier vandalism should be used in tandem with peaceful protest.
Effective tactics
Like what?
destroying public sympathy
I'm of the opinion that if a broken window is all it takes for someone to denounce another who's fighting for the same outcome, then the latter person was never sympathetic to begin with.
Where neither my shit nor your shit gets randomly destroyed.
Again, I'm not talking about my shit or your shit. I'm talking about an international non entities shit. A corporation's feelings can't get hurt over the loss of it's shit and a broken window is leagues below things like "kicking people out of their homes even though they may be current on their mortgage".
Why don't you go ask an old black man how life was back in the 50s and then come back and tell us how "racism is still as big a problem as ever".
The "old black people" of my state are currently reeling over the death of a man who was singled out for his skin color by a group of white teenagers, beaten and then run over. Murdered in cold blood.
But I'm glad that you, as a young white person, feel that you can speak for a black man who grew up in the 60s.
You have appreciation for Marxist distinctions between personal property and capitalist property. At least you should be able to grasp that most people do not make this distinction and that when you break windows and cry that it is just because the window belongs to The Man, not The People, the society which you are protesting to is going to regard this rather skeptically?
And, yes, you are protesting to this society and not preparing to make war upon it?
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
edited May 2012
Sheep, you're living up to your name.
The Black Panthers grew out of the fact that police weren't extending the same protection and service to African-Americans that they were for white people. They armed themselves because they had to become the police.
While the case you mention is horrific, it is far from the norm. No one is saying that racism isn't still a thing. You're the one claiming we've made no progress. Tell me, when's the last time you could purchase a man because of his skin color? Was it in your lifetime?
Police say they had a improvised exposive or incendiary devices, a mortar, swords, a hunting bow, throwing stars, and knives with brass-knuckle handles, gas masks, extensive plans to attack multiple locations including the Mayor's office, police headquarters, the Obama Campaign headquarters, and STAG bases in Steelport as part of Black Bloc and Occupy Chicago and I'm not even sure what all else. But apparently they had no guns for all of this, so...yeah. Their lawyers say all they had a microbrewery for making homemade beer. The 3 (of 9) being charged have bail of 1.5 million each and were apparently being investigated since the begninning of the month despite having gotten to Chicago in typical hippie-caravan style.
Uh. Okay. Did they actually have those things? Or are the police just claiming that they did?
'Mortar' and 'incendiary device' can mean a lot of different things, depending on how far you're willing to stretch those terms (fireworks are incendiary devices, for example. They're also dangerous in their own right, of course, but finding fireworks in the back of someone's vehicle doesn't mean they were going to blow-up Chicago).
I'd like to know more details.
There's a reason MLKjr had his people show up in a suit and tie and march peacefully.
MLK was murdered in cold blood while standing on a hotel balcony, and the ensuing nation-wide riots - which were incredibly violent - arguably did more to cement the necessity of civil rights legislation than either MLK himself or even the Montgomery bus boycotts.
This specific instance of vandalizing windows is not something I'd endorse, because it seems like an opportunistic act of wanton mayhem, but I do wonder how far we'll ever get with regards to the issue of inequality if the left always refuses to break-up the monopoly of violence held by the right. Maybe that's just because I just got back from Paris, and suddenly have so much more appreciation for that flavour of civil disobedience.
The general view among American historians is that peaceful protest won the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960 and 1964. The riots won the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
The main reason that violent protests like the ones we're talking about don't work is that they are done by small groups of protestors that are easy to identify and detain. They are about as ineffective a form of protest as you can get, since they are harmless in and of themselves, turn off potential supporters who don't feel comfortable publicly identifying with violent groups and are easy as hell to stage by agent provocateurs.
Violence as an effective form of political action only works when the number of violent actors is large enough to be seen as a viable threat to the existing order - too big to simply quash and powerful and self-sustaining enough that you don't have to rely on public sentiment for support. There has to be at least the worry that the group could win against the ruling order.
Revolutions run on a completely different dynamic than protest movements. The Indian Independence movement was a protest movement that drew its strength from the fact that it could turn into an army with a word. Ghandi was effective because the discipline he enforced on his followers scared the shit out of the British. For all the aura of pacifist he has developed since his death, he was not a pacifist. The subtext of the Dharasana Satyagraha protest was that the protestors would be just as disciplined when they took up guns and knives against the soldiers. Ghandi was very direct about this.
As the saying goes, kill a dozen people and you are a criminal. Kill 10,000 and you are a politician.
The Black Panthers grew out of the fact that police weren't extending the same protection and service to African-Americans that they were for white people. They armed themselves because they had to becom the police.
Would you tell them the same thing?
What about the Fruit of Islam?
That they need to be non threatening, only? I'm sure they would disagree.
There's a Malcolm X quote about this. I don't know it verbatim, but it's along the lines of urging men who are systematically abused to not strike back at their attacker is criminal.
You're the one claiming we've made no progress.
I didn't say that, or that's not what I meant to get across. I mean that MLK and Obama can not be used as examples of significant progress, since the same sections of society that supported these breaches of human rights still exist.
Tell me, when's the last time you could purchase a man
Me? I wouldn't. But in this country, if you have enough money, you still can.
I think peaceful protests are the best, but to talk about rioters as if they just exist in that state is silly. To avoid riots you need a crowd that's for the most part very peaceful, and a police force that's committed to keeping it that way. The latter isn't optional. If the goal of whoever is doing the security is not to maintain a peaceful protest - because they want to focus crowd dispersal- then a peaceful protest isn't fucking happening.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
I think peaceful protests are the best, but to talk about rioters as if they just exist in that state is silly. To avoid riots you need a crowd that's for the most part very peaceful, and a police force that's committed to keeping it that way. The latter isn't optional. If the goal of whoever is doing the security is not to maintain a peaceful protest - because they want to focus crowd dispersal- then a peaceful protest isn't fucking happening.
This is pretty much what I believe as well.
Though I'd also add that when the cops cause the violence you get a different reaction. I support the people who were forced out of the OWS camp by Mayor Menino in Boston much more than the little prick who sat down in the Tampa PD HQ and started ranting about police brutality.
This pattern of preemptive policing has been going one direction for more than a decade now, and it's had the tacit endorsement of both parties for a long time. I condemn the shitheads breaking windows, but I feel the behavior of the police is the greater threat to public safety and liberty.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
This pattern of preemptive policing has been going one direction for more than a decade now, and it's had the tacit endorsement of both parties for a long time. I condemn the shitheads breaking windows, but I feel the behavior of the police is the greater threat to public safety and liberty.
I think peaceful protests are the best, but to talk about rioters as if they just exist in that state is silly. To avoid riots you need a crowd that's for the most part very peaceful, and a police force that's committed to keeping it that way. The latter isn't optional. If the goal of whoever is doing the security is not to maintain a peaceful protest - because they want to focus crowd dispersal- then a peaceful protest isn't fucking happening.
There's obviously a line of thinking among modern policing that there is a political benefit to turning at least a portion of a peaceful protest into a containable riot. That's the practical effect of kettling and indiscriminate tear gassing - to force people in a situation where they will panic and riot against the police. When something like that happens enough times and the practice isn't stopped or modified, it is hard to believe that someone up the chain isn't happy with the results.
Personally, I think this is playing with fire. One of these days, the police are going to accidentally trigger a real, self-sustaining riot of the kind that can last for days and weeks or turn into a full-on rebellion.
A darker part of me wonders if - with the advent of devices like microwave pain emitters and other "non-lethal tech" - modern governments think that they've finally got a handle on the "protest problem." Again, I personally doubt this, since I believe Kennedy was spot on with ""Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
I think peaceful protests are the best, but to talk about rioters as if they just exist in that state is silly. To avoid riots you need a crowd that's for the most part very peaceful, and a police force that's committed to keeping it that way. The latter isn't optional. If the goal of whoever is doing the security is not to maintain a peaceful protest - because they want to focus crowd dispersal- then a peaceful protest isn't fucking happening.
Precisely.
Again, that's not to say that I think the window-breaking in particular was part of this dynamic.
So we get stiff once in a while. So we have a little fun. What’s wrong with that? This is a free country, isn’t it? I can take my panda any place I want to. And if I wanna buy it a drink, that’s my business.
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Posts
That's a pretty thin argument. Neither breaking windows nor not breaking windows has fuck all to do with the economy.
There is an infinite number of options that will be more effective than vandalism.
Smashing a banks windows is not destroying an individuals personal property.
You guys keep putting windows on a pedestal and I don't understand it.
It's the London Riots all over again. Systematic racism, abuse, and murder by the government, the people's peaceful protest was ignored, and then the entire "liberal" world turned against them because some had the audacity to steal a Television. Oh no, our precious TV.
The moral equivalency in both situations is abhorrent. A broken window is an infinitely lesser crime than what our financial institutions have done to this country, and to compare them even remotely equally is disgusting.
Privileged, bourgeois First World finger waggling.
And he was shot dead and racism is still as big a problem as ever.
Yeah, turns out property rights are important to a lot of people. Imagine that. Peaceful protest is good, showing up to vote is better, lobbying your representatives even more so.
You want to riot, go right ahead, but don't expect most people to bat an eye when you get clubbed in the head or sent to jail.
This is probably the dumbest thing you'll say until the next time you say something dumb.
Look, if people are willing to commit a crime to protest, they could at least make it worth it. Go stage a sit-in at those banks and refuse to leave. Stage a sit-in at the political offices in your area. Take to the streets, disrupt traffic, commerce etc. These are preferable to having random crowds of people smash windows.
And for the record, does no one see the contradiction in calling vandalism civil disobedience?
Yeah, MLK sure wasted his time.
Most people are already rioting because they understand that society approves state violence. Someone breaks a window? Fuck them. Cop bashes his skull in? He deserved it. One is vandalism. One is violence. One you're disgusted by, one you don't bat an eye.
And you say you can dislike them both? Even equally? Doesn't look like it.
"Showing up to vote". That's laughable. Who you gonna vote for? Bank Rep #1? How about Bank Rep #2?
There's a Futurama gag in here, I know it.
Unless what they found was this.
Which would show up next to swords, throwing stars, and knives with brass-knuckle handles.
And I'm sorry, but my vote and my lobbying is going to have no effect in comparison to the enormous check the finance industry is willing to write Congress and the White House in order to make sure nothing ever actually gets done about them.
I know, right? MLK accomplished nothing. We could all take a few lessons from Timothy Mcveigh. He knew how to get things done.
/givemeafuckingbreak
Precisely. You do live in the privileged bourgeois First World, and that's exactly it, you live in a society where the owners of personal property identify with the owners of non-personal property. And for some reason you think that breaking storefronts and looting persuades said privileged bourgeoisie that your cause is just? You do realize that capitalist messaging is not stupid and that satires of left-wing activism as self-aggrandizing destruction disguised under pompous rhetoric are already decades old and thoroughly soaked into popular culture?
Unless this is FOX News the election of a black President doesn't mean that we have ended racism.
No one claimed that. You asserted that we have made no progress. Is racism still a problem? Absolutely. Have we made huge strides in fifty years? Yes.
Oh no. Someone has taken my attacks on inanimate material possessions personally.
You say this like there's a way to simply convince them otherwise.
Seriously, guys, this is not the fucking 60s.
You know, I've got this rock that repels tigers...
What are you trying to say here?
I'm familiar with the folk saying you've posted here, but I don't think what you're trying to say and what that anachronism actually means are the same thing.
...
do you have any idea how many protests it took just for the CRM to be taken seriously and not immediately disregarded as a temporary disturbance
Which is why India is still a part of the British Empire and African Americans still don't have civil rights, because they just didn't man up and engage in large bouts of pointless vandalis.... oh wait.
Look, I don't even necessarily consider destruction to always be unhelpful, but aimless, silly destruction like breaking some windows or what have you? Doesn't really do much. I have some sympathy for groups of people who might do it out of a frustrated sense of outrage without any likely justice in sight(Not that it doesn't make it a dick thing to do, especially when its extra random). But these guys who show up at major protests and their big bleeding plan is to smash those big mean banks windows? Dumb, dumb dumb.
You feel like its so bad the way to do something about it is to break shit? You better have a game plan, and a pretty damn good one. Otherwise you are going to just be seen as a juvenile asshole and rightly so.
I'm not sure that's always accurate though. The Tea Party was able to take over the GOP without breaking storefront one.
We have to pay to clean up after riots, and to clarify, I don't think that simple vandalism needs to be turned into a federal case, but it is really not the only way to get your message across. If only for the fact that it doesn't get your message across.
This is how the public views it, yes. If you want to shape policy, you need to understand and accept this fact. That's why people get mad about some innocent women getting pepper-sprayed during OWS protests, but not about the police beating down G# protesters.
It's like you really want to disregard reality here or something. Effective tactics are what's needed and vandalism is not effective at anything but destroying public sympathy. And not just for your cause, but for protests in general.
Yeah, we do like the First World. Where neither my shit nor your shit gets randomly destroyed. This situation is kinda the point of civilization and human progress.
Why don't you go ask an old black man how life was back in the 50s and then come back and tell us how "racism is still as big a problem as ever".
You can't even be taken seriously anymore here if you are spouting this kind of bullshit.
I am guessing that you regard past incidents where protests became disorderly and caused a lot of destruction, and were followed by concessions from The Man, as proof that said destruction caused legitimization caused concessions. I do not think this is the case, and I do not think there is any reason to accept a prior belief that breaking storefronts does persuade a middle-class bourgeoisie that It's Really For Their Own Good. I defy you to identify any case where "gee, these left-wing militants are sure destroying a lot of stuff" has ever led to "we should totally vote for what they want".
In which case destruction just leaves you with a broken window and, at best, an unimpressed public. At worst, a hostile one.
But I'm more concerned with what looks like the police picking a fight with some guys, getting videotaped, and then hunting them down and framing them for terrorism.
If you're going to give examples of peaceful protest being successful, stop using Martin Luther King, Gandhi, or anyone else who died before the word "computer" referred to something that didn't require a warehouse to hold. You may as well be saying "but engraved bronze tablets sent to the representative of the Imperator worked so well!"
India fought a war against the British Empire. African Americans armed themselves. Ghandi supported those that took up arms against the British Empire.
Why would the people who own the stores break their own property?
Agree. It's not the only way to protest. I said earlier vandalism should be used in tandem with peaceful protest.
Like what?
I'm of the opinion that if a broken window is all it takes for someone to denounce another who's fighting for the same outcome, then the latter person was never sympathetic to begin with.
Again, I'm not talking about my shit or your shit. I'm talking about an international non entities shit. A corporation's feelings can't get hurt over the loss of it's shit and a broken window is leagues below things like "kicking people out of their homes even though they may be current on their mortgage".
The "old black people" of my state are currently reeling over the death of a man who was singled out for his skin color by a group of white teenagers, beaten and then run over. Murdered in cold blood.
But I'm glad that you, as a young white person, feel that you can speak for a black man who grew up in the 60s.
And I'm supposed to be taken seriously by you?
And, yes, you are protesting to this society and not preparing to make war upon it?
The Black Panthers grew out of the fact that police weren't extending the same protection and service to African-Americans that they were for white people. They armed themselves because they had to become the police.
While the case you mention is horrific, it is far from the norm. No one is saying that racism isn't still a thing. You're the one claiming we've made no progress. Tell me, when's the last time you could purchase a man because of his skin color? Was it in your lifetime?
Uh. Okay. Did they actually have those things? Or are the police just claiming that they did?
'Mortar' and 'incendiary device' can mean a lot of different things, depending on how far you're willing to stretch those terms (fireworks are incendiary devices, for example. They're also dangerous in their own right, of course, but finding fireworks in the back of someone's vehicle doesn't mean they were going to blow-up Chicago).
I'd like to know more details.
MLK was murdered in cold blood while standing on a hotel balcony, and the ensuing nation-wide riots - which were incredibly violent - arguably did more to cement the necessity of civil rights legislation than either MLK himself or even the Montgomery bus boycotts.
This specific instance of vandalizing windows is not something I'd endorse, because it seems like an opportunistic act of wanton mayhem, but I do wonder how far we'll ever get with regards to the issue of inequality if the left always refuses to break-up the monopoly of violence held by the right. Maybe that's just because I just got back from Paris, and suddenly have so much more appreciation for that flavour of civil disobedience.
The main reason that violent protests like the ones we're talking about don't work is that they are done by small groups of protestors that are easy to identify and detain. They are about as ineffective a form of protest as you can get, since they are harmless in and of themselves, turn off potential supporters who don't feel comfortable publicly identifying with violent groups and are easy as hell to stage by agent provocateurs.
Violence as an effective form of political action only works when the number of violent actors is large enough to be seen as a viable threat to the existing order - too big to simply quash and powerful and self-sustaining enough that you don't have to rely on public sentiment for support. There has to be at least the worry that the group could win against the ruling order.
Revolutions run on a completely different dynamic than protest movements. The Indian Independence movement was a protest movement that drew its strength from the fact that it could turn into an army with a word. Ghandi was effective because the discipline he enforced on his followers scared the shit out of the British. For all the aura of pacifist he has developed since his death, he was not a pacifist. The subtext of the Dharasana Satyagraha protest was that the protestors would be just as disciplined when they took up guns and knives against the soldiers. Ghandi was very direct about this.
As the saying goes, kill a dozen people and you are a criminal. Kill 10,000 and you are a politician.
And you're not living up to yours.
Would you tell them the same thing?
What about the Fruit of Islam?
That they need to be non threatening, only? I'm sure they would disagree.
There's a Malcolm X quote about this. I don't know it verbatim, but it's along the lines of urging men who are systematically abused to not strike back at their attacker is criminal.
I didn't say that, or that's not what I meant to get across. I mean that MLK and Obama can not be used as examples of significant progress, since the same sections of society that supported these breaches of human rights still exist.
Me? I wouldn't. But in this country, if you have enough money, you still can.
Though it's usually women.
This is pretty much what I believe as well.
Though I'd also add that when the cops cause the violence you get a different reaction. I support the people who were forced out of the OWS camp by Mayor Menino in Boston much more than the little prick who sat down in the Tampa PD HQ and started ranting about police brutality.
But this is about more than arresting actual troublemakers (if the people arrested in the terror plot are in fact troublemakers). Police are stopping, searching and harassing people without even attempting to demonstrate probable cause. One link: dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/05/20/occupy-journalists-stopped-searched-handcuffed-interrogated-at-gunpoint/
Other examples here: guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/may/20/welcome-nato-chicago-police-state
This pattern of preemptive policing has been going one direction for more than a decade now, and it's had the tacit endorsement of both parties for a long time. I condemn the shitheads breaking windows, but I feel the behavior of the police is the greater threat to public safety and liberty.
I can agree with this.
There's obviously a line of thinking among modern policing that there is a political benefit to turning at least a portion of a peaceful protest into a containable riot. That's the practical effect of kettling and indiscriminate tear gassing - to force people in a situation where they will panic and riot against the police. When something like that happens enough times and the practice isn't stopped or modified, it is hard to believe that someone up the chain isn't happy with the results.
Personally, I think this is playing with fire. One of these days, the police are going to accidentally trigger a real, self-sustaining riot of the kind that can last for days and weeks or turn into a full-on rebellion.
A darker part of me wonders if - with the advent of devices like microwave pain emitters and other "non-lethal tech" - modern governments think that they've finally got a handle on the "protest problem." Again, I personally doubt this, since I believe Kennedy was spot on with ""Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
Precisely.
Again, that's not to say that I think the window-breaking in particular was part of this dynamic.
As a matter of fact, let's use molotov cocktails to smash those windows!
It's Civil Disobedience, no one is going to get hurt from smashing bank windows...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-05-05/3-dead-after-protesters-torch-greek-bank/423816
http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/02/world/europe/greece-papathanasopoulou-family/index.html
Can we get Sheep in here to say that she made herself a victim?