The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent
vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums
here.
We now return to our regularly scheduled PA Forums. Please let me (Hahnsoo1) know if something isn't working. The Holiday Forum will remain up until January 10, 2025.
NATO, Terrorism, and the CPD
Posts
ed
Though I would like to know where each story for each individual robbed of their homes, jobs, and lives, that were lost due to Papandreou's austerity measures is.
This is kind of what I was looking for to begin with. These cops are fucking geese of the highest order. Shutting down a stream? Purposely destroying equipment? Fuck them.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
Indeed. Just because I don't like rioting and vandalism doesn't mean I like it when cops are shit bag. This kind of thing is just as fucking ridiculous as the other side.
Though that guardian article is a bit alarmist for my taste.
Hate to break it to you, but that's kind of completely bullshit. If only because people like me are in the majority. There may be a point where rioting is a legitimate tactic, but this isn't it.
But it's not what happens, it may start with smashing in a given banks windows, but it never stops there. It always goes from 1 banks windows, to the nearby businesses windows, to let's burn this parked car, to I really want some new sneakers so lets raid footlocker. It's basically just a bunch of pissed of 20-somethings wanting to raise hell and have a good time.
People who are looking for an excuse for violence are too quick to declare the failure of nonviolent protests.
Successful violent protests are also something you can't plan, or avoid if things are bad enough. The riots that preceded the 1968 Civil Rights Act, and made it clear to a large portion of America that racism was a serious problem, happened nationwide in multiple cities over multiple years. They weren't coordinated or led. It was simply that the black population had had enough.
If things get that bad here, things will be well beyond a debate of whether violence is effective or not.
Trashing a Nike boutique and a Starbucks coffee shop is not civil disobedience; it's shittery. Black Bloc are stupid little shits, full stop. I care what happens to them like I care what happens to Bank of America. Which is to say, I don't.
Setting fire to buildings is shitty, always, full stop. Someone who has nothing to do with whatever youre in a hissy fit about is going to be the one to put it out
Come Overwatch with meeeee
I'm sorry, you seem to be terribly fucking mistaken.
This is not the Middle East. This is not an oppressed people fighting against an authoritarian regime and a brutal citizen-culling military.
This is America. Riots don't fly in America.
Positive things do not come from American riots. Protests, yes. Riots, no. They never have.
Steam ID XBL: JohnnyChopsocky PSN:Stud_Beefpile WiiU:JohnnyChopsocky
Didn't they do that like last year in London? Didn't work out that badly for them.
The police (really, more then just the police, in fact everyone the protest is directed against) don't mind it when protesters turn violent. It gives them justification, both to their superiors and to the public at large, to forcibly disperse the protest.
No it isn't and that's the problem. It's an ineffective and counterproductive tactic.
No, sorry Sheep, you are wrong. Public sympathy is important for a protest and vandalism only destroys that while not actual helping the protests goal along.
The public does not care about this distinction.
It's a stupid one to try and make too because violence tends to not just be confined to the banks windows. It involves other peoples windows and other people on the street and people inside the bank and so on.
No, obviously not since apparently you are actually arguing that conditions for black americans have not gotten better over the past 50-odd years. I'm sure lynchings and racist beatings are just as common as they were in the 60s....
So yeah, you are a silly goose and should not be taken seriously in the slightest.
Vandalism is the exact last thing protestors should engage in at the start. It shouldn't need to be said, but vandalism is taboo here. Most people don't make the distinction between a corporate entity's property and an individual's property. What's more, like others said, vandalism usually spreads without focus. Since you're (supposedly) trying to gain public support, don't be an idiot. Stop the shit. If it is done at all, it should be done at the end game as a symbol of the public's rage.
A lot of protestors have the logic wrong. They think "Start a riot, and change will come." No, wrong, thanks for playing. The successful riots are those that sprang up organically. They weren't started by a bunch of predominantly white 20 somethings with too much time on their hands. Instead, they were often the last resort, and the explosion of emotions that had been simmering for years/decades.
If you want a successful movement, start with grassroots campaigning. Present yourselves as intelligent, rational, professional people. Messages are easier to swallow if the attractive person in the business suit is giving it rather than the grubby hippie. That may seem unfair, but that's how it works. Bombard newspaper editorials, town hall meetings, and government officials' phone lines. Try to get yourselves on TV in a positive way, in the form of interviews. Make public your successes and failures to play up the underdog angle. Make a website for people to follow/get more information. Above all, keep at it. Don't stop working within the system if it doesn't work after a few months/a year.
Protests are a tool, but they're very blunt instruments. They fail because they're employed as the first step, without wider public support, and are usually associated with violence and vandalism. And for all the romantic, "Well, we're trying to highlight the difference between us and the police response," stuff, that doesn't work with a complicit mainstream media. All you're doing is playing into the establishment's hands. The people who do get pissed at that are largely the choir, who are already on board.
No, movements need to convince the single mom with two kids, a mortgage, and several jobs that the message is important enough to take the time to listen. They need to sway the unemployed autoworker from the Bible Belt. They need to appeal to a broad base of people.
That's just not true. America has a long history of social change spurred on by riots.
Example: Stonewall.
That's an important point. The riots that have worked have done so because they present the authorities with a stark choice - escalate and risk open rebellion or compromise and simmer down the tensions.
No I'm not, but thanks for playing the game of misdirection.
ed
I have a good idea. How about you make a thread about how much better Black Americans have it now since they get ostracized a little less than they used to. We can take the debate there.
People want to change the system. Not work with it. "Working with it" is how we keep ending up in these big fights over tax cuts for the rich versus food for the poor.
The moment you say "we do this to attract attention to our cause" then you have conceded that you are, ultimately, intending to work with the system.
Violence makes sense if you are genuinely prepared to go all the way with it - if you are prepared to revolt over it. If you are not, then it just backfires. Capital will call your bluff.
Counterpoint - the American Revolution.
The British were not oppressing the Americans, except by imposing what would now be seen as extremely light taxation on a limited number of goods. They only had a limited troop presence in urban areas. They didn't actually start responding with violence and crackdowns until after the Americans had begun to riot.
You could also make the case that the Civil War was the result of manufactured fear of future oppression. No major Northern party or candidate, including Lincoln, was calling for the end of slavery. Southerners whipped themselves into a frenzy at the possibility of abolition, based largely on the fact that the North tolerated the existence of a small but vocal movement against slavery.
One of the reasons the right is so dangerous right now, especially in rural America, is that they've been able to focus people's economic anxieties into the idea that taxation, per se, is a form of oppression. As more and more people slide into the underclass, that's a very pervasive case.
I do wonder whether the remnants of the American populist left would be so gung-ho about violent populist action when it becomes apparent that the current form of the right is even better than them at mobilizing a vanguard and a disenchanted underclass. It feels very familiarly like class consciousness toward a right-wing cause instead of ye olde purely jingoistic nationalism, doesn't it.
Agree. Especially on this end and the discussion on "grass roots" movements is necessary. The use of YouTube/Vimeo/Etc as an independent news source is imperative.
But you're stuck between a rock and a hard place. The bourgeois press, even those on the "left", tend to favor rightist positions. I've seen some numbers that show even liberal media outlets, in their attempts to be "fair", skew wildly to the right when it comes to having third parties on the air pushing a position.
I agree.
Nationalism, elitism, Corporatism, racism, war mongering, lifting the "middle class" above the "lower class" and state enforcement of class lines, social darwinism...
That's the beginning of good old fashioned Fascism.
You may see the "light taxation" as not very important, but obviously the colonists didn't. There was also the issue of representations: parliament could make all sorts of laws that the colonists had no say over. Likewise the Civil War was caused by the lumbering end of slavery and that scared the shit out of the people who were getting rich off that dark enterprise in the South.
There is no excuse for violence right now, there just isn't. There is no consensus to "change the system" because the only reason the system is broken is because a bunch of rich guys have convinced teenagers and people in their twenties (the sort of people who are quick to jump into a protest and say "hey, I need a new pair of sneakers, that'll show the bank-somehow") that they don't matter, when if you look at demographics the exact opposite is true.
There may be a point where violence is allowable, history shows that those points do crop up from time to time. We are not anywhere near that point today, we're just not.
Yup. Our grandparents called this "fascism."
And I'm not advocating for it. I'm just pointing out that "violence never changes anything" is a lie told to you by your kindergarten teacher.
http://galleries.apps.chicagotribune.com/chi-120520-nato-summit-protests-sunday-pictures/#32
You live in urban America, right? NYC?
This is one big issue I run into talking to middle class professionals from the cities. Whether they believe it or not, things really are that bad in the rural areas and the Rust Belt, and they are starting to get pretty bad in the burbs. There's a reason that there's an epidemic of meth, religious hysteria and anger in the hinterlands.
The last two decades have seen tens of millions of people go from comfortable middle/working class lives to utter poverty. In many cases, it's much worse than it was at the turn of the century or the Great Depression because there's no longer a family farm to go back to. That's what is driving a lot of the fear and anger that's making our national politics so insane.
Indeed so, but I don't think anyone in here is arguing "violence never changes anything". We've been saying "there are uses for violence, but those don't exist in the United States right now".
The probability of violent action inspiring systemic change seems low, but pick the scenario where you reckon it has the most likelihood.
Is it, in your mind's eye, a left-wing violent revolution or a right-wing one, given American politics as it stands today?
Things are not at dust bowl, great depression level. Sorry, I'm from Rural America, things are pretty shitty, but things are not that bad yet.
Neither, actually.
The right wing, as it stands now, has its base of appeal in the older generations. The military relies too much on minorities for it to ever solidify into a solid right wing bloc. It had its fascist moment, and the only people who turned up were on hover-rounds. In a lot of ways, I think the current American right is as spent a force as the left.
The left just doesn't have the support. There's no cohesive leftist movement or voice in our politics. OWS may provide a cause for educated college graduates, but there's really not much support for nonviolent solutions with distributed leadership.
What should worry everyone is a return of the type of populist rabble-rousers like Huey Long who managed to squish together leftist economics, right-wing social appeal and a strong rural base. The type of person who could make things really scary will be someone who agitates against the banks as loudly as he does against the gays. Those are the types who historically Americans have gathered around in times of crisis.
You didn't particularly address me so I hope you don't mind me answering this.
Any "left wing" revolution as it stands, right now, say if it were to happen TODAY, it would ultimately be a bourgeois revolution and, ultimately, not Left. If OWS were to explode, I suppose. There would be no social change. We'd still have our faux democracy, the working class would still be largely disassociated from the political process, and I even see OWS ostracizing and removing elements of the movement that would advocate a serious change in production and capital relations in our country.
After all, OWS are the ones constantly pushing the line that they are not at all against Capitalism.
The most likely path to take would be one of New Democracy. Get the real working class involved with the student movement, show the petty bourgeoisie how capitalism destroys small businesses, etc. Businesses that span the country, much less the globe, would have to be massively reduced. Obviously this would be a massive boon to local businesses. Get the family farm industry out from under abusive bank loans on the stipulation that they must run as a co-op instead of employer/employee relations.
EDIT
And yeah, if we ever enact austerity measures here in the US, the Grapes of Wrath type scenario will get here even quicker.
Suffice it to say that I do not think that the relevant protesters are, in fact, prepared to go all the way.
Hmm. I think you underestimate the degree to which right-wing support in the US arises from the lower-income demographic, particularly if you control for race and gender, and the extent to which its rhetoric seeks to demonize 'the rich' (who are, unsurprisingly, rarely precisely identified). And why would this be surprising, Strasserism suited Germany just fine until it didn't.