dagblog - Comments for "This is not a rehearsal"

Your quivers must be

barefooted — Wed, 08 Feb 2017 18:10:52 +0000

In reply to A luverly errur is like an

Your quivers must be shivering ... the White House is calling. ;-)

This was one protest. The

rmrd0000 — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 14:38:16 +0000

In reply to Sorry, BLM in general is not

This was one protest. The article states that there were larger more violent protests over tuition.

The Berkeley protest was about curtailing free speech. The better option was to let the bigot speak and hang himself. This seems to be an isolated incident not tied to protests like Moral Mondays, the Women's March, and immigration protests.

Edit to add:

BLM is obviously not MLK. However if BLM created disruptions in Flint or at the state capitol, resolution may have been swifter in getting drinkable water to the citizens. Flint was a slow poisoning that the Governor was in no rush to resolve because there was no true public protest.

The other important message

rmrd0000 — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 14:18:50 +0000

In reply to This is using a crazy metric.

The other important message that is glossed over is the message sent to the oppressed. While people worry that the protests may offend the oppressors, there seems to be little concern that you tell the oppressed that they are not worthy of concern. Change takes time. The oppressed need to know that people are fighting for them. Protests help. The cure for protest fatigue are a few victories. Ferguson saw judicial change, Civil Rights laws were passed. Stop and Frisk was more limited in scope, and crime still went down. You gain no friends among the oppressed by telling people to "cool it". You merely give aid and comfort to the oppressor.

Sorry, BLM in general is not

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 14:17:23 +0000

In reply to This is using a crazy metric.

Sorry, BLM in general is not MLK or even Ferguson. I'm not saying "sit home", and backlash from the public doesn't mean you're dong well even if it's "the norm" (and I think there are gradations of backlash). From the LA Times:

Within minutes, the group of 100 to 150 agitators had smashed half a dozen windows with barricades, launched fireworks at police and toppled a diesel-powered klieg light, which caused it to burst into flames.

“They didn’t come to lock arms and sing ‘Kumbaya,’” said Dan Mogulof, assistant vice chancellor and spokesman for the UC Berkeley. “They came to [mess stuff] up,” he said, using stronger language.

While so-called black bloc agitators have become a fixture of Bay Area demonstrations in the last decade, their appearance at Berkeley on Wednesday and otherwise peaceful demonstrations threatens to inflame tensions in an already polarized nation.

...

The self-described anarchists or antifascists have left school and law enforcement agencies struggling to cope with their tactics.

Moving officers into Wednesday night’s melee, would have created "a lethal, horror situation," said campus Police Chief Margo Bennett.

"We have to do exactly what we did last night: to show tremendous restraint," she said.

UC Berkeley officials are now talking with federal and local law enforcement agencies about how to address black bloc tactics, which first appeared in Europe in the 1980s but have grown increasingly common in the United States in recent years.

To be sure, the University of California system has seen far larger disruptions by ordinary students. Window breaking and barricade tossing were common during Regents meetings when tuition was being raised significantly in the last decade, and protesters at UCLA trapped the Regents and other UC officials in a meeting building and garage.

But even though there was only one arrest Wednesday night, Berkeley officials insist the incident was something altogether new.

The cops in Berkeley are usually not the enemy - campus protests are normal free speech there. Making them bullies, or putting them in the middle of a shitstorm, is a bad move and takes the focus off the target of the protests.

This is using a crazy metric.

rmrd0000 — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 13:47:01 +0000

In reply to I'd go with Flav here - the

This is using a crazy metric. Currently we are battling decades of wingnut propaganda. Martin Luther King Jr. began with the bus boycott after Rosa Parks arrest in 1955. The Civil Rights bills didn't pass until 1965.

https://www.britannica.com/event/American-civil-rights-movement/Montgome...

We are still battling for Civil Rights. People were angered by King's protests. Even some blacks said that he was moving too fast. That argument is ridiculous. Protests disrupt. The general population simply doesn't want to be bothered. The Vietnam protests did move the needle. Ferguson led to dramatic changes in their judicial system. Baltimore led to a DOJ review that resulted in documenting police abuse. Sessions is going to quash the Civil Rights Division and police review. The proper response to that backlash is resistance. People will get pissed off when there is pushback against a reactionary DOJ. The white backlash is predictable. There will be backlash against any legal action taken. Those fighting for justice will be labeled as supporting crime. The opposition is always going to oppose no matter what form the protests took.

Flint, Michigan has been relatively quiet. Look at the tremendous progress they have seen

http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/04/us/flint-water-crisis-fast-facts/

There was a faster pace in Ferguson and Baltimore.

Trump will have Sessions nationalize Stop and Frisk, something that will also call for resistance.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/09/28/trumps-fa...

Sitting home is not an option. Backlash from the public is the norm. The protesters are not the problem. The complacent public is the problem.

Edit to add:

Protests keep the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam, Stop and Frisk, Ferguson, and Baltimore in the public eye. For all the public cared, the people of Flint could all have been poisoned.

We always hear the same arguments about protests.

http://www.alternet.org/activism/protests-against-trump-are-effective

It was ever thus.

Flavius — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 12:55:07 +0000

In reply to Where is Dickday? You have an

It was ever thus.

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene" etc. etc.

A daughter who went door to

Flavius — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 12:40:29 +0000

In reply to I take this to mean that you

A daughter who went door to door for Obama in Pennsylvania in 2008 stayed home in 2012 because she was' annoyed by Occupy. I think she voted for him but she certainly didn't work for him. I think she was wrong BTW but the question we're debating is not her political commitment but the effect of intense public protest.

Good friends led * the opposition to Vietnam. Which was followed by McGovern's landslide defeat.

I have exactly the same enemies as you. And applaud the strength of your commitment. But not your tactics.

* revised by popular demand

A luverly errur is like an

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 07:11:08 +0000

In reply to Yew remind me of an ant who

A luverly errur is like an arrow (makes me quiver) - a respite from dirigents, a launchpad for poits. But a causal poplar errrar is s'thing 2 abandon - two mundane for inspearation, two disheoveled for admiration.

I'd go with Flav here - the

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 07:00:51 +0000

In reply to Flavius, the majority of

I'd go with Flav here - the war in Vietnam was over when the hardhats took up the resistance too. Occupy Wall Street conversely never grabbed the imagination and action of the general public. It's not really about "speed" - it can go fast enough if you do the right things, though throwing a successful protest movement isn't easy - inertia is with the power holders. Failure doesn't necessarily mean you did all that bad, but it's still failure. BLM is still largely known for some in-your-face, not very enlightened confrontations. They may have moved the peg a bit, but I don't see them taking much to the endzone.

Flavius, the majority of

rmrd0000 — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 05:05:25 +0000

In reply to The airport protests were a

Flavius, the majority of Americans in the North and South thought that Martin Luther King Jr. was pushing too fast. People today think BlackLivesMatter is pushing too fast. Moral Mondays is pushing too fast. You direct your concern at Progressives for protesting too much. You get the vapors about small groups of violent protestors. You ignore the big threat. States are creating laws that outlaw peaceful protests.

https://theintercept.com/2017/01/19/republican-lawmakers-in-five-states-...

The danger we face is from reactionaries. Reactionaries view any protest against their viewpoint as unlawful. Given the fact that legislators want to put laws limiting free speech in place, isn't that where we need to focus our efforts?

Reactionaries will make up crap to anger their base. Hillary has a child porn ring in a pizzeria. Protestors are paid by Soros. There was a massacre in Bowling Green. We cannot make excuses for people who want to stifle protest, they will create their own fantasy to justify their faith in Trumpism. The big threat to society is Republican authoritarian legislators.

If a person is upset by OWS and/or BLM, they are easily swayed to act against their own interest. The protests are energizing a large segment who either would vote for the Democratic Party in 2018 rather than vote third party. The protests are also energizing people who stayed at home in 2016.