WHEN PRESIDENT DONALD Trump announced on Saturday night that he would send the National Guard to Los Angeles to crush protests, a narrative emerged on social media that demonstrators had somehow given a gift to the authoritarian president by escalating confrontations with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

“Los Angeles — violence is never the answer. Assaulting law enforcement is never ok,” Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., posted on Sunday. “Indeed, doing so plays directly into the hands of those who seek to antagonize and weaponize the situation for their own gain. Don’t let them succeed.”

In reality, the protesters throwing rocks at heavily armed security forces or attempting to damage the vehicles used to kidnap their immigrant neighbors did not introduce violence. They are instead acting in militant community defense.

After all, would the situation somehow be less violent were ICE left to snatch and disappear people without impediment? Does Schiff imagine either his pronouncements or the empty condemnations of his Democratic Party colleagues will slow down the deportation of our neighbors?

  • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    LA is doing a great job of keeping everything calm. There was no reason to send the National Guard and now the Marines. Trump knows he looks like an idiot and is going to try and speed up the dictatorship early. Let’s not give him a reason to look like he’s doing anything and continue to be calm. Republicans, you’re in on this or I would hear something from you. You r’s better start speaking up mf’s.

    • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      Yeah, nobody’s been hurt except by the cops. Some waymos and cop cars got burned; that’s what they call Monday in LA.

    • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      Right? It’s the cops with the guns and the gas canisters, not the protestors.

      And the protests are well into the thousands, yet only a few dozen arrests, and no reports of serious police injuries or death (if anything like that had happened, news everywhere would have been plastered wall-to-wall with that story). On the other hand, plenty of reports of protestors and media being harmed by police weapons. That is less violence and injury than after a major sports game.

  • GuyFawkes@midwest.social
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    2 months ago

    So if protests can’t be violent, and the authoritarian regime mows down the non-violent, how EXACTLY are we supposed to actually win this?

    • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Don’t believe the doubters: protest still has power

      Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change.

      There are, of course, many ethical reasons to use nonviolent strategies. But compelling research by Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard University, confirms that civil disobedience is not only the moral choice; it is also the most powerful way of shaping world politics – by a long way.

      Looking at hundreds of campaigns over the last century, Chenoweth found that nonviolent campaigns are twice as likely to achieve their goals as violent campaigns. And although the exact dynamics will depend on many factors, she has shown it takes around 3.5% of the population actively participating in the protests to ensure serious political change.

      Working with Maria Stephan, a researcher at the ICNC, Chenoweth performed an extensive review of the literature on civil resistance and social movements from 1900 to 2006 – a data set then corroborated with other experts in the field. They primarily considered attempts to bring about regime change. A movement was considered a success if it fully achieved its goals both within a year of its peak engagement and as a direct result of its activities. A regime change resulting from foreign military intervention would not be considered a success, for instance. A campaign was considered violent, meanwhile, if it involved bombings, kidnappings, the destruction of infrastructure – or any other physical harm to people or property.

      Source in article from 2019

      • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        I’m not saying protest doesn’t have power. But the power of nonviolent protest diminishes sharply if there’s no implicit threat of violent protest if matters get pushed too far. One of the primary reasons MLK succeeded was because Malcom X was waiting in the wings.

        Nonviolent protest against a status quo ante is one thing; nonviolent protest against an aggressively authoritarian regime that’s grabbing more power by the day is quite another. It is a very, very different context.

        • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          I see what you’re saying, but I live in Seattle. I saw how they spun our city as a “hellhole” and “it’s on fire” for months. I had family members calling to see if I was okay when it was very contained and our cops had been quiet quitting for years anyway, it was that fucked up. You have to have the people on your side, and not be on the side of the soldiers/agents/whatever.

          • brandon@piefed.social
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            2 months ago

            They will say that regardless of how much violence protesters actually do. Purity testing demonstrations only makes the situation worse by allowing the right the ability to dictate the narrative.

            • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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              2 months ago

              What are you trying to say? That the demonstrators should start killing people, looting and setting everything on fire? I don’t think that’s a good solution. In fact, that would just get a lot of protesters killed.

              There’s no purity testing. I’m counteracting a lot of people saying to bring their guns and start shooting. I wonder why people are calling for that? It doesn’t seem in the protester’s best interest.

              • brandon@piefed.social
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                2 months ago

                I am saying that:

                1. the vast majority of violence perpetrated at these demonstrations is done by law enforcement
                2. if cops wanted people to stop throwing water bottles at them they would stop trampling people with horses and shooting reporters with rubber bullets
                3. framing these demonstrations as “violent” only serves the narrative of the right
                • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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                  2 months ago

                  I agree wholeheartedly with you. People are being mixed in to the comments that want violence and are promoting violence all over Lemmy. I apologize for somehow lumping you in with that.

        • brandon@piefed.social
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          2 months ago

          As an additional point to add to yours, every single political protest movement in history has included violent elements. It’s unavoidable. When these political “moderates” start pearl clutching about some windows being broken or whatever it is an attempt to de-legitimize the entire movement, and draw the focus away from the actual source of the majority of violence, the cops (including ICE).

          • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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            2 months ago

            I think I need to be clear, I don’t give a shit if windows are broken or they throw scooters off bridges onto cop cars, I’m talking about violence against humans. TBH, the looting sends the wrong message of greed instead of being for a cause, but not because they’re damaging shit.

            • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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              2 months ago

              I don’t even need to reach into the past for a very clear counterexample: do you really think Zelenskyy could have asked Putin nicely to not invade his country anymore, and it would have made a damn bit of difference?

              • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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                2 months ago

                This is not an invasion of our land, these are democratic protests. There is a huge difference between Russia sending bombs to bomb LA and Americans protesting. If Russia sends bombs, fuck them up.