The idea is of course to bring attention to the fact that the US is funding Israel and giving them weapons. We also have some pull in the world and if we wanted to make it a thing, we could no doubt get all support for them in the area put on hold until they turned their shit around and stopped shooting/bombing anyone not in an IDF uniform.
this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2024
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Some pull? The US is funding this war. Israel is getting so much in free money from your taxes it should make you sick to your stomach
I said some pull because the UK and others would still need to get on board to do a blanket "cease-fire if you want aid" type statement. The US alone would only be a bump for them, but since they already have weapons they have bought from us for years, and aid coming in from other countries it would mean they wouldn't need to pay any attention right away.
Choking out the sugar daddy money would be a massive swing for their budget that they could not afford. We give them a disgustingly disproportionate amount of aid money.
We also have some pull in the world
Which is currently being used to defend Israel. Can't forget that part.
Because the US has a massive hand in that political issue in the middle east.
Well they are funding it with those protestors' tax dollars
Oh yeah that too.
If I was American I would also be livid, like what the fuck are you guys doing
I mean, our tax dollars regularly go to heinous shit. Just the fact that like 50% of the US budget for living memory goes to the military means that you're already starting deeply in the moral red.
Also the even more direct fact that Israel exists primarily to provide the US control over middle eastern oil. It's an air base and port and provides air space through which to it can attack countries in the region. The constant war carried out by Israel against neighbors and within it's own border destabalizes the region, making it easier to maintain US supported authoritarians.
Making life harder for people in cars is actually direct action against one of the root causes of the genocide. If you are in a car, you are complicit in genocide.
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A lot of what these protests are trying to do is make it harder to ignore the reality of what is happening.
Now I agree these kind of protests don't gain support. But they're not trying to win support: they're trying to make people aware of the problem as one that shosuldn't be ignored.
The gamble is the cause is important enough and sympathetic enough that forcing people to be aware of it might get people towards political action. Even if it is just calling their representstive and going 'wtf'.
For Americans every dollar we earn at work and every cent of tax we pay is a contributing factor in the conflict. But many are aware and think that is just fine. That is my personal concern with this protest: a lot of Americans are completely stoked about it and protesting just makes them shrug and go 'purple hairs lol'.
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One could argue that blocking a freeway causes some negative economic impact. There are a number of US defense contractors who are profiting nicely from Israel’s recent military mobilization. This could be a message to the military industrial complex that “we the people” can grind things to a halt if we need to.
Personally I’m not a fan of blocking freeways as a form of protest, there’s just too much risk of affecting something time sensitive like an ambulance, organ transplant, etc. But I also empathize with the protestors, they probably feel strongly (as do I) that the violence needs to stop, and they feel helpless. There’s a lot of drive to make things right, and no real way to do that other than making a statement.
I see this argument every time a protest is held.
Can you name the number of times an emergency vehicle like an ambulance was blocked with a negative consequence from a blockade protest and divide it by the number of times such protests have occurred in the US?
I want to know what your threshold of “too much risk” means in terms of empirical data.
I most certainly cannot. I wouldn’t even know where to start to find that data. I’m not sure it’s ever happened, nor if it’s something that would even be tracked/documented in any meaningful way. Tons of random things can delay something like an ambulance - car crashes, inclement weather, rush hour, etc.
My point was not that freeway-blocking protests are inherently bad, just that my feelings of the potential for negative impacts to innocent “bystanders” stress me out. I am not a fan of freeway-blocking protests for the same reason that I am not a fan of icy roads.
Now, is a freeway-blocking protest effective? Depends on how you quantify effectiveness. Was awareness raised? (Probably.) Were the lives of Gaza’s residents improved? (Probably not.) Would some other protest format have been more effective? (Probably not.) Are any protests really that effective when our government answers to billionaires instead of citizens? (Doubt it.) Does that mean we should lay down and accept mistreatment of our fellow humans? (Fuck no!)
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Yeah, I think the fact that highway blockages are viewed so divisively only points to how effective they are. They have economic impact and are hugely visible -- I think they're one of the most effective non-violent direct action tactics available, though the participants should prepare to have the book thrown at them.
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Oh, and then compare that to regular traffic!
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FWIW, this is one of the most common forms of protest in Seattle since BLM. It’s not necessarily newsworthy to us locals! And yes, to confirm, most people in the city get pretty annoyed with protestors when it happens. A lot of people late to work, missing medical appointments, stranded with kids in the car, etc.
Hey guys, another local checking in to say protest is cool and effective protest is even cooler!
You might even say that people being late to work is exactly the economic impact that such a protest is designed to create.
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Totally fair that people are protesting to try and bring awareness so that hopefully our government can get on board with a ceasefire. In the end, both sides of Israelis and Palestinians both are in a losing war. From my perspective, I see countless innocent Palestinians who might not be directly linked to Hamas having to deal with the horrors of war and then the Israeli side really aren't doing themselves justice with the whole thing of bombing hospitals. Even if Hamas may or may not have been using them as base of operations it's still a war crime in my book.
I have a private theory that the establishment likes to put ideas in people's heads about methods of protest that are guaranteed to turn people against the cause that's being advocated for. For some reason, it works, and protest groups adopt these methods.
Blocking highways is one of these; throwing paint on famous art is another.
If a protest blocking traffic makes you support a genocide then you’re a piece of shit
If you're so caught up in "this is what I feel like doing, I don't care if it's counterproductive," to the point where you're okay with turning people against these critical missions, then you're a piece of shit.
Every big successful movement like civil rights had to consider whether the tactics they planned to use were going to be effective. There was an earlier candidate who could have been Rosa Parks, but she was a pregnant teenager, and civil rights leaders at the time didn't make her the figurehead because they didn't want the racist white men of the time to have any easy reason to dismiss her or beat up her character.
Does it make the general public at the time "pieces of shit" that they wouldn't fight for the rights of a pregnant teenager just as much as a married black woman coming home after working all day? Yeah, kind of. Is that still something you should strategize about if you want to achieve civil rights? Yes. A thousand percent yes. Which is more important; being stubborn, or winning?
(And, as a side note, I think most people who support Israel over the Palestinians don't "support genocide" in their own minds; they aren't aware of Israel's crimes in near as much detail as you and I are. I think if you asked them factually about how many Palestinians versus Israelis have died you'd get a real real wrong answer. If you try to fix that situation by making them late for work and screaming in their face about how they support genocide, get ready for the American public to keep supporting genocide for a long, long time to come.)
Well fucking said.
Blocking a highway is non-violent direct action that causes immediate economic impact and makes headlines. I can't think of many better ways to protest. You're talking like they took an elementary school class hostage.
This is reductive, come the fuck on.
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The art was behind glass, which the protestors knew beforehand, which was why they chose to throw paint on it.
It was completely undamaged, and only children and idiots think its a reason to not support a cause. Which of those 2 are you?
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People just abandoned their cars on the highway and walked away. They knew it was going to take all day and they had places to be. :P
Some people were confused and thought it was a Syrian protest too, not sure the message got through, haha.
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