Please, someone tell me how the fuck these protests get organized? I've been scouring IG for upcoming demonstrations in LA and nobody's registering their actions on Shut It Down For Palestine. For months I've tried to get involved and it feels impossible for any full time worker to help take action for Palestine. Best case scenario is I find out about an event a few hours beforehand when I'm already in the office and it's too late for me to be there.
this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
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Xitter probably. Easy to retweet and get the word out, big community, lots of political guys
I don't disagree that the conflict has to stop, but I don't see how anyone can force a ceasefire between two separate independent countries. What action do they think the US can take to force this situation? No matter what you offer or withhold it's still ultimately up to the individual parties involved.
The US just vetoed a ceasefire agreement in the UN security council.
True, though the US is one of the biggest suppliers, if not the biggest, for Israel's military.
America only cares about money. This shit costs them HUGE money.
This is exactly how you stop the war by shutting down infrastructure.
Ok, but this war is between Israel and Hamas, what can America do about it other than what they've always done and bomb the shit out of both sides?
It's like protesting in Toronto because they don't like a new policy in Tokyo.
Regardless of your feelings on the conflict, blocking freeways is beneficial even if done for no reason at all. Urban highways were a mistake and never should have been built. Every minute they continue normal operation is a minute they continue destroying our neighborhoods, poisoning the innocent and vulnerable who live nearby, and destroying the future for our descendants.
So I commend these activists and hope we see more of this.
No matter the outcome of this, nobody is learning that lesson from this demonstration.
If you want to take a (more obvious) environmental bent, this is a terrible idea for them to do because all they're doing is causing vehicles to have to run substantially longer.
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I always feel conflicted when I see things like this. On one side good for them, they found a way to get their message across to a nation news. But on the other hand they are intentionally disrupting infrastructure people rely on everyday. I don't think it's a bad thing that people want global change, but I do think it is a bad thing that people feel powerless to influence this change so they have to resort to more disruptive methods like this. More representation in the federal government could help prevent this.
A non-disruptive protest just gets ignored. You need to impact people’s daily lives to make them think why the problem arose in the first place.
People will find a way to get mad at any protest no matter how little it impacts others. See kneeling for anthems or just wearing shirts at events
But, you need to impact the lives of the people who have the means to make that change. A traffic jam isn't going to do that.
I mean, is a major highway in the second largest city of the primary colonial sponsor a bad place? I guess if we had free teleportation they might find marginally better success in DC or Tel Aviv, but if you’re located in LA I can see why you’d choose to protest there and not somewhere else.
If it happened in a vacuum, probably not. But traffic jams don’t happen in a vacuum. They ripple out and cause effects that hit millions of other people. Such as this news article, this lemmy post, and all of the people here discussing it.
Traffic jam equals lots of news coverage lots of pissed off voters, lots of attention lots of eyes, that is how you get to people who can make a change.
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And a disruptive protest just makes people hate you and your cause.
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Also conflicted: I don’t think the disruption itself is a bad thing if it’s disrupting a part of society that derives benefit from the whatever is being protested against.
That said, I’m not sure how disrupting traffic in Los Angeles is going to affect the change they want to see. You can’t get much further from Washington DC than the West Coast.
This is the dumbest way to protest. Out of the book of any publicity is good publicity: “any protest is a good protest”.
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Great initiative.
The peaceful protests are over.
Next phase is nonviolent disruption. Block infrastructure.
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