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
188 points (89.5% liked)
United States | News & Politics
7227 readers
167 users here now
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
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.
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'.
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.
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.
I think they should be treated as harshly as police who harass and assault people - there should be an internal investigation by other protestors, and if suspicion is found they should be forced to go on leave from work with full pay until the investigation concludes they were only doing what they were trained to do.
Oh, and then compare that to regular traffic!
So your numerator is 1. What’s your denominator? Let’s call it the number of street blocking protests in the last ten years.
In addition, the article doesn’t mention any ill effects coming from the delay, so we should probably be using a weighted function for this to see when it had an actual medical consequence.
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!)
So in theory you would have a much bigger problem with people who tailgate, exceed the speed limit, and fail to signal when changing lanes, or who fail to admit in people on lane merges, right? I’m pretty sure that, just at a raw numbers level, these kinds of things (along with the more obvious ones like texting while driving) cause far more traffic delays than the occasional protest.
Do you have a history of complaining about traffic violations in general, or is it just for people protesting for social justice?
Look, I know I’m slamming you and you don’t deserve it. I know it sounds like I’m attacking you personally, and that is not my intent. What I’m trying to draw attention to, however clumsily, is that this sort of narrative gets passed around very easily, even among the most well meaning of people. It’s regularly mentioned in the right wing media, and even in centrist media like the NYT. I’ve just worked on propaganda models for too long to not occasionally say something.
So in theory you would have a much bigger problem with people who tailgate, exceed the speed limit, and fail to signal when changing lanes, or who fail to admit in people on lane merges, right?
Fuck yes I do. (Can I say “fuck” in here?) Driving is dangerous, and people don’t take it seriously enough. Forget traffic delays, people die on the roads every single day. Heck, I wonder if this freeway shutdown could’ve actually saved lives.
Do you have a history of complaining about traffic violations in general, or is it just for people protesting for social justice?
The former, in multitudes. My partner told me that I’m not allowed to comment on other peoples’ driving around her anymore because it got annoying. I also have a history of complaining about how car-centric our society is in general, but that’s a topic for another day.
I know it sounds like I’m attacking you personally, and that is not my intent.
Thank you for that last paragraph, because I was about to throw myself a pity party lol. I think you raise an excellent point, and this type of “what-if-ism” is dangerous because it’s a distraction from the bigger issue at best, and demonizes social justice movements at worst. Definitely something I’ll keep in mind in the future.
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.
Eh we did it back protesting invading Iraq. Didn't do anything then.
But Seattle wasn't Amazon back then.
No, we didn’t stop the war. I marched with 300k people in Washington (a lot of veterans) and we still didn’t stop the war. But I think the widespread and global protests of the Iraq war made it clear that the US was going to wage war despite its unpopularity, evidence, allies backing out, etc. A similar thing appears to be happening now with the backlash to Israel’s Hamas response.
Here’s a good column about what those protests writ large “accomplished.” https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/20-year-anniversary-of-iraq-war-protests
People who work on ambulances love when protestors close roads like this.
Ambulances have dispatch to warn and redirect them, and sirens to force their way down the shoulder to an exit. Effective protest has to have an effect.
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.
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?
The museums don't agree with you.
What percentage of people in the world do you think are going to be positively impacted (in their thinking) by this action, versus negatively impacted? If you don't care about that answer, then you are hurting the cause you claim to support.
Throw insults around all you want; you have that right, if you think that that's a more important thing to do than educating people effectively about climate change.
The life of a painting is worth less than my life, bud
If you are hand wringing about a painting because someone tried to use it to stop the deaths of real himan beings, you dont give a shit about climate change. Shove that made up concern back up your ass where it came from.
Saying "we are dying, and we will threaten to damage non living artwork until you stop the thing killing us" is not hurting any cause in the eyes of rational thinking human beings.
You will not get me to care more about a painting that wasnt damaged just because the rich losers who own the museum dont like the negative press, and you cannot make me care more about warhols work more than human lives. (You also cant get me to care about andy the asshole anyway, but thats an opinion shared by any artist who studied him)
Seriously. You need therapy if this damaged """the cause""" in your eyes. Because youre likely a sociopath.
I'm not saying this necessarily because I give a shit about the paintings. I'm saying this because I care about climate change, and building awareness and support for changing the policies that are destroying the planet is important to me. Actions that discredit the environmental movement and damage activists' ability to get this vital work done are, to me, bad things.
The people using these tactics aren't "stopping the deaths of real human beings." Their actions are prolonging the policies that kill real human beings. You can curse at me all you want, or call me sociopath whatever; I'm still going to think that's a bad thing.
Nothing done has prolonged the current policies. You are either arguing in bad faith or from a position of complete ignorance of human history.
If you were turned away from fixing climate change because of this nonviolent protest, you were 1) never actually on the side of humanity, and 2) do not understand what protests are or have ever been.
We used to kill leaders who put our lives and our neighbors lives in jeapordy. They threaten us, and we kill them and replace them.
These protests are progressive steps towards that old method, to remind them that we used to kill them for poor leadership, we could choose to do so again, and that we will start by destroying their property and financial investments first. That if they wish to live, and if they wish to keep their wealth, they need to start leading properly and stop putting our lives in jeapordy.
The museum curators spoke out against this not because it harmed any movement, but because it risked costing them money. Thats it. Its a threat to cost them money if they dont listen to us.
This isnt about swaying your bigoted dipshit of a grandma. Its about reminding turtle boy mitch and his country club friends in congress that we will burn down his house if he keeps ignoring this issue. Because we have exhausted the non violent options, and are approaching the point of needing to use violence.
So, no, I dont give a shit that a painting wasnt even actually damaged. Because pretending to damage the painting is to remind those in power that the next time, we will not throw soup. We will throw bottles of kerosene with lit rags poking out.
And I am speaking as an ecologist. We have tried the advocacy. The people in power do not care. They need to be made to care.
If you were turned away from fixing climate change because of this nonviolent protest, you were 1) never actually on the side of humanity, and 2) do not understand what protests are or have ever been.
I'm not saying I was turned away from fixing climate change because of this protest. I wasn't. Anyone who knows as much about it as you or I do would have to be insane to support saving humanity, or not, based on some trivial detail like this. I am saying, though, that a lot of people -- the vast majority -- are in your group #2, and yes, will be turned away by these actions.
These protests are progressive steps towards that old method, to remind them that we used to kill them for poor leadership, we could choose to do so again, and that we will start by destroying their property and financial investments first. That if they wish to live, and if they wish to keep their wealth, they need to start leading properly and stop putting our lives in jeapordy.
This isnt about swaying your bigoted dipshit of a grandma. Its about reminding turtle boy mitch and his country club friends in congress that we will burn down his house if he keeps ignoring this issue. Because we have exhausted the non violent options, and are approaching the point of needing to use violence.
My grandma marched with Martin Luther King, more than once, at a time when his approval rating with other white southerners like her was pretty damn low.
If we were talking about doing something that would directly impact Mitch McConnell and the other people who are engineering this crisis, that sounds great. I don't agree with the violence, and we can talk about that, but the main point -- directly impacting the people who are responsible -- sounds to me like a great idea.
Directly impacting the museum curators and the people in Seattle driving to work doesn't sound like that. It sounds like they're just easier targets for your (very justified) anger and desperation to solve the problem. I think it's highly unlikely that threatening any number of Andy Warhol paintings or closing any number of highways will ever bring the criminals in congress to their knees so that they beg for an end to it all if they agree to start pursuing sensible policies. I think it's far more likely that when they see stuff like this they rub their hands together with glee and think about how they can use this to portray climate protestors in the news, and extend by another irreplaceable year the length of time they can continue their evil work, unimpeded.
THE VAST MAJORITY DO. NOT. MATTER.
Read that sentence over and over until it sticks in your head. These protests Are. Not. For. Your. Racist. Grandmother. They are direct threats to the politicians who know better. They are direct threats to the people in power who are knowingly letting the climate worsen for profit. They are direct threats that say if they continue putting our lives at risk for money, we will burn down everything they own into ash that if we die we do so without making them richer.
You are gently tonguing and sucking turtle miches fucking balls with this bullshit rhetoric. You are getting him off in the worst way, because he knows climate change is real and does not care because IT MAKES HIM MONEY. He is in love with the fact that you think threatening him and his coffers """hUrTs ThE MoVeMeNt""" because you are stopping anyone from actually holding him accountable.
Your racist grandmas opinion doesnt matter!! She isnt burning coal!! She isnt razing the amazon for cattle farming!! The people who store their expensive art in museums do!! These protests are not for your dumb as rocks grandma!! No one gives a shit what she thinks!!
These protests are reminders that we can do things that cost the people in power lots of money, because costing them money or killing them is all they care about, and we are polite enough to start with their wealth before their lives. End of story. Thats it.
Threatening art threatens their investments. Halting traffick shuts down their factories and offices. Its not for you! Its to cost them money, and then remind them that we will do worse, for longer, next time. Anything that would make their stock wobble makes them tremble. Anything that shuts down a city fucks every business in that city, and all those angry business owners turn to the politicians and cry "fix it daddy! Or Ill stop paying you under the table!"
THIS. ISNT. ABOUT. YOU. Its about hurting, directly, the people who cause these problems, in ways they cannot stop you from doing without killing you for it.
I think this conversation may have reached the end of its usefulness. Why are you insisting my grandma is racist? Why do you think ~~damaging~~ (edit: pretending to damage) an Andy Warhol painting hurts Mitch McConnell in any way, or that popular support for ending climate change (by "the vast majority") would be in any way shape or form unimportant to ending climate change?
Edit: Actually, don't answer that. You seem very committed to arguing against points that aren't what I'm saying, and insulting my grandma which is 1,000% unwarranted, such that I don't think there's any point to continuing. Again, my grandma was a physically active anti-racist activist back in a time and place when it was wildly unpopular and genuinely dangerous to her physical safety to be one. Your insisting on asserting otherwise is, one, uncalled-for and insulting, and two, an indication of how cavalier you are about saying things that simply aren't true.
I'm happy to continue the conversation if you're open to being civil and listening to what I'm actually saying (although you're in no way required to agree or anything). If not, then not.
You might be right. If youre not bright enough to grok that Im not talking about you, mozz's, literal biological grandmother, and if you need to re-ask questions I have explicitly answered twice now, I dont think you can ever understand what protests are in a conceptual sense, let alone why these specific protests happen.
Good luck not walking into doors before opening them bud
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.
Yep, them and any "protest" group that has dress codes are massive glowies
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.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Additional demonstrators on a nearby overpass cheered in support of the blockade, which began around 1:15 p.m., the Seattle Times reported.
The state transportation department said on the social media platform X that traffic at one point was backed up more than 6 miles (9.7 kilometers), and the agency asked drivers to use alternate routes.
Stormy weather, including hail, moved through the area, and protesters left the freeway around 4:45 p.m., according to the Times.
Trooper Rick Johnson with the Washington State Patrol said via X that while people had abandoned the freeway, 12 vehicles were left behind.
Since then the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Saturday a total of 22,722 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s subsequent assault.
Still, international criticism of Israel’s conduct has grown because of the rising civilian death toll.
The original article contains 264 words, the summary contains 135 words. Saved 49%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!