4 ms·

A lot of those “correctly charged” crimes would not happen at all, if the police did not aggressively corral and use riot control tactics on peaceful protests…

A lot of those “correctly charged” crimes would not happen at all, if the police did not aggressively corral and use riot control tactics on peaceful protests… it’s crazy that this is lawful.

reaperman 3y ago
The crime was blocking the highway. If there were no police at all, that crime still would have been committed. I'm all for civil disobedience but at least if I'm not mistaken, when Dr. King organized so many marches and sit-ins he guided his followers to peacefully allow themselves to be arrested -- overflowing the jails and courts was an intentional part of the civil disobedience. He himself was arrested many times. That peaceful action made media coverage of events like the police violence in Selma, Alabama more impactful than they would be otherwise. I grew up in a "violent leftist" city, which was a major hub for the Weathermen and various bombings of law enforcement buildings during the era of "Days of Rage", but the general advice for attending protests/marches in the early 2000's was "bring a check in your pocket to fill out for bail", not "run away from the police and attempt to avoid getting arrested" or "attack the police and burn down the police stations".
- matt_morgan 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - reaperman 3y ago
    Maybe it should be, but your assertion is incorrect. It is not currently a crime to create spaces where people using motor vehicles have a statutory right-of-way over people not using motor vehicles. Cars themselves have very few rights. Property has its own rights only in very esoteric court cases like United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins[0] Personally I'd rather live in a society in which most common roads reserve default right-of-way for pedestrians and bicycles, but also in which some spaces are reserved for motor vehicles, particularly limited-access highways away from city centers. I'd also like plenty of public transportation both locally and inter-regionally, to eliminate the "need" to own personal motor vehicles. I just keep separate what I want from what is reality. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Approximately_64,695_Pounds_of_Shark_Fins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Approximately...
  - Unfrozen0688 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - FredPret 3y ago
      Having lived in European, African, Canadian, and American cities, I can tell you the ones in North America are about ten times more comfortable.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    For the benefit of people, cars and trucks should have right of way over pedestrians on limited access highways. Just as trains should on intercity train tracks and aircraft on runways.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- badrequest 3y ago
  Since when are highways more important than the first amendment?
  - pc86 3y ago
    1A protects peaceful protests, once you shine the laser into an aircraft cockpit it's no longer peaceful. You can temporarily blind everyone in the cockpit with a single $15 laser.
  - coryfklein 3y ago
    Nobody implied they were. The first amendment guarantees the right of free speech, but that doesn't give you a free pass to not get arrested when you do break another law. I could be upset about Hersheys and choose to organize mass theft of their candy bars from the grocery store as a protest, and that would be speech. But it doesn't shield me from the consequences of the crime of theft, nor does it mean that "candy is more important than the first amendment".
    - ricardobeat 3y ago
      > that doesn't give you a free pass to not get arrested when you do break another law This is covered in the article. Part of the program, after 'boxing in' the protesters, is to indiscriminately arrest everyone regardless of any crimes committed. Charges will be handed off later. This is a distant relative of the 'I've got nothing to hide' argument in favor of surveillance. In effect, it looks like just being there is enough to get arrested - and this is ignoring the fact that you may actually try to defend yourself when being pushed and prevented from leaving by armed police, maybe while breathing in some tear gas or pepper spray. You may even consider that the goal of the whole operation is to stir up violence, so that everyone has a reason to be arrested...
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  The thing to keep in mind about comparisons to the civil rights era is that it was a learning experience for state power as well. Training has changed to avoid the sort of "righteous confrontation" king was capitalizing on. Propaganda is much more sophisticated now, dissipating and denigrating public support, portraying protestors as unruly criminals or unsympathetic radicals both before and after the protests. Not that they didn't try, and to some extent succeed, to do this with civil rights protests but they are much better at it now. Protest is as sophisticated a conflict as anything else, and tactics are not static but constantly changing on both sides. It's important to keep that in mind, and that also that king's own tactics were considered polarizing and unhelpful by the white mainstream of his time. Only in retrospect do we consider them noble and effective for his cause, but that doesn't mean they necessarily will be effective for other causes, against other tactics. A large amount changes to policing and police policy has been in direct response to the civil rights movement in the abstract. EG not about its goals and consequences per se, but how to preempt, discredit, and disperse public movements so that nothing of its size and power can emerge again, regardless of the motivating cause.
Unfrozen0688 3y ago
[flagged]
darkclouds 3y ago
A lot of those protests wouldnt happen if democracy, law, diet and the media didnt divide people. Apathy is a powerful tool.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  Diet? How does diet divide people?
  - JohnMakin 3y ago
    it's the toxins /s
  - darkclouds 3y ago
    Look at the quality of food you can afford and not afford. Cheaper foods tend to be fattier geared up for manual workers. You'll have a shorter lifespan. Tap water is just pus, then you have the high levels of chemicals in them. The best water you can drink is deionised water, the stuff used for vehicle batteries and steam irons, and then add in the best chemicals to top up your mineral content. Chlorides are better than other forms like gluconate or sulphates which become sulfuric acid when exposed to the hydrochloric acid in the gastric juices, which then destroys tissues in the body oh so slowly. Iron chloride for example generates the least amount of reactive oxygen species, and is also the most labile, able to switch between state more easily than other iron supplements. Its the best form of iron you can get, show me a supplement that uses it! Chlorides also work better in the most acidic parts of the body. I really do question the medical experts, legislators and food industry. So if you know what chemicals will do what in the body, through the diet, you can alter the personality's and health of the population. One way to do that is through food legislation. Global manufacturers can also play their part as well.
pc86 3y ago
Shining a laser into an aircraft cockpit immediately makes it a non-peaceful protest.
- hiatus 3y ago
  So the actions of a single individual can change the nature of the entire protest? That line of thinking seems to incentivize the use of agent provocateurs.
  - pc86 3y ago
    Who better to make sure the protest is peaceful than the folks doing the protesting?
    - 93po 3y ago
      Who better to destroy constitutional rights than a plain clothes cop with a $15 laser?
      - pc86 3y ago
        So what's the answer? 1A doesn't protect non-peaceful protests. There's no court in the world that would classify lasers used in this manner as peaceful. "Oh it's just some pig doing it, not the real protestors" is such an intellectually lazy response and most of the time it's false anyway. If you want to have a peaceful protest I will be the first one to support it whether I agree with the end goal or not. But the people running these things have an obligation to see that they remain peaceful.
        93po 3y ago
        The answer is protest is an invaluable tool for a functioning democracy and if the government has the power to explicitly state which square footage of a city that people have the right to protest in, then we’ve lost the right to protest. Police forces use unconstitutional and unlawful force all the time. Should we disband the police every time that happens? Should we force all police to leave the area in the first instance of that happening?

A lot of those “correctly charged” crimes would not happen at all, if the police did not aggressively corral and use riot control tactics on peaceful protests… it’s crazy that this is lawful.

reaperman 3y ago

The crime was blocking the highway. If there were no police at all, that crime still would have been committed. I'm all for civil disobedience but at least if I'm not mistaken, when Dr. King organized so many marches and sit-ins he guided his followers to peacefully allow themselves to be arrested -- overflowing the jails and courts was an intentional part of the civil disobedience. He himself was arrested many times. That peaceful action made media coverage of events like the police violence in Selma, Alabama more impactful than they would be otherwise. I grew up in a "violent leftist" city, which was a major hub for the Weathermen and various bombings of law enforcement buildings during the era of "Days of Rage", but the general advice for attending protests/marches in the early 2000's was "bring a check in your pocket to fill out for bail", not "run away from the police and attempt to avoid getting arrested" or "attack the police and burn down the police stations".

matt_morgan 3y ago
[flagged]
- reaperman 3y ago
  Maybe it should be, but your assertion is incorrect. It is not currently a crime to create spaces where people using motor vehicles have a statutory right-of-way over people not using motor vehicles. Cars themselves have very few rights. Property has its own rights only in very esoteric court cases like United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins[0] Personally I'd rather live in a society in which most common roads reserve default right-of-way for pedestrians and bicycles, but also in which some spaces are reserved for motor vehicles, particularly limited-access highways away from city centers. I'd also like plenty of public transportation both locally and inter-regionally, to eliminate the "need" to own personal motor vehicles. I just keep separate what I want from what is reality. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Approximately_64,695_Pounds_of_Shark_Fins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Approximately...
- Unfrozen0688 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - FredPret 3y ago
    Having lived in European, African, Canadian, and American cities, I can tell you the ones in North America are about ten times more comfortable.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  For the benefit of people, cars and trucks should have right of way over pedestrians on limited access highways. Just as trains should on intercity train tracks and aircraft on runways.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
badrequest 3y ago
Since when are highways more important than the first amendment?
- pc86 3y ago
  1A protects peaceful protests, once you shine the laser into an aircraft cockpit it's no longer peaceful. You can temporarily blind everyone in the cockpit with a single $15 laser.
- coryfklein 3y ago
  Nobody implied they were. The first amendment guarantees the right of free speech, but that doesn't give you a free pass to not get arrested when you do break another law. I could be upset about Hersheys and choose to organize mass theft of their candy bars from the grocery store as a protest, and that would be speech. But it doesn't shield me from the consequences of the crime of theft, nor does it mean that "candy is more important than the first amendment".
  - ricardobeat 3y ago
    > that doesn't give you a free pass to not get arrested when you do break another law This is covered in the article. Part of the program, after 'boxing in' the protesters, is to indiscriminately arrest everyone regardless of any crimes committed. Charges will be handed off later. This is a distant relative of the 'I've got nothing to hide' argument in favor of surveillance. In effect, it looks like just being there is enough to get arrested - and this is ignoring the fact that you may actually try to defend yourself when being pushed and prevented from leaving by armed police, maybe while breathing in some tear gas or pepper spray. You may even consider that the goal of the whole operation is to stir up violence, so that everyone has a reason to be arrested...
giraffe_lady 3y ago
The thing to keep in mind about comparisons to the civil rights era is that it was a learning experience for state power as well. Training has changed to avoid the sort of "righteous confrontation" king was capitalizing on. Propaganda is much more sophisticated now, dissipating and denigrating public support, portraying protestors as unruly criminals or unsympathetic radicals both before and after the protests. Not that they didn't try, and to some extent succeed, to do this with civil rights protests but they are much better at it now. Protest is as sophisticated a conflict as anything else, and tactics are not static but constantly changing on both sides. It's important to keep that in mind, and that also that king's own tactics were considered polarizing and unhelpful by the white mainstream of his time. Only in retrospect do we consider them noble and effective for his cause, but that doesn't mean they necessarily will be effective for other causes, against other tactics. A large amount changes to policing and police policy has been in direct response to the civil rights movement in the abstract. EG not about its goals and consequences per se, but how to preempt, discredit, and disperse public movements so that nothing of its size and power can emerge again, regardless of the motivating cause.

Unfrozen0688 3y ago

[flagged]

darkclouds 3y ago

A lot of those protests wouldnt happen if democracy, law, diet and the media didnt divide people. Apathy is a powerful tool.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
Diet? How does diet divide people?
- JohnMakin 3y ago
  it's the toxins /s
- darkclouds 3y ago
  Look at the quality of food you can afford and not afford. Cheaper foods tend to be fattier geared up for manual workers. You'll have a shorter lifespan. Tap water is just pus, then you have the high levels of chemicals in them. The best water you can drink is deionised water, the stuff used for vehicle batteries and steam irons, and then add in the best chemicals to top up your mineral content. Chlorides are better than other forms like gluconate or sulphates which become sulfuric acid when exposed to the hydrochloric acid in the gastric juices, which then destroys tissues in the body oh so slowly. Iron chloride for example generates the least amount of reactive oxygen species, and is also the most labile, able to switch between state more easily than other iron supplements. Its the best form of iron you can get, show me a supplement that uses it! Chlorides also work better in the most acidic parts of the body. I really do question the medical experts, legislators and food industry. So if you know what chemicals will do what in the body, through the diet, you can alter the personality's and health of the population. One way to do that is through food legislation. Global manufacturers can also play their part as well.

pc86 3y ago

Shining a laser into an aircraft cockpit immediately makes it a non-peaceful protest.

hiatus 3y ago
So the actions of a single individual can change the nature of the entire protest? That line of thinking seems to incentivize the use of agent provocateurs.
- pc86 3y ago
  Who better to make sure the protest is peaceful than the folks doing the protesting?
  - 93po 3y ago
    Who better to destroy constitutional rights than a plain clothes cop with a $15 laser?
    - pc86 3y ago
      So what's the answer? 1A doesn't protect non-peaceful protests. There's no court in the world that would classify lasers used in this manner as peaceful. "Oh it's just some pig doing it, not the real protestors" is such an intellectually lazy response and most of the time it's false anyway. If you want to have a peaceful protest I will be the first one to support it whether I agree with the end goal or not. But the people running these things have an obligation to see that they remain peaceful.
      - 93po 3y ago
        The answer is protest is an invaluable tool for a functioning democracy and if the government has the power to explicitly state which square footage of a city that people have the right to protest in, then we’ve lost the right to protest. Police forces use unconstitutional and unlawful force all the time. Should we disband the police every time that happens? Should we force all police to leave the area in the first instance of that happening?