Highly visible protest in public space: huge police presence, violent counter protesters, unable to build pressure to force change. Human Cost: 2,000 people brutalized, gassed, and doxxed.
Direct action by dedicated, anonymous covert operatives: inhibits, delays, and frustrates the state and it’s ability to repress dissent. Human Cost: A couple of people throw away some incriminating clothes, lay low, then move on with their lives.
Similarly, I really appreciate what XR (for example) is doing, but I worry that all of the good climate activists are going to get catalogued before they can really contribute.
About to write up a longer post about this but small group direct action tactics can help build up capabilities for larger actions. Remember that the basic unit that makes up the black bloc is the affinity group or cadre cell.
Direct action by dedicated, anonymous covert operatives: inhibits, delays, and frustrates the state and it’s ability to repress dissent. Human Cost: A couple of people throw away some incriminating clothes, lay low, then move on with their lives.
Uhhhh, the 60s and 70s seem to suggest otherwise. As does the early 1900s.
BTW I’m not just referencing the MLK Jr. nonviolence bias over BPP that many lib historians have where they try to downplay the necessity of more active resistance against oppression.
The explosion of the Bandung decolonization movement was critical as well, which is often left out in favor of mentioning the USSR’s existence forcing the first world to maintain social services and welfare.
Here’s what I learned from 2020:
Highly visible protest in public space: huge police presence, violent counter protesters, unable to build pressure to force change. Human Cost: 2,000 people brutalized, gassed, and doxxed.
Direct action by dedicated, anonymous covert operatives: inhibits, delays, and frustrates the state and it’s ability to repress dissent. Human Cost: A couple of people throw away some incriminating clothes, lay low, then move on with their lives.
I’ve been saying that since 2017 lol
It’s probably easier to keep a clean record doing the 2nd than the 1st too
Similarly, I really appreciate what XR (for example) is doing, but I worry that all of the good climate activists are going to get catalogued before they can really contribute.
maybe some day somebody will figure out using stunts as a distraction to do something else across town
About to write up a longer post about this but small group direct action tactics can help build up capabilities for larger actions. Remember that the basic unit that makes up the black bloc is the affinity group or cadre cell.
Yeah well put. I’m obviously not the first whose thought of it
Sorry Lenin, turns out we also need professional black bloc
Are you suggesting the direct action specifically during periods of protest or as an alternative?
Uhhhh, the 60s and 70s seem to suggest otherwise. As does the early 1900s.
Yeah, the surveillance state comes for us all. What I was mostly getting at is that large demonstrations only succeed at getting violently repressed
What was going on simultaneously with the nonviolent protests, Mister Ferrix Junior?
Nonviolent protests are not a cargo ritual which summons their necessary counterpart.
A strategy of bourgeois historians and analysts is to make us feel we should be satisfied with going out and declaring our beliefs.
BTW I’m not just referencing the MLK Jr. nonviolence bias over BPP that many lib historians have where they try to downplay the necessity of more active resistance against oppression.
The explosion of the Bandung decolonization movement was critical as well, which is often left out in favor of mentioning the USSR’s existence forcing the first world to maintain social services and welfare.