Well its in the news so it worked. Protest is literally one of the only thing that’s ever actually effected change in this country so stick with it. The more people it pisses off, the better. If a protest leaves people feeling safe and comfortable, it wasn’t a protest, it was a parade.
What exactly is it accomplishing? You think anyone is unaware of Gaza at this point? People don’t care to be blunt. Pissing people off just makes life a little more miserable for people who have nothing to do with the issue.
Blocking traffic in Israel would make a much bigger difference.
Nah, the message is getting lost in the delivery. I support BLM too but had the same issue with their freeway-blocking tactics. Nobody is going to swing to your side of the argument because you blocked their route home…nobody. People have emergencies, parents and kids need to get places…people have important jobs and need to be able to get to work such as doctors, first responders, air traffic controllers etc etc… Yes, Gaza and BLM are both worthy causes but there are many other worthy causes as well. You can’t block traffic for every worthy cause…block people from living their lives to put what you personally feel is the most important social issue at the top of their world by forcing it on them through essentially trapping them. It’s just plain wrong and nothing is going to change that. Yes what’s going on in Gaza is more wrong, and yet it’s still illogical af and morally wrong to pretend that this provides justification to trap people on freeways.
If you think the point of disruptive protest is to win people to your side you are an idiot. The point is to make society stop working.
The same society you are hoping to change…I don’t think you realize how immature your thought process is here.
Is there anything you feel strongly enough about to protest like that?
In trying to look at it from the perspective of “what could make me do that” I can only think of some downright heinous shit. To get to the point that you’re willing to stand in front of cars and have people hate you for preventing them from living their lives? It’s pretty hard to imagine.
And on top of that, to know that your actions are going to ruin you in some way or another; that you’re facing jail time, bodily harm, or extreme financial burden? Either they’re being both sensitive and stupid or they’re so fed up that they feel like there’s no other recourse. It’s insane to me to think about being pushed so far that that seems like a good idea.
But then I think about how they must have gotten there, and the things that would get me there, and they’re not so different.
It’s all about who’s impacted by the protest. These people could funnel the same energy towards a targeted protest against some company profiting the war, or at politicians they disagree with, or protesting at a government building, at a college stifling speech, or at some high profile event or any other legitimate target. You can do something that isn’t targeted at everyday people, traps them in the protest, and carries the chance of stopping the delivery of critical services. “Sorry the paramedics couldn’t get to gram gram fast enough, but people needed to block traffic for Gaza today” is a bs possibility to allow.
I would say that this kind of protest just makes people mad at you and your cause. If I was stuck in traffic for X hours I would probably be mad at the protestors and not sympathize with their cause.
See, in this image, you would be the one standing in the back pissed off they can’t just get their lunch and would be mad at the protestors.
History happens every day. You need to not be mistaken where you stand in it.
Firstly, getting food is different than literally being imprisoned in your car. Secondly, they could go to a different place and these people are actively attacking them not being victims of their protest.
Illogical take and a false equivalence. These people could just go somewhere else and obviously do not support the rights of the protesters. In the freeway blocking situation, you’d be stopping the people who support Gaza from getting home to their kids the same as everyone else and they are literally trapped on the freeway vs. choosing to be in this pictured restaurant. You’d be trapping people who might not have water in the car, might not have A/C, might not have the gas to idle and wait, might be rushing to the hospital to meet the ambulance with their wife/child in it.
Your take is morally wrong in a demonstrable way and I hope you can learn to recognize that.
“And what is it America has failed to hear?…It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr
I mean, you’re right about the people directly impacted, but if you’re on the 405, this shit happens all the time. I was stuck for a few hours cause of a jumper. It’s annoying, and it’s hot outside, and in the moment I would certainly be anti-protester if not anti-everything. But that’s just people there at the time inconvenienced.
So, it’s probably a net good for their cause since more people aren’t in traffic than are, although at this point I feel like everyone has made up their mind on Gaza (and honestly, images and recounts from people on the ground there are a thousand times more persuasive than whatever this is)
I can see it would be good if it were done on a smaller road that is visable, but fuck keeping people stuck in their car when they dont have any way around it.
