When I see footage of protesters they mostly get tackled, tear gassed, or chased off. And in no way have I ever see them with a gun, knife, or any other form of defense to protect themselves.
Poorly organized and no preparation.
You don’t always even need weapons. If you have a large mass of people, you shouldn’t let a few chuds fuck up anyone in your group. I hate seeing videos of one lone asshole harassing a whole crowd. I remember recently seeing a video of one Zionist doing that to abig Palestinian protest, and most in the crowd were White. It’s embarrassing.
I have a couple of thoughts regarding this.
First, in America at least, we spend a significant amount of time and energy legitimizing “nonviolent, civil disobedience” actions of the past , while pointing at any group that defends itself in any other capacity as just as bad, or worse!, than the status quo/gov/cops/take your pic. There is only one valid way, outside the ballot box, to demand/make change within liberal society and it is to literally demand that the gov/cops/military/local assholes beat you so badly that other onlookers are too embarrassed to let it carry on. This method is lovely for the ruling class because they can physically squash the people with demands and, if they are few enough of them, the protest ends, and the ruling class get several more years to run things.
As an extension of above, protest organizers, and some protestors, explicitly know that the cops are there to escalate the situation. To avoid escalation many people simply do not defend themselves or others.
This is all vibes base analysis based on my own experiences at protests, including ones where cops escalate the situation. I wouldn’t take it too seriously.
There was a really good video clip of a protestor in 2020, paraphrased: “we came out to protest, then the cops started hitting our heads with batons. we started wearing helmets, so they gassed us. We started bringing masks, so they attack us. Now we bring shields and they call them weapons. Someone is escalating this, but it’s not us”.
Basically, any evidence that you plan to defend yourself gives the cops, in their mind, cause to attack. Since you planned to defend yourself. Except fire. Cops are scared as fuck of fire.
Police will always be one level of militarization above protesters. If you bring guns the cops start bringing full autos, armored cars or planes.
and they will always be massively out numbered so any organized aggression will win. Protesters have taken police stations
If protesters are armed, the pigs are going to wild and start massacring. The protesters will win but at a very large human cost.
If you think that we’re coming out of things here in the imperial cores, without a large human cost- you’re more optimistic than I am. In many ways already, even in the cores, tens of thousands if not outright millions (over a million from covid alone in the US) are already dying, and the self-cannibalization of the system is only intensifying. Meanwhile all these western societies are built upon the same imperialist divide-and-conquer schemes they inflicted abroad, all to divide the working class to its greatest extent- they pit whites against minorities, minorities against other minorities, and they even support and inoculate fascists, terrorists, tribalists, organized crime, etc. from around the globe (and within their own countries’ populations as well) within their societies.
That said, I don’t think the time for arms is when people are merely protesting, when they have delusions that their words mean anything to the empire’s elites, when they think they can have a seat at the table rather than be part of the menu. Maybe I’m wrong; I’m willing to entertain that idea, but the massacres will begin well before protesters arm up (and massacres against peaceful protesters are no rare or unique thing in western history or even recent history). The worsening (and already inhumane) material conditions, and the inhumane, unjustifiable crackdowns used to maintain such conditions, in other words, necessity for even just survival- will be what drives the revolution (IMO); I see our role as to agitate and provide principles and understanding for what is to come, not to throw ourselves on the pyre as sacrifices while the population at large is not ready to follow through- that’s my take on it anyways.
I always go back and forth on this part, because protesters with a handful of guns greatly outnumber the police with bigger guns. So, in theory, the protesters would win, but not without major losses. The police station example is a good one.
But I don’t know if it’s worth escalating until we’re actually ready to start a revolution. Any escalation will eventually be outdone by police, right? The only way we can possibly win is by sheer numbers and organizing. That would necessitate a massive amount of organizing. And until we’re ready for that, we’re just gonna get squished.
It reminds me of the BLM activity in the Pacific Northwest in 2020. I mean Seattle literally had multiple city blocks that police weren’t allowed to enter. But eventually it falls.
But I don’t know. I feel like my thoughts around this are wrong in some way. It also feels like the left has been tricked into peacefully protesting and we’re just having a hard time getting out of that.
In my local organizing, it’s pretty tough because it kind of feels like everybody is so damn hesitant to actually piss people off or be too inconvenient or something like that. Nobody wants to block a bridge or shut down a plant or anything like that because everyone is so afraid of the optics.
I saw a video of a guy who drove his truck into a group of protestors, he then got out of his car and was physically confronting the protestors he almost hit. It seemed like some of the protestors wanted to fight him back but they were prevented from doing so by some type of security (wearing a yellow vest). He was allowed to get back into his vehicle and drive off. Does anyone know which video I’m talking about? Because it definitely relates. I was both surprised the guy was able to leave unscathed but also not since any self defence will be used to attack the protests.
