A 10,000 person protest could flip and torch a few cop cars, but 100 people acting independently could cut the valve stems on 100 different cop cars and render them unusable and unrepairable
A 10,000 person protest could smash some windows of businesses and offices, but 100 people could superglue 100 buildings’ locks shut overnight
A 10,000 person protest could loot a few stores, but 100 people skillfully and persistently shoplifting could liberate just as much over time
1,000 people could blockade the construction of an oil pipeline, but it only takes 1 to turn the emergency shutoff valve on an existing one
100 people could camp in treehouses and prevent a clearcutting, but it only takes 1 to spike a few trees to drastically slow them down or even destroy their equipment
I’m not saying that mass actions aren’t important - no doubt, they accomplish things that couldn’t be done otherwise - but be aware of what can get done independently when those protests aren’t coming together. Get creative, stay active, direct action gets the good
Sooooo true. I don’t recommend doing a lot on your own with no buddy and no support system, but two people who are determined to fuck shit up? Now there’s power. Three or more people? Now that’s an incredibly force.
There have been cases where thousands of people in an antifascist protest could not prevent the nazis from also showing their faces and doing their little march, but one affinity group figuring out which pre-meet location the nazis used and fucking up all their cars did just that.
There have been cases where thousands of protesters, hashtags and signatures could not prevent a deportation but one person faking a seizure on the flight before take off could, and it saved that refugees’ life.
And I could go on. Direct action is magic.
This is something that has proven to happen and be effective, especially if you mix both. Environmental activists have staged protests in one location to distract media and law enforcement but sent a small team of 1-5 people to shut off pipelines at a different location. Obvs they do end up getting caught and arrested, but it def slows things down/causes more damage than anything a large protest can accomplish
You see, here’s the hard part: This shit is still people in scenic effing nowhere are incapable of doing.
Living in a city is an absolute privilege. Why is that the biggest thing so many people don’t get?
Heya, small town anarchist here!
Are you claiming small towns and rural areas do not have.. *checks notes*… cop cars, shops, pipelines and trees? Like, several of these actions are only possible in effing nowhere because that’s where the pipelines and the coal mines and the forests are.
Sure, I can’t mobilize 100 people in my small town, but this shit also applies when it’s only you and 1 buddy. And yes, I know the challenges of doing something in secret in a place where everyone knows everyone. You need to put in significantly more effort in not being seen at all.
But to pretend that the list above doesn’t have many many things rural activists can do with a little bit of preparation is bullshit.
Sorry, but this list of possible actions comes off as a bit too casual. There are reasons to engage in actions that can result in serious jail time and many brave activists have done so. But only after very serious consideration of the usefulness of the action, and of the possible consequences. Tree spiking, for instance is against federal law (therefore carries substantial penalties) and was renounced by Earth First back in the 90s for being too dangerous, after a worker was severely injured by a tree spike. Some of the actions mentioned here, like disabling police cars, don’t have a clear purpose. How would that contribute to the cause against police abuses? When cars are publicly damaged as part of a mass protest it’s a manifestation of the strong emotional reaction to an injustice. But a calculated, quietly done damage does not have the same message. Neither does shoplifting. Especially if it’s done secretly, how would it send a message at all?
I’m going to skip the tree spiking claim because hater-of-terfs has addressed that like a dozen times already, including in the notes of this post.
As for serious jail time: yeah, nobody is disputing that. All the ‘10.000′ people actions also risk serious jail time, so this isn’t about going riskier but about impact and which actions are worth the risk. In many cases, smaller, secret actions present less chances of getting caught and therefore less risk.
The point of impact seems to be where our approaches differ. You seem very focused on ‘sending a message’, and that is possible when you’re doing small secret actions. You can do something in secret and then send a very public anonymous message declaring why you did the thing. You can also time those actions around bigger events to amplify the message.
But many of these examples focus more on the direct result of the action. Cop cars that aren’t operational mean less cops can get around to abuse people and more hours and budget gets tied up in dealing with damaged cars. Shoplifting means people have food and other stuff that they need. The purpose of these things is to have an immediate practical impact. The message they could potentially send is secondary.
Finally: I do not think we need to be solemn and serious every time we talk about risky actions. We can talk about these things with glee.
Often, being in the middle of nowhere, having fewer resources or being in a position where less risk can be carried requires getting more creative about what protest action is done.
Absolutely true. At the same time, there are opportunities to be exploited. For example, there may be significantly fewer cops around, a smaller action might make a bigger impact in the local news because so little else is going on, there may be targets nearby that can not be found in cities, and allies may be found that you would not expect. Like, maybe that local farmer has never been an environmentalist but doesn’t want a pipeline in his backyard either.
All this will vary from place to place, so it requires local knowledge and creativity to see what works best where you are.
Sometimes the ideas you come up with will not be considered activism by city punks. An example that comes to mind is local woman who started a sewing and knitting circle and invited local women and women from the nearby refugee center to come together and share snacks and crafts. Which created bonds of friendship where previously there had been tension and xenophobia. Which later transformed into material aid and political action.
Twenty-two-year-old Amber Koonce created a foundation that brings black dolls to orphanages in Africa to help girls value their self worth and individual beauty. She was recently featured on The Root. Click here to read more about her story.
I’m not a brave man. I’m not a violent man. But I am a man who knows my strengths, and I’m prepared to use them.
So if I encounter any ICE agents in my neighborhood, I will smile and waive and as soon as they make eye contact I will engage in the most aggressively friendly chitchat ever witnessed on my block.
I will ramble on and on about whatever pops into my head. I will ask them about their day, their hobbies, their home life, and their personal backstory until I find a common area of interest, and then I will crank my smalltalk game UP TO ELEVEN.
I will force them to look awkwardly at their wristwatch DOZENS of times without taking the hint. I will ask seemingly simple questions that do not have ANY simple answers. I will pretend to wrap up the conversation with, “Anyway…” and then segue DIRECTLY into another topic.
Because every minute an ICE agent wastes chatting with me is a minute that they’re not targeting my neighbors and disrupting their lives.
I’m no superhero, but I do have a super power, and I’ll use it to fight oppression in any way I can.
Love you, Dave
@flavoracle I’m not a brave man, and I suck at small talk, but I would say I can be violent, what should I do? Because I’m not brave enough to act out but I wanna help
I mean, I’m not gonna ask anybody to engage in violence, but if you’re looking for something to do, what about this?
Get a copy of the song, Cotton Eye Joe. Carry around a big, loud speaker. If you ever see ICE show up in your neighborhood, start playing it at full blast.
Best case scenario? You can motion for them to come over your way and challenge them to a dance off. (Probably not likely, but it never hurts to dream.)
Worst case scenario? They think you’re weird and like Cotton Eye Joe.
Likely scenario? If you’ve let your neighbors know ahead of time that hearing Cotton Eye Joe means ICE is in the neighborhood, it may give them the head start they need to avoid harassment.
Now you might be thinking that picking Cotton Eye Joe is a really random choice, but consider the following reasoning:
The song has a very loud, clear, and distinctive opening, so it gets the message across right away without spending time on any kind of intro
The song was once popular enough that people can easily recognize it
While the song is catchy, it’s not very likely to be anyone’s favorite, so you don’t have to worry about ruining it for them
The opening line ‘Fit’adn’t is nonsensical enough to be used as a secret tipoff if you’re unsure who’s listening
It’s upbeat enough that it likely won’t get on your nerves too fast
When played really loud, it becomes nearly impossible to talk over
Would this actually work? Honestly, I have no idea. I’m no expert in active resistance. But I figure it’s worth putting out there. And who knows, maybe it could catch on.
#Repost @miss.printed … #ORANGELINE ・・・ Sometimes life s doing something out of the ordinary and watching what happens. The last weeks I have been participating in a project of @elfo_ahhaahha and @biancoshock called ‘Le mur de St.etienne.’. A virtual group on a real wall in France. @lemurdestetienne @rubkandy. #orangeline#legroupedumur
Hello to all activists and acti-curious peeps, as well as everyone else who cares about the planet. Last weekend I went to Cornwall as part of XR (Extinction Rebellion), where the G7 summit was taking plact, to protest world leaders’ complacent inaction on the climate crisis. Sadly, G7 leaders are failing us on climate change, and we are #DrowningInPromises.
This video is a collection of highlights from those two days. There are bits of talks by activists including Marvina Newton, as well as mini-interviews with rebels that I filmed myself. If you are curious what an XR protest is really like and/or want to learn more, check it out!
Bad things are happening in the UK. I made a video about the situation and how to fight against it.
Essentially, the government is trying to push through a bill that will effectively ban all protest. This is a human rights violation, although they insist that it’s not.
You could get a prison sentence of up to 10 years for any protest-related action that the Home Secretary Priti Patel deems “impactful” or “causing serious annoyance”, such as sitting in a road, spray-painting a monument or making too much noise.
Furthermore,the proposed bill gives the Home Secretary the power to amend the law afterwards without parliamentary approval. This gives her unprecedented control over any and all protest and is dangerous for democracy.
In this video I discuss the bill, why it is so sinister and how we can fight against it. If you found this video helpful, please share it with others and encourage them to act! Share with your UK friends!
I’ve made a list of resources you can use, including MP email templates. I will be updating it with new info as the situation changes.
As of now (March 16th 2021, 22:38), the bill has passed its Second Reading, meaning that it will now be scrutinised and amendments will be proposed. If you are in the UK, write to your MP and ask them to either propose amendments that will scrap the anti-protest elements of this bill, or support specific amendments, such as this one by MP Bell Robeiro-Addy. Also,sign Netpol’s petiton asking UK to protect protest rights.
Please spread this information. The Conservative party wants to turn the UK into a police state where only their opinions are heard. We cannot allow them to get away with this.
I’m writing this today on behalf of a coalition of over 80 people and growing, called Not1More, deeply affected by the recent events at University of California Santa Barbara. As I’m sure you’ve heard, on May 23rd, a young man named Elliott Rodger murdered six people and injured seventeen before killing himself, after his bitterness over his virginity came to a head.
We are organizing a national demonstration for June 28th, and taking direct action against the cultural standards of misogyny and male entitlement that allowed this horrible incident to take place. We feel that we must take a stand. This man’s beliefs and actions were unacceptable, but also stemming from direct messages in our media; and as citizens of the United States, we are responsible to remind people that our social norms are created by us, and can be destroyed by us too.
WE ARE REQUESTING YOUR ASSISTANCE OR INVOLVEMENT. If you cannot participate to make this happen in your city, please SHARE THIS, or contact us if you can get us in touch with people or groups who can. We are trying to make contact with people as quickly as possible, so people have time to organize and get the word out.
Please don’t fucking log off tumblr on the 17th as a protest. All that’s going to do is give tumblr more reason to shut this place down because of revenue loss.
Please don’t fucking log off tumblr on the 17th as a protest. All that’s going to do is give tumblr more reason to shut this place down because of revenue loss.
This is blatantly untrue
Companies do not experience one day of revenue loss and pull the plug, destroying years of work and firing dozens if not hundreds of employees.
Companies which experience loss in revenue and consumer interest make investments and changes in order to regain their users/customers. That’s why organized protests and boycotts WORK. Tumblr will NOT go down after one bad day or week, but they might be willing to listen to its userbase if we put up an organized protest. (If you don’t believe me, think about how long sites like MySpace and Google+ hang around with fractions of their previous user base, often for years.)
Yahoo paid over one billion dollars for Tumblr, and the website will not go offline because of a one-day event, so in conclusion,
DO log off on December 17th to show Tumblr that you disapprove of its recent content ban and clumsy execution of censorship.
Please reblog this version of the post to stop the spread of misinformation.
The plan for the 17th, when the adult content ban comes in, is to protest.
To do that, we are making as much noise either side of the 17th as possible, and using the site as normal.
On the 17th, dead silence.
People are saying log off but what they really mean is don’t open the site or the app.
But, on the 17th make as much noise as possible on every other platform. Tweet about it and post on facebook and instagram and everywhere else.
What this does is causes a massive dip in ad revenue for one single day. That does not make staff think ‘oh everyone’s gone let’s shut down.’ What it actually makes them think is ‘oh shit people aren’t happy and if people don’t keep using our site we’re out of money and out of jobs.’
A boycott reminds a company that the users (consumers) have the power to make their site (business) worthless with one single coordinated decision.
If you want to join in, here’s what to do:
Do:
Close all open instances of the app and site on all your devices before the 17th
Make posts before and after the 17th on tumblr and other platforms, talking about why this ban is bad
Make posts on other sites during the 17th. Flood the official tumblr staff twitter and facebook with your anger and your opinion
Come back on the 18th and check in
Don’t:
Delete the app from your phone (this doesn’t affect their revenue and since it’s off the store at the moment it’ll be hard to get back)
Delete your account. I mean you can if you want to, but if you keep your account and don’t use it you’re saying to staff that there’s still time to save it. If you delete it’s hard work to come back.
Open the app or website (including specific blogs)
Make any posts (turn down/off your queue and make sure nothing is scheduled)
Go quiet elsewhere. Make it clear that this is just about tumblr, not a mass move away from all social media.
Remember: the execs don’t care about anything but money. Shutting down the site means there’s $0 further income from it. That’s their last possible course of action. If we make it clear we’re not happy, they’ll have to do something or we can do more and more until it becomes too expensive.
Protests take commitment. They’re a defiant action against a business that is doing something wrong. They will try to scare you into not participating, because they’re scared. We hold all the power here, sometimes the execs just need to be reminded of that.
Hey, crew! As the year comes to a close, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about my own role as an activist, an ally, and a student of critical theory. I’ve done a lot of amazing things in the past 12 months. And I’ve also conducted a bunch of glorious fuck ups. I’ve helped people and hurt them. And people have deeply loved and harmed me as well.
Grace is my goal and hope for 2016. I want to give myself and others grace for our mistakes (as long as we learn from them). In the name of beginning this effort, I’ve come up with a list of behaviors that I’ve noticed were counterproductive in social justice pursuits during 2015… Some in myself, some in others. Here we go:
1.Shaming our allies when they make mistakes. Instead, let’s educate them and lead them to resources to improve their behavior. Sometimes it feels so, SO good to drill a bigoted asshole into the ground. I get it. I really do. But we have to understand that most oppression is unquestioned and ingrained - NOT intentional. Let’s teach more than we crush. Save the crushing for real assholes, not just people who make mistakes on their journey.
2.Pretending that we’ve always been as educated/aware/eloquent as we are now. Let’s be real. We’ve all come a looooong way on this stuff. Even if you’re just entering the world of social justice activism, you’re probably way better at things than you were last month, last week, or even yesterday. Acknowledge (publicly! audibly! constantly!) that this is a long journey.
3.Assuming that we’ve reached enlightenment. Following up the note about the “long journey,” it’s important to recognize that the journey isn’t just long - it’s endless. There is no perfect ally or activist. There is no. such. thing. Say it with me now: We are all deeply imperfect. I am deeply imperfect. I hold ableist/transphobic/racist/sexist views merely by existing in this world. The best we can do is to learn from our mistakes and understand that we have never reached enlightenment; we must always fight toward it.
4.Trivializing the courage and pain involved in understanding the realities of privilege. For many people, seeing our privileges is something we were never asked to do. In fact, we were actively encouraged to deny that we benefit from structural inequality because, frankly, we’re all living in a world that denies these inequalities exist at all. (Myth of meritocracy, anyone?) Unpacking all of this is a lifelong process that causes lots of pain, guilt, and shame. As activists, we must be there to support this process - NOT to minimize people’s journeys or silence them when they talk about the struggles they face.
5.Letting our oppressed identities erase our privileged ones. Following #4, we ALL have to realize that we hide from our privileges by leading with our oppressed identities. For instance, I’m a queer, androgynous woman who deals with sexism, biphobia, homophobia, and transphobia frequently. I’m hurt by these things constantly. But I’m also white, a US citizen, able-bodied, and class privileged. Guess which list is easier for me to talk about?
6.Calling out others for the purpose of making ourselves look good. This one is so, SO hard. It’s easy to see someone’s failure as an opportunity to jump in and parade our own “goodness.” But that’s NOT activism. It’s selfish. We must instead call out others in a way that benefits both their growth as individuals and the progress of our cause(s). And yeah, humor is fun sometimes. So is public shaming. But remember that people are people.
—
As we move into 2016, let’s all be reflexive of our activism. Let’s live it, not just speak it. Cheers to growth.
Israel did not exist until 73 years ago when they were a settler colony that took over Palestine and have been violently maintaining their position ever since. If you don’t know this history here is a good primer to get you started: instagram.com/p/CNz9-5tMkso/…
This is also relevant to abortion access. You’re simultaneously not supposed to get an abortion and not supposed to be pregnant and have a child at an inconvenient time. What I want is for people to be able to do whatever the hell they want: become a mom at 16 if they want, be child-free for life while having all the sex if they want, anything. If you’re willing to do the work of being a parent, go for it, and if you don’t wanna, don’t.
And the pro-choice debate doesn’t come close to touching that. It’s effectively either youcan’t get an abortion or you have to, because you can’t afford a child. Sometimes you both can’t and also have to, which is the worst. I want people to be able to do whatever they want. (I mean, with the caveat that once you have a child the child’s needs matter, obviously.)
There’s this idea that moms who need government assistance to take care of their kids are lazy or parasitic or whatever. Bullshit. Parenting is a full time job. And raising kids contributes something of great value to society, perhaps the thing of most value. Andespecially people who are struggling to earn money but figure they would be good parents should focus on parenting, why wouldn’t you focus on your strengths? Attempting to reserve parenthood for people who are able to succeed in the making money project (or succeed in the marrying someone who makes money project) is ass backwards, doing well career-wise and being a good parent are very, very different skillsets. If we do tests for people’s qualifications for parenthood, they sure as heck shouldn’t be “are you not poor?” tests.
I think pro-choice could easily go in this direction it’s just limited by trying to use arguments that can convince conservatives
