[Rod_Cloutier]

I did a search and I couldn't find anything specific to rioting, protesting ect, so I thought I would start a new thread here. I've seen news in the alternative media recently that riots and protests are growing in number around the world.

I personally won't riot, I also don't believe that protesting solves anything. The powers that be simply ignore you, and if you make a problem of yourselves, then they crack down, fine, arrest, beat, or kill you. There's no sense in fighting a corrupt establishment unless you have a well reasoned, feasible alternative way of acting and doing thing to replace the system once you have taken it down. Whatever replaces it will likely be just as bad or worse that what you have experienced previously without an action plan in place.

What is needed is a change of consciousness. I personally have begun a process of changing my own life, expectations, and behaviors which I hope will inspire others around me to change as well. Starting with changing yourself, the only real person you can control is yourself, this is the first step. At best we can casually influence others immediately around us, and even less so the society or world at large.

I saw this video today about riots taking place right now, primarily in Mexico, and I was shocked by the level of violence. If you go to minute 12:00 in the video there are some very graphic scenes of just how violent the riots, (and the reaction to the rioting), has been:

http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/insurrectoriotosis/

Really what do you gain from throwing rocks, burning cars, and rioting? We have many choices available, two of the main ones are build society up or tear it down. I've been a blue collar laborer my whole life, and I've spent my time building it up. I don't want to see it torn down, riots, conflicts, and wars are all steps in the wrong direction.

Maybe we are just too far gone, but I will play devil's advocate and suggest constructive living is possible. We need to change ourselves first, then inspire others to change themselves, and then inspire more through love, understanding, and forgiveness, and that will bring positive change. We need rational, truthful responses to the problems facing society, peak oil, climate change, over consumption, and the whole litany of other issues. Denial, propaganda, and lies haven't worked, it's time to change.

[MD]

Sure, but let's please move away from "mega" thread titles that are "THE" anything and be more specific so as not to encourage blended mix of discussions sprinkled over fifteen pages of posts.

Threads go off topic often enough on their own without encouragement!

Thanks!

[dorlomin]

Really what do you gain from throwing rocks, burning cars, and rioting? We have many choices available, two of the main ones are build society up or tear it down. I've been a blue collar laborer my whole life, and I've spent my time building it up. I don't want to see it torn down, riots, conflicts, and wars are all steps in the wrong direction.

King Mob has often been the only way the lower orders can assert their will so that the leaders hear. Its as old as cities. Even Rome feared the mob.

In recent years many riots have lead to the authorities taking heed of the will of the low income people. The Brixton and Toxteth riots in the UK of the early 80s lead to major ways the police treated non white urban youths and galvinised political will to regenerate some deprived areas. The Poll Tax riot was the capstone on the political mobilisation to kill off the hated policy. Not all riots work, not all are political, but when a community reaches a breaking point violence can underline how far they have reached. In the worst regimes they can be a fair warning that an actual insurgency is building, such as the riots in the late 60s Northern Ireland or the Soweto riots.

I am a big fan of NVDA- Non violent direct action. But I will not condemn every instance where King Mob rises in anger.

But in my experience many "riots" are the actions of a deliberate plan by the police to goad the crowd. At many demonstrations they appear to have a clear plan to try to incite the hot heads, here is a pretty good example of the police trying to turn a quite (and legal) demonstration into something a bit spicier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQkjrO1UJvk

They failed in this case because there was a plan in place anticipating this.

[Sixstrings]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQkjrO1UJvk.

Effective use of the Ferguson "hands up" tactic.

In your linked video, you can clearly see police beating hipsters that have their hands up.

What's the justification for striking a baton on someone that's got his hands up?

[Plantagenet]

What's the justification for striking a baton on someone that's got his hands up?

The police are almost always heavily outnumbered when they are engaged in riot control. Police tactics are therefore designed to allow them to be absolutely in control at the point of contact between police lines and demonstrators, both to insure their own safety and to minimize injuries to the rioters. The police aren't there to discuss the issues with the demonstrators---the police are there to stop rioting and looting, and they are trained to use force as necessary to get people to obey their instructions.

In Ferguson the police have to deal quickly with hundreds of demonstrators who won't obey their orders to disperse and get off the streets. Striking some of them with batons and arresting some of them is one way to quickly clear an area of a large crowd of demonstrators.


Would you young gentlemen please obey our order to clear the street? Thank you so much.

[Cid_Yama]

No Plant, No. That's old school. We now have these sound projectors and heat projectors to disperse crowds. They can do serious damage, if say, some can't get out of the way in time.

But, what the fuck, it's their own fault anyway for insisting on their Constitutional right to assembly. Oh, and probably free speech as well.

[Sixstrings]

The police are almost always heavily outnumbered when they are engaged in riot control. Police tactics are therefore designed to allow them to be absolutely in control at the point of contact between police lines and demonstrators, both to insure their own safety and to minimize injuries to the rioters.

I guess the difference between a riot and a protest is a distinction dependent on what side you're on.

If working people wanted to riot on Wall Street for living wages -- I could fully understand that. I wouldn't condone riot, or participate, but I'd be sympathetic. Just as average Ukrainians at home were sympathetic about the issues in the Maidan.

Dorlomin makes a very good point -- King Mob. If you ignore the people and their suffering, then yeah they're gonna rise up eventually. And then the People (King Mob) make a lot of noise and there's a lot of "No Justice, no peace," and then finally government gives in and makes some changes. In the 1800s, private business employed Pinkertons to beat the crap out of working class protesters. And these things happened again in the 20th century depression too, finally coming to the edge of revolution and then that was averted with FDR's election and him telling Republicans -- look, I'm gonna fix some things whether you like it or not, deal with it.

Child labor laws were passed, minimum wage, social security -- the New Deal.

Dor mentioned ancient Rome, and King Mob. There were many, many times that the rich elite patrician class let the people get too poor and hungry, and that's when King Mob arose. Sometimes they'd have leaders. There was a bourgoise class called the "knights" and they had elections for some offices. Usually these posts got bought off by the rich Senators, but sometimes when the pendulum swung, the People would elect real representatives of the mob and its demands.

Some senators at various periods appealed to the mobs, like the dictator Sulla.

And then Julius Caesar -- he was a patrician senator, and capitalized on one of these periods of the People getting the shaft and ignored to the benefit of the rich. A big issue at that time was slave labor and that it had put so many free men out of work.

Caesar rode populism into Empire.

There does come a point where you ignore the Mob at your peril, if you're a rich senator. Ask Yanukovich about that -- now a Russian citizen in Moscow, having fled in the night in his helicopter leaving the animals abandoned in his little disneyland dacha.

When is a protest a riot? Depends on where you stand, I guess, if you're a patrician or if you're in the mob.

The thing about the race riots we've had at times in the US, though, is that sometimes it's just so simplified. "The Poh-lease shot somebody." Well maybe that somebody was a hoodlum, ya know?

There were real civil rights issues in the 60s.

Now it's 2014. This Michael Brown was no Rosa Parks. He was a dangerous hoodlum. So what does the Mob want? Do they even want a job, to start with, with a living wage? Or no job at all and just a check?

Is it a riot of citizens, or more like a prison riot? Why do they not realize all they need to do is vote?

I don't sympathize with the Ferguson stuff at all, to me that's a riot, I'm not seeing any issues that would cause me to sympathize. And ultimately, if you actually LIVE in the middle of something like this -- if you're just a law abiding citizen, and you've got a job and aren't among the poor and hungry storming the Bastille, or you're a small business owner getting your shop windows busted and everything stolen and trashed, then yeah you're not going to sympathize at all.

You're just going to want to be safe, and be able to drive down the street, and not get pulled out of your car and attacked.

So those are my thoughts on it.

[vtsnowedin]

I guess the difference between a riot and a protest is a distinction dependent on what side you're on.

.

It is easy to tell them apart! Just list the things you need to bring to them.
For a protest you nee:
signs
megaphone
lunch.
brains.
For a riot you need to bring:
A gas mask
baseball bat or club
gasoline
whiskey bottles and rags
matches
rocks
stupidity.

[dorlomin]

Police tactics are therefore designed to allow them to be absolutely in control at the point of contact between police lines and demonstrators, both to insure their own safety and to minimize injuries to the rioters. The police aren't there to discuss the issues with the demonstrators---the police are there to stop rioting and looting, and they are trained to use force as necessary to get people to obey their instructions.

People have a right to assemble and make their voices heard. I have shown a good example of how the police will deliberately try to antagonise crowds to kick things off. It is not an isolated incidence.

I notice how quickly you slipped from "demonstrators" to "rioters".

[dorlomin]

I guess the difference between a riot and a protest is a distinction dependent on what side you're on.

.

It is easy to tell them apart! Just list the things you need to bring to them.
For a protest you nee:
signs
megaphone
lunch.
brains.
For a riot you need to bring:
A gas mask
baseball bat or club
gasoline
whiskey bottles and rags
matches
rocks
stupidity.

[Lore]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQkjrO1UJvk.

Effective use of the Ferguson "hands up" tactic.

In your linked video, you can clearly see police beating hipsters that have their hands up.

What's the justification for striking a baton on someone that's got his hands up?

What smells here is the conflicting reports. There is only a mixed assumption that this person was surrendering.

[dorlomin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQkjrO1UJvk.

Effective use of the Ferguson "hands up" tactic.

In your linked video, you can clearly see police beating hipsters that have their hands up.

What's the justification for striking a baton on someone that's got his hands up?

What smells here is the conflicting reports. There is only a mixed assumption that this person was surrendering.

Not actually relevant to what was said.

[Lore]

How about when that person just attacked you seconds before?

[dorlomin]

How about when that person just attacked you seconds before?

What the hell are you on about? I take it you have not bothered to watch the video and are just off on one.

[vtsnowedin]

Considering what took place last night I do not think any of the cops showed up under dressed. Do you?

[Lore]

Well, because people usually put their hands up when someone is beating on them. Is there a video of their actions prior to that? Yes, plenty.

Personally, as you well know, I'm all for peaceful resistance. There is a fine line here. When you give people the licence to act out, they will take it. Right or wrong in any society.

[dorlomin]

Considering what took place last night

Like most white Americans you seem to be deliberately ignoring the policing of the originally non violent protests a few weeks ago.

Perhaps you still yearn for the days when you could own a black person.

[Lore]

Considering what took place last night

Like most white Americans you seem to be deliberately ignoring the policing of the originally non violent protests a few weeks ago.

Perhaps you still yearn for the days when you could own a black person.

Burning down your neighborhood is not non violent.

[dorlomin]

Well, because people usually put their hands up when someone is beating on them. Is there a video of their actions prior to that? Yes, plenty.

Err you can see the scene before the scum piled in. Everyone was stood around talking. IIRC the police recorded no incident of violence at Bishopsgate before the attack was launched. I was in the crowd I should know.

Funny though the way the American mind works. We had parliament specifically rule that obstruction of the road was no justification for breaking up a static demonstration
literally a couple of days before.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/p ... 47/47i.pdf
We had MPs in the crowd including Tom Brake

Lol at the American "liberals", here at peak oil dot com its all zombie hoards and survivalism till a bit of mild civil disruption then they are all rushing to justify police violence.

God help the poor dears if they ever have to face something like Northern Ireland.

[vtsnowedin]

Considering what took place last night

Like most white Americans you seem to be deliberately ignoring the policing of the originally non violent protests a few weeks ago.

Perhaps you still yearn for the days when you could own a black person.

First off. Vermonters including my ancestors abolished slavery in Vermont in 1777 and sent more men per capita to the American civil war then any other state. So your out to lunch on that last cheap shot.
Second, just what original "nonviolent " protest of a few weeks ago are you talking about. All of the protest have had some violence and law breaking until sufficient police presence was brought to bear to stop it.