Protest Marshals block wreckers from getting people arrested

Maybe this makes me a LARPer or some shit but I was really hoping to see less peaceful demonstration and more “bricks through the convention center windows”

I wanted the protestors to make it so difficult and unsafe to be inside the convention that they were unable to continue

There’s a genocide happening and the people committing it were inside that building. Draw your own conclusions on how that might’ve ended in a just world.

I (and a lot of the groups that planned this march) would probably agree. If you look at that list you will see a lot of groups that aren't committed in principle to only nonviolent actions. But they made a strategic decision to have a large demonstration on the first day of the convention and they executed the plan. You're not going to get 17k people to come out for bricks through windows simply because the libs won't show and neither will the people who can't afford to get arrested
- Yeah like I was hoping to see things on the level of the George Floyd protests, or Jan 6 but good.
  It feels like the student encampments got both more attention and more actual concessions and those were in places that should’ve been incredibly easy to ignore, whereas this was where the people with the power actually were.
  Maybe I just fundamentally think having a large peaceful demonstration instead of a smaller non-peaceful one was a bad decision
  But I’m not there, who am I to judge, I’m just armchair quarterbacking protests

Nah I’m with you. I’ve been at actions in the past where a faction of people start pushing for intense escalation in the heat of the moment, and it’s never sat right with me. What’s the desired outcome? Optics?

Pushing people who aren’t ready or trained in any way to risk getting brutalized by the cops (and then potentially felonies after it’s all said and done) for no real outcome seems stupid and adventurist, and that’s what this smells like to me. People getting the shit kicked out of them and facing charges will do a lot to de-activate them and the people around them, which is directly counterproductive.

people start pushing for intense escalation in the heat of the moment
It's a "do you believe in democratic centralism or not?" moment. Sometimes that is going to mean supporting an action even if you think the org should have gone another way.
- Yeah I'm disappointed with some of the responses here. This action was obviously planned as a peaceful protest/march, and whether you agree with that tactic or not (I think we should be past that, but I'm not in Chicago), the time to push for escalation is long before the action is currently taking place. Otherwise you just needlessly endanger people (and there were people with children at this event, apparently), and it comes off as wrecker behavior. Again, what was to be gained materially in that moment by pushing for confrontation with the police? Some broken bones and some felony charges? Unserious behavior AND mindset.
- lucky me, i sure fuckin don't, and neither do most people. when you encounter someone who isn't bound by your binding resolutions and committees, are you always going to side with your enemy against them?

Both sides sucked. The planned protest sucked because it was far too passive and the adventurists sucked because they tried to hijack another protest instead of doing their own thing.

The planned protest sucking:

It's not going to accomplish a single thing outside of "raising awareness" for the simple fact that it's not militant enough. One easy litmus test is to ask whether the pigs actually feel threatened by the demonstration and the very easy answer is that they do not feel threatened whatsoever. They see it as easy overtime pay. The pigs are laughing it up to the bank as they cash their fat overtime paychecks.

The adventurists sucking:

It's very obvious they tried hijacking the peaceful demonstration because they lack numbers. They have <30 people, and obviously, you're not going to accomplish much with that little people. That's less than a platoon of troops. This is pathetic in its own way since the adventurists tried to use the peace demonstrators as cannon fodder and when their adventurism inevitably fails because they lack numbers, the adventurists can always quietly slip away as the pigs beat the shit out of the cannon fodder that didn't sign up to be militant.

It's the classic dilemma. The numerous demonstrators lack militancy and the few militants lack numbers.

One easy litmus test is to ask whether the pigs actually feel threatened
The goal isn't to get in fights with cops. The goal is to stop the genocide. If getting in fights with cops is necessary to accomplish that, it should be done, but if getting in fights with cops doesn't move the needle much, it's not some intrinsic good we should be doing anyway.
It's also important to think of how you pipeline people into more radical actions. If someone goes to their very first protest expecting a peaceful march, marchers start fighting the police, and that person ends up tear gassed, beaten, and out of a job because they spent time in jail, they might never do anything like that again. You don't throw someone into the deep end if you want to teach them to swim. You have to bring people along step by step, not all at once.
- If the ultimate goal is to stop the genocide, then neither side is approaching it correctly. The Zionist entity is an extension of the US. It's pretty much the 51st state and I would argue it's more important to the US than some states like Montana. So, demonstrating/doing adventurism for the sake of getting the US political class to abandon a de facto US state that they consider more valuable to the US project than Montana is a complete dead end.
  Palestine Action shows us the way forward. They don't bother with demonstrating in front of Parliament or their inbred German king. They simply break into factories to smash the drones and vandalize bank offices that closely collaborate with the Zionist entity. I don't think we should completely copy them, but their strategy deserves close study. For one, demonstrations should be focused on the site of production and distribution of weapons (eg factories, ports, railway lines) rather than the site of the political class. A worker strike can shut down a port preventing weapons from being shipped to the Zionist entity. We don't have to imagine it because it has already happened before. Anti-Zionist demonstrators along with sympathetic port workers actually got a port shut down at Oakland. This is great and the way forward.
  I think people need to recognize that the US political class is irredeemably Zionist and move forward from there.
- fighting cops is an intrinsic good if you win
I just don't understand why the marshals actively stopped them and helped the cops ID them instead of keeping them away from the rest of the protest. It's all about the diversity of tactics for these organizers until someone tries to do something effective, and if there wasn't active peace policing or infantile organizers "leading" maybe there could've been more genuine unrest that was much more unpredictable to the DNC attendees at the very least. You are right in that the action is adventurist but I have so much more empathy with them than the organizers that think peaceful protests are anything but a spit in the face to the gravity of the situation
- oh my god they actually snitched? fucking worms. luckily now that the unseemly "adventurist" element has been quashed, the fascists will have no choice but to listen to our chanting!
- The marshals didn't help the cops ID people
- helped the cops ID them
  Is there evidence of this? There's a vague line at the end of this screenshot about "participants and marshals called out for cops to intervene," but that's all we have here, and it's a big leap to read that as "they helped the cops ID people."

I think this really sealed the deal for me. I have been struggling all week internally about not getting out to these protests. Maybe this is the moment. Maybe I should be there. Maybe I can make a difference this time. Maybe this is the one. Yeah I'm tired as hell. Yeah all the other major actions I've done over the years have accomplished absolutely fucking nothing. But maybe this time. This could be important. This could mean something.

Oh, we aren't even getting too close to the fence, because "it's not that kind of action?" Oh the marshals would rather work with the cops than allow a minor escalation? Okay then. So it's an action fully within the rules. Those are historically super effective, when you just walk and yell where nobody can hear you and make no impact at all except some minor footnote in the local paper about how you did the thing. Great job folks really made an impact by completely and utterly following the rules.

I'll save my energy for the next one. This one is clearly meaningless.

Thanks OP for making me feel validated in my decision to stay home from this nonsense

It explains why I haven’t seen any fucking news about them that’s for sure
Like, I specifically seek out clips and interviews and news about these kinds of actions and I haven’t seen shit
- "A bunch of people quietly do their thing out of sight" doesn't really bring in a headline
- i listened to Democracy Now's coverage of the protest, and they also played recordings of the 1968 anti-Vietnam war protests and the contrast was shocking. I don't know what it is but something in the culture shifted in the last 50 years like there's this dominant anxious affect where we have thousands of kids on the internet getting "radicalized" in their politics but the idea of actually doing something, anything is just too nasty and crass and weird
but it's movement building! 3 or 4 of those people are definitely signing up to go through the PSL's rigorous political education program so they can be a perfectly honed tool of ~~doing more recruitment~~ the revolutionary vanguard! not at all like the trots handing out newpapers.
- Honestly I don't even mind the PSL keeping peaceful protests in most instances. It definitely depends on what's going on, I've fully supported some green actions that PSL have put on. But stopping people from getting up against a fence is absurd
- Comparing PSL to trots lol
  Deeply unserious.
- Comically unserious, if your critique of a socialist organization is that they're focused on giving people a strong political education and growth of the movement, your critique might not be meaningful
As someone who was there, the "anarchists" seemed more eager just to divert half the march into a wall of cops. Tell me you like kettling without telling me you like kettling.

The approved-route protest where protestors mustn't get too close TO A FUCKING FENCE or else the cops need to be called

- If getting too close to the DNC's fence is "wrecker activity" and "adventurism" now, then what's it going to be in a few years?
  "Protesting in public is adventurism! Don't you know a quiet inside protest is the respectable thing to do now?"
- "Nooooooo you're ruining my designated pressure outlet where I get a feeling of catharsis from doing something purely performative! How dare you give people a practical introduction to escalation, that wasn't in the plan!"
Nobody called the cops. There were 17k people there because it was planned as a peaceful march by a coalition of groups and those groups worked to keep it peaceful. People brought their kids. You're not going to get these numbers at for violent confrontation with the police.

I like a good black bloc smashing through police lines as much as anyone but I think in this case it was correct to oppose it, even if I'd not have prevented them from breaking away.

In fact my general line for escalations in mass protest is "I'd rather you didn't, but if it all goes south I'll back you to the hilt."

It may be the case that the police had the complete ability to secure the building against anything short of the whole city stampeding.

But still, miss me with that "good-protester-bad-protester" :LIB: shit. Too amped up on respectability and the illusion of "free speech changing the course of history" to allow for their conflict to actually take form, to the point where they will turn their opposition inward on their own movement.

It's like we learned nothing from the past few years of history. Does the phrase "diversity of tactics" mean nothing to you?

"Oh but there were children there" yeah I'm really fucking glad that there is a universal standard, where cops and the IDF never conduct violence within a 200-meter proximity of a minor.

I will not condemn Hamas.
I will also not condemn the demonstrators trying to fight cops.

The only thing I've seen out of this protest has been a deeply unserious person flying an anarcho-brat flag and organizers/members of related orgs (PSL, FRSO) celebrating their wide turnout despite little to none material gains. It really feels like protests are the husk of what was once popular mobilization that represented a genuine threat to the ruling classes ability to ignore the popular masses. It's not nothing, but this is barely the baby steps of a real movement and we should all be deeply ashamed we aren't doing more 11 months into a genocide, not actively helping police ID those wanting to escalate!

I've met wreckers that look to escalate in inappropriate scenarios, it's never good to get arrested but I've been following this whole discourse on twitter and this line of "wreckers looking to get symbolically arrested" is completely detached from what actually happened and what people are actually advocating for (ANY kind of genuine disruptment or even threat of disruptment) and feels, ironically, more wrecker than what's being accused

celebrating their wide turnout despite little to none material gains
It’s not nothing, but this is barely the baby steps of a real movement
You're right -- these are baby steps. But when you have no existing, large organization, the way you start building one is... baby steps.
- If a genocide can't push America beyond the baby steps it's been walking for decades now I really struggle to empathize with anyone that thinks protests should continue to be peaceful. I don't think there's any pride in a protest that serves as an impotent release of our rage that we should be doing much more with, it's like we treat americans as if they're taking their first steps everytime they walk and are surprised when the don't move onto running

This was actually really disappointing. Sucks to see that people in neon vests will step in and shut anything down and work with cops if they feel uncomfortable. Sucks that during a protest to stop genocide, getting too close to a fence is too much. Really disappointed in US liberals pretending to be anything more than that.

Reason I removed this from cth yesterday was specifically because of that last line. Anytime protest organizers start calling for pigs to intervene they have forfeited any legitimacy regardless of whether it was supposed to be peaceful.

If there are "wreckers trying to escalate" then you handle them internally you don't call for police intervention. If they really are wreckers then the cops will just let them instigate until the feel they can justify going after the whole protest group, if they are just some overzealous young people caught up in the heat of the moment all you are doing is inviting the cops to escalate instead and throwing possible comrades under the bus.

That is fundamentally worse than just being peace police at a lib march.

Can't believe don't call on cops to fuck with your protest is being met with such lib responses here ffs.

Can't believe don't call on cops to fuck with your protest is being met with such lib responses here ffs.
Fortunately this did not happen
- Te op stats that it did and they didn't even provide any counters to this. "Some users" can't really anecdotally refute what the OP states and that is what I took issue with.
  Also getting too close to a fence is flimsy justification for peace policing. Not like people were advocating violence or even property destruction from the evidence in this post.
It shouldnt be this hard, but americans are gonna be americans
- Arrest them all, force is authorized.
  But this didn't happen.
  You're posting a theory about how cops respond to different protest tactics. People went out and tried one tactic out, and your theory didn't accurately predict what happened.
  You can either adjust your theory or insist that it's right despite the results.
Well as it turns out from users who were actually there and are active in these orgs, they didn’t call the police on them, so…
- So did they or did they not call for police to intervene as your own post states?
  The cops were there already, nobody had to literally call them. Your post outright states that they were present and asked to intervene?
  So this unsourced claim here already has falsehoods. Just saying your own post contains no sources but if taken at face value people did in fact call for police intervention.
  If that isn't the case it is your responsibility to present accurate information or clarify that when you posted this it contained at least some misinformation.
  Also nowhere was I being sectarian. I actually like a lot of PSL folks.

Reminder that nonviolent action was literally a CIA funded Psyop so successful it is now permanently baked into the way protests work worldwide.

...you're way overstating this.
Nonviolence is a tactic that has been used all over the world, and uses of it predate the existence of the CIA (see India and South Africa). Of course states have latched onto it as a way of criticizing dissenters ("you're not protesting the right way"), but that doesn't mean it's a useless tactic invented as a means of control. It has its uses, just like other tactics.
- Even in genuinely revolutionary situations where violent overthrow is an immediate goal, discipline is absolutely key.
- no im not.
  Please read the following, thanks.
  
  Debunking the myths around nonviolent resistance by Peter Gelderloos How Nonviolence Protects the State by Peter Gelderloos Full Spectrum Resistance by Aric McBay Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching by various authors (many concepts that can be applied beyond just resisting ecocide)

I give a lot of deference to people out there trying something, and that goes double for people putting in the effort to organize that something. That's doing praxis and then learning from it, something we all agree on until we have things to say about an action we did not organize or attend.

wow, i'm so glad our protests can be Peaceful and follow the pre-approved routes, thank you to our beautiful self-appointed law enforcement officers for making sure we can participate in the democratic process safely and with minimal fuss!

like fuck, maybe fighting cops isn't always about Doing The Revolution. maybe i just want to fight a cop. maybe i don't like how he's looking at me. what fucking business is it of yours? whose side are you fucking on?
- Fine for you, I guess. Not fine for the other people present who don’t want things to escalate that way.
- I wish you well. I'm a fucking coward. Given how Illinois cops will execute a woman for leaving on a kettle, not sure how much I got it in me to throw hands.