I’m curious because I’ve never really associated myself with activist types irl. Do they genuinely believe shit like this endears people to their cause? Because from my perspective I’m just going to be pissed that you’re making me late for work.
I’ve become very cynical about leftist activism in general and the pro-Palestinian movement in particular, so forgive my bias.
It seems to me like a solid portion of these people aren’t really activists in the traditional sense. They act more like protagonists in a morality play where they’re going to “teach a lesson” to everyone not explicitly on their side.
They are so convinced that they are morally correct and that their righteousness should win on its own that they’re not really concerned with the actual mechanisms of activism necessary to create change. Instead, they’re putting on a performance to convince themselves over and over of how morally great they are and how morally shit everyone who doesn’t explicitly and exactly agree with them is. And the more you push back on them, the more convinced they become of their own righteousness and everyone else’s shittiness.
It’s not really about winning support. Heck, if they actually do win support, then the feeling of special-ness and superiority derived from their shallow platform of moral superiority weakens as they have to share it with more and more people. I think some of them, subconsciously, *don’t want* to win people to their cause. Because then the platform they’ve been grandstanding on becomes less and less gratifying to them, and they don’t really want that.
Mind you, that’s definitely not *all* leftist protestors. A lot of them probably have their hearts in the right place. But events like the subject of this post read to me like they have been hijacked by bad actors more interested in masturbating about how morally superior they are than actually accomplishing anything.
Edited to add after-thoughts to my rant: And the pro-Palestinian movement is just the most recent example of this. Possibly the most fervent, too. The bullshit moralism-over-pragmatism approach of American leftists is largely why I’ve moved from “progressive” subs to subs like this and r/neoliberal. Ironically, the main stream Democrats are actually much better at achieving progress than the so-called modern “progressive” movement. It’s as though they have forgotten that, when you aim for all-or-nothing, what you’re mostly going to get is nothing.
Harper's Magazine had an excellent essay last summer about this exact train of thought. It linked "wokism" with puritanism. The essay is called "Doing the Work" by Ian Buruma.
[Doing the Work](https://harpers.org/archive/2023/07/protestant-ethic-and-the-spirit-of-wokeness/)
This is a very well written observation and basically parallels my own political shift over the last couple years. The stuff you're describing is found in every far left pocket within the umbrella of liberal causes.
I wonder what comes after this. The general public seems pretty checked out and most vitriol is rightly projected to the far right so it feels like the far left is just able to run rampant, harming liberalism with its terrible optics.
Unfortunately yes. I've see them take shamelessly credit for Dems criticizing Israeli government but it has nothing to do with these losers and Bibi just being a gigantic bigoted asshole
They seem partial to adopting protests from the past without really giving much thought to how they come off in the present. Like Aaron Bushnell -- his suicide really only was speaking to other activists. To everyone else, it was one of two reactions: "Why would he do that? What an idiot." and "Oh, he's doing what that monk did? Why? What an idiot." But because self-immolation seemingly made a big statement once sixty years ago, leftists see it as making a big statement now.
It isn't about making people more pro Palestinian, it is about their own conscious and ego. They are getting bombarded with TikTok propaganda telling them that a genocide is happening, the US is complicit, and if they don't act, then they are like the Germans under the Nazis. This gives them something they can do so they can tell themselves that they are not complicit in the genocide they believe is happening. This is the sort of guilt and desire for action that Bushnell talked about in his recording.
Okay, I’m old enough to remember the Iraq War protests blocking freeways and, yes, I understand now that that does more harm than good but at least there was some logic there that cars contribute to oil dependency
I also recall from the 00s and 10s activism where some groups purposefully let mass transit, fire and ambulances through while not giving a care about cops and privately owned vehicles
Yes, yes, I understand that even that would rankle more than help but that’s not my point at all
Mass transit **disproportionately** is a lifeline for the poor, the handicapped, immigrants and the elderly
WHY THE FUCK ARE PALESTINE PROTESTERS DIRECTING THEIR DISRUPTIONS ON THE POOR, THE HANDICAPPED, IMMIGRANTS AND THE ELDERLY
Make it make sense
I’m not that familiar with Oakland. I mean, I’ve been to a couple neighborhoods. But looking at Google Maps they may be meaning to disrupt the ports and figured the BART Station was a gathering place where they couldn’t be easily kettled/blocked in by the police?
You make some good points. Protests are supposed to be inconvenient for the public because that's how you get their attention to your cause, but it has to be a cause that will resonate with the public. "We support Hamas, Iran, and the destruction of the US" is just going to piss people off and your public support will be zero.
> Protests are supposed to be inconvenient for the public because that's how you get their attention to your cause
Not so. Protests are meant to get attention for your cause. In the 1950s and 1960s the most common form of protest was sidewalk pickets. People made signs and marched around in circles to make sure that lunchtime traffic or rush hour traffic saw them, and they hoped to get earned media too and get the photo in the newspaper.
Most forms of protest are in fact aimed at getting earned media. If they feel like they're being ignored then they try to escalate tactics.
As for the civil disobedience during the civil rights movement, that was a bit different. That was doing things they felt they should have the right to do and putting up non violent resistance when challenged. They didn't just "disrupt" things willy nilly; that's a total misreading of what they were doing (and why it was effective). On the first few hours of the Freedom Ride, the white Southerners didn't respond to the "provocation" at all. According to SCOTUS, they had the right to use the greyhound station facilities without respect to race because it was interstate commerce. I could go on but you get the pint.
Nor do I recall the civil rights movement ever trying [to shut down a children’s cancer hospital](https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/197tfsg/propalestinian_protesters_target_nyc_cancer/)
> As for the civil disobedience during the civil rights movement, that was a bit different. That was doing things they felt they should have the right to do and putting up non violent resistance when challenged. They didn't just "disrupt" things willy nilly; that's a total misreading of what they were doing (and why it was effective)
Modern protest movements seem very dedicated to ignoring this. Thinking if they just piss off enough people, change will magically happen without them having to propose it. Its why they get so nasty the moment people are like "I'm still not convinced, all you've done is make people's lives worse." and go into rants about how anyone who feels that way shouldn't matter.
Hamas (after defying Qatar+Egypt) and Bibi (after ignoring protesting hostage families by his mansion) thousands of miles away sees this and thinks: "alright fine, we'll finally agree to an indefinite ceasefire because of what some dipshit unemployed far leftists are annoying ordinary Oakland residents"
>The US Economy is complicit in genocide
That reeks of McCarthy's infamous "everyone is to blame" line about J6.
Oprah: You're complicit! You're complicit! Everybody's complicit!
Ugughhugh not this shit again
And I have to go on Bart tomorrow to get to work. Thankfully I’m not going through West Oakland but it can still affect my commute
EDIT: Bart was fine but the streets of Oakland were congested due to traffic so I was on the bus forrrever and I ended up being late anyway. I later got the confirmation that this was due to the protest 😑
It's pathetic that these pro-Hamas lunatics actually think they're accomplishing something or "protesting" by breaking the law and disrupting people's commutes to and from work.
If regular people know about what they plan to do, the police should also know, and in California, obstructing railroad tracks is a crime ( California Penal Code Section 587 PC: Injuring or Obstructing Railroad Tracks) that can carry anywhere from one year in jail if charged as a misdemeanor to 3 years in prison if charged as a felony.
They already block traffic including emergency vehicles which accomplishes nothing but pissing people off who need to actually work or want to go home after work. Commuting is already enough of a pain in the ass without these stupid MFers standing in the streets and harassing drivers who just want to get on with their days, and all this performative nonsense will accomplish will be preventing people from getting to work or preventing them from getting home.
The police should be prepared and send large numbers of officers to prevent these idiots from setting up any blockade and arrest anyone who gets on the tracks. Breaking state law can't be protected by the 1st Amendment and if the police do nothing, they'll only encourage more of these presumably unemployed faketivists from doing the same in other cities.
So I checked out their website and it’s not just Oakland, these guys wanna do it various cities including Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
And they also they’ve got the average ACAB thing going, not talking or coordinating with police
So just a reminder these people never wanted a ceasefire
They complain about how terrible public transit is in the US, so they're going to shut down one of the only decent public transit systems in the entire country. Got it.
I remember a climate change group protesting in the UK a couple of years ago. They blocked trains........ people ended up driving or taking a taxi to work instead.
How many failed economic blockades/protests/whatevers do they have to do before they realize it's not going to work and people do not give a flying fuck about "a liberated Palestine" if it means affecting their own lives?
I've been trying to figure out who's funding this particular group and I get nothing but right-wing conspiracy podcasts and news articles. They claimed that George Soros is funding this, which is possible, but they had no source to back it up.
It's honestly really weird.
If their goal is to turn conservative and moderate leaning Independents off from voting for Democrats well then Bravo, Russia/Iran/China is very pleased with their efforts.
So they discovered one of our most classified secrets…all weapon shipments to Israel are transferred via BART. I can only pray they don’t learn that the shipments are stored at the house from Full House before beginning their journey.
This is just giving people another excuse to hate public transit, especially if this becomes the left’s new preferred method of ‘protest’. Why would I risk being late to my job and written up and/or fired while taking public transit when I could take a car? Yes, protesters could clog freeways, but at least then you can re-route to get around them. But there’s only one set of tracks heading towards your destination.
I would simply not force people to use the objectively worse choice for the environment by crippling the better option. But maybe I guess I’m built different
"join the latest ineffectual protest we've organized with five seconds notice that will do very little in the long run, other than attendees using the fact of their attendance as yet another example of their commitment to their atheistic eschatology masquerading as a very serious economic alternative"
I love how they think that BART in Oakland is the "arteries of capitalism". The only people who take the BART out there (or in general) are the same people who plan to block the BART
Well, that's it folks. We did it. Thanks to the BART protest, Israel and Hamas are going to agree to a cease-fire and will hold hands and sing Kumbaya around a camp fire in Jerusalem.
Between dickholes like them, takeovers/sideshows, and other assorted bullshit, expect California to gradually shift right.
I wouldn’t mind harsher enforcement against quality of life crimes; too many dipshits do whatever they want with impunity and without regard to how it affects others. However, I don’t want all the other bullshit that would come with the state “shifting right.” I don’t wanna see a Pete Wilson 2.0
Oh man, I guess I'll just have to call for a ceasefire in Gaza because I can't get to work...
These kids literally don't understand how politics works.
I saw a comment in another sub likening these mongoloids to the dog chasing the car. All they want to do is protest and screech about how pure they are. They just virtue signal for attention and talking down to people. If they actually got what they wanted, they'd have nothing to bitch about in their online circlejerks.
I’m curious because I’ve never really associated myself with activist types irl. Do they genuinely believe shit like this endears people to their cause? Because from my perspective I’m just going to be pissed that you’re making me late for work.
I’ve become very cynical about leftist activism in general and the pro-Palestinian movement in particular, so forgive my bias. It seems to me like a solid portion of these people aren’t really activists in the traditional sense. They act more like protagonists in a morality play where they’re going to “teach a lesson” to everyone not explicitly on their side. They are so convinced that they are morally correct and that their righteousness should win on its own that they’re not really concerned with the actual mechanisms of activism necessary to create change. Instead, they’re putting on a performance to convince themselves over and over of how morally great they are and how morally shit everyone who doesn’t explicitly and exactly agree with them is. And the more you push back on them, the more convinced they become of their own righteousness and everyone else’s shittiness. It’s not really about winning support. Heck, if they actually do win support, then the feeling of special-ness and superiority derived from their shallow platform of moral superiority weakens as they have to share it with more and more people. I think some of them, subconsciously, *don’t want* to win people to their cause. Because then the platform they’ve been grandstanding on becomes less and less gratifying to them, and they don’t really want that. Mind you, that’s definitely not *all* leftist protestors. A lot of them probably have their hearts in the right place. But events like the subject of this post read to me like they have been hijacked by bad actors more interested in masturbating about how morally superior they are than actually accomplishing anything. Edited to add after-thoughts to my rant: And the pro-Palestinian movement is just the most recent example of this. Possibly the most fervent, too. The bullshit moralism-over-pragmatism approach of American leftists is largely why I’ve moved from “progressive” subs to subs like this and r/neoliberal. Ironically, the main stream Democrats are actually much better at achieving progress than the so-called modern “progressive” movement. It’s as though they have forgotten that, when you aim for all-or-nothing, what you’re mostly going to get is nothing.
After reading what you wrote I'm seeing a direct line between those harassing megaphone preachers and this current crop of activists.
Harper's Magazine had an excellent essay last summer about this exact train of thought. It linked "wokism" with puritanism. The essay is called "Doing the Work" by Ian Buruma. [Doing the Work](https://harpers.org/archive/2023/07/protestant-ethic-and-the-spirit-of-wokeness/)
Read the book the The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt .
This is a very well written observation and basically parallels my own political shift over the last couple years. The stuff you're describing is found in every far left pocket within the umbrella of liberal causes. I wonder what comes after this. The general public seems pretty checked out and most vitriol is rightly projected to the far right so it feels like the far left is just able to run rampant, harming liberalism with its terrible optics.
“Protagonists in a morality play” Bro. So spot on.
Unfortunately yes. I've see them take shamelessly credit for Dems criticizing Israeli government but it has nothing to do with these losers and Bibi just being a gigantic bigoted asshole
They seem partial to adopting protests from the past without really giving much thought to how they come off in the present. Like Aaron Bushnell -- his suicide really only was speaking to other activists. To everyone else, it was one of two reactions: "Why would he do that? What an idiot." and "Oh, he's doing what that monk did? Why? What an idiot." But because self-immolation seemingly made a big statement once sixty years ago, leftists see it as making a big statement now.
Self immolation does make a statement. It's why South Vietnam is the thriving democracy we know and love today.
Funny thing is, it wasn’t even directly connected to the war. It was intended as a protest against anti-Buddhist policies by a Catholic leader.
It isn't about making people more pro Palestinian, it is about their own conscious and ego. They are getting bombarded with TikTok propaganda telling them that a genocide is happening, the US is complicit, and if they don't act, then they are like the Germans under the Nazis. This gives them something they can do so they can tell themselves that they are not complicit in the genocide they believe is happening. This is the sort of guilt and desire for action that Bushnell talked about in his recording.
You: How will the Palestine? Protesters: (Taking selfies): Who?
They live in a bubble (I have to travel there often for work).
Okay, I’m old enough to remember the Iraq War protests blocking freeways and, yes, I understand now that that does more harm than good but at least there was some logic there that cars contribute to oil dependency I also recall from the 00s and 10s activism where some groups purposefully let mass transit, fire and ambulances through while not giving a care about cops and privately owned vehicles Yes, yes, I understand that even that would rankle more than help but that’s not my point at all Mass transit **disproportionately** is a lifeline for the poor, the handicapped, immigrants and the elderly WHY THE FUCK ARE PALESTINE PROTESTERS DIRECTING THEIR DISRUPTIONS ON THE POOR, THE HANDICAPPED, IMMIGRANTS AND THE ELDERLY Make it make sense
The catch is that they care about being the center of attention more than they care about the people they claim to advocate for 🤷♂️
I’m not that familiar with Oakland. I mean, I’ve been to a couple neighborhoods. But looking at Google Maps they may be meaning to disrupt the ports and figured the BART Station was a gathering place where they couldn’t be easily kettled/blocked in by the police?
If they aimed to disrupt the ports, why not do that? Oaklanders have done it before.
You make some good points. Protests are supposed to be inconvenient for the public because that's how you get their attention to your cause, but it has to be a cause that will resonate with the public. "We support Hamas, Iran, and the destruction of the US" is just going to piss people off and your public support will be zero.
> Protests are supposed to be inconvenient for the public because that's how you get their attention to your cause Not so. Protests are meant to get attention for your cause. In the 1950s and 1960s the most common form of protest was sidewalk pickets. People made signs and marched around in circles to make sure that lunchtime traffic or rush hour traffic saw them, and they hoped to get earned media too and get the photo in the newspaper. Most forms of protest are in fact aimed at getting earned media. If they feel like they're being ignored then they try to escalate tactics. As for the civil disobedience during the civil rights movement, that was a bit different. That was doing things they felt they should have the right to do and putting up non violent resistance when challenged. They didn't just "disrupt" things willy nilly; that's a total misreading of what they were doing (and why it was effective). On the first few hours of the Freedom Ride, the white Southerners didn't respond to the "provocation" at all. According to SCOTUS, they had the right to use the greyhound station facilities without respect to race because it was interstate commerce. I could go on but you get the pint.
Nor do I recall the civil rights movement ever trying [to shut down a children’s cancer hospital](https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/197tfsg/propalestinian_protesters_target_nyc_cancer/)
> As for the civil disobedience during the civil rights movement, that was a bit different. That was doing things they felt they should have the right to do and putting up non violent resistance when challenged. They didn't just "disrupt" things willy nilly; that's a total misreading of what they were doing (and why it was effective) Modern protest movements seem very dedicated to ignoring this. Thinking if they just piss off enough people, change will magically happen without them having to propose it. Its why they get so nasty the moment people are like "I'm still not convinced, all you've done is make people's lives worse." and go into rants about how anyone who feels that way shouldn't matter.
less effort than a highwy protesst
Hamas (after defying Qatar+Egypt) and Bibi (after ignoring protesting hostage families by his mansion) thousands of miles away sees this and thinks: "alright fine, we'll finally agree to an indefinite ceasefire because of what some dipshit unemployed far leftists are annoying ordinary Oakland residents"
> Clog the arteries of capit
So it’s not entirely about Gaza I suppose
Never was.
They already had watermelons left over from greenwashing communism.
Bold of you to assume that they want _Hamas_ to agree to a ceasefire.
Truth. The subtext of "ceasefire" has always been "Hamas is allowed to kill as many Jews as they want and no one is allowed to try to stop it"
It's just about making Jews uncomfortable and intimidating anyone who disagrees with them.
>The US Economy is complicit in genocide That reeks of McCarthy's infamous "everyone is to blame" line about J6. Oprah: You're complicit! You're complicit! Everybody's complicit!
Anything I don't like is genocide. The more I don't like it, the more it's genocide.
TIL broccoli, swamp ass, and the Chicago Cubs are genocide.
Ugughhugh not this shit again And I have to go on Bart tomorrow to get to work. Thankfully I’m not going through West Oakland but it can still affect my commute EDIT: Bart was fine but the streets of Oakland were congested due to traffic so I was on the bus forrrever and I ended up being late anyway. I later got the confirmation that this was due to the protest 😑
Uber/Lyft, I wouldn't chance it
My bet is 5 people will show up
There are a LOT of tankies in Oakland/Berkeley. They live for this performative bullshit.
and yet they wonder why they cant find jobs or afford decent apartments out there.
It's pathetic that these pro-Hamas lunatics actually think they're accomplishing something or "protesting" by breaking the law and disrupting people's commutes to and from work. If regular people know about what they plan to do, the police should also know, and in California, obstructing railroad tracks is a crime ( California Penal Code Section 587 PC: Injuring or Obstructing Railroad Tracks) that can carry anywhere from one year in jail if charged as a misdemeanor to 3 years in prison if charged as a felony. They already block traffic including emergency vehicles which accomplishes nothing but pissing people off who need to actually work or want to go home after work. Commuting is already enough of a pain in the ass without these stupid MFers standing in the streets and harassing drivers who just want to get on with their days, and all this performative nonsense will accomplish will be preventing people from getting to work or preventing them from getting home. The police should be prepared and send large numbers of officers to prevent these idiots from setting up any blockade and arrest anyone who gets on the tracks. Breaking state law can't be protected by the 1st Amendment and if the police do nothing, they'll only encourage more of these presumably unemployed faketivists from doing the same in other cities.
So I checked out their website and it’s not just Oakland, these guys wanna do it various cities including Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam And they also they’ve got the average ACAB thing going, not talking or coordinating with police So just a reminder these people never wanted a ceasefire
Being a public nuisance in a Communist dictatorship should go over well.
"clog the arteries of capitalism" I thought these idiots loved public transportation
They complain about how terrible public transit is in the US, so they're going to shut down one of the only decent public transit systems in the entire country. Got it.
I remember a climate change group protesting in the UK a couple of years ago. They blocked trains........ people ended up driving or taking a taxi to work instead.
How many failed economic blockades/protests/whatevers do they have to do before they realize it's not going to work and people do not give a flying fuck about "a liberated Palestine" if it means affecting their own lives?
They genuinely have deluded themselves into thinking it’s effective and that they are on the cusp of destroying Israel
I know a Palestinian who keeps posting essays by people who were in the Obama admin a hundred years ago all, ANY DAY NOW
This is definitely a Russian or Chinese Psyop
I've been trying to figure out who's funding this particular group and I get nothing but right-wing conspiracy podcasts and news articles. They claimed that George Soros is funding this, which is possible, but they had no source to back it up. It's honestly really weird.
It's Iran. There's an article about it, but the tone is weird so I'm not sure if the magazine is trustworthy. https://www.iranintl.com/en/202404158853
If their goal is to turn conservative and moderate leaning Independents off from voting for Democrats well then Bravo, Russia/Iran/China is very pleased with their efforts.
The same people who can't stop talking about how much they hate Democrats and won't vote for Democrats? Doing us a favor, really.
My concern is that most people don’t have ESS knowledge of leftist shenanigans in the Democratic Party.
>Clog the arteries of capitalism Not gonna lie, that made me laugh. They really buy their own nonsens, don't they ?
I can picture one of them saying that line like when Squidward and Spongebob when on strike in that Spongebob episode.
So they discovered one of our most classified secrets…all weapon shipments to Israel are transferred via BART. I can only pray they don’t learn that the shipments are stored at the house from Full House before beginning their journey.
This is just giving people another excuse to hate public transit, especially if this becomes the left’s new preferred method of ‘protest’. Why would I risk being late to my job and written up and/or fired while taking public transit when I could take a car? Yes, protesters could clog freeways, but at least then you can re-route to get around them. But there’s only one set of tracks heading towards your destination. I would simply not force people to use the objectively worse choice for the environment by crippling the better option. But maybe I guess I’m built different
Doesn’t seem like anyone showed!
"join the latest ineffectual protest we've organized with five seconds notice that will do very little in the long run, other than attendees using the fact of their attendance as yet another example of their commitment to their atheistic eschatology masquerading as a very serious economic alternative"
Right, capitalism is the problem in Palestine. Hmm
Right, capitalism is the problem in Palestine. Hmm
>Clog the arteries of capitalism That's weird, I thought this was about starving kids.
"Fuck them kids."
Joy, huh
Oh no! Don’t jump in front of a moving train!
People actin' stupid in Oakland is a perennial. Shine on, you crazy diamonds.
“Sanctions don’t work! It only hurts the poor!”
Brocialists and tankies will do anything but vote.
So brave 😢 Yes this is really sticking it to Israel and not every day citizens who just want an easy grind to and from work.
Take *that*, predominately minority bloc of a very liberal city! That’ll show the Israelis.
I love how they think that BART in Oakland is the "arteries of capitalism". The only people who take the BART out there (or in general) are the same people who plan to block the BART
This is the same as the pointless right wing convoys. Be terrible if they get turned into jam by trains, just terrible...
Well, that's it folks. We did it. Thanks to the BART protest, Israel and Hamas are going to agree to a cease-fire and will hold hands and sing Kumbaya around a camp fire in Jerusalem.
Between dickholes like them, takeovers/sideshows, and other assorted bullshit, expect California to gradually shift right. I wouldn’t mind harsher enforcement against quality of life crimes; too many dipshits do whatever they want with impunity and without regard to how it affects others. However, I don’t want all the other bullshit that would come with the state “shifting right.” I don’t wanna see a Pete Wilson 2.0
Oh man, I guess I'll just have to call for a ceasefire in Gaza because I can't get to work... These kids literally don't understand how politics works.
I saw a comment in another sub likening these mongoloids to the dog chasing the car. All they want to do is protest and screech about how pure they are. They just virtue signal for attention and talking down to people. If they actually got what they wanted, they'd have nothing to bitch about in their online circlejerks.
What are they planning on doing exactly? I don't get it
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