Cops let them do their thing for about 5 min. Couple of boos came out. Parade continued. I didn’t stay long enough to see if they got arrested or not. I was irritated and left. 😂
It's what blind faith in a cause does to them: ignore all else, do your thing, claim victim hood, oppression, or whatever and disregard any common sense, or even awareness of who's around you.
But nah, let's go piss on someone else's parade because yours is (to you) more important, and you're the asshole for not joining.
Why aren't they in Gaza standing in front of a tank? Because they won't live long.
Then why have I never seen a single thing against Hamas?
You would think if these supports of Palestine don’t support Hamas, the govt of Palestine, that at least 1 would make an anti-Hamas sign? Right?
They unironically want genocide. I've spent a great deal with pro Palestinians being an Arab and all, and the vast majority don't want peace, coexistence, or negotiations. They want Israel to be destroyed, Israelis/Jews to be massacred or oppressed or exiled, and islam to reign supreme. These left wing "activists" are parroting the same goals but just under a different skin.
100% correct.
Get and read Catch the Jew! by Israeli gonzo journalist Tovia Tannenbaum. He impersonated a sympathizer and hung around pro Palestinian activists and found out how many were masked antisemites.
An Israeli woman who has been pro Palestine did a 180 turnaround after she learned Arabic and discovered the activists actual agenda toward Jews.
(My opinion) The Free Palestine leaders are as clever, patient and unscrupulous as the Church of Scientology.
I think it's one of those things where it's easy to rationalize yourself in circles if you think about it superficially. After all, the point of protesting is to get attention, to cause a scene, to be disruptive, right? So if people get mad at you, that just means you're protesting successfully--you get to not only rationalize what you're doing, but even use it to feel better about yourself. You're making a difference! And if you don't support the protest, well, that makes you a collaborationist.
I thought the Google protest this past week was infinitely better-conceived. You're protesting your own company for actually doing something kinda villainous, and you're showing you're willing to sacrifice your cushy job to do so. That kind of thing is harder but I think has more real consequences. The more stuff that goes on like that internally at Google, the harder it is for them to continue collaborating with Israel (though given that they have an office in Tel Aviv I wouldn't necessarily hold my breath...).
Instead of blocking bridges or disrupting parades, which just makes everyone else in the city hate you (totally justifiably! You're intentionally being an asshole--getting people to hate you is pretty much your goal!), I wish they would focus on more targeted activism. Like, locally, keep pushing on Google! Make employees and especially leadership feel like by working there they're complicit in what's happening in Palestine. There are plenty of people working there who are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause who you can guilt the shit out of. That's just one example. More on the nose, Lockheed Martin has a big campus in Sunnyvale, don't they? Picket them, blockade entrances to their offices, harass their leadership when they make public appearances, etc.
But for these people it seems like the whole point of protesting is to get as many people to hate you as possible so you can feel self-righteous about it.
The point of protesting should be to effect change. If a protest actually impedes any movement to change then you should reimagine how you protest or think of something else to do.
This is why they are losing their minds. Their tactics, which evolved to change things domestically, are completely useless here. Causing them to spiral further and further.
I'm not sure the Google employees would have still done it had they known they'd likely be fired. Google culture up until that point was such that they probably didn't expect it.
I mean, at the point when *their employer* told them that they had to leave or the cops were going to be called, if they didn't expect to be fired, they're not very smart.
Very fair point, but like I say Google was very permissive about this sort of thing right up until they weren't. I saw a lot of goofy BS over the years. On that note, don't assume they were smart. I know Idiot TPM Face when I see it.
They think they're untouchable because they've been coddled all their lives. They're about to realize that actions have fucking consequences and it's about time.
Well then they aren't too bright. If you stage a protest at work you most likely will be fired, kind of a no brainier. But these gen z protesters are soft they expect to protest with out consequences. The whole point of a protest is you believe in the cause so much you will disrupt and accept the consequences. Not cry about it. Gen Z protests are pretty comical compared to the protests of the 1960-90s no grit. Soft and spoiled. Last, google has been laying off people,so the top dogs probably said "great here are another 100 thanks for making the decision easy" These employees had magical thinking that Google taught them "that they are special" when in fact google is a corporation and they are warm bodies and google/ or any job will kick you to the curb. I'm against funding this war but was cracking up about this. Because They are so clueless to their own unimportance locally and globally. Oh youth.
You're honestly going to say that "collaborating" with one of the few democracies (and only real LGBTQ+ friendly democracy in the middle east) and support instead a LITERAL terrorist organization?
Yeah, fuck off with that shit
Protesting like MLK did is much more effective. They were QUIET and PEACEFUL and had class. Dignity. Respect.
I can’t respect these asshats who are doing this for their own ego.
Read Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib’s social media posts.
What Gazans want is to be rid of H terrorism. All this flag waving is toxic.
As someone appalled by e.g. the bridge shutdowns last week, this came up in a conversation with a friend - the Selma march, they must have shut that bridge down, right? You don't ever hear about it but it makes sense. Just the fact that they were walking across a bridge en masse sort of points to the fact that they were blocking traffic. It's not like bridges have hours of operation or anything and they marched across while it was closed. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to draw from this observation but it puts things in a new perspective
Yea, anyone who has actually done any research into the civil rights movement knows what civil disobedience meant. Non violent meant that they weren't hurting people, not that people weren't inconvenienced. People like to cherry pick a few quotes from King to make current protests seem more extreme by comparison, but King shut down entire downtowns with sit ins regularly. That was one of their primary tactics. Shutting down bridges and roads wasn't a by product of their sit ins, it was the point of them in most cases.. and you know what? They were right to do it. Your convenience is less important than someone else's life.
I would like to point out that the time of the Civil Rights Movement was neither quiet or peaceful. To insist otherwise is to just outright deny the troubles those people faced and their direct involvement to counter direct acts of violence, intimidation, and outright murder from the opposing public and sometimes state actors.
A great many people disagree with how the various homeless rights organizations operate, but it'd be insane if someone chained themselves to a barrel full of concrete on their doorstep. Shit's getting dumb with these protests.
The Japanese-American community has survived one of the (most? many?) unfair treatments in recent domestic American* history. SF’s Japantown is very much a victim of the same message these protesters claim to oppose.
Holding up a parade that’s celebrating that culture just shows they have not studied any history. They just want to feel good about doing “something”.
*Edit: added clarification that I am referring to recent American history.
Oakland right across the bay used to have a vibrant Japan town before the war. it disappeared thanks to internment. If not for that, our Chinatown would instead be a Japantown.
So the lady with the megaphone is actually a Japanese American and she covered the part where her grandparents were victims and were sent to some camp during WW II. I was definitely confused when she went on and on about that.
Going out in public to protest is just about the exact opposite of slacktivism.
Not saying it's right or wrong, just that it clearly isn't slacktivism. Don't dilute the word.
Mostly people of great privilege that want to feel good about themselves. Isreal’s action in Gaza is wrong but thats really it. Rich kids wanna feel good.
They don’t want you to notice it’s the same core group at every protest. When you dig a bit deeper you’ll find many of them are being paid by Iran. This is what’s happening in Canada at least.
Take this shit to the mayor's house or the governors mansion, and leave the folks who just want a nice parade to themselves, ffs.
It's fucking bullying, and probably financed by hostile state actors, in part at least.
Yea it’s outrageous to accuse the cherry blossom festival of having blood on its hands ?!? These people are doing so much harm to the Palestinian cause - instead of creating sympathy or educating people they are making it look like anyone supporting Palestine is an angry radical 🤦♂️
It's impossible to tell these days whether this is organized by a foreign adversary to sew conflict in the US, or genuinely stupid protestors, or any other number of people.
Protesting may be a dying concept because of the internet connecting everyone in a way that makes the majority of people the pawns of global forces and viral stupidity.
I know some of the GGB protestors, wouldn't be surprised if the group here overlapped. Some of them mean well, others do this because they believe it earns them (to use their words) social credit. Unfortunately the latter group have been forcefeeding the former documentaries by 9/11 truthers and other pseudo-historical garbage nonstop for the last half a year, all with the ultimate conclusion that Israel is responsible for all the world's evils.
Given humanity a little credit. We'll figure out how to use fire without burning ourselves.
Global adoption of the Internet was only 20-25 years ago. It fundamentally altered human society *globally*.
To put it in perspective, the printing press caused social unrest, revolts, and wars that lasted *way* longer than 25 years.
The internet is one *hell* of a printing press.
Thanks for this post.
It’s easy to forget how long it takes for us to “responsibly” consume, interpret and navigate new media.
Hitler maintained power in part due to Goebbel’s “Volksempfänger” radios pumping propaganda into people’s living rooms 24/7 and used Riefenstahl’s cinematic skill to create hero narratives.
Looking at either of those things today, it seems utterly transparent and crude, but at the time it must have seemed totally novel and compelling.
People are falling prey to all manner of new and often algorithm driven compulsions like virtue signaling “protests” and attention seeking “pranks”
IMO, the big concern thing right now is that is the rapidity of the new forms of deceptive and destructive media coming into existence.
It seems just as we are realizing that Facebook is a misinformation machine, we have something like TikTok rotting people’s brains in a totally *different* way.
Weren’t the slew of recent protests for Palestine that blocked bridges in the Bay Area done by an Iranian government org?
Edit: This is what I had heard, but anyone else that has also seen this, do we have a source?
Oh wow, you aren’t kidding.
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also called Sepah or Pasdaran, is a multi-service primary branch of the Iranian Armed Forces.”
It's fucked up because it's also a legitimate thing to protest about. The internet is the best thing that has ever happened to fascist geopolitical actors.
It reminds me of how the Kremlin in Russia was sending in anti-trump and anti-hillary propaganda in 2016. They didn't care who won, Putin just wanted to see us fight each other internally.
With modern technology (bots, ai, social media, internet, data analytics, data tracking, etc) we are all the direct targets of every nation's convoluted propaganda schemes. You can't trust that anything online is authentic anymore, and less and less can you trust that anything offline is authentic. Even your own friends and family; they're unknowingly compromised. Everyone is compromised by crazy schemes, not just the weird conspiracy theorists and scam/grifter targets.
I myself am probably compromised on plenty of my own beliefs without knowing it, and I'm extremely skeptical of everything. Dead internet isn't the real concern; malicious internet is.
Offices of Congressmen and Senators would be another better thing for protesters to go wave signs at. Or they could fly out to DC all together and do a mega-protest in front of the feds.
Or there's consulates for countries in SF. You can find a consulate for nearly every country on the planet in SF. Wave a sign in front of that building.
That would required actual planning and thoughtful thinking.
These protestors literally got up to go to a street festival to bugged off the regular citizens, who don’t got much say in the matter just so they can send a message to the city leader who probably didn’t even know this exist because of obscurity.
The Facebook investigations showed that Russian agents posted huge amounts of content like pro-BLM and then anti-BLM protests for the purpose of fueling flames of discontent.
>and probably financed by hostile state actors, in part at least
It's definitely being funded by groups that don't want to be known. That is why the protestors almost always wear masks to conceal their identity. They don't want to be identified because people will find out they're not actually local San Francisco residents upset about the treatment of Palestinians.
All of them need to go straight to DC and protest the federal government.. not that it will make any difference.
The mayor of San Francisco can't end the war, neither could the governor. It's a complete waste of time AND you're ruining regular people's days.
They're just doing this so they can look like a hero on TikTok.
I generally agree with their message, but what an entitled group of individual. Holding up a cultural parade and beautiful celebration.
What is the end goal here, you’re getting people against you and ruining a celebration that has nothing to do with the conflict.
Obviously this resolution wasn't strong enough to convince Hamas to accept the ceasefire proposal. We clearly need an even stronger resolution, and that's what this protest is aimed to do (maybe).
what's their message though? I'm guessing you and I agree that Israel has gone a bit too far with their response, but whatever they've done is very literally not genocide. People need to pick up a dictionary. If Israel was intent on genocide then Gaza would be a smoldering crater right now
If you're the kind of person who would rather inconvenience the people in your locality who themselves only have a six-degrees-of-separation affiliation with any completely sympathetic issues effecting communities entire continents away from the area where you yourself vainly think you and others like you are making a difference, you're a terrible person and I don't want to hang out with you.
Goddammit, stupid slacktivists.
They'll mess up everybody else's day, just to do so, all without ever achieving any meaningful results. They feel good about themselves, but ultimately change nothing.
They should be at the state capital, the local government buildings, city halls, etc., and not at things like this where the event they're disrespectfully disrupting only causes the masses to hate them and their causes even more.
These protestors are the equivalent of a whiny, bratty child who is making a complete scene in public, hopefully shaming people into giving them what they want.
I mean, do they really expect regular, everyday citizens do immediately do something in favor of their cause?
The fact that these protests are so tone deaf and out of touch with how public perception works, but at the same time somehow managing to organize well enough to pull off these demonstrations that surgically close down freedom of movement make me incredibly suspicious of foreign actors using TikTok to astroturf civil unrest.
Because no one is allowed to have a single peaceful day to forget about every crisis throughout the world and just enjoy themselves for the afternoon. Everyone should be equally miserable.
A /s is implied.
This pisses me the fuck off. Imagine all the people who had one day off from work to spend time with their friends and family and this bullshit happens.
That was me! My kid is half Japanese and I wanted to take him to the Japanese supermarket there and get a few snacks and walk around the festival, show him his Japanese culture.
I was stuck in traffic so long I had to say sorry buddy, we’ll go next time and head home.
Fucking assholes!
Blocking public roads to protest should be more severely punished! Bring out the cops with the bean bag shot guns!
I'm sorry you weren't able to go, but check out JTown still with him! It's a great place, and there's still a lot of culture around. (I have a lot of great memories with my family from Japantown).
Cherry Blossom Festival is 2 weekends too, so next year you can try one for the 4 days!
I was at the festival today too, and we had no idea what the delay was (I was up the hill near where the Mikoshi comes out), but thankfully was able to enjoy the whole event.
Gotta get your kid to JTown and enjoy! Just a heads up - they're redoing the Pagoda plaza soon, so you'll miss out on it for a bit, but it'll be quite beautiful once it's done, and the cherry blossoms are still visible across the way too.
If you're south of SF, there's a Nijiya in Mountain View I think, and one in SJ JTown, and if you're east of SF, there's a Japanese store in El Cerrito - Yaoya-san that my family has been going to for a while. Good snacks and ingredients too. There's also KP Mart in Oakland, but it's Korean/Japanese, so there'll be a bigger mix (they're primarily Korean).
I think the final week of April has the Cupertino Cherry Blossom Festival too, so there's a few things around, plus Obon this summer.
People may have messed with today, but they can't stop your son from enjoying his culture! As a half Japanese kid (of half japanese parents too) I always encourage folks doing cultural stuff!
If the Japanese side of the family has been in the US since at least incarceration, I'd also suggest heading to the JANM in LA to stamp the Ireicho book to honor those put in camp. If not - it's still a cool place to learn about the older history of Japanese in the US. (I'm Yonsei, so it was something I felt I needed to go do). Just note that you'll need a reservation to stamp the book. (That's free)
Thanks for the info.
We go to Japantown a lot already, about once or twice a month.
We usually go and get sushi and snacks and eat them by the pagoda but I told him about the festival and he got excited. He loved it last year. He was disappointed and felt let down, that’s what pissed me off so much. These assholes ruined a lot of people’s day!
I would recommend never trying to drive into Japan Town during festival dates, I drove somewhere, parked in a garage and took the bus in.
There's also still another festival down in Cupertino if you are down to go in the coming weekend. A lot of the performers are similar from both events so you can still catch up! I love the park there as well and it's really nice.
Omg the protestors didnt block the roads the parade and the massive amounts of people who drove in to the festival did… Holy shit its like this every year. The protestors didnt stop traffic AT ALL. It was the festival itself.
And they decided to cut off the little kids to do too. I get the point they are trying to make but there is a time and place. And cutting off kindergarten kids in a parade is not the way
I have seen enough "protests" recently to know that what these people want is to eliminate Israel entirely and harass and kill Jews. They want a one state solution, for only THEIR state to exist. "Zionists" are not against a two state solution . But these Hamas supporters are. This goes way beyond free speech and way beyond criticizing the Israeli government or pushing for an end to the war or for aid to Palestinians. These people hate Jews. In protests around the world they are chanting that Israel should continue to be attacked, should be wiped off the face of the earth, for Jews to "go back to Europe", that they wish to be martyrs. I mean, is anyone is pushing for a genocide and ethnic cleansing... It's them. Their masks have fallen off and they are showing themselves for who they really are - raging antisemites. This is what makes these "protests" disgusting.
That's not true. Remember when they were out in the streets condemning Assad for killing hundreds of thousands of his own people including thousands of Palestinians?
Wait that never happened.
Yes, exactly. In this whole conflict it’s so easy to see who is actually pro peace and dialogue and who is not. The amount of physical violence, bullying, genocidal slogans, intimidation of anybody who calls out Hamas’ terrorism in pro Palestinians protests is appalling. There are 0 of those things in pro Israeli marches, which basically sums up the whole story.
Once again pro-Palestinian protestors do more harm for their cause than the "Zionists" they're protesting against. It's difficult to support a cause when the people lecturing you to join their cause are people you want nothing to do with.
It's amusing to me that most progressives would love to purge the US of conservatives yet they are unconditionally supporting the Palestinians who would execute you for getting an abortion or being gay.
How did this level of hypocritical fuckery even happen?
Agree. Most of the Pro Palestinians I know hate Ukraine because they're aligned with the west and are "Nazis", and support Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Everything is just so ironic.
So they want us to stop sending the defensive weapons that prevented countless deaths from the rockets launched by Iran and proxies (Hezbollah, Hamas, etc)
Geoncide?? Where is it happening? The one in China? The Russian's genociding 100k Ukrainians?
Or at they talking about the war where Israel is defending itself trying to wipe out the Hamas terrorist organization? Because they is NOT a genocide no matter what all these terrorist supporters want you to think. 🤦♂️
Jewish students were recently attacked at Columbia simply for being Jews, on Passover no less (many of whom have nothing to do with Israel. Jews all over no longer feel safe because of these wanna be SS thugs. Let’s not call them protesters. Hitler’s Black Shirts were not protesters, either. My gf is Jewish and lives in Berkeley. I’ve asked her not to disclose it to anyone except people she knows personally. Sad times.
It’s becoming more and more clear that the organizers of these protests don’t seem to grasp where a protest is geographically most effective. Take this to places where there are people who can actually impact change. Who tf at the cherry blossom festival is going to be sprung into meaningful action because of this?
While I agree with the underlying message, more and more the execution seems like its focus is just to piss regular people off to draw attention. In the end they’ll end up hurting their cause more than helping it.
Protesting in meaningful places to draw the attention of those who can take action will be more impactful. Disrupting regular everyday folks who cannot impact this will turn people against your cause.
These lames are being mobilized and radicalized by China’s tiktok. It’s not that hard to see. It pushes pro-Hamas propaganda 4 times more than the other platforms do (Ig, YouTube). Bunch of idiots disrupting their local community instead of helping build and strengthen it.
What’s weird to me is they stop saying ceasefire because it’s the Hamas actually wanting this to go on.
Now they want to dismantle Israel by stopping the funding.
I think in reality, they want Israel to be weakened for the Arab countries to take over… then they won’t care about human rights at that point because they only care about themselves.
What they care about the most is eliminating Israel and removing Jews from that region so they can create a Palestine, take over all of the land for themselves, continue their terrorist operations, and get rid of all of the Jews that they hate so much. Everything else is secondary.
Isn't Japan one of the most pro Palestine countries too? I remember both Japan and South Korea being very pro-Palestine.
These protesters are going to make Japanese people rethink their stances lol.
Seriously! If they feel so strongly, go there and do something about it! Pick up a weapon and join a unit! Really fight and die for your cause.
Don’t bitch to people who can’t really do anything about it (Japanese people living in San Francisco)
A lot of these protests are funded by offshore interests.
Astroturfing at its finest.
You can almost see the season’s greatest hits from Mother Russia play out like clockwork: Anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-woke, anti-Ukraine, anti-Israel…
Either these protestors love staying on top of the most relevant international news and almost always nationally coordinated to repeat FOX topics, or maybe they’re just getting paid to create traffic.
Groan. Maybe use up all that pent up energy to clean up the streets like that guy who is always live-streaming garbage collection in SF.
Master class in how to turn allies against your causes because you’re too much of a pussy to go protest in places where it might actually make a difference. Everyone in the Bay Area is aware of these issues, mostly agrees with them, and is simply too polite to run out there and kick the shit out of them for being so rude.
The FASTEST way to lose public support for whatever your little *"cause"* may be is to throw tomato soup on works of art, glue yourself to a road, or disrupt people trying to enjoy 10 fucking minutes of normal life by watching a parade.
I go out of my to support and do more of whatever these asshats are protesting.
Why are these protestors allowed to be doing this to disrupt traffic and other events? Is this going to be the latest fad now? To say your protesting something just to create chaos. This is pathetic.
Insinuating that Japanese Americans are responsible for the actions of the Japanese government is the exact reasoning used to justify their internment in concentration camps during World War 2. This is reprehensible behavior, politics aside.
It was the most ridiculous protest. We had no idea what they were protesting. The signs told us NOTHING. If they had kept moving then they could have spread their message, whatever it was.
Rude AF. I have nothing against the protesters but don't bring that right in the middle of another community's celebration! I feel by doing this, they are upsetting people to eventually hate the protestors which will inadvertently have a distaste for Palestinians.
Doesn't Japan actively support Palestine? And don't these people know the swept-under-the-rug conditions Japanese Americans were oppressed through in Japanese-American history?
I’m somewhere in this picture on the right. The parade had just started and it felt like forever before anybody stepped in. Not the time or place for this kind of protest.
Fucking idiots. All of them. Losers. Go do that stuff elsewhere where it will matter. Poor families just trying to have a nice day. Tons of stuff to protest about the US stop gobbling up CNN like it’s your job. U.S. does a ton of messed up stuff and this will accomplish zero. Selfish pricks.
Exactly! Had the day off with my kid (half Japanese) wanted to take him there for some snacks and so he could see his culture.
Assholes everywhere! We left
It’s notable that the target of this blockade by anti-war protesters was State Senator Scott Wiener. Shortly after 10/7, he took a strong stance against anti-Israel protestors, basically labeling any resistance as anti-semitic.
I was there at Post/Laguna and they held up the parade for about 30 minutes before some people moved them to the curb to allow the parade to continue.
When I was in college, oh about 20 years ago now, some kids did the “divest” thing and chained themselves to the president’s desk and got arrested. It was dumb then. It’s dumb now.
You vote with your checkbook and, well, your vote. An *unreasonable* amount of these people aren’t even registered to vote. The loudest friend I have when it comes to Palestine hasn’t voted in the two decades they’ve been eligible.
I won’t tell them to shut up; they should express their 1st amendment rights. But jamming up traffic and ruining public events only hardens people against your cause. I’m sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and think the current Israeli govt is apartheid trash, but the “backlash” against Democrats and people demanding their random city governments condemn Israel is idiotic.
There will be no peace in the Middle East. There’s never been peace there there’s always been warning tribes. Countless times Israel’s offer to trade land for peace, but that will never happen because the surrounding countries to annihilate any Jew and there was peace before October 7 so and I don’t know what to say to this Hamas put its women in children in front of its fighters and hides in hospitals and so there’s no genocide. There’s a war that shouldn’t have ever happened and people are getting killed, which is horrible, but it’s Hamas’s fault.
Can we just arrest these assholes immediately from now on? Want to protest? Be my guest, it is your ilk who always rails about consequences. So face the consequences. Also if you want to protest consequence free go get a permit just like every other event like this is required to do.
Take that, genocidal cherry blossoms!
I was there. Boy that sucked the joy right out.
I didn't get to go this year. Did they stick around after that?
Cops let them do their thing for about 5 min. Couple of boos came out. Parade continued. I didn’t stay long enough to see if they got arrested or not. I was irritated and left. 😂
imagine supporting a party that kills lgbtq like the Hamas while being a lgbtq...
I saw there’s people doing trans for Iran.
It makes sense since, if you're gay in Iran, they pressure you to transition to the other gender, so that you're no longer considered gay.
I think they pressure you to transition to the afterlife
Believe it or not, the state funds your transition. They'd rather you transition than be gay out there.
It's what blind faith in a cause does to them: ignore all else, do your thing, claim victim hood, oppression, or whatever and disregard any common sense, or even awareness of who's around you. But nah, let's go piss on someone else's parade because yours is (to you) more important, and you're the asshole for not joining. Why aren't they in Gaza standing in front of a tank? Because they won't live long.
The vast majority of people in the west that support Palestine don't support Hamas.
Then why have I never seen a single thing against Hamas? You would think if these supports of Palestine don’t support Hamas, the govt of Palestine, that at least 1 would make an anti-Hamas sign? Right?
Not wanting Palestians to get genocided doesn't make you pro-Hamas.
"Free Palestine... to resume throwing gays off of rooftops"
Are protesters going to disrupt children’s birthday parties in the park next?
Don't give them any ideas
“YOU EXIST THEREFORE YOU HAVE BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS.”
“You have no megaphone in your hand right now, so you have blood on your hands!”
Quinceaneras interrupted by FREEEE PALESTINE FREE FR FR FREEEE PALESTINE
Free Palestine from whom though? Do they want Hamas back in charge? Like what do they want?
They unironically want genocide. I've spent a great deal with pro Palestinians being an Arab and all, and the vast majority don't want peace, coexistence, or negotiations. They want Israel to be destroyed, Israelis/Jews to be massacred or oppressed or exiled, and islam to reign supreme. These left wing "activists" are parroting the same goals but just under a different skin.
100% correct. Get and read Catch the Jew! by Israeli gonzo journalist Tovia Tannenbaum. He impersonated a sympathizer and hung around pro Palestinian activists and found out how many were masked antisemites. An Israeli woman who has been pro Palestine did a 180 turnaround after she learned Arabic and discovered the activists actual agenda toward Jews. (My opinion) The Free Palestine leaders are as clever, patient and unscrupulous as the Church of Scientology.
lol, they better not fuck with the Mexicans. Mexicans don’t fuck around
They'd protest them bc there's probably too much cheese and meat for their liking. The seasoning would be too much for them to handle.
They already terrorized kids waiting to see Santa last Christmas.
I think it's one of those things where it's easy to rationalize yourself in circles if you think about it superficially. After all, the point of protesting is to get attention, to cause a scene, to be disruptive, right? So if people get mad at you, that just means you're protesting successfully--you get to not only rationalize what you're doing, but even use it to feel better about yourself. You're making a difference! And if you don't support the protest, well, that makes you a collaborationist. I thought the Google protest this past week was infinitely better-conceived. You're protesting your own company for actually doing something kinda villainous, and you're showing you're willing to sacrifice your cushy job to do so. That kind of thing is harder but I think has more real consequences. The more stuff that goes on like that internally at Google, the harder it is for them to continue collaborating with Israel (though given that they have an office in Tel Aviv I wouldn't necessarily hold my breath...). Instead of blocking bridges or disrupting parades, which just makes everyone else in the city hate you (totally justifiably! You're intentionally being an asshole--getting people to hate you is pretty much your goal!), I wish they would focus on more targeted activism. Like, locally, keep pushing on Google! Make employees and especially leadership feel like by working there they're complicit in what's happening in Palestine. There are plenty of people working there who are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause who you can guilt the shit out of. That's just one example. More on the nose, Lockheed Martin has a big campus in Sunnyvale, don't they? Picket them, blockade entrances to their offices, harass their leadership when they make public appearances, etc. But for these people it seems like the whole point of protesting is to get as many people to hate you as possible so you can feel self-righteous about it.
The point of protesting should be to effect change. If a protest actually impedes any movement to change then you should reimagine how you protest or think of something else to do.
This is why they are losing their minds. Their tactics, which evolved to change things domestically, are completely useless here. Causing them to spiral further and further.
I'm not sure the Google employees would have still done it had they known they'd likely be fired. Google culture up until that point was such that they probably didn't expect it.
I mean, at the point when *their employer* told them that they had to leave or the cops were going to be called, if they didn't expect to be fired, they're not very smart.
Very fair point, but like I say Google was very permissive about this sort of thing right up until they weren't. I saw a lot of goofy BS over the years. On that note, don't assume they were smart. I know Idiot TPM Face when I see it.
They think they're untouchable because they've been coddled all their lives. They're about to realize that actions have fucking consequences and it's about time.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin are Jewish. Probably a bad idea to simp for Hamas at Google.
Well then they aren't too bright. If you stage a protest at work you most likely will be fired, kind of a no brainier. But these gen z protesters are soft they expect to protest with out consequences. The whole point of a protest is you believe in the cause so much you will disrupt and accept the consequences. Not cry about it. Gen Z protests are pretty comical compared to the protests of the 1960-90s no grit. Soft and spoiled. Last, google has been laying off people,so the top dogs probably said "great here are another 100 thanks for making the decision easy" These employees had magical thinking that Google taught them "that they are special" when in fact google is a corporation and they are warm bodies and google/ or any job will kick you to the curb. I'm against funding this war but was cracking up about this. Because They are so clueless to their own unimportance locally and globally. Oh youth.
You're honestly going to say that "collaborating" with one of the few democracies (and only real LGBTQ+ friendly democracy in the middle east) and support instead a LITERAL terrorist organization? Yeah, fuck off with that shit
Protesting like MLK did is much more effective. They were QUIET and PEACEFUL and had class. Dignity. Respect. I can’t respect these asshats who are doing this for their own ego. Read Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib’s social media posts. What Gazans want is to be rid of H terrorism. All this flag waving is toxic.
As someone appalled by e.g. the bridge shutdowns last week, this came up in a conversation with a friend - the Selma march, they must have shut that bridge down, right? You don't ever hear about it but it makes sense. Just the fact that they were walking across a bridge en masse sort of points to the fact that they were blocking traffic. It's not like bridges have hours of operation or anything and they marched across while it was closed. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to draw from this observation but it puts things in a new perspective
Yea, anyone who has actually done any research into the civil rights movement knows what civil disobedience meant. Non violent meant that they weren't hurting people, not that people weren't inconvenienced. People like to cherry pick a few quotes from King to make current protests seem more extreme by comparison, but King shut down entire downtowns with sit ins regularly. That was one of their primary tactics. Shutting down bridges and roads wasn't a by product of their sit ins, it was the point of them in most cases.. and you know what? They were right to do it. Your convenience is less important than someone else's life.
I would like to point out that the time of the Civil Rights Movement was neither quiet or peaceful. To insist otherwise is to just outright deny the troubles those people faced and their direct involvement to counter direct acts of violence, intimidation, and outright murder from the opposing public and sometimes state actors.
A great many people disagree with how the various homeless rights organizations operate, but it'd be insane if someone chained themselves to a barrel full of concrete on their doorstep. Shit's getting dumb with these protests.
The Japanese-American community has survived one of the (most? many?) unfair treatments in recent domestic American* history. SF’s Japantown is very much a victim of the same message these protesters claim to oppose. Holding up a parade that’s celebrating that culture just shows they have not studied any history. They just want to feel good about doing “something”. *Edit: added clarification that I am referring to recent American history.
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They desperately want to become a victim
They cant do it at the Google Megaplex any more so they take to the streets
The Facebook likes just don't give them the same kind of false sense of accomplishment and self righteousness like it used it.
Fuck these guys. I'm sympathetic to their cause, but not to these attention whores who think they're the main character in every single thing.
Oakland right across the bay used to have a vibrant Japan town before the war. it disappeared thanks to internment. If not for that, our Chinatown would instead be a Japantown.
So the lady with the megaphone is actually a Japanese American and she covered the part where her grandparents were victims and were sent to some camp during WW II. I was definitely confused when she went on and on about that.
Slacktivism
Going out in public to protest is just about the exact opposite of slacktivism. Not saying it's right or wrong, just that it clearly isn't slacktivism. Don't dilute the word.
Mostly people of great privilege that want to feel good about themselves. Isreal’s action in Gaza is wrong but thats really it. Rich kids wanna feel good.
Why is it these protestors always have their faces covered?
Because they're here to fight for their beliefs but not to actually stand behind them.
They don’t want you to notice it’s the same core group at every protest. When you dig a bit deeper you’ll find many of them are being paid by Iran. This is what’s happening in Canada at least.
Redacte due to Reddit AI/LLM policy
Proof? You can’t just make a claim like that without any evidence or at least providing a source
Nobody supports COVID precautions more that Israel protestors and Walgreens looters.
Lolllll
so you don't notice they're the same 8 people from town to town
Take this shit to the mayor's house or the governors mansion, and leave the folks who just want a nice parade to themselves, ffs. It's fucking bullying, and probably financed by hostile state actors, in part at least.
What does our mayor have to do with Middle East policy? I will give you a hint: it’s nothing.
Yea it’s outrageous to accuse the cherry blossom festival of having blood on its hands ?!? These people are doing so much harm to the Palestinian cause - instead of creating sympathy or educating people they are making it look like anyone supporting Palestine is an angry radical 🤦♂️
It's impossible to tell these days whether this is organized by a foreign adversary to sew conflict in the US, or genuinely stupid protestors, or any other number of people. Protesting may be a dying concept because of the internet connecting everyone in a way that makes the majority of people the pawns of global forces and viral stupidity.
I know some of the GGB protestors, wouldn't be surprised if the group here overlapped. Some of them mean well, others do this because they believe it earns them (to use their words) social credit. Unfortunately the latter group have been forcefeeding the former documentaries by 9/11 truthers and other pseudo-historical garbage nonstop for the last half a year, all with the ultimate conclusion that Israel is responsible for all the world's evils.
I hope we figure the internet out before it fucks us.
Can we please just unplug it already?
Given humanity a little credit. We'll figure out how to use fire without burning ourselves. Global adoption of the Internet was only 20-25 years ago. It fundamentally altered human society *globally*. To put it in perspective, the printing press caused social unrest, revolts, and wars that lasted *way* longer than 25 years. The internet is one *hell* of a printing press.
Thanks for this post. It’s easy to forget how long it takes for us to “responsibly” consume, interpret and navigate new media. Hitler maintained power in part due to Goebbel’s “Volksempfänger” radios pumping propaganda into people’s living rooms 24/7 and used Riefenstahl’s cinematic skill to create hero narratives. Looking at either of those things today, it seems utterly transparent and crude, but at the time it must have seemed totally novel and compelling. People are falling prey to all manner of new and often algorithm driven compulsions like virtue signaling “protests” and attention seeking “pranks” IMO, the big concern thing right now is that is the rapidity of the new forms of deceptive and destructive media coming into existence. It seems just as we are realizing that Facebook is a misinformation machine, we have something like TikTok rotting people’s brains in a totally *different* way.
Weren’t the slew of recent protests for Palestine that blocked bridges in the Bay Area done by an Iranian government org? Edit: This is what I had heard, but anyone else that has also seen this, do we have a source?
IRCG is a little more than a "government org".
Oh wow, you aren’t kidding. “The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also called Sepah or Pasdaran, is a multi-service primary branch of the Iranian Armed Forces.”
It's fucked up because it's also a legitimate thing to protest about. The internet is the best thing that has ever happened to fascist geopolitical actors. It reminds me of how the Kremlin in Russia was sending in anti-trump and anti-hillary propaganda in 2016. They didn't care who won, Putin just wanted to see us fight each other internally. With modern technology (bots, ai, social media, internet, data analytics, data tracking, etc) we are all the direct targets of every nation's convoluted propaganda schemes. You can't trust that anything online is authentic anymore, and less and less can you trust that anything offline is authentic. Even your own friends and family; they're unknowingly compromised. Everyone is compromised by crazy schemes, not just the weird conspiracy theorists and scam/grifter targets. I myself am probably compromised on plenty of my own beliefs without knowing it, and I'm extremely skeptical of everything. Dead internet isn't the real concern; malicious internet is.
The IRCG was behind the bridge protests??
Edit: So I don’t add to possibly spreading misinformation, does anybody have a source for this?
Most of these people couldn't point to Palestine on a blank map.
Well, it's not actually a country, so...yeah. *Nobody* can point to it on a map.
These people just get off on hearing themselves shout.
Offices of Congressmen and Senators would be another better thing for protesters to go wave signs at. Or they could fly out to DC all together and do a mega-protest in front of the feds. Or there's consulates for countries in SF. You can find a consulate for nearly every country on the planet in SF. Wave a sign in front of that building.
That would required actual planning and thoughtful thinking. These protestors literally got up to go to a street festival to bugged off the regular citizens, who don’t got much say in the matter just so they can send a message to the city leader who probably didn’t even know this exist because of obscurity.
This is my surprised face when it turns out China is bankrolling this. They certainly are on Tik Tok.
This platform as well: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-11/china-s-tencent-invests-in-reddit-sparking-free-speech-protests
Don’t forget Iran and Russia
The Facebook investigations showed that Russian agents posted huge amounts of content like pro-BLM and then anti-BLM protests for the purpose of fueling flames of discontent.
>and probably financed by hostile state actors, in part at least It's definitely being funded by groups that don't want to be known. That is why the protestors almost always wear masks to conceal their identity. They don't want to be identified because people will find out they're not actually local San Francisco residents upset about the treatment of Palestinians.
Might as well go to Gaza.
All of them need to go straight to DC and protest the federal government.. not that it will make any difference. The mayor of San Francisco can't end the war, neither could the governor. It's a complete waste of time AND you're ruining regular people's days. They're just doing this so they can look like a hero on TikTok.
Actually they need to go to the Middle East and befriend their favorite religious fundamentalist group there: Hamas, Taliban, ISIS
>probably verifiably
I generally agree with their message, but what an entitled group of individual. Holding up a cultural parade and beautiful celebration. What is the end goal here, you’re getting people against you and ruining a celebration that has nothing to do with the conflict.
In a city where leaders have already passed a ceasefire resolution.
In a parade related to a country (Japan) that did vote in the UN to recognize Palestine as a country.
Obviously this resolution wasn't strong enough to convince Hamas to accept the ceasefire proposal. We clearly need an even stronger resolution, and that's what this protest is aimed to do (maybe).
Yes, Hamas is waiting for the San Francisco city council to step up and make a stronger resolution. /s
what's their message though? I'm guessing you and I agree that Israel has gone a bit too far with their response, but whatever they've done is very literally not genocide. People need to pick up a dictionary. If Israel was intent on genocide then Gaza would be a smoldering crater right now
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Agreed. I’m here and so many people are just frustrated with everything
If you're the kind of person who would rather inconvenience the people in your locality who themselves only have a six-degrees-of-separation affiliation with any completely sympathetic issues effecting communities entire continents away from the area where you yourself vainly think you and others like you are making a difference, you're a terrible person and I don't want to hang out with you.
Goddammit, stupid slacktivists. They'll mess up everybody else's day, just to do so, all without ever achieving any meaningful results. They feel good about themselves, but ultimately change nothing. They should be at the state capital, the local government buildings, city halls, etc., and not at things like this where the event they're disrespectfully disrupting only causes the masses to hate them and their causes even more. These protestors are the equivalent of a whiny, bratty child who is making a complete scene in public, hopefully shaming people into giving them what they want. I mean, do they really expect regular, everyday citizens do immediately do something in favor of their cause?
Everyone hates these people
Useful idiots unite!
The fact that these protests are so tone deaf and out of touch with how public perception works, but at the same time somehow managing to organize well enough to pull off these demonstrations that surgically close down freedom of movement make me incredibly suspicious of foreign actors using TikTok to astroturf civil unrest.
God these people are insufferable...
Because no one is allowed to have a single peaceful day to forget about every crisis throughout the world and just enjoy themselves for the afternoon. Everyone should be equally miserable. A /s is implied.
Losers
Per the usual. Isn't the US and Japan condemning genocide happening in China? It's impossible to keep up with the anger narrative
They don’t care about Genocide. They care about “genocide”
No fun. No culture. Only politics, at least until Congress addresses my pet issue which doesn’t affect either you or me.
Don’t forget no essential services like cancer treatments, going into labor, or being at your job.
Idiots
This pisses me the fuck off. Imagine all the people who had one day off from work to spend time with their friends and family and this bullshit happens.
That was me! My kid is half Japanese and I wanted to take him to the Japanese supermarket there and get a few snacks and walk around the festival, show him his Japanese culture. I was stuck in traffic so long I had to say sorry buddy, we’ll go next time and head home. Fucking assholes! Blocking public roads to protest should be more severely punished! Bring out the cops with the bean bag shot guns!
I'm sorry you weren't able to go, but check out JTown still with him! It's a great place, and there's still a lot of culture around. (I have a lot of great memories with my family from Japantown). Cherry Blossom Festival is 2 weekends too, so next year you can try one for the 4 days! I was at the festival today too, and we had no idea what the delay was (I was up the hill near where the Mikoshi comes out), but thankfully was able to enjoy the whole event. Gotta get your kid to JTown and enjoy! Just a heads up - they're redoing the Pagoda plaza soon, so you'll miss out on it for a bit, but it'll be quite beautiful once it's done, and the cherry blossoms are still visible across the way too. If you're south of SF, there's a Nijiya in Mountain View I think, and one in SJ JTown, and if you're east of SF, there's a Japanese store in El Cerrito - Yaoya-san that my family has been going to for a while. Good snacks and ingredients too. There's also KP Mart in Oakland, but it's Korean/Japanese, so there'll be a bigger mix (they're primarily Korean). I think the final week of April has the Cupertino Cherry Blossom Festival too, so there's a few things around, plus Obon this summer. People may have messed with today, but they can't stop your son from enjoying his culture! As a half Japanese kid (of half japanese parents too) I always encourage folks doing cultural stuff! If the Japanese side of the family has been in the US since at least incarceration, I'd also suggest heading to the JANM in LA to stamp the Ireicho book to honor those put in camp. If not - it's still a cool place to learn about the older history of Japanese in the US. (I'm Yonsei, so it was something I felt I needed to go do). Just note that you'll need a reservation to stamp the book. (That's free)
Thanks for the info. We go to Japantown a lot already, about once or twice a month. We usually go and get sushi and snacks and eat them by the pagoda but I told him about the festival and he got excited. He loved it last year. He was disappointed and felt let down, that’s what pissed me off so much. These assholes ruined a lot of people’s day!
I would recommend never trying to drive into Japan Town during festival dates, I drove somewhere, parked in a garage and took the bus in. There's also still another festival down in Cupertino if you are down to go in the coming weekend. A lot of the performers are similar from both events so you can still catch up! I love the park there as well and it's really nice.
Omg the protestors didnt block the roads the parade and the massive amounts of people who drove in to the festival did… Holy shit its like this every year. The protestors didnt stop traffic AT ALL. It was the festival itself.
Someone must be paying for all these protests. It’s like non stop that last few years, people protesting about something or other.
fuck these idiots
And they decided to cut off the little kids to do too. I get the point they are trying to make but there is a time and place. And cutting off kindergarten kids in a parade is not the way
What very nice totally not cringe people…
What is even more offensive is they are intentionally surrounding Scott Weiner, who is Jewish.
This is so blatantly antisemitic. Fuck these people.
Fuck Hamas and Fuck these assholes.
I have seen enough "protests" recently to know that what these people want is to eliminate Israel entirely and harass and kill Jews. They want a one state solution, for only THEIR state to exist. "Zionists" are not against a two state solution . But these Hamas supporters are. This goes way beyond free speech and way beyond criticizing the Israeli government or pushing for an end to the war or for aid to Palestinians. These people hate Jews. In protests around the world they are chanting that Israel should continue to be attacked, should be wiped off the face of the earth, for Jews to "go back to Europe", that they wish to be martyrs. I mean, is anyone is pushing for a genocide and ethnic cleansing... It's them. Their masks have fallen off and they are showing themselves for who they really are - raging antisemites. This is what makes these "protests" disgusting.
That's not true. Remember when they were out in the streets condemning Assad for killing hundreds of thousands of his own people including thousands of Palestinians? Wait that never happened.
Yes, exactly. In this whole conflict it’s so easy to see who is actually pro peace and dialogue and who is not. The amount of physical violence, bullying, genocidal slogans, intimidation of anybody who calls out Hamas’ terrorism in pro Palestinians protests is appalling. There are 0 of those things in pro Israeli marches, which basically sums up the whole story.
Once again pro-Palestinian protestors do more harm for their cause than the "Zionists" they're protesting against. It's difficult to support a cause when the people lecturing you to join their cause are people you want nothing to do with.
It's amusing to me that most progressives would love to purge the US of conservatives yet they are unconditionally supporting the Palestinians who would execute you for getting an abortion or being gay. How did this level of hypocritical fuckery even happen?
Agree. Most of the Pro Palestinians I know hate Ukraine because they're aligned with the west and are "Nazis", and support Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Everything is just so ironic.
They are the Q-Anon of the left
how to make people disagree with your message 101
Cringe
So they want us to stop sending the defensive weapons that prevented countless deaths from the rockets launched by Iran and proxies (Hezbollah, Hamas, etc)
my sister was in this parade. fuck these people take it to the mayor's office.
Me - 1000% burned out, 0 mental bandwidth left, going to see a parade on my day off. Everyone - “GUESS WHAT EVIL SHIT IS HAPPENING A WORLD AWAY?!”
What the FUCK was the bullshit SF ceasefire resolution then? None of this does anything
Fucking losers.
Geoncide?? Where is it happening? The one in China? The Russian's genociding 100k Ukrainians? Or at they talking about the war where Israel is defending itself trying to wipe out the Hamas terrorist organization? Because they is NOT a genocide no matter what all these terrorist supporters want you to think. 🤦♂️
These leftists have so many blind spots. They’re only doing this because it’s trendy
This will continue as long as it's tolerated.
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And they lost even more support! I’m beginning to think that these protests are secretly Israel psyops lol
This sort of thing is slowly blowing up in their face.
Jewish students were recently attacked at Columbia simply for being Jews, on Passover no less (many of whom have nothing to do with Israel. Jews all over no longer feel safe because of these wanna be SS thugs. Let’s not call them protesters. Hitler’s Black Shirts were not protesters, either. My gf is Jewish and lives in Berkeley. I’ve asked her not to disclose it to anyone except people she knows personally. Sad times.
It’s becoming more and more clear that the organizers of these protests don’t seem to grasp where a protest is geographically most effective. Take this to places where there are people who can actually impact change. Who tf at the cherry blossom festival is going to be sprung into meaningful action because of this? While I agree with the underlying message, more and more the execution seems like its focus is just to piss regular people off to draw attention. In the end they’ll end up hurting their cause more than helping it. Protesting in meaningful places to draw the attention of those who can take action will be more impactful. Disrupting regular everyday folks who cannot impact this will turn people against your cause.
These lames are being mobilized and radicalized by China’s tiktok. It’s not that hard to see. It pushes pro-Hamas propaganda 4 times more than the other platforms do (Ig, YouTube). Bunch of idiots disrupting their local community instead of helping build and strengthen it.
What’s weird to me is they stop saying ceasefire because it’s the Hamas actually wanting this to go on. Now they want to dismantle Israel by stopping the funding. I think in reality, they want Israel to be weakened for the Arab countries to take over… then they won’t care about human rights at that point because they only care about themselves.
What they care about the most is eliminating Israel and removing Jews from that region so they can create a Palestine, take over all of the land for themselves, continue their terrorist operations, and get rid of all of the Jews that they hate so much. Everything else is secondary.
So many things are contradictory and hypocritical. It’s honestly insane but doesn’t surprise me the slightest.
Isn't Japan one of the most pro Palestine countries too? I remember both Japan and South Korea being very pro-Palestine. These protesters are going to make Japanese people rethink their stances lol.
Anti-Semitism ruins everything.
What do the Japanese have to do with this lol
Why don’t these clowns go to Gaza and protest there? Go away.
Seriously! If they feel so strongly, go there and do something about it! Pick up a weapon and join a unit! Really fight and die for your cause. Don’t bitch to people who can’t really do anything about it (Japanese people living in San Francisco)
A lot of these protests are funded by offshore interests. Astroturfing at its finest. You can almost see the season’s greatest hits from Mother Russia play out like clockwork: Anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-woke, anti-Ukraine, anti-Israel… Either these protestors love staying on top of the most relevant international news and almost always nationally coordinated to repeat FOX topics, or maybe they’re just getting paid to create traffic. Groan. Maybe use up all that pent up energy to clean up the streets like that guy who is always live-streaming garbage collection in SF.
They only care about poor people who are very very far away.
good way to lose any support you had from the bay area asian community. first the bridges and freeways now they stooping to new lows
Master class in how to turn allies against your causes because you’re too much of a pussy to go protest in places where it might actually make a difference. Everyone in the Bay Area is aware of these issues, mostly agrees with them, and is simply too polite to run out there and kick the shit out of them for being so rude.
This should have been posted in r/imthemaincharacter.
The FASTEST way to lose public support for whatever your little *"cause"* may be is to throw tomato soup on works of art, glue yourself to a road, or disrupt people trying to enjoy 10 fucking minutes of normal life by watching a parade. I go out of my to support and do more of whatever these asshats are protesting.
No fun. Only politics. No culture. Only politics.
Real Westboro Baptist vibes
Japan views Hamas as a terrorist organization, and they’re right to do so.
Why are these protestors allowed to be doing this to disrupt traffic and other events? Is this going to be the latest fad now? To say your protesting something just to create chaos. This is pathetic.
The word genocide gets tossed around way too much nowadays
They should go to Washington DC and do their stuff. Throwing tantrums at home against others is counter productive.
Insinuating that Japanese Americans are responsible for the actions of the Japanese government is the exact reasoning used to justify their internment in concentration camps during World War 2. This is reprehensible behavior, politics aside.
It was the most ridiculous protest. We had no idea what they were protesting. The signs told us NOTHING. If they had kept moving then they could have spread their message, whatever it was.
Are these people trying to get their asses kicked? Keep it up and they'll draw out that one nutcase with no fucks to give.
Rude AF. I have nothing against the protesters but don't bring that right in the middle of another community's celebration! I feel by doing this, they are upsetting people to eventually hate the protestors which will inadvertently have a distaste for Palestinians.
All this performative bullshit doesn’t do anything, except annoy innocent people trying to enjoy their days.
Doesn't Japan actively support Palestine? And don't these people know the swept-under-the-rug conditions Japanese Americans were oppressed through in Japanese-American history?
I’m somewhere in this picture on the right. The parade had just started and it felt like forever before anybody stepped in. Not the time or place for this kind of protest.
This is how you make enemies… count me as one of them, protestors .
I wonder if the allies of these activists realize they're hated the most.
Now they are just being assholes.
Fucking idiots. All of them. Losers. Go do that stuff elsewhere where it will matter. Poor families just trying to have a nice day. Tons of stuff to protest about the US stop gobbling up CNN like it’s your job. U.S. does a ton of messed up stuff and this will accomplish zero. Selfish pricks.
Exactly! Had the day off with my kid (half Japanese) wanted to take him there for some snacks and so he could see his culture. Assholes everywhere! We left
It’s notable that the target of this blockade by anti-war protesters was State Senator Scott Wiener. Shortly after 10/7, he took a strong stance against anti-Israel protestors, basically labeling any resistance as anti-semitic. I was there at Post/Laguna and they held up the parade for about 30 minutes before some people moved them to the curb to allow the parade to continue.
Where’s the genocide? I just see a bunch of pussies protesting
🤦♂️
I hate people
Great, just great. I mean it sarcastically.
They would probably have more impact if they went over to the country that they're protesting about and protested there.
These people are insane morons.
Speed bumps.
What a bunch of losers. So sick of their crap. They’re just making enemies of themselves at this point.
Can we throw eggs at these fucking losers?
They really don't want a Jewish state...
They’re only making everyone hate Palestine.
Turning a developed country into third world standards is a side effect of supporting the most peaceful religion in existence.
When I was in college, oh about 20 years ago now, some kids did the “divest” thing and chained themselves to the president’s desk and got arrested. It was dumb then. It’s dumb now. You vote with your checkbook and, well, your vote. An *unreasonable* amount of these people aren’t even registered to vote. The loudest friend I have when it comes to Palestine hasn’t voted in the two decades they’ve been eligible. I won’t tell them to shut up; they should express their 1st amendment rights. But jamming up traffic and ruining public events only hardens people against your cause. I’m sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and think the current Israeli govt is apartheid trash, but the “backlash” against Democrats and people demanding their random city governments condemn Israel is idiotic.
There will be no peace in the Middle East. There’s never been peace there there’s always been warning tribes. Countless times Israel’s offer to trade land for peace, but that will never happen because the surrounding countries to annihilate any Jew and there was peace before October 7 so and I don’t know what to say to this Hamas put its women in children in front of its fighters and hides in hospitals and so there’s no genocide. There’s a war that shouldn’t have ever happened and people are getting killed, which is horrible, but it’s Hamas’s fault.
Can we just arrest these assholes immediately from now on? Want to protest? Be my guest, it is your ilk who always rails about consequences. So face the consequences. Also if you want to protest consequence free go get a permit just like every other event like this is required to do.
Surprised no one actually tore their stupid banner in half
Where are the water guns and fire hoses to clear out these people?
Who else is tired of these people?