the wto protests were a turning point for me as a college student, that's when i learned that the news media can lie, and that militarized police are the ones who overwhelmingly initiate fear and perpetrate the violence accredited to protestors on the evening news. i guess a new generation of college students is learning about this now, probably the most important thing they'll learn on their campuses in 4 years tbh
@seachanger there is nothing like a large demonstration the ruling class don't approve of to highlight the reality of who has power and what side everyone is on when the chips are down.
The police won't stop your employer destroying your town to hire cheap labour in China but they will most certainly arrest you for protesting it
@seachanger yeah. experiencing this stuff for yourself is .. something. i have plenty of stories involving police violence, & protest. but i'll never forget the media coverage of Baltimore during the Freddie Gray protests. i'd lived there for decades when the media descended..
.. & produced insane distortions of reality, seemingly with the sole intent to villify the citizens of baltimore & those standing up for human rights, & exalt the very destructive & extremely violent police force
there is nothing like the feeling you get within a large crowd of peaceful human beings united around justice and joining voices together. its one of the closest things to magic or spirit i have felt in this society. and there is no replacement for experience when it comes to observing how hundreds of uniformed, masked, armed, and armored men arriving with tanks and deploying gas and smoke and bangs and rubber bullets creates an instant war zone where there didn't need to be one. nothing like it
between BLM and now the campus protests, this gen is learning that US politics is not a spectrum from blue to red. there is no center or centrism here, just a bold dividing line in front of people and causes whom the police will immediately go to war with, and on the other side of that line are people who defend the police (“law and order”), who are “tough on crime”, who will both sides the human rights of others, and who will prioritize polls, norms and careers over justice. no center
for the privileged (white) American, it may take a good tear gassing to understand that when dissent on behalf of justice is criminalized, anyone using “tough on crime” rhetoric is giving American fascism a little boost, does not matter if they vote blue or red. anyone who uses their podium to lie about the nature of protests, or to elevate fear of disorder over the protection of human rights is someone who has decided to bless the violent over the vulnerable, and that fertilizes fascism
@bedirthan i have photos of my friends and i recovering from that, our young faces are big and puffy and splotchy beet red, pretty wild to look at. we really had no idea about tear gas and weren't prepared at all. they gassed that zone so hard
@seachanger The moment I keep remembering is being in downtown LA on a national day of action for Occupy.
I had my little brother with me, which was perfectly fine for the large, peaceful, and orderly march. It was less fine when the LAPD surrounded the plaza with a human wall of hundreds of cops in riot gear and started teargassing people.
Not a part of the big sister education process that I was expecting to take on.
@MichaelBishop you know i graduated from college wearing a sign demanding responsible investments, a cause i had worked for as a student. every time my own alumni association has asked me for money i've asked about that responsible investment plan! 20+ years later, no money from me lol
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