Fascist policy has moved quickly in response to the recent solidarity encampments that sprang up to support Palestine. It seems like every state action right now is geared toward either making sure these camps can never again exist, or they can legally be crushed by any fascist who wishes to do so. I'm NGL, it's a scary time to be an American with left views right now.
What's happening just off the top of my head:
- Camps are being destroyed and dispersed by armed police, attacked by right-wing mobs, and harassed by Zionist propaganda shops.
- Positive coverage of the protests on mainstream media is near-zero. Same thing we saw during BLM protests in 2020.
- Individual protestors are facing consequences ranging from doxxing to harassment, to school suspensions, expulsion, and jail time.
That's all run-of-the-mill, seen that before. What's new:
- A man who was convicted, by a jury, of murdering protestors was just pardoned by the Governor of Texas.
- Protests continue to be attacked by fascists in vehicles.
- The federal government & many states are passing laws changing the definition of antisemitism to include the messages that the students were using at the camps, making it that much easier to legally suppress them.
- At least one state (NC) is about to change it's mask law to prevent protestors from wearing masks to protect themselves from Zionist retaliation.
So... protesting is basically banned, extremely dangerous, and silenced due to media blackout, state oppression, and social media bias. I know showing solidarity is important but I am struggling with seeing the local camp my local org helped support, a group of peaceful students and activists, just utterly crushed. IDK what to say to the people who effectively lost their rights to free speech.
Any ideas on what to do? How to escalate? How to protest in a way that is more effective and safer for the folks involved? I know the state is scared of these movements growing because of the sheer amount of action it is taking to quell these. At the same time I see these tactics working. I am tired of seeing good people dragged into jail. I'm tired of seeing them speared under the false charges of "anti-Semitism". I'm afraid of losing the life I have if I speak out. It feels like literally everyone is against us and it is depressing af.
I originally wanted to post a question about defending against vehicular attacks, but I remembered everything going on and realized there's a lot more stopping protests than that. I don't have the answers but hopefully we can collectively figure out some options.
If the democratic powers that be won't stop enabling genocide, we have to physically prevent the arms from getting to where they're meant to go. Some countries are refusing port access to arms shipments, maybe a similar action at various US ports like have been reported on some indie outlets would be in order.
Its pretty hard core, but I don't see what other options we have. Its possible that some kind of political reform could make a difference, but I imagine that would have to be done as part of a mass anti genocide movement. The timeline for that doesn't really work though and we can't resign ourselves to saying its too late.
A coordinated strike/boycott by the ports would be hitting the empire where it really hurts. Radical labor actions by a coalition of the transportation sector would be devastating, imo.
Organize unionize strike
Only withholding labour has any power to change things IMHO