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.
The Dutch model has seen some success. Smaller, roving support protests that immediately disperse at the first sign of police involvement. Cops got spread thin and couldn't envelop protestors because they couldn't concentrate their forces enough to make arrests.
At the same time, these roving protests were a threat to police backlines that theynhad to respect.
Riot police are elite heavy infantry. They're perfectly suited to marching in formation and being absolutely unstoppable from the front. They have seige equipment to limit the utility of set fortifications too. Protestors need skirmisher support
i've been seriously thinking about how to apply late 15th century infantry tactics to protests lately. that kind of tight coordination of different specialists.
yours is straight Roman legionary tactics though and i think just as useful
What do the 15th century tactics look like
on the 15th century battlefield it was basically tight coordination between different types of infantry. pikemen, gunners, light skirmishers, light and heavy cavalry, etc. everyone had a role.
it's trying to apply this kind of specialization to urban protest "warfare" that i've been thinking of. it breaks down not to the weapons of the 15th century guys but their purpose. pikemen kept heavy infantry and cavalry at bay, formed a "mobile fort" to retreat to, gunners would form up outside this formation, fire, and often reposition or retreat inside it. skirmishers could dive under pikes and infilitrate the human fort. cavalry existed to take down infantry out of formation.
what would the modern analogs to this be? if riot cops are basically just a block of heavy infantry. they might have vehicles (cavalry). rubber bullets, etc (their own gunners)
you can't just match in firepower them because people will get killed
so the question is would some kind of mobile human fort (basically a modern Tercio) be useful? or would it just be a liability?
Don't directly engage the heavy infantry with your light infantry. Use your light infantry/skirmishers to their advantage.
Any formation that they detect, they can crush. Any leader that they identify, they can shoot or arrest.
There is a lot we can learn from bees.
as soon as you said bees i just imagined a bunch of protestors sitting on a cop until he overheats and passes out
you know that's also how dearresting works?
yeah but it's more fun to imagine David Attenborough narrating it as it happens
Tercios seem like they take a lot of coordination to manage
yeah this wouldn't be something you could just get everyone on board with. this is like "we are now at the level of having an actual vanguard party of trained, professional agitators"