Pro-Palestinian protesters block traffic on Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco
Pro-Palestinian protesters block traffic on Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco
A pro-Palestinian protest action briefly blocked all traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco Wednesday morning.
A pro-Palestinian protest action briefly blocked all traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco Wednesday morning.
Starting at about 7:45 a.m. Protesters stopped cars and stretched banners across the roadway denouncing Israel's bombing of Rafah in the Gaza Strip and demanding that the U.S. stop arming Israel.
Northbound and southbound traffic on the bridge was at a standstill as of 8 a.m.
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how is it legal to protest on a bridge? that's got to be breaking at least one law
This is called civil disobedience, it's a well established method of protest. When law-abiding protests fail to stop people from being murdered, then the next natural step is civil disobedience. Unfortunately the powers-that-be have learned that the most effective status-quo response to any protest is for them to do nothing, neither interfering with the protest itself nor actually responding to the protesters' points.
this is what's called "peaceful protest" that the anti-riot people wanted so bad instead of riots, and now that they've got it they still aren't happy. guess it's time to start anti-genocide riots since we'll be hated by ignornats either way. if they don't want riots they should just appreciate peaceful protest
Liberals oppose every war, except the current one. They support all protests, except the current one.
Did it work?
The point of civil disobedience is to refuse to obey unjust laws, like refusing to abide by segregation laws. Unless they're arguing that it's unjust to prohibit blocking of traffic, whatever point they're making by blocking traffic is probably lost on those around them.
I'm not sure who gave you the impression that that's the definition, but it's not correct. It includes that, but isn't limited to that.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/civil%20disobedience
https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/4725008/suber_civ-dis.htm
Admittedly other things can fall within the definition of "civil disobedience", but as for what is useful civil disobedience I'd probably listen to this guy:
One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."
MLK Jr, letter from a Birmingham Jail
Thanks for digging up that quote. I've always felt iffy on if these things actually help the causes or not, and I think MLK Jr answers that question. Civil disobedience along these lines would be to refuse to pay your taxes and being jailed for it because you don't want any of your money to contribute to the genocide.
I worry that making busy traffic even worse actually hurts the cause. Making tired working class people frustrated doesn't do much unless that frustration can be directed in the right direction.
It reminds me of when Greenpeace did something similar to protest climate change. That at least made some sense since commuting generates a lot of emissions. Although that said, making traffic worse also makes emissions worse.
I don't know. This is tricky.
It's worth noting that blocking traffic has been a common tactic since the start of the civil rights movement, and we have been having this discussion over and over again for decades now.
Looking at this from a civil disobedience standpoint, the reasoning for civil rights or foreign policy protestors blocking traffic may be less direct than for climate protestors, but is in my opinion equally valid. Highways are the arteries of the capitalist economic system that both powers the US war machine and reinforces the social structures that keep black communities in poverty.
The main problem with this tactic is that recognizing how the action of blocking traffic relates to the protesters' cause requires a political and class consciousness that most people lack. I personally still support the tactic because I believe we should be collectively working towards instilling that class consciousness in as many people as possible.
While many who choose to remain ignorant will continue to be annoyed and angry at such tactics, there will be some who stop to reflect and consider the arguments being made, and that is progress.
I think a more apt criticism here would be that there's better ways to bring attention to their cause and affect change. I don't disagree with you, I just think there's better ways they could've approached this. I'm a firm believer that carrots work better than sticks.
Say they were giving away Palestinian cuisine for instance downtown, and using the free food as a way in to talk to people about the humanitarian crisis.
Be the change you want to see in the world; a diversity of tactics is always welcome.
Fair enough.
don't give the dude any concessions. your definition is correct. even the links he provided proves YOU correct. they all state that usually the unjust law is the law that's broken and the examples in the definitions back up your definition. that dude is just getting defensive you corrected them.
At least I have chicken 🍗
It is unjust lol. It's hard for car-drivers to have the moral high-ground where under each of this kind of news, you get comments calling for them to get run over.
Car drivers overall are more concerned about getting to their destination than not hurting people.
it's not wrong to break the law, it's wrong to commit genocide.
Why are there 37 missing replies? Was Godzilla here?
forcing traffic to halt on a bridge isnt going to stop a war on the other side of the planet.
It's funny, they said the same thing about the protests against the Vietnam war.
Yeah, but it wasn't the dead Vietnamese that were putting them off.
And it didn't. The protests started in earnest a full 8 years before the war ended.
So the protests weren't blocking enough bridges for 8 full years.
Yes clearly it wasn't the method that was wrong it was the humans weren't noble enough.
We solve problems in democracy by peaceful protest, voting, lawsuits, and swaying public opinion. We don't solve problems in a democracy by blocking ambulances and pissing the hell out of regular people. No one just trying to pick up their kids is going to want to hear about your cause when you are blocking the road.
they don't block ambulances, they let them through. you've never been to a protest and it shows
Uh huh. So how do they know an ambulance isnt backed up well out of sight from the traffic jam they caused? Trick question. They fucking don't.
Your friends suck and cause death
You do realize that your democracy is founded on violent revolution? And that slavery had to be abolished in a civil war? That the civil rights movement was shunned in the same way, now the protesters against genocide are shunned, because it inconveniences the white man on his day to day business?
If you truly object to non violent civil disobedience, than you need to object to violent revolution and civil war even more so, and reintegrate the US into the UK and offer yourself up for slavery, to reinstate what was unjustly overturned.
white man
Should have started with that I would have known to block you earlier. Much the same way your friends are blocking ambulances
Yeah, sure block me for things the civil rights movement pointed out about white american middle class hypocrisy.
Hardly any american soldiers are dying in Gaza, though. The number might be zero.
They should go protest somewhere out of the way where no one can see them!
I believe it is a misdemeanor in california if police bother to arrest you
Oh no breaking a law while the US sponsors a genocide. Those poor vacationers getting inconvenienced is surely more terrible than genocide.
A. Two wrongs don't make a right
B. I question how you know that literally every single person on that bridge is on vacation and even if they were why that is acceptable
Shit like this never works.
Civil disobedience is required for protests to have effect.
There is no comparision between having to stand in traffic for a while and having your entire family annhilated, being dragged out of the rubble, getting your limbs amputated without any anesthetics, only to then die of starvation and disease. And that is if you are among the "lucky ones" that werent killed by the bomb or died in agony after two days of being stuck under the rubble of a bombed house, while Israeli snipers shoot at the people trying to pull you out.
"Two wrongs don't make a right" is a fallacy if the consequences are so grossly out of comparision. Also we recognize in law the right to self defense and the right to prevent a crime. In many countries it is even your legal obligation to do so.
B. I question how you know that literally every single person on that bridge is on vacation and even if they were why that is acceptable
I never said anyone being on vacation. Are you that morally corrupt, that being 20 minutes late somwhere is worse in your eyes than a continued genocide?
Nice strawman