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Tactics talk!
Standard disclaimer: I am not involved in any of this. Discussions of protest tactics are purely speculative; this is not legal advice, and if you commit an actual crime, don't post about it.
Courtesy of a friend who may identify themselves if they choose (thank you!) I read this article in Mother Jones about the No Sleep For ICE movement and can't help constrasting it with the #NoKings protest. Not that I'd want to disparage the latter—I think it's awesome that people did it!—but the former is an example of the kinds of tactics that we increasingly need to see.
I have a number of issues with protest marches, especially in North America. We on the left tend towards reification of historical protest movements without ever analyzing what made them effective (or not). A good example locally is the Days of Action, a series of rolling one-day strikes against the extremist right-wing government of Mike Harris in 1996. These were a resounding failure. Mike Harris and his regime steamrolled over the labour movement in Ontario, which never recovered, and despite being directly responsible for a number of deaths, continues to enrich himself by running gulags for seniors. However, these protests were loud, colourful, and most importantly, made people feel like they were Doing Something. Again—it's important to make people feel like they are Doing Something, that is how movements get built. But when a new far-right regime was elected in Ontario, the entire strategy of the labour movement pivoted to re-enact a protest movement that had been an abject failure, and so we lost again, repeatedly and even harder.
I had the same issue with Occupy, where what had been a successful tactic in Egypt and New York was exported around the world, without regard to local conditions. It resulted in one baffling morning spent wandering the Toronto encampment, where a lone speaker used the People's Mic to communicate with five comrades. The aesthetics of protest triumphed over the old-fashioned idea that protest ought to accomplish something.
Now we are seeing LARPing of the kind of mass demos that have been happening since the 1960s, most of them failures, as the authorities are quite competent in curtailing this kind of activism, either by assassinating political opponents, kettling demonstrators, or conducting mass surveillance to be used in future disappearances. The great success of #NoKings is the theoretical embarrassment for Trump of seeing his own sad, empty birthday parade dwarfed by crowds in nearly every American city and town. To be clear—this is a success, as Trump cares a great deal about crowd numbers. But this is a regime immune to reality and shame, and entirely capable of generating AI slop to convince the death cult members that what they saw with their own eyes wasn't true.
Which is to say: It's good, it's useful, but now the tactics need to change.
To contrast, No Sleep is very targeted in its strategy and goals. Let's be clear: Every employee of ICE is a human trafficker. They should not be allowed to return to their homes and communities after a day's work, because that day's work is Nazi shit. Targeting them where they live and sleep is critical. It reminds us that these are not normal people who are doing a job, but instruments of a police state who are conducting activities that are unreservedly evil and socially unacceptable. It is a reminder both to them and anyone who cooperates with the Trump regime that, in fact, "just following orders" is famously not a defence at the Hague. Most importantly, though, it introduces friction between the regime's aims and its outcomes, rendering it less effective in kidnapping and disappearing people.
I think we are all thinking: "I am exhausted. I can't fight everything all at once. Where are my energies best spent?" At least, I'm thinking that. This is deliberate; this is flooding the zone, making the laundry list of bad things come so fast and furious that opponents don't have time to recover from one fight before we're thrown into another. It's very tempting to get enmeshed in weekend street demos—for one thing, for those of us who work, they can be done on the weekend—but I would encourage everyone to participate in them with an eye to what they're useful for and what they're not useful for. Remember that surveillance will be gathered on you no matter how careful you are. If you or your comrades get arrested, movement resources will need to be directed towards your defence (and you will be dragged through hell because even if you did nothing wrong, the point of charges is to destroy your employment, finances, and relationships). Stay on the lookout for smaller, more agile actions that can add friction, rather than big showy events. Don't get caught up in violence vs. nonviolence discourse, or crowd numbers.
The answer to "where are my energies best spent" is always, "whatever you can do," which for me tends to be above-ground, legal actions on the weekends. This has different significance locally because our supposedly socialist mayor who used to go to protests passed a protest ban, so imo all protest energies in Toronto ought to at least focus a little on breaking this ban so that we can all get our Charter rights back. But this may not be the conditions where you are.
Also stop using the Hey Ho chant. It reminds me of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves but instead of marching over a log, they're walking headfirst into a police baton.
Courtesy of a friend who may identify themselves if they choose (thank you!) I read this article in Mother Jones about the No Sleep For ICE movement and can't help constrasting it with the #NoKings protest. Not that I'd want to disparage the latter—I think it's awesome that people did it!—but the former is an example of the kinds of tactics that we increasingly need to see.
I have a number of issues with protest marches, especially in North America. We on the left tend towards reification of historical protest movements without ever analyzing what made them effective (or not). A good example locally is the Days of Action, a series of rolling one-day strikes against the extremist right-wing government of Mike Harris in 1996. These were a resounding failure. Mike Harris and his regime steamrolled over the labour movement in Ontario, which never recovered, and despite being directly responsible for a number of deaths, continues to enrich himself by running gulags for seniors. However, these protests were loud, colourful, and most importantly, made people feel like they were Doing Something. Again—it's important to make people feel like they are Doing Something, that is how movements get built. But when a new far-right regime was elected in Ontario, the entire strategy of the labour movement pivoted to re-enact a protest movement that had been an abject failure, and so we lost again, repeatedly and even harder.
I had the same issue with Occupy, where what had been a successful tactic in Egypt and New York was exported around the world, without regard to local conditions. It resulted in one baffling morning spent wandering the Toronto encampment, where a lone speaker used the People's Mic to communicate with five comrades. The aesthetics of protest triumphed over the old-fashioned idea that protest ought to accomplish something.
Now we are seeing LARPing of the kind of mass demos that have been happening since the 1960s, most of them failures, as the authorities are quite competent in curtailing this kind of activism, either by assassinating political opponents, kettling demonstrators, or conducting mass surveillance to be used in future disappearances. The great success of #NoKings is the theoretical embarrassment for Trump of seeing his own sad, empty birthday parade dwarfed by crowds in nearly every American city and town. To be clear—this is a success, as Trump cares a great deal about crowd numbers. But this is a regime immune to reality and shame, and entirely capable of generating AI slop to convince the death cult members that what they saw with their own eyes wasn't true.
Which is to say: It's good, it's useful, but now the tactics need to change.
To contrast, No Sleep is very targeted in its strategy and goals. Let's be clear: Every employee of ICE is a human trafficker. They should not be allowed to return to their homes and communities after a day's work, because that day's work is Nazi shit. Targeting them where they live and sleep is critical. It reminds us that these are not normal people who are doing a job, but instruments of a police state who are conducting activities that are unreservedly evil and socially unacceptable. It is a reminder both to them and anyone who cooperates with the Trump regime that, in fact, "just following orders" is famously not a defence at the Hague. Most importantly, though, it introduces friction between the regime's aims and its outcomes, rendering it less effective in kidnapping and disappearing people.
I think we are all thinking: "I am exhausted. I can't fight everything all at once. Where are my energies best spent?" At least, I'm thinking that. This is deliberate; this is flooding the zone, making the laundry list of bad things come so fast and furious that opponents don't have time to recover from one fight before we're thrown into another. It's very tempting to get enmeshed in weekend street demos—for one thing, for those of us who work, they can be done on the weekend—but I would encourage everyone to participate in them with an eye to what they're useful for and what they're not useful for. Remember that surveillance will be gathered on you no matter how careful you are. If you or your comrades get arrested, movement resources will need to be directed towards your defence (and you will be dragged through hell because even if you did nothing wrong, the point of charges is to destroy your employment, finances, and relationships). Stay on the lookout for smaller, more agile actions that can add friction, rather than big showy events. Don't get caught up in violence vs. nonviolence discourse, or crowd numbers.
The answer to "where are my energies best spent" is always, "whatever you can do," which for me tends to be above-ground, legal actions on the weekends. This has different significance locally because our supposedly socialist mayor who used to go to protests passed a protest ban, so imo all protest energies in Toronto ought to at least focus a little on breaking this ban so that we can all get our Charter rights back. But this may not be the conditions where you are.
Also stop using the Hey Ho chant. It reminds me of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves but instead of marching over a log, they're walking headfirst into a police baton.
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Our local group has a week of action this week and then continues through. But OMG yes - they seem to forget that some of us work and can only do weekends! Or need some time to accommodate weekday activities.
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Doing Something, and see that each individual is not alone, but instead really that we have a great collective potential. I would say that even the 2003 protests against the Iraq war, which had no chance of doing anything (esp. in Canada where Chrétien had pre-emptively bowed out, bless him for this singularly great act of reason even though his entire body is covered in the blood of Canadians and Afghans, and others whom I forget) where hugely important, even though they led to nothing at all. If someone else than Troskyists were running ANSWER maybe there would have been something to reach out to larger masses.
> weekend street demos
I mean bless everyone still protesting for Gaza, but at this point....
> LARPing of the kind of mass demos that have been happening since the 1960s,
Amen. I mean tradtionally, protest was threatening to the Established Order, but the ideology of Peaceful Protest, along with the militarization of police, means that protest on its own serves the above-mentioned collective self-revelation purpose, but from there new organizing needs to be done.
I'm kind of annoyed that there hasn't been more road and rail blocking. I know that can lead to arrests and serious legal jeopardy, but that's a kind of basic economic obstruction that Gets Attention and that also generally can't be filed under Terrorism, unlike other forms of economic disruption.
The failure of the parade has nothing to do with #NoKings, anyway... It's a parade set in DC, the place which probably has the highest percentage of the population hit by the Trump/Doge/RFK cuts in the country. Also a large black population city. And a large military/intelligence apparatus population which feels that Trump is there for them. Who did they thing would come?
I am particularly incensed at how Democrats Abroad turned #NoKings to #NoTyrants in the Commonwealth, as if we give a fuck about our King, and that tories are part of the population they're trying to reach out to? What??? Even Ontario's support for monarchy has drastically gone down. Never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity, Democrats....
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NO MORE MIC CHECKS, and someone teach these children how to chant. It has to be snappy! INTELLIGIBLE! I am still hearing way too much "Hey hey, ho ho, (garbled long phrase)". And the signs aren't enough. We need orators. Good ones. People who can testify.
sigh. I am so old.
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Alas, in Canada, part of the definition of terrorism is anything that “interferes with the economic functioning [of Canada]”, so road and rail blocking can indeed be legally considered terrorism here. As a naturalized citizen, if I block a train, I don’t just risk arrest, I risk losing my citizenship and being deported.
So I’ll go to protests where trains are being blocked and support from the side, but as soon as police command people to disperse, I have to leave. I can’t risk losing my family and my livelihood.
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2003 is an interesting case because Chrétien was always going to do what he wanted, but everything was so fast that we could claim it as a victory, and morale is a terrain of struggle. Similarly, the sad parade had nothing to do with #NoKings but it's a good visual (as long as people don't inflate the importance of one good visual).
The #NoTyrants thing pissed me off. People are weird about the monarchy.
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Of course if train protests would be sustained, that would change. But I think that's why there needs to be people who organize and are nimble enough to be able to do one of these actions, and then organize something else. World Beyond War, PYM and the rest of the loose Gaza coalition has been interesting in that regard, but I think one of the problems is that media has both been so gutted and uninterested that it's difficult to get actions to make an impact. It's tough to deal with. But when Tamils blocked the Gardiner in 2004 it got everyone's attention... Unfortunately I think that wasn't the protest that would do anything for them, and their demands I think we're unfocused or badly targeted, but it led nowhere. And of course the battle is also ideological so it's not an "awareness" problem. Canadians know that Palestinians are getting killed in Gaza, many cheer the massacre, many support it, most don't care, some oppose it but are not interested in facing the establishment and zionist forces, so we're left with a fairly small sliver that cares. So there needs to be some bigger thinking happening in the Left about that. I do think that right now the Palestinian movement in Toronto is doing more and smarter things than anyone else has done in years. But we also need some new ideas. I feel like a two-way arms embargo with Israel is an achievable goal for Canada. This new front with Iran should strengthen the need for that.
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No Sleep for ICE is an awesome idea.
Getting rid of authoritarian regimes requires denying them the ability to govern, or to control the streets. Very often it requires a refusal of the security forces to enforce their rule, in particular a refusal to use lethal force against opposition protesters when ordered.
That is a big ask. Meanwhile, disruption of the regime's key goals, like ICE's deportations, is as you say a key step along the way.
There may yet be an electoral offramp from the Trump regime, if the scale of protest and disruption in the face of regime actions is such that they don't dare to take the steps needed to make electoral change impossible. Like, arresting opposition politicians, closing down opposition media, etc. But therefore maintaining that electoral offramp crucially depends on the ability to mobilise mass disruptive protest.
I think the main weakness of the anti-genocide movement in the west is the inability to mobilise mass disruptive protest. Isolated disruption in the form of occupation of college buildings, one-day blockades of certain arms factories, acts of sabotage against same, but not nearly enough to compel governments to change course. Especially when, as in the Anglophone countries at least, the two main parties are broadly united (with some exceptions) in their support for genocide.
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However, directing that moral courage once activated is a challage. American pop culture favors portrayals of quick wins and victories, but what we have here is an endurance challenge.
I lack protest experience, but I do have opinions based on patterns I've seen. One should expect police to love making arrests, because they get to trumpet protesters as being violent, gaining public support (media, social media) while degrading protest capability. Celebrities have privilege to make arrests controversial, but normies are just chum. Crackdowns allow them to take down many protesters at once, which is why they may provoke violence to generate a reaction that they can use as justification to end things quickly instead of letting the situation drag on. Kettling isn't as popular these days due to bycatch, but that doesn't rule out smaller scale cornering with provocation. The optimal amount of brutality to deliver is enough to force a protester off the front lines with injuries and into protest medical care, but not into the hospital system; not only does it remove the protester from action, it occupies medics; when medics are overwhelmed, that adds to psychological collapse, making protest less sustainable. Thinking in terms of attrition warfare makes the instrumentality of police tactics fairly straightforward. Sustained pressure is key. Presence does not have to be fixed in order to be effective. Context is king.
What matters is consequences, not effort. Making the opposition expend more effort while preserving one's own energy is basic strategy for an endurance competition.
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But, based on what I have seen and read about ICE, they're just brownshirts and J6rs. So, I feel if someone had stepped in back in Germany....
It's a science experiment I am fine with.
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I don't know specifics about ICE, but I presumably know the street video.
I heard this morning ICE guys were laughing when the wife was sobbing.
So, brownshirts,
Also, the masks are no issue (in the arrest of the MYC comptroller one guy had a surgical mask, and I'll bet he Could Not Breath in 2020) but the fash casual, lack of ID and, apparently, legal standing are concerning.
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I'm behind you on the "Hey Ho" chant lol.
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