I think I'm going to love Oakland

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The part Vexation doesn't seem to understand is that the riot doesn't stop the Machine. The riot is the Machine.

No, the riot is composed of parts of the machine that are half-awake.  But even in acting against The Machine™ as a whole, they make it stronger.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Regardless of one's level of political activity, I have the right to not have my shit, my essential to daily life shit, set on fire.

I am certain Vex will be along shortly to explain why a mob of rioters burning and looting your shit is different than, say, eminent domain.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Sometimes, the consequences of not doing anything to improve society include becoming the victim of a society that breaks your shit.

This should probably be newsfeed.  Because, you know, a mindless mob of yahoos totally knows who is working with them, who is working against them, and who isn't doing anything.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The part Vexation doesn't seem to understand is that the riot doesn't stop the Machine. The riot is the Machine.

No, the riot is composed of parts of the machine that are half-awake.  But even in acting against The Machine™ as a whole, they make it stronger.

Awake or not, we are all still part of the Machine. We can't STOP the Machine. We can't DESTROY the Machine. But if enough of the Machine is awake and aware, we can CHANGE the Machine.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The part Vexation doesn't seem to understand is that the riot doesn't stop the Machine. The riot is the Machine.

No, the riot is composed of parts of the machine that are half-awake.  But even in acting against The Machine™ as a whole, they make it stronger.

Awake or not, we are all still part of the Machine. We can't STOP the Machine. We can't DESTROY the Machine. But if enough of the Machine is awake and aware, we can CHANGE the Machine.

But that's not as fun as, say, implying that some schmoe making $24K/year SHOULD have his stuff burned because he's trying to get along the best way he knows how, instead of saying "FUCK MY JOB, THE KIDS CAN FIND THEIR OWN FOOD, FUCK THE RENT, I'M GONNA GO JOIN AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL AND PROTEST MY LITTLE HEAD OFF!"

Your way doesn't let a person feel that warm glow of self-righteous extremism.

[the last yatto]

The part Vexation doesn't seem to understand is that the riot doesn't stop the Machine. The riot is the Machine.

You two and maybe EOT mind if I snip comments from this thread for my

[Cain]

You can still cause severe economic dislocation without mass violence.  Thai airport protests are a perfect example: find an economic choke point, and sit on it.

It's the only sort of protest worth doing though because, you know, if you wanna just parade up and down a street, I wouldn't take your opinions very seriously as a person in a position of power.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

You can still cause severe economic dislocation without mass violence.  Thai airport protests are a perfect example: find an economic choke point, and sit on it.

It's the only sort of protest worth doing though because, you know, if you wanna just parade up and down a street, I wouldn't take your opinions very seriously as a person in a position of power.

And if they burn down the houses of the working and/or middle class, well, there's more where they came from, right?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The part Vexation doesn't seem to understand is that the riot doesn't stop the Machine. The riot is the Machine.

You two and maybe EOT mind if I snip comments from this thread for my

I'm fine with it.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You can still cause severe economic dislocation without mass violence.  Thai airport protests are a perfect example: find an economic choke point, and sit on it.

It's the only sort of protest worth doing though because, you know, if you wanna just parade up and down a street, I wouldn't take your opinions very seriously as a person in a position of power.

And if they burn down the houses of the working and/or middle class, well, there's more where they came from, right?

It's a GREAT way to make the common people hate protesters and everything they associate themselves with. So, yeah, it definitely works to the benefit of those in power.

You can't tell the protesters that, though. They need their sense of Glory™.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

You can still cause severe economic dislocation without mass violence.  Thai airport protests are a perfect example: find an economic choke point, and sit on it.

It's the only sort of protest worth doing though because, you know, if you wanna just parade up and down a street, I wouldn't take your opinions very seriously as a person in a position of power.

And if they burn down the houses of the working and/or middle class, well, there's more where they came from, right?

It's a GREAT way to make the common people hate protesters and everything they associate themselves with. So, yeah, it definitely works to the benefit of those in power.

You can't tell the protesters that, though. They need their sense of Glory™.

End results:

1.  The message of the rioters is utterly invalidated.

2.  A few people lose everything they own, for no good reason.

3.  A certain type of person thinks of themselves as "hardened revolutionaries".

4.  Things go on as before, but now there's a number of people that hate everything the rioters stand for, because the rioters burned everything they own.

Ergo

5.  The Machine™ wins again.

[Juana]

Riots suck. Economic chokeholds are good, like Cain said. And so are protests that interrupt daily life and/or cause problems (in the right way) for the big cogs in the Machine. The Montgomery bus protests are a good example of that - Montgomery Cogs were confused as fuck and helplessly angry and it caused them problems. Sit-ins fought segregation in a way that made difficult for the restaurant owners doing it.

People got the idea somewhere along the way that marches are It. That that's what you do. You take time off work and you go down to wherever it is, and you walk. That doesn't work anymore because the novelty value is gone. You have disrupt the Machine in the right way to get what you want. Albert and Lucy Parsons lead 40,000-80,000 workers on a march in Chicago in 1866 (iirc) and those people walked off the job. That hurt Chicago Cogs big time, frustrated the mayor, etc. It was a huge risk for the marchers in a time when there was enough unskilled immigrants like them to make them replaceable and there was a massive recession, too.

The rioters might have done better if they had swarmed around that cop's police station and made it impossible to get in or out of. Not using violence, but just by being there and blocking the way.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Riots suck. Economic chokeholds are good, like Cain said. And so are protests that interrupt daily life and/or cause problems (in the right way) for the big cogs in the Machine. The Montgomery bus protests are a good example of that - Montgomery Cogs were confused as fuck and helplessly angry and it caused them problems. Sit-ins fought segregation in a way that made difficult for the restaurant owners doing it.

People got the idea somewhere along the way that marches are It. That that's what you do. You take time off work and you go down to wherever it is, and you walk. That doesn't work anymore because the novelty value is gone. You have disrupt the Machine in the right way to get what you want. Albert and Lucy Parsons lead 40,000-80,000 workers on a march in Chicago in 1866 (iirc) and those people walked off the job. That hurt Chicago Cogs big time, frustrated the mayor, etc. It was a huge risk for the marchers in a time when there was enough unskilled immigrants like them to make them replaceable and there was a massive recession, too.

The rioters might have done better if they had swarmed around that cop's police station and made it impossible to get in or out of. Not using violence, but just by being there and blocking the way.

Yes.

There are effective ways to protest. Milling around shouting and smashing stuff is not one of them.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=27295.0

[tyrannosaurus vex]

yeah this is the post where i say mindless mob violence is ok.

It's not okay, it's a product of a defective society.

The mob does not care what it fucks up. It is terrible, and it shouldn't happen. BUT it does happen, not because it is OK, but because allowing your government to be corrupt, ineffective, and generally terrible CAUSES it to happen.

As a function of society, riots serve a purpose. It's like your immune system going fucking crazy and killing everything it sees to eliminate particularly nasty infection. LEFT UNCHECKED it might develop into Teh AIDS, but if the government responds appropriately, it fades away and things go back to tolerable.

I am not arguing in favor of the goons on the street causing the property damage, I am arguing in favor of "The Riot" as a social mechanism that occurs in order to eliminate something people are fucking pissed off about but the government refuses to address. There's probably a purely subjective line between that kind of riot and just general lawlessness; but in the end if the riot produces results acceptable to most people then it was successful and it goes away.

A riot is a communal act arising from communal dysfunction. In order to prevent such things from happening it is a responsibility of every person in the community to work together and maintain a sane, balanced, and civilized form of government that is capable of relieving and avoiding such communal dysfunction in the first place. If the citizens fail in that responsibility and a riot springs up, then that is just what happens when not enough people give enough of a collective fuck about the community.