This is Street Activism?

SMASH has pointed out an Indymedia article about some "protesters" beating up a cop at recent anti-G8 demonstrations.

There is a time and place for street-activism, even angry "civilly disobedient" street-activism. The early days of the AIDS epidemic and ACT-UP come to mind. That's a movement that actually accomplished something. But then ACT-UP had specific goals, and everything it did was designed to bring the country's attention to the problem of AIDS.

But this kind of random, purposeless violence is really just that, purposeless violence. It gives street-activism a bad name. It's just anger and hatred expressed without any meaning or real purpose.

I remember one of ACT UP's demonstrations outside the White House. Some of the guys threw over the fence and onto the White House lawn the ashes of their dead lovers and friends. That was a real protest. It was shocking, it got the message across, and no one intentionally sought to harm anyone else.

That was when they took a real risk for their cause and were willing to sacrifice something important to themselves. They were willing to come to physical harm for their cause, but they didn't need to harm anyone else. What these guys are doing today isn't street activism. It's just mindless soccer-fan hooliganism.

Nowadays, they run away as cowardly thugs, wearing masks and breaking in windows. Really they are nothing but a bunch of stupid punks. And still they are trying to portray this as a moral victory for their cause, when all it really proves is that they are just a bunch of wannabe schoolyard bullies who have picked a "cause" at random so as to have an excuse to act like the idiots they are.

If they really wanted to make a statement, they could have stood there and let the cops beat the crap out of them. And they could have done it without wearing masks, ready to accept the consequences of their actions. That's what real activists do, people with courage to match their convictions. But courage is a quality they apparently lack.

A hospital full of injured protesters and no injured police might have actually made someone take notice. But instead they slunk away into the sewer like the gutless rats they are. They disgust me.

Comments

[Sean Dustman]

Bunch of crazies out there, don't any of these people know about self control?