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.

    • LanternEverywhere@kbin.social
      5210·
      10 months ago

      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.

      • Uranium3006@kbin.social
        196·
        10 months ago

        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

      • rsuri@lemmy.world
        145·
        10 months ago

        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.

          • rsuri@lemmy.world
            63·
            10 months ago

            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

            • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
              5·
              10 months ago

              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.

              • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
                1·
                10 months ago

                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.

                • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
                  1·
                  10 months ago

                  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.

                  • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
                    1·
                    10 months ago

                    Be the change you want to see in the world; a diversity of tactics is always welcome.

            • LeroyJenkins@lemmy.world
              63·
              10 months ago

              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.

        • lemmingrad@thelemmy.club
          23·
          10 months ago

          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.

              • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
                14·
                10 months ago

                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.

                • Uranium3006@kbin.social
                  31·
                  10 months ago

                  they don’t block ambulances, they let them through. you’ve never been to a protest and it shows

                • tryptaminev 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 🇪🇺@feddit.de
                  21·
                  10 months ago

                  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.

                  • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
                    13·
                    10 months ago

                    white man

                    Should have started with that I would have known to block you earlier. Much the same way your friends are blocking ambulances

    • Crikeste@lemm.ee
      89·
      10 months ago

      Oh no breaking a law while the US sponsors a genocide. Those poor vacationers getting inconvenienced is surely more terrible than genocide.

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
        44·
        10 months ago

        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.

        • tryptaminev 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 🇪🇺@feddit.de
          21·
          10 months ago

          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.

      • pan_troglodytes@programming.devEnglish
        45·
        10 months ago

        I bet you’d feel differently if you were in an ambulance trapped behind that mess of traffic or had a loved one in that situation. or maybe you’re a sociopath, I dunno.