So along these lines, I went to my first pride parade ever, and served as security. The parade was marshalled by the local Palestine solidarity group, and we were briefed about possible people who may case issue.
We were ready for basically anything.
No one showed up spouting hate or Zionism (well one Zionist but they ran away when we started recording them). The only issue was a cop tried to stop the “from the river to the sea” chant. Unsuccessfully because someone in the parade had babysat his kids a bunch, and the guy with the megaphone yelled “He’s trying to say we can’t chant from the river to the sea. What do we think of that!”
And the parade chanted it sooooo much louder. The people lining the streets (maybe 50%?) chanted along with the Palestinian group.
Still, not hate.
The point is, the hate we see is largely manufactured. And those spouting it are often cowards. Real people care about rights and liberation.
Hell yeah. I was at a palestine solidarity action recently and this cop who could not have been older than mud 20s pulled out his baton while we were trying to confront a california state rep on his way from a closed town hall. I went up to him about 6 feet away and asked him point blank why he was afraid of a bunch of boomer peace activists armed with nothing but a marching drum and a megaphone.
He sheepishly put his baton away but kept scowling at me so I just held eye contact yelling “quit your job” til he broke eye contact and got in his car.
So along these lines, I went to my first pride parade ever, and served as security. The parade was marshalled by the local Palestine solidarity group, and we were briefed about possible people who may case issue.
We were ready for basically anything.
No one showed up spouting hate or Zionism (well one Zionist but they ran away when we started recording them). The only issue was a cop tried to stop the “from the river to the sea” chant. Unsuccessfully because someone in the parade had babysat his kids a bunch, and the guy with the megaphone yelled “He’s trying to say we can’t chant from the river to the sea. What do we think of that!”
And the parade chanted it sooooo much louder. The people lining the streets (maybe 50%?) chanted along with the Palestinian group.
Still, not hate.
The point is, the hate we see is largely manufactured. And those spouting it are often cowards. Real people care about rights and liberation.
Hell yeah. I was at a palestine solidarity action recently and this cop who could not have been older than mud 20s pulled out his baton while we were trying to confront a california state rep on his way from a closed town hall. I went up to him about 6 feet away and asked him point blank why he was afraid of a bunch of boomer peace activists armed with nothing but a marching drum and a megaphone.
He sheepishly put his baton away but kept scowling at me so I just held eye contact yelling “quit your job” til he broke eye contact and got in his car.