I spoke about this during general announcements last night, but afterwards I got to talking with my wife and she reminded me about some things, we had a good conversation about it so I thought I may have more constructive things to say at this point also.
OK, I’m talking about the Pro-Life rally on Saturday that people are talking about counter-protesting. Now I should have said, I don’t have a problem with counter-protesting. That is not what I mean when I say “think about whether the best use of your 1st Amendment rights is to prvent somebody else from using their 1st Amendment rights.” I am talking about the specific language about “blocking” the Pro-Life march. I think it would be tragic if thousands of Pro-Lifers showed up in San Francisco and they WEREN’T mt with some kind of resistance and response. But I think to “block” the march or to shout them down and silence them will not only look really bad in the media, but it doesn’t speak well for us as a group that respects free speech, even unpopular speech.
I’m not going to tell anybody not to go. But I do think that we should have a more constructive strategy/tactic than going out there in a big group and yelling at them and trying to block their march. I think we should show up with love, with peace, with colorful signs and clothing, and we should wait for THEM to insult and assault us. That is what civil disobedience is about — embarrass your opponent into revealing the inherent power structure/violence that is hidden until it is provoked. If we go down there and yell stuff at them, we make them seem like victims. It only accomplishes personal gratification, to make us feel better about ourselves because we did something to them. But it will make us look fascist to the mainstream 99%. If we get these people to attack us, call us “baby killers” and all that, then we get them to reveal how crude and hateful their philosophy is. And that is the only way to turn a counter-protest into something really constructive IMHO. My wife has some experience with this and she has seen how well it works.
I urge people to re-think the strategy of direct confrontation, if indeed that is the planned tactic. I think that is what the Pro-Lifers want. Otherwise, why would they be marching in San Francisco instead of in Sacramento? They come out here because they want for people to go out and attack them, to make them into the victims. Please don’t fall for their trap, Occupy Oakland and Occupy Patriarchy. Fight like kittens, don’t march like sheep.
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