It’s the fact that US police regularly break up properly registered and approved peaceful protests by “less than lethal” force when they get to be incovenient for [insert power here]. Not live rounds, but “less than lethal” munitions. Rubber bullets, which often cause injury and sometimes death anyway. Tasers. Pepper spray. Tear gas smoke grenades.
You can find a decent amount of pictures and video of police pepper spraying protestors calmly sitting cross legged on the ground.
There are also psychological tactics they use to try and break up protests that often have the fun side benefit of fomenting response from otherwise peaceful protestors that is easily labeled as violent/threatening/resisting. At protests that camp in an area overnight, they will use flashing lights and loudspeakers playing audio specially designed to tap into anxiety centers of the brain to keep the protesters from resting. Literally borrowing some of the tactics our intelligence agencies used against the vietcong. They will “bottle” or “kettle” protestors, surrounding groups with riot shield equipped cops and squishing them into smaller and smaller space until the protester have to push back so people won’t get literally crushed, then out come the batons.
The threat of police brutality is always there. With significant chance that there will be no legal recourse. Judges play softball (sometimes literally) with police here. Manslaughter in the line of duty? 3 months paid vacation, then we transfer you to another local police force somewhere they won’t recognize your name. And decades of news media jumping at the chance to stir people up has cemented these fears in the public mind.
But here’s the thing: the amount this happens is just barely rare enough that it’s not international rights org level shit. And when it does happen, usually the police can justify it with some imagery or video of violent protesters.
So it’s rare, just always possible it could escalate. If it does there’s no rel recourse, and the news makes people feel that it’s a more likely outcome than it is. Peaceful protests that go fine don’t make the news.
What also isn’t covered by the media is how to plan and take effective action despite these risks, or effective action from the past, so many Americans just see the pipeline as being directly from public peaceful protest to some sort of freedom fighter in active combat.
Some people go back the next day, some societies react to this by protesting harder and longer. Other times this devolves into outright conflict or seismic political shifts. Sometimes it settles down over time.
The reaction isn’t typically some combination of “Oh, well, what can you do” and “maybe if we bring actual firearms the natural conflict with authority baked into all civilian political action will dissipate fully and permanently”.
That’s some US-specific delusion and intrinsic tendency to violence right there.
It’s the fact that US police regularly break up properly registered and approved peaceful protests by “less than lethal” force when they get to be incovenient for [insert power here]. Not live rounds, but “less than lethal” munitions. Rubber bullets, which often cause injury and sometimes death anyway. Tasers. Pepper spray. Tear gas smoke grenades.
You can find a decent amount of pictures and video of police pepper spraying protestors calmly sitting cross legged on the ground.
There are also psychological tactics they use to try and break up protests that often have the fun side benefit of fomenting response from otherwise peaceful protestors that is easily labeled as violent/threatening/resisting. At protests that camp in an area overnight, they will use flashing lights and loudspeakers playing audio specially designed to tap into anxiety centers of the brain to keep the protesters from resting. Literally borrowing some of the tactics our intelligence agencies used against the vietcong. They will “bottle” or “kettle” protestors, surrounding groups with riot shield equipped cops and squishing them into smaller and smaller space until the protester have to push back so people won’t get literally crushed, then out come the batons.
The threat of police brutality is always there. With significant chance that there will be no legal recourse. Judges play softball (sometimes literally) with police here. Manslaughter in the line of duty? 3 months paid vacation, then we transfer you to another local police force somewhere they won’t recognize your name. And decades of news media jumping at the chance to stir people up has cemented these fears in the public mind.
But here’s the thing: the amount this happens is just barely rare enough that it’s not international rights org level shit. And when it does happen, usually the police can justify it with some imagery or video of violent protesters.
So it’s rare, just always possible it could escalate. If it does there’s no rel recourse, and the news makes people feel that it’s a more likely outcome than it is. Peaceful protests that go fine don’t make the news.
What also isn’t covered by the media is how to plan and take effective action despite these risks, or effective action from the past, so many Americans just see the pipeline as being directly from public peaceful protest to some sort of freedom fighter in active combat.
Yeah, no shit, that happens everywhere.
Some people go back the next day, some societies react to this by protesting harder and longer. Other times this devolves into outright conflict or seismic political shifts. Sometimes it settles down over time.
The reaction isn’t typically some combination of “Oh, well, what can you do” and “maybe if we bring actual firearms the natural conflict with authority baked into all civilian political action will dissipate fully and permanently”.
That’s some US-specific delusion and intrinsic tendency to violence right there.