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[return to "The business of tear gas"]
1. nsxwol+kv[view] [source] 2020-06-02 17:30:33
>>hhs+(OP)
What's the correct way to control a violent crowd? Anything besides "solve all the world's problems so no one is angry"?
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2. rlucas+1I[view] [source] 2020-06-02 18:33:22
>>nsxwol+kv
The fact that you're asking that question is the problem.

(Assuming there's some good faith there.)

Governments ought not to "control" protest crowds in a democracy. This is literally written down in the foundational-myth-papyrus of America.

By and large none of these crowds start as "violent" crowds. These are drivers, bartenders, moms, students, butterfly-collectors, tinkerers, teachers, short-order cooks -- they are citizens, calling for a redress of grievances.

The instinct and assumption that you ought "correctly to control" such people is what leads to increased tension and ultimately violence.

Source: I live in Seattle, and for nearly 10 years lived a block off of Pine St. (almost all of the pictures or videos you have seen of Seattle recently would be on the Pike/Pine corridor). I would see protest marches off my porch and on my walk to work, as well as black bloc types. I've walked home on May Day through protests a few times. The participants all start very clearly as protesters or vandals. Protesters have signs and wear their union jackets or their scrubs or their tennis shoes and khakis, or their superhero outfits, or whatever; they are there to protest. There are very, very few proper vandals to start off these things.

But you know what vandals and looters love? The chaos that ensues when forces with an instinct to "control" unleash munitions and other uses of force on the protesters. Do some protesters boil over and turn into vandals when the temperature and pressure turn up? Yes.

By the time you have a "violent crowd", you've fucked up and arguably lost the mandate of heaven.

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3. refurb+XI[view] [source] 2020-06-02 18:36:43
>>rlucas+1I
Wait, you're blaming the police if protests turn violent?
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4. rlucas+PO[view] [source] 2020-06-02 19:01:48
>>refurb+XI
Absolutely. I'm utterly confused if you're not, though I recognize that you may have a different perspective based on your background.

Do you live in a metropolitan city in the US? Seattle, USA is my point of reference. I have lived for 15 years here, mostly living in the most dense neighborhood and mostly working in the downtown core.

Seattle is a low-violence, high-civic-engagement, high-trust, relatively wealthy city. There is typically a small 10-50 person protest weekly in front of the Federal Building. There will be additional larger protests several times annually, with a 200-500+ person gathering probably about every two months in favor of pot, anti-war, or whatever. Then 2-3 times a year there will be a large gathering, often around May Day, MLK Day, Hempfest, etc., where thousands will gather for (generally permitted and pre-planned) marching and demonstration. This is all the baseline activity level regardless of things like COVID, Trumpism, or BLM.

It's very usual to see strollers and children on shoulders at these events. The strong presumption is that civic engagement in Seattle is safe and normal.

If you come from a place where political parties have proxy street-fights with backed youth gangs, or where ethnic mobs are torching trains full of apostates, I understand (and I'm very sorry and hope it gets better). I know the world is a scary place and that there are such things as violent mobs.

But despite how inconvenient it might be to have one's commute path blocked, or how scary it might initially be to have an Other-looking youth shouting hyperbolic slogans, protests here (and elsewhere) generally don't start, and don't inevitably turn, violent.

That particular reaction requires another reagent altogether, and usually quite a bit of activation energy.

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5. refurb+A41[view] [source] 2020-06-02 20:13:10
>>rlucas+PO
I've seen plenty of violence by protestors where the cops weren't even there. Do you blame the cops for that too?
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6. miniki+D51[view] [source] 2020-06-02 20:19:11
>>refurb+A41
>There were two "Reigns of Terror," if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the "horrors" of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break?
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