The best way to respond to fear and intimidation tactics is to just show we’re not afraid. We’re going to keep showing up. We’re going to keep speaking out,” says musician Joselyn Walsh, who is facing federal charges for protesting ICE activity in Chicagoland. In this episode of “Movement Memos,” Walsh and Chicago organizers Gabe Gonzalez and Rey Wences talk with host Kelly Hayes about what activists have learned from months of raids, repression, and escalating authoritarian violence.
The “best thing we can do”? I’m sorry, protesting is not the best thing we can do. Just shy of burning it all to the ground, we SHOULD be using existing laws to arrest and charge everyone one from the street cops protecting ICE to the fake gold house that gives the orders.
I’m sure every time a priest gets shot in the face with a pepper ball, they giggle a bit. Every time a reporter gets injured, their dicks get a little hard, and the minute a child steps over the line, they will fuck it.
for the subset of folks that can arrest or charge people your argument is great but I think they are refering to the common person who is not currently filling out a ballot. At that point protest is really their only lever.
Tell that to the French. Americans think the French are just about surrender but they’ve raised cities because the government wanted to extend retirement age by two years. Most recently two teenagers were electrocuted trying to escape arrest and the citizens rioted. Spending cuts? Riot. Strict policing in low income housing districts? Get the fuck out. Let them eat cake? Topple the government and execute its leaders.
It’s not my argument. Americans just hold signs and sing songs and still get their asses kicked by (checks notes) their own industrial military complex when the law should be protecting its citizens, not shooting priests and reporters in the face with less than lethal rounds.
After 25 years in Afghanistan, the Afghan people protested with ammo and IED’s. Who’s in charge now? The Taliban… and you know what? Good for them. We never should have been there in the 70’s and most definitely not the 00’s
Then you know nothing of the chicago resistance. It has not been horribly violent but it has been active. the whistles, the blocking, confusing the activities, sheltering people. its more than just songs.
No. I rarely get to choose what side I see. It’s fed to me on a little caviar spoon. So salty.
This podcast is about organising, solidarity, and ways that bring people together. Legal action part of their repertoir, but they don’t just do that.
