[I originally posted this in chapotraphouse, but it was deleted for being “pro-cop” even though that very much wasn’t the case. (I believe PSL was actually involved in organizing the protest if I’m not mistaken.) The mod that deleted it openly broke the sectarian rule too.]
Been seeing a lot of people hating on what the protest marshals did during the pro-Gaza protests at the DNC and I feel they definitely did the right thing. Instigating stuff like going up against the cops under the guise of “revolutionary” action just gets a lot of people arrested and doesn’t accomplish anything.
EDIT: Users who were present at the protests have said, counter to what is claimed in the screenshot, that the protest marshals did NOT call for the police. Thank you for clearing this up, comrades!
Is there evidence of this? There’s a vague line at the end of this screenshot about “participants and marshals called out for cops to intervene,” but that’s all we have here, and it’s a big leap to read that as “they helped the cops ID people.”
Sorry for the Twitter link but this is also predictable as shit. Every protest where someone can yell at a cop to “come get” someone and not get thrown out at the MINIMUM for it is a controlled resistance rally with more fascists than not. Seen this happen a lot at encampments with unelected leaders propped up by orgs like the palestinian youth movement and the tahrir coalition where they literally work with police while spouting “We keep us safe” as if they know what it means
It’s hard to make out what’s happening or being said there, but the person that link refers to – the guy in the baseball helmet, who supposedly says “come get” someone, to someone (I can’t really hear it or see who it was yelled at) – doesn’t have a yellow vest on, so I don’t think he’s one of the marshals.
Even taking exactly what that link alleges as the truth (that a marshal, not the baseball helmet guy, asked the cops to “come get” a protester), that’s not helping cops ID anyone. It’s not giving a name or any other identifying information, and the cops can already see the person because it’s in public.
We should be very deliberate about accusing other leftists of things like this. We shouldn’t be stretching the facts even a little against each other.
I do not have solidarity with Amerikkkan “leftists” whatever that term means and I sure as hell will criticize them for the endless list of things they do because they were brought up in the fourth fucking reich. This person asked the armed vanguard of genocide to take a man trying to do something the protest should be about and the marshall didn’t throw that person out. The marshall and seemingly majority of the protesters felt closer aligned with the kop than the actionist, and there’s nothing more symbolic of amerikkkan “leftism” than that
So we’re agreeing that the marshals did not help the cops ID anyone in this video, right? That’s what we’re talking about.
As for the marshals not throwing that guy out: is that even possible in this large of a crowd? It’s not a club with a door 40 feet away. I’m guessing the marshals were trained/instructed to keep the peace, not police everything every random person was shouting.
Again, kettling protesters is a tactic the police use for the purpose (among many other things) of restricting your movement to get pics/identifying information to ID you and doing that to actionists in front of kops is going to produce some door knocks in the future. Regardless the definition of what is and isn’t “helping IDing” we might disagree on fine, I feel like I’ve seen this lead to investigations enough to say that but whatever.
That aside police collaboration is a theme considering the statement that a protester made as well and the fact they felt comfortable to say it (with good reason it seems). That person is a pro-cop snitch that actively is posing a danger to a comrade, what should the purpose of a marshall be other than to keep fascists out? The answer is to be the peace police clearly and prevent actions like this in a way that we’ll argue about “the right way to protest” here instead of rightfully blaming the kkkops and everything they represent.
The heart of what I’m trying to say is this, if this kind of peaceful protest isn’t producing any material change and is actively preventing more radical actions from occurring, maybe it, its marshalls and organizers, and fascist attendees are doing more to prevent the movement from progressing than helping it.