Recent Comments
common senscycle on Stop at Red? The Ethics and Po… Can we have a little… on Stop at Red? The Ethics and Po… Steve A on A Sad Chapter in Bay Area Bicy… A Categorical Mistak… on A Sad Chapter in Bay Area Bicy… Syed on Anti-Car (not anti-driver) and…
SF Arco/BP Protests Week 4
This entry was posted in Advocacy, Car Dependence, corporations, Cycling, direct action, Livable Streets, Media, Oil Industry. Bookmark the permalink.
On the Level: Car Free Blog 
Thankyou for providing this site and for your efforts. I am pleased I am glad there are others who feel this way about car tyranny.
The girl with the f__king filthy mouth isn’t helping anything as she doesn’t make any sense. According to her, we live on a “f__king planet”. Well, if according to her, it’s f__ked already, what the f__k’s the difference?
She needs to shut her f__king filthy mouth. It isn’t helping anything at all.
The way she talks about Mother Earth is disrespectful of that which is giving her life. Obviously, she doesn’t know what she’s saying or doing.
“Peaceful civil disobedience” includes making sure what comes out of your mouth engenders “peace” and respect to those around you – including the way you speak to and refer to others, including Mother Earth – which supposedly she’s trying to “save”.
She reminds me of another Pelosi, who claims she wants to “save the planet”, while destroying it herself for her own personal goals. In this case, the little girl appears to be using this venue to vent pent up frustrations and isn’t aware of, and may not even care about, what makes effective peaceful civil disobedience.
The reason there’s so much chaos in the world is because the people are chaotic within themselves.
I respect your opinion “Truths be Known.” It is certainly not the fucking (we’re all adults here) approach I would take, and I don’t know where this fucking woman came from- she just fucking came up and joined the fucking protest. I think there’s a lot of fucking reasons to be fucking angry these days. And for too fucking long, people have repressed this fucking anger in the name of ‘just getting along.’ Especially in fucking California, where we seem to shirk from fucking conflict.
If Mother Earth could talk, she would be fucking pissed off at us. WTF ARE we doing, screwing up this beautiful planet anyway?
There were others at the protest asking her to tone it down, and be constructive. She wasn’t attacking drivers directly anyway- just expressing a great deal of frustration- that I believe is warranted given the dire straits we are in. I tend to err on the side of letting people voice their feelings- it’s much better than keeping it bottled up inside. I think if others see people taking action and visibly angry and the ecocide and genocide that is taking place, that is a positive thing- maybe they won’t feel so alone- it might even spur them to action.
I work for an environmental non profit and the implicit violence of your actions here, as well as its incredible lack of effect are deplorable in respects to making a statement, as well as representing progressive thought. I hope you choose to abandon ineffective tactics and limit the amount of profanities used while “making a statement.”
Hi Paul, Not sure where you are getting this ‘implicit violence’ from. Our protests have been totally peaceful. Also, in clear contrast to the traditional lobbying tactics of our non-profit brethren, the protests have massively raised the profile of the problem of Fell St. (and dangerous conditions citywide) and motivated city leaders to engage with the problem. I wonder which environmental non-profit you work for? There are so few good ones left. Could it be NRDC? (Not Really Defending the Climate). Or EDF? The Sierra Club? The environmental non-profit world has become part of the broken system it is impotently trying to influence. You may want to think about what exactly is so threatening about our protests. In light of the utter failure to get even small commitments to reduce carbon emissions from the US Govt– isn’t it time to try something new?
Sorry, but I don’t agree. People who see other people acting poorly are repulsed by it, not encouraged to join in and participate – unless they’re just like them, in which case, you will end up with an angry mob and those usually turn out violently – is that what you want? I don’t think the answer is to insult, repulse, harm or kill each other, or lay waste to businesses and buildings as that is a waste of Mother Earth’s resources. If that’s your goal/solution, what makes you any better than any other war monger?
Think about your own human nature. If someone comes blasting profanities at you, are you really going to open your mind and accept what they’re saying? I think for most people, the mind automatically puts up a wall in self defense of the hostile energy coming at it.
Your group is small and you are probably desperate for support, therefore, you make excuses. Nice try, but if you really want success, you’re going to have to take the higher road and not condone or allow such non-productive behavior, especially when your group is so small. It will eventually defeat you and lay your efforts to waste.
You may also consider infiltrators and provocateurs sent in to create scenarios to shut you down. The best way to handle them is when someone starts acting with hostility (verbal hostility is a form of provocation), tell them the rules of peaceful civil disobedience and if they don’t comply, tell them to leave. They can exercise their free speech and have their hostile protest somewhere else – they don’t have to make your peaceful civil disobedience into whatever they want. Your protests are still small enough to where you can still exert some measure of control and keep them peaceful. I suggest you do that while you can.
BTW: Mother Earth is talking to us. It’s just that most people are “too busy”, too angry, or too ignorant to listen.
So have you tried going to your city/county planning departments/supervisors, etc. and getting them to at least widen the bike lanes so people and families can ride side-by-side without risking their lives? That’s one of my personal gripes – bike lanes are way too narrow. It’s as if a family bike ride is supposed to be single file, so people can’t talk to each other while getting from one place to another like they can in autos, planes and trains. Parents can’t ride next to their children. Totally unsafe – especially in the cities. I encourage you to get the item put on their agenda, gather as many people as you can at your local government meetings and TELL them (nicely, but never ask, beg, or plead – that, too is repulsive as all these agencies work for us and we shouldn’t be groveling to get the “public servants” to do their job of serving us) what you want your tax dollars to be spent on. The wider the lanes, the safer the riding; the safer the riding, the more riders.
Or how ’bout getting a bunch of people to ride to the Gulf and help in the clean up? Seems that would be much more productive than standing at a street corner screaming profanities at people driving by. Would give you better, more positive press coverage, too.
Good luck!
******
From Wikipedia on “Civil Disobedience”:
Mahatma Gandhi outlined the following rules, in the time when he was leading India in the struggle for Independence from the British Empire:
1. A civil resister (or satyagrahi) will express no anger.
2. One will sometimes suffer the anger of the opponent.
3. In doing so, one will put up with assaults from the opponent, never retaliate; but one will not submit, out of fear of punishment or the like, to any order given in anger.
4. When any person in authority seeks to arrest a civil resister, he will voluntarily submit to the arrest, and he will not resist the attachment or removal of his own property, if any, when it is sought to be confiscated by authorities.
5. If a civil resister has any property in his possession as a trustee, he will refuse to surrender it, even though defending it he might lose his life. He will, however, never retaliate.
6. Retaliation includes swearing and cursing.
7. Therefore a civil resister will never insult his opponent, and therefore also not take part in many of the newly coined cries which are contrary to the spirit of ahimsa.
8. A civil resister may not salute the Union Flag, but he will not insult it or officials, English or Indian.
9. In the course of the struggle if anyone insults an official or commits an assault upon him, a civil resister will protect such official or officials from the insult or attack even at the risk of his life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience
Truthsbeknown-
You are right about mother earth talking to us and we’re just not listening. But perhaps it’s because we’re on our cell phones all day…..
Did you know that Gandhi abused his wife? So, y’know no one is perfect. About the idea of non-violence, Derrick Jensen has this to say:
Hey ‘onthelevelblog’ stop passive aggressively, and aggressive aggressively attacking responders to your blog. Maybe we should all do like Andy Warhol said, “I think everybody should like everybody.” It would only benefit yourself leave your life based on dichotomy. Respect and respect alike. If you don’t like what people are going to say, try not to make a blog where you personally rip into them. Again this goes against progressive thought. What can we heal if we can’t heal our tensions and hates for one another? Also justifying your own violence by assuming that “its just a part of life” is crap.
Sorry Paul- I’m not sure what you mean by ‘attacking responders to my blog’? I’m vehemently disagreeing with people, but I’m not attacking them. Having an animated disagreement or debate is not something we should shirk from– what are we so afraid of? It’s not hate at all- I think you are really misunderstanding what’s going on here. I was using the word ‘fuck’ in my reply to truthsbeknown not as a way of attacking, but to gently make fun of the reluctance to even type the word. I mean first of all, why is it okay to foul our nest and screw up the planet but not use expletives to express dissatisfaction with this state of affairs? Why are we even using a word for sexual intercourse- the beautiful and pleasurable beginning of life- in anger? Reclaim fuck I say!