I'm sure the media coverage won't be unhinged
this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2024
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I'm just not sure what the goal here is... The Portland Airport isn't involved in the Gaza assault, and it's not like Biden or Bibi are going to go "Wait! They're protesting in Portland??!?? Call off the bombardment immediately!"
The point of protests in general is disruption. Disneyland had to shut down for a bit because of protesters too. Both airports and theme parks bring in a lot of money, so that’s why places like that are often targets of protests, because standing in a park with signs only serves to get you ignored, but if you restrict the flow of money, people in power are more likely to listen. An extension of this is protesting on highways and bridges- it stops the flow of money to any number of businesses for as long as traffic can’t get through.
Disrupting a community that has absolutely nothing to do with what you're protesting is counter productive. You piss off the locals who would otherwise be on your side, and the powers you are protesting, if they are aware of you at all, dismiss you as a non-threat.
How does this not have anything to do with us? The taxes everyone pays go to the government that sends weapons to Israel. We're all involved since we are funding it by working and providing taxes. By disrupting traffic going into a city for an hour, that's a pretty substantial amount of taxes lost. Not enough for Biden to change his mind, but until something happens, I'd just start expecting more delays and disruptions if I were you.
It's really not about keeping locals comfortable at all- in fact that is almost always counter to the goals of protesting. If a local who "otherwise would be on our side" decides that genocide is okay and justifiable after waiting in their air conditioned car for an hour, they were never on our side. They're just someone who values their own comfort over anything else.
This is all thoughts and prayers equivalent for the left. It doesn’t serve any purpose in reality but to make the protesters feel better about themselves. Go do this in DC or fuck even at the governors office.
Regardless of what you think about these kinds of protests and their effectiveness, it's the last step before violence, so is it escalation you're begging for for effectiveness' sake? We're too spread out in this country for everyone that has an issue with the federal government to fly or take a bus to DC. You know that's not realistic, right?
Million man march, million women march. Those happened in DC. The problem isn’t how spread out it’s how disorganized and disjointed the movements are.
And both of those were prior to the patriot act. Leftist movements are disorganized not only because there’s a million kinds of leftists who all argue against each other, but the federal government has a pretty big motivation to keep it disorganized. I’m not saying it’s impossible to have a bunch of people show up to DC, but it’s far easier to protest in your own city than spending a week’s paycheck to fly across the country.
And that’s why it is unfortunately ineffective. Because convenience and ease are prioritized and the message never impacts the people who can effect change. It just serves to turn people off to the cause locally.
Its ineffectiveness also is tied to what you think their goal is. If you think their goal is to win the hearts and minds of those who are sitting in traffic and missing work, I’d say you’re correct that it’s ineffective. But I’d say that it’s pretty effective in keeping Palestine in the news where it’s been slipping from the front page recently. I’d say that cutting off a major artery for the beating heart of a city will always have some sort of effect on people and companies who make the most money in the city. I’d say that upsetting the status quo was pretty effective. Also, with the sharp increase of anti-protest legislation (which thankfully most of the recent federal legislation has either failed or expired), I’d say it has to be somewhat effective, but in ways that aren’t immediately apparent. Oregon passed a bill that classifies “protests that disrupt daily life” as domestic terrorism. This includes blocking traffic. This is a wild response if you think the protest as just a nuisance. But if they’re majorly disturbing the flow of money, that bill makes way more sense to me (not that I agree with it).
I suppose by your metric climate protests and nuclear disarmament protests back in the day were also ineffective and useless. And sure, the main goals haven’t been met with either group, but I wouldn’t call either ineffective. Being a stepping stone might be their fundamental goal for protesting even though they want big change to happen. But big changes don’t happen unless stepping stones happen first.
Here is one great example, of many.
Although you don't really have to look any farther than MLK Jr. and the civil rights movement. It's really sad how quickly Americans forget history, often willingly.
And where did MLK do his protests? In progressive cities without Jim Crow laws or right in the south and in Washington where the people who could actually effect change lived and worked. That’s the point I’m making, not that protesting isn’t effective, but it has to be done with real intent. The impact to businesses here in Portland because random people were prevented from making flights isn’t even remotely close to the level of organization and impact MLK had with his protests. What happened here was performative, not effective.
Except you have to restrict the flow of money to people who can actually make decisions on the matter. Blocking traffic to our airport doesn’t impact Israel or the Biden administration in any way. So they won’t take notice of that unless it’s part of a much larger concerted effort to disrupt air travel or something.
In 1977 when anti-apartheid protesters determined that the federal government wasn't budging on its stance on apartheid in South Africa, they got a bunch of businesses and investors to end their involvement with the apartheid state (which had a major impact on getting the apartheid system dismantled). Due to the fact that there are anti-BDS laws specifically for Israel, it's not possible to take this approach this time, so the only way to get businesses who invest in Israel to stop funneling money over there is to stop sources of income (or block the entrance of major contributors like they did for Disneyland). It's not that protesters think they'll get Biden to change his mind, it's that protesters want to hurt the bottom line of all companies until something changes. Since the US gov listens to corporations way more than civilians, this is about the only way to do it without violence.
About your sentence on it needing to be a much larger concerted effort with air travel, I'd say that it really doesn't. If companies notice that they suddenly won't be making as much money as they did the previous quarter (even if they're still making tons of money), they freak out.
Let me know when this kind of protesting has an effect. What source does pdx airport have for access to any of these peoples bottom lines? I’m not against protesting by any means, but this is a little like people telling me to recycle as if that can even remotely offset what corporations are doing to the environment (I do recycle for the record). That change needs to be taken to the right place to be enacted against the right people. This protest probably only served to inconvenience a bunch of random citizens.
Assuming people from the greater Portland area fly into and out of PDX, here's some places headquartered in the area that could be affected by protests at the airport:
- Intel, which must have quite a bit of airline traffic at PDX invests heavily in Israel.
- Adidas, which must have quite a bit of airline traffic at PDX uses an Israeli Manufacturer.
- Wells Fargo (and BoA), which must have quite a bit of airline traffic at PDX has given loans to Israeli weapons manufacturers.
- Boeing, which must have quite a bit of airline traffic at PDX provides weapons to Israel.
- HP, which must have quite a bit of airline traffic at PDX runs the biometric ID system that Israel uses to restrict Palestinian movement as well as other systems for the IDF.
- Siemens, which must have quite a bit of airline traffic at PDX is involved in the building of Israeli infrastructure.
So while, yes, the protests definitely inconvenienced random citizens, it has a pretty good chance of also affecting these companies as well.
I am not convinced protests even work. But things have to change
Protests HERE don't work. If a couple million people took over the streets of Tel Aviv, that would move the needle.
Ok, they don’t work in the US. But what will? I have spent years trying to convince myself of another way outside of Revolution and failing.
If you want to protest something, you have to bring it to where the events are happening. Nobody cares about a protest 1/2 way across the country or the world.
I agree. But protests that are large enough and in a location that is relevant are brutally put down by police, and the protesters are charged to ensure that no meaningful change can be possible
That's the whole point of it though. A safe protest is not a protest at all. It's performative.
Right i get that, but after seeing these protests what i take away from them is 1. They are ineffective, 2. Very costly for the participants. 3. The meaning will be perverted by news orgs. 4. Neither political party wants to see these succeed. It is performative in showing that the cause of reform is pointless. Which is exactly what the overbearing police action was designed to portray
Hell yeah, lights out on those NYD flights out. That ought to raise awareness for those families flying home with little kids. At least some people are thinking.^/s