Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li: and, on reflection, the people of japan looked at the assassin and said "you know what, he had a point. maybe we should do something about this bullshit." and they did! www.bbc.com/news/world-a...

actually while we're talking about political tactics i want to dwell on the abe assassination because it's instructive. it reveals that in many cases, political violence is not about coercion or intimidation but *persuasion.* violence can be a rhetorical and a narrative tool.

the shinzo abe assassination was far more tactical and intentional than 98% of what we're talking about here

the core thing about the abe assassination is that the killer's act fit very cleanly into a certain narrative. his elderly family had been scammed out of their life's savings by the moonies. abe had protected and mainstreamed the moonies for years. there was a *story* about *justice* being told.

and, on reflection, the people of japan looked at the assassin and said "you know what, he had a point. maybe we should do something about this bullshit." and they did! www.bbc.com/news/world-a...

Japan asks court to dissolve 'Moonies' church over Shinzo Abe killingwww.bbc.com The legal move follows a year-long investigation into the so-called 'Moonies' church.

contrast this with just stop oil's tactics. graffiting stonehenge. blocking the tube. throwing soup at paintings. these are actions that do not fit into a story that is compelling to people. rather, the tactics are purely postmodern, intended to generate attention from pure spectacle.

in other words i think these kids would do better to think a bit harder about what kind of story they're telling to the public and whether it's going to persuade. "but but what about it's not fair that--" of course it's not goddamn fair! did you think you were playing a fucking board game?

as usual, looking to the actual tactics of the civil rights movements is a useful exercise: they were very much aware of the need to persuade by fitting their actions to a narrative of injustice and oppression precisely *because* they understood their situation to be deeply unfair and unjust.

anyways in conclusion none of this is endorsing political assassination in general or in specific. the point is to analyze specific successes and specific failures. do not go around engaging in targeted killing.

my position of "you can always assassinate Shinzo Abe" has unfortunately become obsolete so now I'm just against assassinations like everyone else.

Even in the middle of 5th Ave?

To borrow a Southernism: "If your momma told you life would be fair she lied to you." You play the game with the cards you're dealt, and if the dealer's crooked and keeps throwing you garbage you either have to get real good at reading the table or real confident you can beat him bloody.

Which is also why the Gaza encampments were less successful than they might have been - the story became "kids vs universities," even taking away the (possibly overblown but nevertheless salient) narrative about antisemitism. They directed attention towards themselves and away from Gaza.

This is the thing that always gets me: you can't just break the rules one-sidedly, you have to back it up with some form of power, some counterbalance. It's not checkmate in one. (Bet you agree with this tangent, but: more games should be unfair by design. It's a very fruitful space to explore!)

An asymmetrical balanced game is really hard to do, and balance is incredibly important to the hypercompetitive set of board gamers that buy tons of games. Also, "is balanced" and "is seen as balanced" become very different in those cases too, which makes this problem more impossible.

I think these kids have heard of “propaganda of the deed” and they’re solid on the “deed” part but they’ve put zero thought into the “propaganda” part which is, after all, the point

The Seattle WTO protests were an example of effective non-violent activism. As a result, future WTO meetings were moved to locations where it was much harder to gather a mass movement. The people who are drilling the oil and the politicians who support them are scarcely accessible.

I feel like “kids” always risk mistaking inaction for ignorance because they’re being spurred to action as they’re first learning about the power structures they’re protesting—so they assume “awareness” alone should be enough to inspire action in everyone else too

IDK, granted, I seem to be almost alone in this, but I do see some logical story being told. They are destroying the world of the past, the only world that decision makers seem to care about, because those decision makers are destroying the world of the future which they have to live in.

But they're *not* destroying the world of the past. They're very emphatic that they're non-destructive

Sure, they're just attacking it symbolically, briefly inconveniencing people before cleanup. Actual destruction might make a clearer message, but would it be any more well received?

Nope.

I think silly and actually dangerous gets the organization shut down.

I don't know how persuasive this one was, but it was damned impressive: www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

Activists Hang From Oregon Bridge to Protest Shell's Arctic Oil Drillingwww.nbcnews.com The stunt on the St. Johns Bridge is in protest to Shell's scheduled launch Wednesday of a ship for Arctic oil exploration.

I feel like I've got license to talk about this stuff more than most; I was a professional organizer for enviro groups for almost a full decade. Let me just say this: when one of these protests happened, it immediately made our jobs as real organizers & fundraisers 10x harder for at least a month.

Like, the negative polarization that occurs when someone does something like defacing well-known art affects EEEEEVERYONE, whether they were your enemy, your ally, or whatever. EVERYONE gets pissed off and recoils. They did real, significant, lasting damage to our work every dang time.

I am 100% convinced every single one of them is on some sort of Exxon/Chevron payroll

But I probably shouldn't say that too loudly around here, boy did some people have a shitfit a few weeks ago when I suggested that lighting random mailboxes on fire wasn't a good way to try and stop the Iraq War

Shit, they might as well be. There was definitely a time in the early 00s, before today's renewables boom started, when Exxon & Shell would engage in public ad campaigns or in anti-renewables efforts, and these protests worked 1000x better than anything the oil companies could ever throw at us.

I mean maybe they believe in the cause and have been convinced that this is somehow helping it... but my strong hunch is that if the money chain on these groups was followed far enough it would end at a gas pump and a boardroom

I said elsewhere that everyone remembers the name of Fred Phelps, but he did no favors for the cause of Christian missionizing - or for that matter, even homophobia.

Phelps did have a specific strategy, though: provoke outage to become the target of lawsuits, then recover attorney fees for his family/church full of lawyers when they won on first amendment grounds. It was just a strategy uninterested in public persuasion of any kind.

that's right - he was very good at making money for, and raising awareness, of his cult. (I don't like to throw around that word but I'm OK with it for the Westboro folks.)

Arguably the fact that the Shinzo Abe assassination just like... worked, is something that doesn't bear thinking too hard about?? 😅

yeah it's kind of like the post-j6 coup: "it happened but we really shouldn't talk too loudly about it"

Fwiw this sometimes seems to be the main way the Japanese people have responded to assassinations since the Meiji restoration. I could swear Sakamoto Ryoma was the last guy to get assassinated where folks were like "actually the assassins* were in the wrong here" *Identities unconfirmed

--yeah one might also have told a story about culture-specific tactical resonances :\

So you're saying the other error JSO is making is the decision to vandalize *British* Heritage sites and artwork instead of something from the global south. It just doesn't translate to the British psyche

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