2y ago

Protesters Shut Down Los Angeles Highway to Demand Ceasefire in Gaza

No more business as usual," the organization leading the protest said on social media.

Dozens of Jewish protesters and their allies were arrested on Wednesday morning after they blocked rush hour traffic on a busy Los Angeles highway to demand a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Palestinians in Gaza.

56 comments

I always feel conflicted when I see things like this. On one side good for them, they found a way to get their message across to a nation news. But on the other hand they are intentionally disrupting infrastructure people rely on everyday. I don't think it's a bad thing that people want global change, but I do think it is a bad thing that people feel powerless to influence this change so they have to resort to more disruptive methods like this. More representation in the federal government could help prevent this.
- A non-disruptive protest just gets ignored. You need to impact people’s daily lives to make them think why the problem arose in the first place.
  
  But, you need to impact the lives of the people who have the means to make that change. A traffic jam isn't going to do that.
  
  People will find a way to get mad at any protest no matter how little it impacts others. See kneeling for anthems or just wearing shirts at events
  
  I'm not really asking you to look it up or anything, but this gets parroted around a lot, and I wonder if there's actually any data to really support it or if it's just a statement that kinda sounds nice.
  
  And a disruptive protest just makes people hate you and your cause.
- Also conflicted: I don’t think the disruption itself is a bad thing if it’s disrupting a part of society that derives benefit from the whatever is being protested against.
  That said, I’m not sure how disrupting traffic in Los Angeles is going to affect the change they want to see. You can’t get much further from Washington DC than the West Coast.
  
  This is the dumbest way to protest. Out of the book of any publicity is good publicity: “any protest is a good protest”.
  
  Also, the US government isn't the Israeli government.
  Also also, Biden is a zionist, so it's not like he's going to change his stance because of a traffic jam in LA.
- I don't have a problem with people disrupting traffic to protest, I have a problem with people doing it for a purpose that the government can't actually achieve, with only a few people, or in places that don't make sense for the cause.
  If you want to disrupt it over some local (to at least the country) issue, and you have enough popular support to host an actual rally with hundreds or thousands of marchers blocking the road, go right ahead and disrupt traffic. If you're marching about the environment, rally at a park then march to a government office. If you're marching about police brutality, go sit down outside a police station.
  Unfortunately, The US government is not the Israeli government. The most they could do is exert pressure on Israel, which to be fair is quite a lot of pressure given it's the US, but I highly doubt that Israel would stop immediately even if the US asked them to. In this case, from the pictures, they also only had enough people to make a single line across the road. The location isn't relevant to anything either.
  
  Just gonna say: Reagan stopped the bombing of Beirut with a phone call.
accomplishing absolutely fuckall
- The fact that it made news enough to be posted on social media is quite an accomplishment.
  
  Not a very high standard. If it was in middle of Tel Aviv maybe had a bigger impact.
Regardless of your feelings on the conflict, blocking freeways is beneficial even if done for no reason at all. Urban highways were a mistake and never should have been built. Every minute they continue normal operation is a minute they continue destroying our neighborhoods, poisoning the innocent and vulnerable who live nearby, and destroying the future for our descendants.
So I commend these activists and hope we see more of this.
- No matter the outcome of this, nobody is learning that lesson from this demonstration.
  If you want to take a (more obvious) environmental bent, this is a terrible idea for them to do because all they're doing is causing vehicles to have to run substantially longer.
  
  This assumes the same number of people will use them, just more slowly. But this is quite obviously false if you think it through. If the highway is so backed up you can’t get onto it then you won’t use it, will you? I would be fairly confident that this more than offsets the idling engines. Covid was a big eye opener in realizing how much traffic actually protects us from the real dangers of unfettered high speed traffic.
  This individual protest may only have a small effect but it seems we’re seeing more of these as time goes on, and the more often they happen, the bigger the impact.
Please, someone tell me how the fuck these protests get organized? I've been scouring IG for upcoming demonstrations in LA and nobody's registering their actions on Shut It Down For Palestine. For months I've tried to get involved and it feels impossible for any full time worker to help take action for Palestine. Best case scenario is I find out about an event a few hours beforehand when I'm already in the office and it's too late for me to be there.
- Xitter probably. Easy to retweet and get the word out, big community, lots of political guys
- Brand new account shilling for Israel…not sketchy at all
I don't disagree that the conflict has to stop, but I don't see how anyone can force a ceasefire between two separate independent countries. What action do they think the US can take to force this situation? No matter what you offer or withhold it's still ultimately up to the individual parties involved.
- America only cares about money. This shit costs them HUGE money.
  This is exactly how you stop the war by shutting down infrastructure.
  
  Ok, but this war is between Israel and Hamas, what can America do about it other than what they've always done and bomb the shit out of both sides?
  It's like protesting in Toronto because they don't like a new policy in Tokyo.
- The US just vetoed a ceasefire agreement in the UN security council.
- True, though the US is one of the biggest suppliers, if not the biggest, for Israel's military.
Great initiative.
The peaceful protests are over.
Next phase is nonviolent disruption. Block infrastructure.
Instead of going to their local government, they deside to close a road....... if they want to be branded as idiots, this is a good way of doing that.
- Yeah, why didn’t the American’s go to their government instead of protesting with the Boston Tea Party?
  
  Rhe issue is that doing protests that way is not going to win sympathy from the people who is using the road.
Do they understand that the conflict is between two separate countries and neither of them is the USA?
- You forgot about the nearly $4 billion USD worth of military aid every year.
  
  They're US allies. They've been receiving that aid long before the hamas broke the ceasefire by attacking an EDM festival and killing a thousand civilians. The conflict over there is a terrible situation, but fucking up people's commutes 7500 miles away from the conflict zone accomplishes nothing except for ruining those people's days, and possibly causing them massive hardship.

56 comments