A large group of people trying to have a peaceful protest could easily stop a few individuals who start smashing things. But from the looks of it, the reaction often seems to be the opposite - people applaud it or even join in. Even here in the replies, there’s someone excusing it with “who cares about Google,” and another one justifying the looting of ampm so apparently, in their mind, it’s not a problem. The fact that this exact same tactic is used by the aforementioned agent provocateurs should only further encourage self-policing within these protests.
Have you seen what happens when people try to stop agent provocateurs? The police rush in and beat the shit out of them. The entire point of provocateurs is to manufacture an excuse to use violence.
No, I haven’t seen that, but I’m sure you can provide an example.
The point of agent provocateurs - at least as I understand it - is to make a peaceful protest no longer peaceful, giving the authorities an excuse to shut it down. But even if the people committing vandalism really are provocateurs, they still can’t accomplish their goal alone. They need real protesters to go along with it. Plenty of people are willing to riot, but they don’t want to be the first. However, once someone else takes that step, they’ll happily join in.
If the general sentiment among the protesters was that this kind of behavior won’t be tolerated, these tactics wouldn’t work. A regular police officer can’t tell a protester from an agent provocateur - so if someone starts throwing bricks and immediately gets shunned and handed over to the cops, they’ll be taken away, and the protest stays peaceful.
A large group of people trying to have a peaceful protest could easily stop a few individuals who start smashing things. But from the looks of it, the reaction often seems to be the opposite - people applaud it or even join in. Even here in the replies, there’s someone excusing it with “who cares about Google,” and another one justifying the looting of ampm so apparently, in their mind, it’s not a problem. The fact that this exact same tactic is used by the aforementioned agent provocateurs should only further encourage self-policing within these protests.
Have you seen what happens when people try to stop agent provocateurs? The police rush in and beat the shit out of them. The entire point of provocateurs is to manufacture an excuse to use violence.
No, I haven’t seen that, but I’m sure you can provide an example.
The point of agent provocateurs - at least as I understand it - is to make a peaceful protest no longer peaceful, giving the authorities an excuse to shut it down. But even if the people committing vandalism really are provocateurs, they still can’t accomplish their goal alone. They need real protesters to go along with it. Plenty of people are willing to riot, but they don’t want to be the first. However, once someone else takes that step, they’ll happily join in.
If the general sentiment among the protesters was that this kind of behavior won’t be tolerated, these tactics wouldn’t work. A regular police officer can’t tell a protester from an agent provocateur - so if someone starts throwing bricks and immediately gets shunned and handed over to the cops, they’ll be taken away, and the protest stays peaceful.