I Guess You Can't

 

I know. Things you see on Twitter might just be for provocation and engagement and not serious. But my stars and garters:

You can't hijack planes. You can't throw Molotovs. What is this world coming to? 

Look, I'm all for a good boycott, a march, a strongly worded letter to the editor, a ripping blog post, and some bang-up trolling, but yeah, how you do protest--the medium, if you will, is the message. I don't really have a problem with hunger strikes, for example. I just think like, a 12 hour fast is humorous when that's normal. Some people diet doing a 18 hour fast.  Every day. I think blocking streets is fucked up if you block ambulances. I am not sure how stopping people from getting home at rush hour is supposed to influence them to do anything in particular but be mad at being inconvenienced. Ditto messing with holiday parades and church functions--I mean: Give people their own spaces. Respect.

I also think heckling politicians is mostly great because they signed up for some trouble, but people who dump manure on the property of someone who isn't even Speaker of the House anymore is disgusting. Trying to co-opt every event is kind of disrespectful to other causes. Also, what if people were working on a solution, and activists were just barking up the wrong tree and slamming the ones who were, actually, doing the work? 

What if self-immolation was the waste of a life where so much good could be done besides? 

I just think you should put your good where it will do the most. It just won't matter if your heart is in the right place if your ass isn't. 

Damn. You can go ahead and BE. You have my express permission, enthusiastic consent, and blessings. Just don't hijack any planes. It's tacky and really makes the movement look terrible, you know? You might even get called a terrorist if you do terrorism--who does that freaking help? 

We see the horrific loss of life and process it in our own ways. But there's useful protesting about that that opens up a dialog and suggests ways to get that message to where it can be worked with, then there's performances that don't do anything but shock, awe, and shut down the conversation. I'm not trying to judge or tone-police. 

But yeah. I really will draw the line at hijacking. 

UPDATE: No, the nonviolent hijackings, tho':

There was this time in the 1970s, says an anon whose bio reads something like "19-year old Maoist" (literally carrying pictures of Chairman Mao), when holding up planes with a scented pencil eraser was a special hack to get a free plane ride to Cuba. And Briahna Joy Gray says: Yep, and the Houthis are using Nerf bullets. 

(Things were not actually like that back in the day.)

Just because they suck doesn't mean they couldn't kill someone. It just means they haven't yet. Are they looking like they are trying to? 

There's reasons for not wanting things to escalate to that. Like having any goddamn common sense at all.