Mastodawn

I'm fine with peaceful protests.

All the same, you probably don't want to be asking for something that is untargeted and risks contributing to energy shortages, inflation, and longer term long-term inequality that will make everyone worse off while at the same time you are blockading essential fuel depots and obstructing emergency vehicles.

There's very little left in cause or method for the public (or the public purse, which has to make spending choices) to get behind there...

#fuelprotest

Show thread

iBallesty 1d ago

@rlv Interesting funding model for a once legitimate protest that has been hijacked and divertered into an anti establishment protest by a disgruntled minority, too afraid to protest the American Embassy but happy to disrupt the ordinary working folk. Effective protest would be planned, regular and negotiated. https://www.thebriefing.ie/who-is-funding-the-fuel-protests-online-campaign/

Who is funding the fuel protest's online campaign?

Political mobilisation does not scale "spontaneously", and, once that fire is lit, there is no controlling what it burns.

The Briefing

Show thread

Rich Vance

@iBallesty Not a new thing for anger or protests to be co-opted, and it seems to have happened to at least some degree in this instance. Reactionaries, their fellow travellers, and veriois interests have become very adept at leveraging human psychology and social dynamics. Both are adding layers of complexity, which we're not good at teasing apart or dealing with.

Show thread

iBallesty 5h ago

@rlv I watched the same thing happen in Chile in 2019. A legitimate protest, essentially about the cost of living, morphed into a massive violent protest led by a partisan few and definitely fuelled by outside sources.
There is little doubt that this protest has now got an amorphous group of the usual rabble rouses complaining about everything. This will be very difficult for the government keep under control

Show thread

Rich Vance 51m ago

@iBallesty It's a difficult balance, having genuine democracy & keeping it inclusive & evidence based & guided by human rights. Not everyone wants that... Again and again we see these patterns of huge, real inequalities. And they are like touchpaper underneath all of these sentiments, from the rational and empathetic to the xenophobic, reactionary, and bad faith. Governments, present included, are not addressing the symptoms particularly well, or with baseline inequality either.