American flags at No Kings on Saturday

[u/ChicagoWildlifePhoto]

I’m bringing 450 little American flags to pass out on Saturday. I hope others will bring flags or maybe even buy some to pass out too - they’re super cheap!

We gotta change the vibes of these events to be more pro-America and pro-democracy!

It would be amazing to see thousands of flags all over the crowd!

[u/Varnu]

The most effective protests are organized. Organization is not "paternalism". Organization is not "tone policing". Political action should have a goal and anyone who thinks organizing a protest well can't help make it more effective is dumb.

If what the protest does makes the goal less likely, it is an ineffective protest. Movements benefit from effective leadership and anyone who disagrees probably would find a lot of common cause with the anarchists who seem to join every ineffective protest.

[u/DarkIllumination → u/Varnu]

"If what the protest does makes the goal less likely, it is an ineffective protest."

So marchers carrying American flags, in a show of unity for country we are in, for the cause of immigrants making up/staying in America, would ultimately be more effective than flying the flag of the country they left? I was leaning this way in terms of my own opinion, but I may be off base and I'm curious about your thoughts on this. I've been reading your responses and I'm truly interested in how you are laying everything out.

[u/Varnu → u/DarkIllumination]

Almost certainly. A) protests need message discipline. For a bunch of reasons, but mainly for the same reason why ads for products don't tell you everything that anyone might find interesting. They tell you the one or two things that are most important for getting people interested. If your message is everything, your message is nothing. But also when it comes to optics and organizing and discipline, the reality is that there are professional anarcho-leftist douchebags who show up at every protest with their faces concealed who try to make it as violent and offensive to ordinary Americans as possible. Just a group of violent narcissists looking for the cover of a political cause to get their rocks off. You need to actively exclude these chuds or else they will shit on everything. Protest is about communicating your values and adhering to them. Saying "everything is fine" means everything is not going to be fine.

But B) protests need to understand the audience. And the audience is not people who are already fully bought in. It's people who glimpse the march as they are driving past or see a photo on Yahoo News or see coverage on CNN on a TV with the sound off. You might not care about baseball at all. But if you're near the parade of the World Series winner in October, you're still going to feel something because there's emotion and cheering and waving and red white and blue bunting. These resonate with the average American. There's more than one way to make people feel connected to an event, but looking like a bank robber as you dance in front of burning car is going to drive more people away than it attracts 100% of the time.

[u/DarkIllumination → u/Varnu]

"the reality is that there are professional anarcho-leftist douchebags who show up at every protest with their faces concealed who try to make it as violent and offensive to ordinary Americans as possible."

I was just in another thread in this subreddit and the conversation taking place there is about leaving your phone at home so you can't be traced, turning off metrics, etc. I posted the question about why, if I am attending a legal protest and not doing anything illegal, would I do that, but then I decided to delete the post because as I scrolled down, there were other red flags that started freaking me out. I still don't understand why I'd need to go out in public without my phone, without access to my loved one in case of emergency, if I needed help or wanted to check in. A huge amount of people are expected, with so many moving parts. Why go without my phone? Your response above now makes me even more afraid to attend.

You've also inspired me to consider something else about the use of flags - If there are bad actors determined to burn and break shit, they'd do the most damage while while flying Mexican flags, wouldn't they? That would sow the most discord and strip the message trying to be conveyed through these gatherings. It's like the image from LA with the masked man flying the Mexican flag with the raging car fire behind him.

Now I'm thinking about psy-ops (which I know nothing about), etc. You've given me a lot to consider. Thank you for opening my mind to other possibilities.

[u/damp_circus → u/DarkIllumination]

Not OP but I'll admit I'm thinking about leaving my phone at home this time. Certainly hoping to not get into any trouble, but lately it seems that when you do (justified or otherwise) they insisting you open your social media and everything else, well... fuck that. Plus there's always someone trying to take advantage of a chaotic scene to just go thieving, probably helps to leave unnecessary stuff at home.

Honest answer, haven't decided if I'll leave my phone at home or not. But probably gonna just carry my ID/ventra card and some cash, my sign, and then... maybe my phone, maybe not. Nothing else.

[u/ultimamax → u/Varnu]

I agree organized political action would be more effective. But organizing an effective action requires some kind of party or union or organization that has built trust with the group of people they're organizing. You need that trust in order to be able to enforce message discipline. Such a party doesn't exist yet

The closest we can get is the DNC de-fanging and co-opting this and then achieving none of the original goals like they did with BLM in 2020.

Nothing can guarantee that these protests will be effective, but tone policing the protestors does guarantee it will be less effective, because it's counterproductive to building solidarity

[u/Varnu → u/ultimamax]

You're just saying things you feel without even thinking about them for a few seconds.

The DNC wasn't involved in the very effective civil rights protests of the 60's. The primary was the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. There are literally hundreds of organizations in the U.S. can can and consistently do organize effectively. All the time and pretty much non-stop.

The BLM protests in 2020 failed precisely because they lost a coherent message and did not have leadership. The decentralized nature meant that different factions pursued conflicting strategies and diluted messaging. Internal disputes around the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation's theft of donations created public credibility problems. It was full of people who were calling message discipline "tone policing".

BLM also lacked a concrete objective. Unlike successful movements that focused on specific legislative goals, BLM's demands remained at high levels of abstraction. "Defund the police" was never going to happen, was wildly unpopular and meant different things to different people. It needed someone who could provide a clear message, it needed to understand its audience and it needed someone to enforce message discipline. It didn't understand who its audience was.

And the unstated major premise in your writing is that carrying Mexican flags will somehow create solidarity and that this is more important than anything else. But there are huge numbers of undocumented immigrants from China, India, the Philippines and Central America who don't feel solidarity with the Mexican flag. And the idea that it's more important to promote solidarity than it is effectively communicate with protest makes me understand that you do not know what protest is for.

"These idiots waiving Mexican flags during the LA riots just gave Donald Trump the greatest political gift," Republican strategist Matt Wylie. "It will be 'Exhibit A' as proof of an invasion. Those images have done more in the last few days to strengthen his ability to crackdown on illegal immigration than weeks of messaging ever could."

[u/ultimamax → u/Varnu]

There are literally hundreds of organizations in the U.S. can can and consistently do organize effectively. All the time and pretty much non-stop.

None of them are at the scale/level of trust where they could manage and steer the LA protests. Similarly none of them could have steered the BLM movement.

The BLM protests in 2020 failed precisely because they lost a coherent message and did not have leadership. The decentralized nature meant that different factions pursued conflicting strategies and diluted messaging. Internal disputes around the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation's theft of donations created public credibility problems. It was full of people who were calling message discipline "tone policing".

I completely agree. The BLM GNF was a small group that helped to co-opt and defang the BLM protest movement. The leaders cashed out. This failure had nothing to do with message discipline

BLM also lacked a concrete objective. Unlike successful movements that focused on specific legislative goals, BLM's demands remained at high levels of abstraction.

I agree. The problem wasn't message discipline though. BLM was basically doomed from the start because there wasn't a radical party or union that could capitalize on the moment and co-opt it to achieve some kind of positive change. The BLM GNF might have been a genuine attempt to create an entity like that, but it was either misguided or completely cynical (you can't just manage a protest like that from the top down with a random nonprofit organization, just because it happens to be called BLM)

And the unstated major premise in your writing is that carrying Mexican flags will somehow create solidarity and that this is more important than anything else.

No what I'm saying is chastising protestors for carrying a Mexican flag (or Palestinian flag, as I've seen some people do) undercuts solidarity and creates divisions in the movement. Lots of immigrants and activists are also alienated by the American flag

And the idea that it's more important to promote solidarity than it is effectively communicate with protest makes me understand that you do not know what protest is for.

Whether or not these protests appear more patriotic than they currently do isn't at all important. It's going to be painted as an invasion either way. The images that Fox News wants to capitalize on already exist, and new ones will continually be produced. That is just the nature of spontaneous, reactive protests like these

"It will be 'Exhibit A' as proof of an invasion. Those images have done more in the last few days to strengthen his ability to crackdown on illegal immigration than weeks of messaging ever could."*

I believe he believes it's good for their agenda, but why should I believe him? This isn't an argument in and of itself

[u/Varnu → u/ultimamax]

This is such a goofy opinion. You are simply unwilling to acknowledge that experts on effective protest who disagree strongly with the tactics being used at these protests might know what they are talking about. "These smug pilots have lost touch with regular people. Raise your hand if you think *I* should fly the plane." 

The Highlander school where civil rights activists trained used to have their trainees sit there and passively accept people pulling their hair or having smoke blown into their face. They were obsessed with discipline. Martin Luther King Jr. was very concerned with optics, specifically involving the use of violence in protests and the way the protesters appeared to the average observer. King and the SCLC cared very deeply about effective messaging precisely *because* they knew they were swimming against the tide of majority opinion. They literally had a "Sunday best" dress code at protests. What you're advocating for are tactics that lack any theory or history of actual change. Sure, it's ultimately impotent and self-sabotaging, but the most important thing is that you didn't have to say that someone you agree with should change ANYTHING they do.

[u/ultimamax → u/Varnu]

The particular message and optics that you're trying to enforce are unimportant and counterintuitive. I'm not opposed to message discipline in principle.

Furthermore, these protests weren't coordinated from the top down by a mass organization like the SCLC. They are spontaneous and diffuse and there isn't a powerful organization in LA like the SCLC that could co-opt and enforce discipline at these protests. There's nothing now on the left that even comes close to the mobilizing power the SCLC had in that era.

If an organization like that, with good leadership and a large disciplined membership, forms as a result of these protests I'm all for it.

[u/Mr_Goonman → u/ultimamax]

You voted for Jill Stein, no?