Genuinely despicable to force people to choose between protecting themselves from disease transmission and protesting for causes they care about
The cruelty is the point. It only affects those protesting for good causes anyway – those protesting in support of their orange Jesus won’t have masks anyway.
For real. Those morons didn’t mask up when they gathered a lynch mob in the capital building when covid was at its highest. There was every reason to mask up and still they didn’t bother
Yeah I don’t disagree :/
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If you don’t show your face in a political protest in a free country, then you don’t actually believe in the cause.
This is obviously different in countries that are not free.
If you don’t have the freedom to cover your face at a political protest, the country you are protesting in is not free.
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This is blatant doublespeak, and has been removed because of such.
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Why is it cowardly? What do you think the purpose of a protest is? Your face does not lend a protest additional credibility, it just makes it easier to target you. The purpose of a protest is to show that people support a cause. Who those people are is irrelevant unless you plan to target them.
It is cowardly to hide behind a mask in a free country where you have nothing to fear of government from protesting.
I do however agree that it is sensible to mask in a country where protesting in and of itself will arrest and mistreatment from the government.
where you have nothing to fear of government from protesting
There is no such thing. Surveillance is something to fear. Tracking is something to fear. Lack of anonymity is in itself something to fear, because anonymity (i.e. privacy) is a right. It’s not just about arrests or physical abuse.
There is nothing “cowardly” about exercising your right to privacy.
If the position you are pushing is truly of no concern to the government, it means either that a) they’re on board with it, so it’s not actually a protest just a rally, or b) you’re not large enough for them to care yet. More likely, you just don’t realize they do actually care.
You’re basically just making a variation on the “if you have nothing to hide, you shouldn’t care about not having privacy” argument.
I fully agree that surveillance is something to fear, but again, if you are living in a free country like Sweden, then you won’t be arrested simply for protesting, vandalism and violence however, those are things you will be arrested for.
A surveillance camera could also prove that you were peaceful if you are caught up in a bad situation if you can be identified.
A surveillance camera could also prove that you were peaceful if you are caught up in a bad situation if you can be identified.
Just to be clear, you think you’re allowed to protest, but also think that you may have to prove your innocence, rather than having your guilt be proven?
It sounds like you actually realize that you’re more at the whims of the government than your claims about being free let on.
“I am going to alter my actions in order to ensure that I am as safe from false accusation as I can be” is just self-censorship because you actually do fear your government.
If you live in a society that lives under mass surveilance, it is not a free society. You’re not making me think you know what protesting is. You’re describing petition, and you’re really making it sound like maybe you have access to the kinds of privilege that are hard to imagine within an overall hierarchical society. It sounds like you don’t want countries your nations companies profit from to rise up in rejection of the fossil fuel profiteering that gives you access to these things. Please realize the “free society” you live in is the same tortured society the rest of us are trying to dismantle that you’re saying don’t have enough freedom to qualify for your masks off argument.
Which is to say nothing about that this whole discussion has pulled us off the original accessibility concern immunocomprimised people experience. Your masks off argument would see these people stripped of access to the right to petition that you hold dear. When I think about it it genuinely makes me angry just how dismissive of what everyone else is saying. We’re telling you about a REAL and present threat and your response is just to say if we lived in a free society we wouldn’t have to fight for our rights. We know! We know that! That’s why we fight. But what’s frustrating is that your society isn’t as free as you’re saying. You live in a country with active neo Nazi and white supremacist factions. What are you going to do if they gain access to that mass surveilance mechanism. How are you going to tell them you don’t want the descendants of slaves in your country to get lynched? You gonna ask politely?
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If you don’t show your face in a political protest in a free country
OP sure did.
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Oh. Sorry. Didn’t realize risking bodily injury from tear gas, rubber bullets, beanbags, and nightsticks because something fucking matters was cowardly. You bring up such eloquent and well reasoned points. I’ll keep them in mind the next time the police are kettling me or a Nazi throws a brick at one of my friends. I’ll say to myself “you know. We probably deserved this for being so cowardly”
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And what do you think I’m talking about? Cops and fascists want to hurt me for saying it’s not okay for their boys to kill a member of my community. I don’t wanna give them any opportunity to come arrest me for some made up bullshit about how I was doing disorderly conduct in public, and then resisted arrest, and then assaulted an officer. If you’re getting out in public with your face in view and not worried, congrats. You’ve won the racial lottery. Meanwhile the rest of us gotta keep our heads on a swivel because of our facial features, hair texture, and skin color depending on what the cops find to hate in us.
How is it cowardly?
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Classic lemm.ee response
The top level comment mentions freedom?
Reply with a pic of your face or you’re a coward and your comments mean nothing.
Oh, and which countries are “free”? I’d like to know which state has liberated all its people. I’ll wait.
There is an ongoing pandemic and the global capitalist efforts to downgrade, downplay, and minimise this pandemic for " the economy" mean that it’s even more important to mask, not least to challenge the health supremacy and ableism of this current capitalist culture. Masking is one of the most easy yet powerful ways we can promote safety and engage in intersectional anticapitalism (in times of universal deceit, and all that).
Protests are not about “being seen” as individuals to gain clout or appear cool and edgy, not least with the increased assault on the right to protest.
To truly “believe in the cause” is to act, not attract recognition. Besides, if you want a revolution, you’d better start dressing for the occasion.
I am talking about countries where you don’t get punnished for protesting orderly.
Which ones, in particular? Be specific.
Here in Sweden you won’t get arrested for protesting peacefully.
If you want to stage a protest you need permission from the police, they are required to grant it to you unless it can’t be done safely, then they can suggest a different location for the protest.
A year or two ago, the police did deny permission for a protest where a guy wanted to burn a quran, that was a big deal about it and the police was found to be at fault.
The US has long since lost the “land of the free” title in my oppinion, and I do not count them among the free countries
Here in Sweden you won’t get arrested for protesting peacefully.
If you want to stage a protest you need permission from the police, they are required to grant it to you unless it can’t be done safely, then they can suggest a different location for the protest.
Wow I hope Sweden never has any sort of rightward turn that would suddenly leave your “right to protest” (“peacefully”) (with mum’s permission) very much in the air. I hope you never have to fear they ID’d you at an event where the police kettled things from a protest into a survival riot. I hope you never have to decide whether to pop your phone in a faraday bag. Take the battery out. Never need to hide your face from a government fond of making lists. Never fear gait recognition following you home thru a hundred CCTV cameras. The raid that comes in the night when you realize your freedoms were quite illusory. I hope your protest movement isn’t demonized by the media or arbitrarily designated a terrorist organization.
Fuck your shaming. We don’t protest for glory and clout. We protest because we are human. And some of us land immediately in the crosshairs unless we try to protect ourselves. Am I being hyperbolic? Ask the environmental movement the UK branded as terroristic for highlighting how close to extinction we are. Ask Cop City protestors. Ask Palestinian supporters in Germany. Ask BLM protestors who did nothing illegal and ended up in black vans being intimidated.
Grow up. Freedom isn’t free.
Meh, in my experience, demonstrators wearning masks just want to riot or cause violence without consequences.
If Sweden falls into a dictatorship or similar, I’d gladly revise my stance on the status of Sweden as a free country.
Untill then, if you are protesting, take off you mask and show your face! Else I can’t take the protest seriously
Well that certainly is some words you just said. Enjoy your naivete while you still can. I hope Sweden is always so wonderfully safe feeling. That must be nice.
Tell me, what does showing your face add to the protest, other than making it easier for opposing groups to target you?
If makes people take you seriously.
No, numbers make people take a protest seriously.
If you are discounting a cause based on whether the supporters show their faces or not, that’s just you looking for an excuse.
In my experience if there is a masked protest here in Sweden, it is beacuase people want to riot, even if the initial idea was not to riot, the concept of a masked protest will attract more people who will riot.
it is beacuase people want to riot
You may be living in a country that allows you to protest, but you have created your own mental shackles by buying into an authoritarian narrative against masked protests.
Masks == dangerous potential rioters is not a “free” mindset.
I don’t think I have ever seen any masked protest that didn’t devolve into rioting or violence in some way.
That is obviously not exclusive to masked protests, but most unmasked protests I have seen then to be be peaceful.
It is almost as if hiding their identity makes people less restrained.
I am going to posit that this says more about your media, and how it is shaping your perceptions in line with someone’s agenda.
“My government is totally fine with protesting, but our media makes it seem as though any masked protest is a precursor to a riot, so I argue against people protesting in masks, but it’s not that the government wants me to argue that and has shaped the media to ensure I do, it’s actually just my free and un-manipulated opinion!”
Have you seen people protesting against Nazis in Sweden? That’s the sort of situation where you do not need to fear the state, but the violent and retributive people you are protesting.
Yep, I have seen them, and in my experience it is the little cowardly Nazi bitches who tend to be quicker to mask.
That’s not the point, though, is it? It doesn’t matter if Nazis mask faster. What matters is that there are Nazis and other non-state-actors who will happily try to identify and dox people who get in their way. Such doxxers aren’t even necessarily at the protests. They might be in, say, Russia and looking to shut up pro-Western activists in neighboring countries.
It may be that no one in Sweden is immuno-comprosmied and that no one in Sweden could get hacked or doxxed when their identity is uncovered, but for the rest of the world, there are plenty of reasons a person might want to wear a mask that don’t involve wanting to be riot-ready.
Restating an opinion doesn’t make it better.
This is obviously different in countries that are not free.
So… the US? People are regularly arrested for perfectly legal, not even a shadow of a doubt, activity at protests. And protesters are vulnerable to not just cops, but dangerous actors who support the thing they’re protesting against. Whether it’s doxing, billionaire-funded slander, your boss not liking the cause, or actual violence, there’s plenty of reason not to want your face to be easily identifiable, even while orderly protesting for a just cause. Never mind health concerns like not wanting to catch COVID (or breath tear gas).
The idea that orderly protesting is safe in the United States is incredibly naïve.
At this point in time, I do not see the US as a free country in this context.
This is a story about protests and mask bans in the US and non-governmental actors can still be a threat to protesters in a “free” country.
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As I have repeatedly stated, the US is not a free country in this regard.
So mask away!
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I understand, I believe heavily in trying to see the other guy’s logic even if I disagree with them.
Sadly the world in general has seen a rise of the far right, which I realize will make masked protests needed, even here in Sweden, I don’t like it, but I understand that it peobably is comming. But that is not today.
All rights are won through violence.
You are partly correct, plenty of rights have been won through negotiation
And what do you think the negotiators are negotiating about? Why do you think anyone took Martin Luther King serious? They were fucking scared of Malcolm X and Marcus Garvey. “We make a deal with you so the scarier people don’t get any scarier than they are right now”
And Martin Luther King STILL got killed for speaking out. You’ve shown some really ignorant and privileged views in this thread. I’m glad Sweden’s been so kind to you, but maybe don’t chirp about shit you don’t know about if you don’t want people to say you sound like a tool for oppressors, especially when your nations wealth comes from the fossil fuels that’s killing everyone else. You are a beneficiary of colonialism even if you’re not the beneficiary of colonialism.
As I have said before, I do not consider the US a free country in this context.
Mask away if you want.
That’s because the US is not a free country.
Which a I have noted in several comments here
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