Those that destroy property at protests do it because they recognize that the only language capitalism speaks is profit. Protest songs or banners mean nothing to the leaders of capitalism, only the price tag of suppressing protests and fixing the damage registers on their radar. Only when public resistance to their policies becomes so expense that it isn’t worth it do they change their deadly policies. That is what activists mean when they say capitalism values property more than people and that is why activists target property.
The cost of fixing a local resident’s car does not register on the pricetag for the state, only for the local resident who will blame the protesters.
What else do you do when peaceful petitions, letter campaigns and calling representatives don’t work?
What else do you do when you vote for someone who promises you they’ll do the thing, then breaks that promise?
What else do you do when you engage in a peaceful sit in/protest and are ignored?
What else do you do when you demand fair treatment or justice and are told to wait and go through the corrupted system that lead to those injustices in the first place?
What else can you do to get that point across when people refuse to listen?
Maybe burning cars, blocking highways, and smashing things is the only option that those people will respond to, because if any of those other things worked they wouldn’t need to.
Politics is the constant deployment of deadly violence. Politicians take away health care, ruin climates, drown refugees, bomb nations, close borders, undermine unions, imprison teenagers and shoot minorities for the sake of making more money for the rich. Their violence for profit kills every day.
Activists that do not practice non-violence are called ‘rioters’ or even ‘terrorists’ for commiting the unacceptable crime of taking that violence back to the door of the politicians that deploy it.
QueerAnarchism 