In Defense of Those Standing Up: On The Los Angeles Protests
Note: This piece originally appeared in my newsletter.
I had an innocent newsletter planned about recent work in the community gardens. But in light of the regime ripping thousands of immigrants from their families, I want to defend those in Los Angeles who are standing up.
Yes, even if standing up has meant “rioting” and “vandalism,” as labeled by the media.
The Trolley Problem and The Ministry For The Future
It fascinates me how the books I read connect to the outer world at the right time. That was the case this week as I finished reading The Ministry For The Future.
In the book, science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson imagines our world a few years from now, after continued failure to halt climate destruction. The book begins with a heat wave killing millions of people in India, and the desperation for action that followed.
Robinson writes, “Everyone alive knew that not enough was being done.”
In the wake of the heat wave, an Indian group known as the Children of Kali takes matters into their own hands.
“The group announced that mad cow disease had been cultured and introduced by drone dart into millions of cattle all over the world… So to stay safe, people needed to stop eating beef.”
Hurting cows is one thing, but they took it further. They downed private jets and assassinated weapons manufacturers in their homes.
To the Children of Kali, it was a Trolley Problem: allow millions more to die through inaction, or act violently to stop the worst perpetrators.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Trolley Problem, it’s a classic ethical thought experiment: a runaway trolley is heading toward five people tied to the tracks. You can pull a lever to divert it to a side track, but there’s one person tied to that track. Do you cause one death to prevent five?
The viewpoint of the Children of Kali was to pull the lever so the train ran over the lives of cows and the several thousand people most responsible for destroying the climate, while saving everybody else.
Of course, people from UN employees to other climate advocacy groups, condemn the Children of Kali. They called them terrorists. Extremists. Radicals. They are. Many go to jail. And yet, their tactics work.
“Private jets had stopped flying… less beef got eaten.”
This is a wartime attitude, the Children of Kali admit. “But it was a war,” says a member.
Even in wartime, the Children of Kali share that, “The only thing we worried about was what the guilty ones always call ‘collateral damage.’ In other words, the accidental killing of innocents to kill your target. The guilty do it all the time, it’s one sign of their guilt, but we don’t. It’s a principle.”
I pondered the ethical dilemma. What would I do if faced with this trolley problem, the chance to pull the lever and kill the few guilty to save the many innocent?
I had entered the bottomless pit of moral philosophy.
And I thought of the people in Los Angeles, who went to stand up to ICE. Telling ICE to leave did not work, just as asking the rich to stop using their private jets, for the sake of our children’s future, has not worked. Law enforcement came to separate the protesting citizens from ICE, threatening to launch tear gas and shoot them with rubber bullets.
Vandalism vs Violence and How to Blow Up a Pipeline
I thought of the argument in Andreas Malm’s How to Blow Up a Pipeline.
Malm frames his argument similarly to Robinson: our current climate trajectory, with a steadfast focus on absolute non-violence, is failing. He writes, “Will absolute non-violence be the only way, forever the sole admissible tactic in the struggle to abolish fossil fuels? Can we be sure it will suffice?”
In Malm’s argument, he makes a clear distinction between vandalism and violence, between some of the Children of Kali’s actions and actions that target property.
Pipelines and robotaxis don’t have feelings and don’t feel pain. Meanwhile, the protestors get shot with rubber bullets, the immigrants get ripped from their homes, and the refugees who flee environmental devastation do.
Malm shares the example of the sabotage of the Dakota Access Pipeline in Iowa. Activists announced, “After exploring and exhausting all avenues of process, including attending public commentary hearings, gathering signatures for valid requests for Environmental Impact Statements, participating in civil disobedience, hunger strikes, marches and rallies, boycotts and encampments, we saw the clear deficiencies of our government to hear the people’s demands.”
The political logic of this is the same as Robinson’s Children of Kali and Malm’s examples: It hits people in the wallet, where it can hurt. It shows that their actions that harm people will be met with attempts to destroy their property. If ICE doesn’t want confrontation, then ICE should stay out of our communities.
It is also a Trolley Problem where on one side of the tracks is people and on the other is a robotaxi. Would I pull the lever then? I would.
“Highly Pressing Circumstances”
Malm argues that “highly pressing circumstances must rather be present for attacks on property to come under consideration.” I agree.
Whether environmental protection or dealing with the real challenges of immigration, I believe in dialogue.
I believe more community gardens and less reliance on cars, to name two things I fight for, are good for everyone. There are win-win-win situations we can create.
And yet, there is no good-faith dialogue to be had with someone like Stephen Miller, who is fond of calling immigrants sub-human. “They release people—not people—monsters…” Miller said on Fox News. That’s what he says publicly, to a mainstream news audience.
What is pressing is subjective. The regime’s main goals seem to be to mass deport people. Not criminals, just anyone who’s undocumented.
People who have built lives here, who have families, who are our friendly neighbors, who have no criminal violation, are being ripped from their homes by armed agents of the state. For those families, it’s highly pressing.
Let’s Stop Policing The Protestors More Than The Police
True, the vast majority of protests are peaceful. Mass, peaceful protests are an important tool.
But we should not ignore the percentage that isn’t non-violent and docile to what the police want. And as long as ICE is in our communities’ streets, there will be more confrontation.
While police in Los Angeles shoot rubber bullets at journalists and tear gas protestors, the liberal retort for this has been, “but the protestors are peaceful!” These liberals will take it a step further and distance themselves from the vandalism, even denouncing it.
LA’s mayor said, “Everyone has the right to peacefully protest, but let me be clear: violence and destruction are unacceptable, and those responsible will be held accountable.” Dear Mayor, is violence and destruction by your police forces acceptable?
When cops use tear gas and hit people with rubber bullets who are trying to put themselves in the way of ICE, to keep their neighbors from being abducted and deported, how should they respond?
The cop, with their weapons, inflict real damage on the protester. The protester, unarmed, may light something or fire to create a barrier between them and the cops. They do what they went there to do: defend their community members, stand up for those who can’t.
Everyone Standing Up is Our Ally
I will not be hurling cocktails or lighting robotaxis on fire. But I recognize that those who do, at great risk to themselves, are my allies. They stand in defense of human dignity. They deserve our respect.
Everyone should be united against ICE. I’m here to protest, whether that’s with my voice on the streets or my laptop online. At this time, we need to respect that a variety of tactics might be necessary to fight fascism.
Even if I disagree with the tactics, if I think it can go too far, that we shouldn’t hit cops with rocks, that I have real concerns about how the optics of a cop car on fire will get spun and weaponized by right-wing media, I recognize that I don’t know what I would do in that situation. When attacked, do you stand your ground? When they hit, do you hit back? It’s another bottomless pit into moral philosophy, yet in real time, with the cops and their shield and guns right in their face and their immigrant neighbor being taken away in handcuffs.
The least I can do, the least bit of courage I can show, is speak in support of the skaters, punks, anarchists, activists, organizers, and a wide array of groups taking a different approach to fighting fascism than I am.
Fighting ICE and Climate Devastation is the Same Enemy
The system that prioritizes profit and private property over human life, that treats people, especially immigrants and those in the Global South, as disposable, this is what we’re up against, whether we’re talking about deportations or climate destruction.
If you’re protesting this weekend, as I am, stay safe. Go with friends. Even speaking out against the atrocities is a challenge. Thank you for your courage.
