“ The disparity in police response only grew when comparing peaceful leftwing versus rightwing protests. Looking at the subset of protests in which demonstrators did not engage in any violence, vandalism, or looting, law enforcement officers were about 3.5 times more likely to use force against leftwing protests than rightwing protests, with about 1.8% of peaceful leftwing protests and only half a percent of peaceful rightwing protests met with teargas, rubber bullets or other force from law enforcement.”
So it’s actually worse when you take into account how peaceful the protests were.
Btw, I was looking for large right-wing rallies in the US, and couldn't find any. The "unite the right" rally seems to have gathered a few hundred people in all. Compare with the largest BLM rally in Washington DC, 200 thousand people. How do you compare these two (even if the participants to the first are nazi-like nutters and those of the other are normal left-wing citizens)?
And the "unite the right" are the nutters. Where are the large (tens of thousands of participants) rallies of the moderate right? Like the "keep taxes low" rally and the "no medicare" rally?
You'll see them if there's a threat of taxes going up or Medicare for all passing.
Police forces have been pushing left-wing protestors to use violence in order to justify crackdowns for decades.
If leftwing protestors were more violent they wouldn't need to use such techniques.
I determined authorities were only too happy to use violence. Per that John Lennon quote. And once there's any violence, whatever message or intent is immediately lost.
So I turned to activism, lobbying instead. That seems more fruitful.
Independent of everything else, because I do have a lot of opinions, I am delighted by two developments since.
The peaceful women's march was really remarkable. I wish I knew how they avoided or short circuited the backlash.
I'm so heartened that the BLM and adjacent issues went mainstream this time. (I'm less impressed by the bored frat boys LARPing as Antifa in places like Portland. After WTO, I personally intervened to stop such nonsense where I could. Like I said, I have opinions.)
I guess I have one more opinion. I wholeheartedly support people's right to protest, march, speak, whatever. So I have zero problem with Trump supporters doing their thing and think it's fantastic we live in a place that's encouraged. Civil disobedience, rallies, occupy, whatever. I support it all.
But goddammit cut out the violence. Violence only begats more violence.