Religion is a Mental Illness

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@wokal_distance: 1/ Want to know how Woke activists take over buildings, smash windows, trash university campuses, and still have the press

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Want to know how Woke activists take over buildings, smash windows, trash university campuses, and still have the press call them "non-violent"?

Well, as it turns out these are well trained activists using intelligent, highly developed tactics. Here's a primer:

First off: none of this is spontaneous.

IE: The protestors in the video going around have shields. (pic 1)

In 2020 we learned these shields can take hours to make and are made by volunteers working all day. You don't do that spontaneously. It takes planning. (pics 2 +3)

Here's a thread on the shields used during the 2020 Portland protests. They are well built and are distributed to those wishing to engage in "direct action" (AKA violence and vandalism).

Not all shields are built like this, but this is typical:

Another clue that this is all VERY well planned is the fact they tend to all have the same tent.

This is because the organizations that run and fund the protests purchase the tents in bulk and then give them to the protestors as needed.

Again, It is all VERY well planned.

Further, these are NOT "student protests."

Lisa Fithian is a 63 year old professional protestor, not a student. She's planned protests for decades.

According to the NYPD 1/3 of the people arrested at Columbia, and most of the people arrested at the CCNY, were not students

Now we need to understand the TACTICS that are being used here.

The first strategy is to put their target in a "decision dilemma." This is where they select a method of protest that leaves the person with no good options. No matter how the target reacts they look bad.

As John Searle explained in his 1971 book "The Campus War," the strategy is to leave the University with no good options:

They either let the protestors take over, or call police and then students play victim and use the optics to look like sympathetic martyrs for the cause.

The decision dilemma strategy is paired with: "the real action is your targets reaction." You use someone's reactions to your protest against them.

IE: Taking over a building. If the police arrest you, you film it and play the martyr. If they don't, you control the building

Those two strategies are used hand in hand to create actions which activists can turn to their advantage.

When they do this correctly they can paint themselves as the sympathetic powerless underdogs even when they are the aggressors.

It's social and political jiu-jitsu  This is performative, but not in "look good to your peers" kind of way.

The principle is "play to the audience that isn't there." Activists protesters want to LOOK good to the people on Youtube or watching the news.

It's the OPTICS that matter.

Toolbox — Beautiful Trouble

Dive into the Beautiful Trouble toolbox, an interconnected web of ideas and creative best practices that puts the power of organizing for so

Beautiful Trouble

Please pay careful attention to this:

Activists want to LOOK like they are trying to change the minds of people they protest against, but that's just for show. They see their targets unrepentant evil doers that are just props in the drama they are staging.

This is awful.

The point of the protest is not to change the mind of the people whose building they have taken over, the goal is to use the protest as a way of building social and political pressure against the people they are trying to make give it.

THAT is the goal. 

This next strategy is self-explanatory: "do the media's work for them."

This is where activists find press releases and film footage that make them look good get into the hands of sympathetic journalists. This explains a lot of what gets on TV

Toolbox — Beautiful Trouble

Dive into the Beautiful Trouble toolbox, an interconnected web of ideas and creative best practices that puts the power of organizing for so

Beautiful Trouble

So how do they do all this and still get sympathetic coverage?

The strategy is: "lead with sympathetic characters." It's EXACTLY what it sounds like. They put sympathetic people out front to garner sympathy and create the APPEARANCE of underdogs fighting against the powerful.

This is why in the coverage of these protests you rarely see the images of smashed glass, trashed buildings, broken doors, and blood on the street, but you will often see pictures of the people below which are meant to make the protestors look sympathetic.

The protestors have a highly developed theory of protest optics. They understand videos can be sliced and diced to tell any story, and the story that "resonates" with people most, wins. So they are intentional in trying to create moments on video that can go viral... 

That isn't to say they aren't also intentional in doing damage. They are. The book Black Bloc, White Riot: Anti-Globalization and the Genealogy of Dissent by author AK Thompson is the starting place for their theory of what counts as violence, and when violence is justified. 

Here is Alex Hundert writing is rabble defending "a diversity of tactics" which is a euphemism for allowing violence at protests. Hundert explicitly states a commitment to non-violence is "dogmatic" and "stifles debate" about which tactics to use.

So the violence and vandalism at these protests is intentional. Where the elderly protestor is meant to win hearts, the black bloc is there to intimidate. If police react to the violence with arrests protestors claim the police "attacked students."

See how the game works?

The point is that none of these protests are happening spontaneously.

These are well planned protests, using high level tactics that are given to people supported by a well organized protest infrastructure (where did you think the tents and shields came from?) 

These radical protestors have organized an infrastructure to, in their words, disrupt, dismantle, and deconstruct your society.

I don't want to scare any of you, I just want you to know what's happening because you can't push back against what you don't understand.

Every single one of these protests operates according to a set of methodologies, principles and tactics and theories that have been created with the specific goal of allowing the radicals to gain social and political victories by creating and controlling the narrative.

As @realchrisrufo points out, the conflict at Harvard is reaching a "decision point," but Harvard can't end the conflict without looking bad and damaging their own reputation.

This is the result of activist tactics applied perfectly against Harvard.

Do not underestimate the ability of radical leftist protestors to win the narrative battle, particularly since we have a media complex sympathetic to leftist causes.

The goal here is not to scare you, but to show you what's going on under the hood of these protests....

Beating woke activists means understanding their tactics are so you can anticipate them and respond in a way that is effective. If universities had anticipated the Activist tactic "occupation" They would have known the goal was to put them in a "decision dillemma" (pic 2)

And the activists will explicitly tell us that these occupations are "well planned" (that's why I keep using that phrase" and that they want to expose the "power holders" (in this case universities) inability to enforce the rules. That's literally the whole point...

Had universities known this they would have understood that the right move is to eject the encampments the minute they start. There was not way to negotiate with the protestors because, as the activists themselves tell us, negotiating is not the point. The point is to create a situation where the University has no good option and expose the university as weak, and then use that to extract concessions and make the university fold because they have ZERO good options.

Knowing that this is the strategy allows you avoid the trap by taking the PR hit and ejecting the protestors and tearing down the encampments on day 1. You're taking a PR hit no matter what, so take the hit day 1 and then ride it out. The longer the protests last, the bigger a story they become, so end it quick and kill the momentum.

Instead universities did not know the tactics, thought they could reason with the protestors or negotiate in good faith, and now they are in exactly the bind that @realchrisrufo lays out here:

Learn how the woke activists operate, learn how their tactics function, and learn how to respond accordingly when they seek to impose their will on you using these tactics.

Thanks for reading.

/fin 

Disclaimer: The UN has so far not been able to produce independent, comprehensive, and verified casualty figures; the current numbers have been provided by the Ministry of Health or the Government Media Office in Gaza and the Israeli authorities and await further verification. Other yet-to-be verified figures are also sourced.

United Nations Reports Lower ‘Identified’ Death Toll Among Palestinian Arabs, Noting Conflicting Numbers From Hamas-Run Health Ministry

‘In the fog of war, it’s difficult to come up with numbers,’ a UN official says.

The New York Sun

The United Nations is reporting lower revised figures on the confirmed number of Palestinian Arab deaths in the Israel-Hamas war, calling into question the death toll that has been provided by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry.

In March, the director of the United Nations Children’s Fund, Catherine Russell, cited data from the Hamas-run health ministry when she said that more than 13,000 children have died since October 7, “an astronomically horrifying number.”

On Thursday, though, the UN released new figures, noting a difference between the total deaths “reported” by the health ministry in Gaza and a lower number of fatalities that had been “identified.” 

The difference between the numbers is attributed in the report to the fact that some Gazans have been reported missing or are buried under debris of buildings damaged during the war and unable to be accounted for.

The new data show that 7,797 children have been “identified” as having died in Gaza since the war began, substantially lower than the “reported” number of deaths. Neither the UN report, though, nor the Gaza Health Ministry specifies what age is considered the cutoff between children and adults in their death counts.

Out of the more than 34,000 “reported fatalities” — a figure that has been repeated across numerous press outlets, including in the New York Times on Friday — the UN Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs asserts as of May 8 that 24,686 are “identified.” 

Of those 24,686 identified as having died, the UN reports, 10,006 were men, 4,959 were women, 1,924 were elderly, and the remainder were children. The report notes that the tally does not include “more than 10,000 reported missing or under the rubble.” 

Asked by a reporter on Friday how the death numbers were revised, the deputy spokesman for the UN secretary-general, Farhan Haq, said, “In the fog of war, it’s difficult to come up with numbers. We get numbers from different sources on the ground, and then we try to crosscheck them. As we crosscheck them, we update the numbers, and we’ll continue to do that as that progresses.” 

The UN report includes a disclaimer that the agency “has so far not been able to produce independent, comprehensive, and verified casualty figures.”

The global body added that “the current numbers have been provided by the Ministry of Health or the Government Media Office in Gaza and the Israeli authorities and await further verification.”

Gaza’s health ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. It has repeated that women and children have made up about two-thirds of those killed. The Israeli military said in February it has killed more than 10,000 Hamas terrorists through air strikes and ground operations launched in response to October 7. 

The new fatality figures are about one-third lower than what was initially reported by the UN, yet Mr. Haq said that people “can consider them reliable from the fact that we’re continually checking them.” 

Mr. Haq added that “numbers get adjusted many times over the course of a conflict. Once a conflict is done, we’ll have the most accurate figures. But we’re just going with what we can absolutely confirm, which will always be the low end of what the numbers are.”

Critics of the death statistics put forward by the UN and Gaza Health ministry, noting the lack of specifics on the age cutoff between child and adult fatalities, suspect that some young men in their late teens, many of whom are active Hamas combatants, could be among those counted as child deaths in reports.

The UN’s press office did not immediately respond to the Sun’s request for comment on the matter. 

How Hamas Manipulates Gaza Fatality Numbers: Examining the Male Undercount and Other Problems

International media and NGOs have repeated the group's figures without caveats, giving credence to suspicions of Israeli misconduct and fuel

The Washington Institute

How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers

The evidence is in their own poorly fabricated figures

Tablet Magazine

Gaza Fatality Data Has Become Completely Unreliable

Given the discrepancies in official Palestinian counts and their growing reliance on questionable data from media reports, the credibility g

The Washington Institute

Why would a battle fought 54 years ago provide key insight on what Hamas' strategy is today?

Asymmetric Warfare. It's a term that most people don't really understand. Before I did this, I was a United States Army Green Beret and I did a couple of combat tours in Iraq. And needless to say, asymmetric warfare was kind of our thing.

So, in practical terms, it is a type of war between belligerents whose relative military power, strategy or tactics differ significantly. And as a result of this, the weaker opponent will use unconventional tactics in order to maximize one's strengths against a stronger opponent's weaknesses or vulnerabilities.

For instance, an Insurgent force does not have the freedom of movement or firepower necessary to attack a forward operating base or a heavily armed column. So instead, they focus on softer logistical targets. They may choose to use a remotely activated roadside bomb instead of engaging in direct fire.

In many situations, the weaker adversary has fewer personnel and resources. And so, a significant part of their strategy is to preserve those limited resources and use the munitions that they have to the greatest possible advantage.

But here's the thing. To pull this off long term, you generally need a consistent means of supply combined with enough territory to hit, run and then hide. And Hamas doesn't have these things, at least not in sufficient supply to win against the IDF.

So, what's their strategy? What can Hamas leverage that will allow them to conduct offensive operations against a much stronger opponent and then avoid getting destroyed by the IDF's vastly superior military capability?

And the answer to that question as horrific, as it is, is civilian casualties, but probably not the ones you're thinking.

To understand this, let's discuss that example 54 years ago. The Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War virtually wiped out the Viet Kong. It was by every objective measure, a complete tactical failure. But strategically, it was invaluable. Because while achieving none of its military objectives, the Tet Offensive shattered Americans' perspective on the situation on the ground.

Opponents of the war were able to effectively use the offensive as a demonstration of the futility of American involvement. Hollywood, Academia and many in the mainstream media went to work convincing the American people that the war couldn't be won. Or perhaps just shouldn't even be fought. And in a representative government, when the electorate decides that a war is lost, it is, regardless of the situation on the ground.

Now, understand something. I'm not making an argument for the pros or cons of fighting the Vietnam War. I'm merely illustrating a point about modern Asymmetric Warfare. The lesson of the Tet Offensive is when fighting the West, you don't defeat their military. You win their electorate. And the way to do that is through the institutions which shape culture in the West, namely Hollywood, the Media and Academia.

If Hamas had decided to engage in a conventional military attack directed at only legitimate military targets, the IDF would have effectively destroyed their war fighting capability within days, and Hamas knows it. So, they engaged in asymmetric strategy.

Once we understand this, their actions on October 7th, as horrific as they are, begin to make more sense. Hamas didn't just target civilians because they were easy targets or because they despise Jews, although both of those things are true. The attack and the subsequent taking of hostages was actually designed to elicit a major response from the IDF.

But why? Well, maybe it's because to achieve their strategic objectives, Hamas needs civilian casualties. And more specifically they need Palestinian civilian casualties. And this is why.

The two entities in this conflict that lose the most from a greater peace agreement in the Middle East are Iran and the terrorist organizations they support. Upsetting this process requires much more than the random launching of rockets into Israel or strikes against legitimate military targets. The IDF is more than capable of handling such incursions, and the Israeli people have become all too accustomed to weathering such attacks without demanding an overwhelming military response. something more significant was required.

And October 7th created the kind of conditions that demanded a significant and sustained response. They needed something so obscene that Israel would have no choice but to hit back hard.

And this is where the second component of Hamas' strategy plays out. How to get Palestinian casualties. Any government actually worried about civilian casualties dedicates resources to evacuating their own civilians from hostile areas and attempts to separate the civilian population from legitimate military targets. So what conclusion should we come to when a governing body decides to do the exact opposite?

In this asymmetric environment, Hamas is not only incentivized to kill Israeli civilians, they're incentivized to maximize their own civilian casualties in the short run in order to elicit Western intervention on their behalf. As easy as it might be to explain Hamas's strategy away as nothing but mindless bloodlust, it is actually more sinister than that.

Hamas is responding to the incentive structures certain elements within the West have created. Hamas understand that the real Battlefield is not in Gaza but in the streets, University halls and newsrooms of the West. And so that is their target. And while a ceasefire seems like a humanitarian response to the tragic death of civilians, leaving Hamas intact as an operational and governing body will ultimately just reinforce that the perverse incentive structure remains the same.

And that while the West may claim to "not negotiate with terrorists," they always seem to force Israel to as soon as it becomes politically inconvenient for them.

So here's the hard reality. If you actually want to achieve anything resembling a lasting peace in this part of the world, you're never going to achieve it by creating conditions where terrorists are incentivized to hurt both the civilians of their enemies, and their own in order to achieve their political objectives.

Since October 7, anti-Isral propaganda disguised as a "social justice" movement has flooded Instagram.

Influential individuals and organizations are working together to systematically promote a deliberate disinformation campaign aganst Israel that ultimately benefits Hamas.

They use social media to propagate false narratives, specifically targeting young left-leaning Americans, and orchestrating what might be the most significant propaganda offensive against the Jewish community since World War II.

Polls have found that half of young American adults side with the terrorist organization Hamas, responsible for the brutal October 7 massacre of over 1200 Israeli civilians and capture of over 200 hostages. And that their actions can be justified.

One organization responsible for disseminating the most deceptive anti-Israel propaganda aimed at influencing Americans' opinions is the Institute for Middle East Understanding.

The IMEU is backed by millions of dollars from wealthy donors like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The Rockefeller Brothers' father is John D. Rockefeller Jr., the "primary financier" of Nazi eugenics research.

The IMEU is extremely influential. They've gained hundreds of thousands of followers in just a few weeks. Their highly misleading posts get tens of thousands of Likes and Shares.

They accomplished this by copying the tactics of "anti-racist educators" on Instagram that launched the Black Lives Matter protests and riots in 2020.

In this 2021 panel, prominent anti-Israel activists explain how they use research from "Palestine Studies," a frivolous scholarship based on "decolonization" and Critical Theory, to create "social justice content" on Instagram to target American progressives.

IMEU Communications Director, Omar Baddar (salary: $100,000) explains their pivot from traditional media to social media, because social media offers greater control over the narrative.

He believes Palestinians should not be blamed when they instigate violence because:

"Israel as an occupying power is inherently the initiator of violence."

So, Israel simply existing is the real problem.

A key part of their strategy in targeting Americans involves drawing analogies to the USA's history of slavery and discrimination against black people:

"Jim Crow segregation is obviously something that every American understands, so explaining how the parallels between Israeli apartheid and that are very useful. For us, a central point is tying what is happening in Palestine to American moral responsibility."

Following these tactics, they saw a "massive explosion" in their following.

"The massive, massive, massive explosion in the shares and follows."

Their efforts succeed at deliberately misleading people and depriving them of key information and historical context that would allow them to better understand the nuances of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Public opinion serves as Hamas' most potent weapon against Israel and American progressives are unwittingly being used as pawns in a scheme that ultimately benefits the terrorist organization.

Hamas Cheerleaders Are All Over Instagram

Since 10/7, young social-media users have been inundated with memes that present terrorists as social justice champions.

Quillette