Subject: How to do a good quality protest (against Corona tyranny)
Seeing “the usual” going on, here are some ideas you could perhaps use. What is the usual:
• Use people who are divisive as spokespersons in the advertisement of the protest, such as […insert name here…]¹.
• Too little care given to measures against predictable provocateuring and “natural” rioting. (Dutch labor unions do this well, so it isn’t always badly done, however they support the Corona fraud at this point.) If you want a peaceful protest, you are going to have to force it to go that way. If you don’t want a peaceful protest, the same. If you don’t force it either way, anything can happen.
Since this is a single issue event, it is best to bring out as spokespersons and people in the advertisement, who are more or less single issue people. This reduces the amount of Divide & Conquer, it creates more unity. The obvious candidates with this are doctors, nurses, medical researches, and the like (who incidentally have a high standing in this society, which you should be using).
On the issue of internal security, I’ll admit I just thought of this, but here is one strategy. You think about a list of qualities you want your internal security to have. The instinctual is to go with strong, big men, of an age adequate to understand a tense situation. In the worst situation, you have nobody and you know nothing about security, but you do want to protest. You also don’t know how large the protest will be. We will however assume you can bring together 10 more people, to help you with the organization. If you cannot even do that, you could wonder if you can / should organize a protest at all. If you can manage more than you could do more.
With the advertisement for the protest, you can add in a request for volunteers to be the internal security. This means you would be dealing with unknown people from the wild, with all the risks that come with it.
You can narrow it down by saying things like:
Anyone can apply for this role, but we are mostly looking for:
• People 25 years and older, willing to take and carry out orders.
• People of 40 years and older, willing to take or give orders.
• Men who are strong and fit, capable of holding down a suspect and
giving chase.
• Men who have some kind of training or background in: security roles,
police roles, or other background is applying less than lethal force.
You can then designate a place on the day of the protest, which probably needs to be out of the way. This could for instance occur some 5-6 hours before the event. That alone will ensure only people with some real will will show up, as this will be a long day for them.
I thought it could work to give every security person a number, an individual designation, like a race number in a runners competition for example. In this day and age, you can ask them to hold up the number and snap a picture of them, write down their contact information, and so on. This is an effort to deal with infiltration by shady groups. We will have them on file. It also helps build trust in a pool of people, who could come out again a next time, and so on.
If you have 10 people to deal with any volunteers, you can have this administration done in 10 parallel lines, to speed it up. Each line you could give its own letter, and each next volunteer can get the next number. They wear the number, so that it is clear they are in the security system, and it makes them identifyable if they do wrong.
Since we assume these are amateurs at best, it may be best if they patrol in groups of three, rather than two ? The more in a group, the greater force they have, the less erratic their behavior. You can try make it so that either the one with most experienced (like police officers), or the oldest, or just the one who seems to have the best social skills, becomes the boss over that unit, although it may be best to let them figure it out for their own group(s). Letting the command structure be chosen by the groups themselves, has been succesfully done many times in armies.
Then it is probably wise to have a structure on top of several of such small groups of three (wo)men, for example again three of them for a total of 10. This person could for example try to maneuvre from one to the next of his small groups and keep them more or less in a segment of the protest. Then this hierarchy continues, and three such groups again, form yet another unit, and so on and so forth, until you end up with one commander over the whole thing.
If you just count off every 10 persons in the registration line, and set them together to figure out their own smaller groups and who stands for the whole group, that shifts this burden off your shoulders, and they have a chance to get things in order in a way that they think it works for them, while getting to know each other doing it. Once groups of 10 have been sorted, that could be the main thing already. Several groups of 10 their commanders can get together, and decide on whom should coordinate the larger unit. You could think about how to coordinate that process. Should all commanders over 10 report themselves somewhere ? Is there a numbering logic by which they can find each other ? Should commanders over 10 have a direct contact link with central command ?
Communications in this day & age, could be by phone. You could for example decide that the commander of three groups of three, communicates by direct contact with his group, by rotating himself between these groups. Maybe these groups don’t use a phone too much, unless there is an emergency communication need. This keeps their eyes out on the crowd. The distance between the groups of three of three in the protest is potentially getting too big, for a commandher over the three of three to run between them, so from there you could communicate by phone.
In reality, all this mass organization business is probably not going to be easy. It might look easy on paper, but in reality of group organization, it will probably fail about some 50% or so. Confusion and anger are always a strong possibility. It is a good possibility that total chaos will result, a third of the people just magically gets lost (goes home or removes their number and so on), and most people won’t know what to do.
However that doesn’t have to matter: the essential thing is the individual security person, even if all alone. It may all seem chaotic and senseless, swimming in the deep without direction. However he is still there, and if he is doing his task and he sees someone smash a car window with a rock, he could spring into action. If trouble like that emerges, nearby protesters could jump in to help, or nearby other security people could see it, even if after a while. If things get out of hand, because for instance the rioter had friends, sooner or later you have some chance of a commander over 10 being able to communicate for additional help to be send there. it could take a while, but the potential to act is there. With some luck and good will, you can get at least some result, even if the structure of the organization is basically in complete chaos. It may be smart to tell the security people just this, to build their confidence. They are as individuals the essential thing. The structure is merely a supporting element, which might fail.
Everything in the end comes down to the individual willing to carry out their task, which they do more or less know what it should be: “I am here to keep things nice, and I have a level of authority and approval of the organizers to do so”. Once security people, in whatever state of internal chaos, have been injected in the protest, something should have been achieved to this end. A capability has been created, which goes beyond the crowd of the protesters standing in awe as a bunch of rioters ruin their protest. An element of will and determination is put in, around which further positive actions by others may develop. Others likewise can build their courage if they help someone with the known security designations/symbols is approving it or asking for it, knowing they too are acting in line with the will of the protest organizers. It builds their confidence and sense of duty.
So then comes what is the actual task, and you’ll have to think about how you are going to do that. What is the essential job of the security system. They should be able to handle it on their own, in as small a unit as possible, without any sort of communications with others. If a group of three sees someone throwing rocks or breaking shop windows, they should know immediately what to do.
• Are you going to detain the suspects. If so: where and how long, etc.
• Are you going to collect evidence for the police.
• How, where, when are you going to deliver the suspects to the police.
• Are you going to keep your own database on trouble makers (some of whom could have infiltrated inside the police force, and could be working for shady units with shady command structures inside the police itself, in a way most police officers aren’t even aware of it either.)
• What is your plan if a band of potential rioters shows up, all masked and seemingly carrying riot gear. Will you put forces around them, to pounce on them if they do wrong ? Will you try to repel them from the protest ?
• What spacing over the whole protest are you going to maintain with your security system. How are you going to keep that somewhat harmoneous.
On that last point, one idea is to put one person in charge of measuring the spacing, by being at the front and basically counting the spacing or timing between for example the groups of three times three. Once the spacing has become clear, if it is problematic you could start issuing commands by phone to the three times three commanders to move up or down in the column.
Then there is the obvious topic of visibility toward the public. Do the security people wear a certain color, arm band, etc ? It might be wise to make the higher commanders more visible, especially over the group of three times three. I think in a protest commonly, a group of three times three is already quite strong compared to what are often merely a few loners who start with the violence. If it is not enough, nearby groups can come in. A certain color hat is potentially effective in a dense crowd. You could make a rule in the whole protest, and ask everyone who shows up to not wear a certain color hat, because that color will be reserved for the security people. It is probably best to use a lighter color, whatever color it is ;-).
Then there is the topic of direct signals between the groups. Since this is an amateur level operation, you will probably only have the freedom to have two or three signals in total. Such as: “I need help”, “I don’t need help”. Everything else could be dealt with by communications.
If this is not enough for your taste, a next step could be evidence gathering. If you have people whom you don’t think are strong enough to be security, you could still use them to gather evidence of wrong doings, and to gather information toward the security system. These could even be sort of under cover spies, since rioters might want to choose some sort of tactic of doing their deeds when far away from the security people. With some spies you could signal or puhone that in to the security system, while recording their activities for evidence.
All in all, if you do this, I think you will win, even if you loose, unless you loose badly. You will mostly win, because you showed the people in general how you where willing to go to this level of effort to prevent wrongdoings. This inspires confidence, which helps the credibility of the protest.
If this is still not enough for your taste, you could go one step further and think about what to do in case larger scale riots erupt. Will you try to stop those riots, at the serious risk of bodily harm. You could get into a significant group versus group struggle, rather than more or less some “civilian” order keeping and minor nuisance repression. Probably the police won’t like this very much, as they probably like dealing with the rioteers themselves and might not enjoy the confusion (?).
I don’t know the answers to this. You might think of snatching a few rioters here and there, or just make it absolutely plain how you are against the riot. You could try to prevent private / public property destruction by being some sort of human shield. You might help by gathering evidence, also for yourself, so you can identity and throw out bad people next time. All in all though, a riot will probably be counted against you, even if you didn’t do it.
Hence it seems worthwhile to go quite hard against them. Note that the police often likes to create riots and widespread property destruction, which basically makes them the criminals, even if they don’t comprehend what their commanders are telling them (I’ve seen it done on livestreams in the USA). They do this in service to their political masters, who oppose the protest, and so they try to turn it into a riot.
There you go: another effort which will probably be ignored, and all I am going to get out of it is the ability to say: told you so. Is this effort so low quality or superfluous that it should be ignored ? Obviously I don’t think so, and from what I’ve seen in protesting over the last years, there is a big hole here which needs to be filled.
If you want a riot, go all the way and make it a Revolutionary overthrow of the State. Can you handle that ? Nope, you can’t (almost certainly right now, basically nobody can handle that with a good outcome). If you cannot do that, than you better keep it peaceful, no ? It is like a debate you can only win it, by staying nice and decent. Once you start swearing, you loose it. Such swearing is violence. If you wanted to win at violence, you should assault the enemy, detain and neutralize physically. Then you win in that department, or battle space (say). By being half way there, using rude words in a debate (or protest!), you loose. My opinion anyway. A riot is nothing. It isn’t a Revolutionary overthrow, and it isn’t a protest. It doesn’t win in either area. Typically it is counter productive.
Hence: internal security. Seems like common sense to me. Labor unions do have the capability, it seems. I guess they learned their lessons over the many decades of the labor struggle.
For the potential rioteers, here is a thought. Do you notice how if this (IF this) should become a war, that is is these security people who are the first candidates to be in that war ? They already have experience with command, control and security issues, and may be getting in small combative situations. It isn’t you who are helping with your undisciplined behavior, rather it is just the other way around. You are not going to wage the civil war with your pathetic incoherent rock throwing. You don’t know when to stop and when to start, or what to attack. It is the ones who come detain you, who are the hope of a war against tyranny, if it ever becomes necessary — and that includes the police and the army. In the better Revolutions, the police and army mutiny from the tyrants, in whole or in part. From there the fight is often won.
You need to show honor and discipline, before you win these people over to our side. Common sense basically, no ?
§ Final thought
Last but not least, make sure the ultimate organizers do not have a job to do. You should try to make it so, that every single issue is covered by someone with that job, including co-ordinating it all. It should run on its own, while you sleep in bed. However, since everything always goes wrong, you will most likely have your hand full 100% of the time. It may be wise, if you can, to make the ultimate organizers and authority, also a small group, of for example three persons, with again having made it plain and clear that in case of disagreement there is one who decides. Best don’t deveate from that, even if you think a decision is stupid, because if the top breaks out in chaos, what will the rest do ?
Everything always goes wrong, and bad decisions are always made. Despite that, you can still try to make it work to the degree it could. Next time you can do better again. Mass organization of direct action is potentially the most difficult thing there is. If other organizations seem to run smoothly, it is either an illusion, or they have payed the price of their errors already, and spend many training years on the topic.
Once you have given everyone a job, your hands are free for the unexpected. It may be one of your security people having a stroke. It may be the Mayor who is angry with you, you just don’t know. If you are in some kind of active role, you will likely be overwhelmed immediately by the unexpected. What do they eat and drink ? Etc. Don’t assume anything is known by those in the organization. Everything needs to be explicit. Nobody can guess what you think is common sense.
Don’t forget to keep your troops motivated I guess. Praise comes cheap, but is highly valued by people. Love your troops, and they will love you. Trust your troops to do the right thing, don’t second guess them when you aren’t there. Don’t make too many rules ;-). Make things broadly go right, without worrying about every single minor thing all the time. If you give it all your best effort like this, you run a significant chance that rather than everything going wrong, everything will go perfectly. Just my opinions, sorry.
¹ Worldwide Anti Tyranny Protest, March 20th, We Have Had Enough, Share Far & Wide!
https://brandnewtube.com/watch/worldwide-anti-tyranny-protest-march-20th-we-have-had-enough-share-far-amp-wide_b6NfuwwwxcO8f9A.html
