Forbidden thoughts you can't say
The conflicts between cops and antifas here feel a bit like a game. A type of rugby, I suppose. If nothing happens until late into the protest someone will probably start something just because. I mean you went all the way up there, put on riot gear / black block, brought even an abused police horse / pyros, are you going to what, just go home quietly and not use any of your toys?
I mean it's not like the cop is going to grab me under a bridge, put me in a car trunk, bring me to a cemetery with other cops, draw their guns movie-like and tell me: "run". It's not like I am going to track the name and address of the cop, stalk his routine, get up to his car in a traffic jam at 9am in broad daylight with a shotgun and blow his brains on the spot. That's how they played cops and robbers back in latinomérica. Who wants to live like that?
I remember Lützerath moments before the eviction, everybody was so utterly terrified that somebody else was going to throw stones at cops. Nobody was planning to throw stones at cops, but some people wanted to philosophically defend the validity of throwing stones at cops. Others debated hotly on escalation to all without consent. This seemed to be the #1 topic of the emergency plenums. The fear that shit gets real.
The first time I was kesseled and kept on a sidewalk for 12 hours straight, I was let go past midnight and when the final bureaucracy cop filed the papers and declared me banned from the city for the rest of the weekend--there was some undertone of, how can I say this? Actors saying goodbye after a play? I kept having this intrusive thought of that Looney Tunes cartoon, the one with the wolf and the sheepdog. You know that one? Ralph and Sam? They spend the entire episode with the wolf trying to steal sheep, and the sheepdog beating him up for it. Suddenly a factory horn signals the end of the workday. They stop mid-beating, dust off their fur, and calmly head to an old-fashioned punching clock. "See you tomorrow, Ralph." "Goodbye, Sam." They get into their cars, drive to their homes. Fade out. Cheery tune. "That's all, folks."
Forbidden thoughts you can't say
@ramonita Part of me wonders if this is a social convention that exists specifically for the purpose of not having the more stressful alternative you describe from latinomérica. A sort of unspoken mutual "this is better for everybody" agreement.
And yeah, I've noticed the same pattern, also in how some activists sign up as volunteers for the riot squad trainings here (on the pretend-rioters side), almost as a sort of 'practice match'.
