Thanks!

I would say that if a word has been misused for a century it actually just has a new meaning. And I’m not aware of it ever being used consistently.

Fun fact that runs parallel to your point: it’s not terrorism if you only destroy property.

Terrorism is defined as using violence (or the threat of violence), against civilians, in pursuit of a political goal. All 3 requirements must be met for it to be terrorism: violence, civilians, politics.

Many people who only damage property are still labeled as terrorists by the powers that be. The dictionary can be quite misleading, as it does not really analyze inconsistent usage, particularly for political or propaganda purposes.

For example, “ecoterrorists”. Classically labeled as such even when just destroying property. Or even sometimes just for slowing down logistics. Predominately First Nations protesters and activists were labelled “ecoterrorists” by Rick Orman, citing examples like chaining themselves to equipment.

The inconsistent usage has at least two means of biased use. I’ve already mentioned one, which is using the term for those damaging private property or slowing down enterprise, i.e. equating damage to private property as violence (when private enterprise seizes land or destroys water this is never called ecoterrorism). The other is in inconsistent application: it is a label only routinely used by the targets of capitalist-run states. When their states destroy entire cities and target civilians, it is not called terrorism. When their targets go after a politician insteas of strictly military installations, suddenly they are terrorists. Hell, they can be called terrorists even when going after only military targets. The actusl use of the term corresponds to the means used and the political and ethnic background of those engaging in the acts more than whether the acts are violence for political (isn’t everything political?) ends. Terrorism is when a car bomb and not a JDAM.

The real meaning of terrorism must be understood through describing its actual mainstream use. Descriptivism not prescriptivism, lest we miss the reality of propaganda. This is important because the term will continue to be used as I described and to justify rounding up protesters that occupy buildings or block highways or burn down a Tesla dealership. It doesn’t really matter ehat the dictionary says, tge law will say enough, the cops will arrest on orders of preventing “terrorism”, the judge will convict and sentence based on calling a dumpster fire terrorism, and one might even get sent to a black site to contain such “dangerous” people, “terrorists”.

And this is not new. Anarchists and other cool people were lazily labelled exactly the same way over a century ago for the same types of acts.

lmao trying to pretend that trying to leave a building you’ve been locked in by force, by cops, is protester violence.

You are, to put it mildly, full of shit. The only violence was the police beating and hurting protesters.

Please try to be more honest going forward.

lmao did you even read what I wrote about conflating private property damage and violence?

Sure, but let’s step back and analyze it a little more.

Protest itself does not achieve political change. Its usefulness is in direct action or in recruiting those present into further action, education, and organizations. Liberal protests are state-sanctioned parades. Real protests tend to have an actual action to take, demands to be met, people to impact, costs to incur on others.

The terminology of “peaceful protest” is already poisoned and should be questioned. The media and politicians - and those propagandized downstream, all conflate private property destruction and violence. If a protest breaks windows, suddenly it is no longer “peaceful” and can be rejected by the propagandized as invalid and not to be supported. The US is full of such good little piggies, happy to align with the ruling class picking their pocket and doing actual violence because they exist exclusively in a world of capitalist propaganda.

Under these auspices, all direct action that the capitalist system wants to crush is, will, and has been labelled terrorism. It’s already done this for private property destruction by environmentalists, peace activists during all major wars (except WWII, where American Nazis were coddled and of course did not damage private property), labor organizers, anti-segregation organizers, socialists, communists, Mexicans, Chinese, Native Americans, etc. They happily do it again against anti-genocide protesters, particularly because they can play on the islamophobic use of the terrorism label at the same time. Like all fascistic logic, they must frame themselves as the true victims, so they also happily call every critic of Israel an antisemite.

All of this bombards the US population 24/7. Americans exist in a haze of accusations and terms they barely understand, trying to slot it into what could only charitably called an ideology - the naked reactionaries in red and the obfuscated reactionaries in blue.

All of this is to say that the greatest barrier in the US is education, and education begins with agitation, e.g. these protests in any form. Get as many people as possible to show up to the next thing, to organize the next thing, and spread knowledge.

How it came together is that Houthis started taking out jets from aircraft carriers and the US ran home, being unable to implement their only remaining military strategy: bombing brown civilians with impunity.

I never denied that Israel is committing war crimes.

So is this you now downplaying the genocide? As in genocide denial? Because I said nothing about war crimes but I did refer to ghettos and genocide.

I only said that Baerbock is not committing genocide, which is the core message of this Baerbock-Hitler picture.

She’s just materially, diplomatically, and rhetorically supporting one. Do you get the reference now? Wiederholen sie auf Deutsch: “I should be against genocide. The Nazis did genocide and many people helped them. If I support genocide people will compare me to Hitler and they will have a point.”

Being German seems to make people less able to see the similarities. Almost as if your public education system has whitewashed the history, material realities, and tenor of Nazis and the Holocaust using the most effective means to do so: by having a strict and thorough public education system that discusses the overall topic to a large degree but leaves out any ability for Germans to recognize current yet rhyming causes, undercurrents, rhetoric and actions of genocidal racial supremacists. Germans can recognize a Swastika and (sometimes) punch someone for waving it around (some others still might salute it) but not the Lebensraum rhetoric from Israel, the ghettoization of Palestine, the genocide of Palestiniand, nor their own country’s role in promoting all of these things for what it is. One thing that should not be hard to recognize is the flipping of aggressor into victim, of attack into a defense. That was Nazi rhetoric 101. Would you have symlathized with the “oppression” of “Aryans” by Jewish people? The “Judeo-Bolsheviks”!? Sounds like the answer could be yes.

Please do some reflection on what ethnic supremacy, genocide, and settler colonialism are - i.e. very Nazi things - and whether you oppose them.