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Let’s talk about Scorched-Earth Policy in relation to protests: per Wikipedia: “A Scorched-earth policy is a military strategy that aims to destroy anything that might be useful to the enemy. 1/11
Any assets that could be used by the enemy may be targeted, which usually includes obvious weapons, transport vehicles, communication sites, and industrial resources. 2/11
However, anything useful to the advancing enemy may be targeted, including food stores and agricultural areas, water sources, and even the local people themselves, though that last has been banned under the 1977 Geneva Conventions. 3/11
SEP can be carried out by military in enemy territory or in its own home territory while it’s being invaded. may overlap w/ but is not the same as punitive destruction of enemy resources, which is usually done as part of political strategy rather than operational strategy.” 4/11
Why does this matter now? During the course of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 alone we have seen exactly this being implemented: police destroying medical tents, beating and arresting medics, emptying water jugs, arresting people giving out food, throwing away food, 5/11
making sure people can’t sleep in the area, making sure people can’t be protected by police violence by confiscating masks, shields, helmets, and respirators, then draining protesters finances by making them repurchase protection, tear gassing entire neighborhoods w/ CS gas, 6/11
slashing tires and towing vehicles associated with people who feed and provide medical protesters, and then making sure the public doesn’t know about the police violence by beating, arresting, and macing, journalists then taking their equipment as evidence. 7/11
This is thread is about this specific militarized police tactic: “Scorched Earth Policy is a military strategy.” In order to attempt to stop the protests, police (local to federal) are adopting a policy where “Any assets that could be used by the enemy may be targeted.” 8/ 11
And as a final note: most of the arrests that continue to occur are brief detentions that result in a majority of charges that will likely be thrown out. This is a punitive threat, bullying, flexing on protesters: if you protest you could get several felonies. 9/11
Many people are being arrested simply because they can’t walk fast enough. The mayor continues to call for harsher sentencing for repeat protest offenders. But if the only offense you commit is going to a protest then that seems like an attempt to silence dissent. 10/11
An attempt to not only target everything useful to protesters but also the futures of anyone who protests or documents protests as a journalist. This should be terrifying to everyone, thanks for the inspiration smoldering dirt. Get in good trouble. Keep protesting. Fts. 11/11
