We were asked to share this piece. This may not represent the views of everyone in NAC. 

During any uprising – or really, any meaningful opposition to unjust, systemic actions from the government – there is categorical separation between the “good” protester and “bad” protester. The good ones are the ones that walk calmly, hold signs, and avoid causing any disruption or damage, either to property or people. The “bad” ones are those who would dare to cause material disruption, break the windows of corporate banks, weapons manufacturers, or become in any way militant in their opposition to injustice and oppression.

This piece is not for the purpose of defending a position on or advocating for violent or nonviolent civil disobedience. The singular purpose is to explain and assert these points:

1) If nonviolent civil disobedience, in which no person or property was harmed, is repressed and criminalized by the state, there is little choice for those who seek justice other than to escalate, and (subsequently),
2) If you do not want to see a complete eradication of resistance, or a “violent” escalation of tactics by those who will not tolerate injustice tolerated by law, you must help defend our collective rights to protest and resist in “nonviolent” ways.

There is an eternal conversation about what “violence” actually means, and whether or not it extends beyond a person’s self and body, and onto material property, either private or public, and when it becomes self-defense. The general definition is “the unlawful exercise of physical force or intimidation by the exhibition of such force”. We make no aim to clarify this distinction, but would assert that there is a general consensus among those who possess or defend private property that civil disobedience is only acceptable, ethically and legally, as long as it does not cause property damage.

If you believe it is always wrong to disobey a law, under any circumstances, there will most likely be no insight or perspective gained from the arguments that follow.
If you believe that violence is always the right and necessary thing to do in the face of injustice, the argument that follows may somewhat frustrate you.

If you find yourself uncertain or wavering about what is justifiable and under what circumstances, and have a preference for order even in the face of egregious and unjust conditions, this was written for you.

_________

In the realm of resistance to unjust laws and actions taken by the state, there has always been a diversity of tactics.
There are those who believe that damaging and/or destroying property is justified if its in service of protecting something greater, such as people or the land. The Earth Liberation Front was an example of this. In the 90s, they took action to(among other things) destroy facilities that participated in the clear-cutting of old growth forests, valuing ancient trees, which are integral to wildlife habitats, indigenous culture, and the health of the air and climate, over that of buildings and machinery bent on their destruction. During these years, groups such as the ELF took many actions to interrupt corporate extraction and violence against the earth and its inhabitants, and to deteriorate the profit motives through destruction of property. Clear-cutting of old growth forests and the building of oil and gas pipelines on indigenous lands were/are just a few areas of focus for eco-activist groups. The decades that followed were marked by intensive legal action from the US government against the radical environmental movement, an era now referred to as the green scare.

There are those who believe in the power and necessity of breaking the law when it is unjust, but are unwilling to purposefully cause property damage or harm to others, committing their lives to staunchly nonviolent, nondestructive resistance. MLK Jr. is among the most famous for this, working with other organizers on boycotts, marches, sit-ins, blockades, and more. It should be noted, though committed to nonviolence, he was not rigid nor moral in his stance against property damage, saying this in response to the 1967 riots: “The military forces were treating acts of petty larceny as equal to murder. Far more rioters took chances with their own lives, in their attacks on property, than threatened the lives of anyone else. Why were they so violent with property then? Because property represents the white power structure, which they were trying to destroy.”

There are also those who believe that resistance to repression, occupation, and any form of class or identity-based oppression is justified, by any means necessary. Countless groups from around the world have engaged in armed resistance to their oppressors, from the Black Panthers to the Young Lords to the Zapatistas to Palestinian Liberation Front and beyond. They took up arms to protect their neighborhoods and communities when it became clear to them that those who possessed state-sanctioned weapons and power were a threat to those they loved.

Regardless of what tactics are used, all resistance movements have one thing in common: They are targeted to be snuffed out by the state, who –unlike its targets– is not made to justify its tactics.

In Eugene, we have(at least) two active criminal cases from this year, 2024, against protesters that engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience.

The first:
On April 15th, a group of people stopped traffic on interstate 5 in protest against the weapons and money sent from the US government to the Israeli army to carry out their ethnic cleansing of the people of Gaza. The stated purpose of the action, which took place across many countries and cities simultaneously, was to inerrupt the flow of commerce to pressure the government to halt the transfers of weapons and funds. To stop the money from moving internationally, they set out to stop the money from moving domestically. Five law enforcement

agencies and over 127 officers arrived on the scene to carry out a mass arrest of everyone present. Each protester was charged with Disorderly Conduct in the second degree.

The second:
On July 22nd, a group of people walked into a public city council meeting at city hall to protest the constant sweeps, displacement, and criminal charges leveled against unhoused people in the community. They carried signs, walked into the meeting, and chanted “Stop the Sweeps, End Death on the Streets.” The disruption lasted less than a minute and the group then voluntarily departed. In the following weeks, investigators tracked down at least four people that had been present, and belatedly took them into custody at the lane county jail before charging them with at least three criminal counts: Disorderly Conduct, Interference with Govt Administration, and Disruption of City Council (yes, that’s a real charge, though it hasn’t been used in decades).

In each of the aforementioned cases, many other attempts at advocacy and resistance had been made– attempts that fall under the purview of legal and respectable actions.

In the first case, the highway blockade occurred following the first six (of twelve, now!) months of Israel’s sweeping ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. Six months of writing letters, doing public education, attending public meetings, countless rallies and marches, and even going to the homes and offices of the politicians that hold the power of change in the palms of their hands. This does not even begin to take into account the last 75 years of appartheid and violence against the people of occupied Palestine. People of concience knew that escalation was necessary, and still chose a path of escalation that caused no material harm or damage.

In the second case, this protest came on the heels of years of worsening economic conditions and legal persecution of poor people in our community, leading to criminal charges, intense and ongoing trauma, and death for people living on the streets. Despite exhaustive outreach efforts, networking with city officials and attending city council meetings to make public comment, and so much more, restrictions around camping and parking continued to tighten, social services continued to be defunded, and being unhoused in any space has been further criminalized. Just this year, the issue of criminalizing homelessness made it all the way to the Supreme Court, and they ruled that “localities may impose criminal penalties for acts like public camping and public sleeping without violating the Eighth Amendment — even if they lack sufficient available shelter space to accommodate their unhoused population.” What respectable or lawful means are left to protect ourselves and our neighbors? What recourse remains?

Why do governments get the monopoly on violence? What should we, as citizens, do when staring literally and figuratively down the barrel of a gun? We write this as a small group of individuals that want nothing more than peace – peace for the people fleeing sniper gunfire and missiles, peace for those looking for a safe place to lay their heads, peace for those who see their land of orgin being destroyed more each day. We write this as a people who love to build, to plant, and to cultivate networks of care, and are going to great lengths to preserve the hope and love that is still alive inside us.

And yet.

There has been little justice for any of the people targeted by state violence – not for our unhoused neighbors on the streets of Oregon, not for the indigenous population that was wiped out to make room for white settlers, and not for the Palestinians being decimated as you read this. If you haven’t yet, question your faith in the legal system’s authority, capacity, and willingness to deliver justice.

As options for resistance are being both exhausted and criminalized, there are two probable eventualities:
1. People who have attempted every legal method of enacting change are criminalized for nonviolent civil disobedience, and are pushed to more extreme methods as their efforts fall flat. 2. The state successfully scares, criminalizes, and otherwise represses those who would resist the systemic onslaught of our neighbors here and abroad, and there is little to no visible defense left.

We end with a series of questions.

• If you agree that our government bodies, locally and at broader levels, should fund affordable housing, education and healthcare, instead of prisons, prosecutors and bombs, yet you see that is not happening – what do you propose we do?
• And not only are those things not happening, but people are suffering and dying from no place to sleep here in our town, and getting moved around despite having no place to go. In Palestine they are being moved North, South, North, to this refugee camp and that, only to be bombed, starved, and burned to death in every place – what do you propose we do?
• It requires only 3.5% of the population to engage in protest to bring about change; how do we convince you to help us?