Protesters attack Google bus in West Oakland, smashing window | Hacker News Reader

Protesters attack Google bus in West Oakland, smashing window

pando.com

11 pointsrdl6 comments

One thing that may be happening (or start happening) here with these bus protests is that unrelated leftist groups from the Bay Area will seek to piggyback on to this and cause havoc. This is a definite trend if you follow political action in Northern California.

By far one of the most notorious offenders are the "Black Bloc" anarchist groups. One of their codewords during protests is "direct action" which means "break stuff, smash windows." I can't say anything about their political views, but it's a fact that they attract a greater and potentially more violent police presence.

Now that the protesters, at least in Oakland, have shown they are going to physically attack the bus, the safest course of action for a driver who encounters a "blockade" like this would be to drive on, ideally not directly through any of the protesters, but as necessary to get away. Somehow I doubt Bauer has sent their drivers to security driving school, though.

I would think Google would be one of the last companies protesters would be taking their anger out against, but I guess for them locally it's the big target. Google really is pretty well behaved socially on the net and IRL as companies go.

These people are essentially upset that Google pays their employees more than they get paid.

"Why would people do this? What did us Big Data geeks do to deserve this? Don't they know we're building a better world?"

You guys have no idea, do you? You're just literally oblivious. Anyone as smart as you who remains oblivious is doing it by choice, so there's no point in trying to educate.

The best approach is a direct one. If you won't do the right thing because of your conscience, do the right thing because you're tired of being hassled, because you're tired of worrying what people will do if they find out who you serve.

You can protect Google, but Google can't protect you.

Please explain what the "right thing" here is.

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