Safety glasses … any time you join a protest these days … wear safety glasses … any kind will do because it will give you a fighting chance at saving your eyesight.
So many protests over the past few years have featured police forces aiming munitions, tear gas and other projectiles at people’s faces on purpose. These projectiles won’t kill you but if they hit your face can severely wound you or destroy your eyes and blind you.
Wounding people as opposed to killing people is also a psychological tool used by security forces. If they hurt, maim or even cause people to bleed … then it has a psychological toll on those who see it. An even greater psychological hit for anyone would be to see a healthy strong, vibrant young 20 year old man losing both his eyes and blinded while everyone witnesses it and tries to help. It might only directly hurt one person but the event would psychologically affect dozens or even a hundred people who see it.
One of the saddest stories I ever saw was the story of 20 year old Gustavo Gatica in 2019 who was part of a protest against the government in Chile. Police were actively shooting at protesters’ faces on purpose blinding many people in one eye. Gustavo was hit in both eyes and was rendered completely blind.
https://www.amnestyusa.org/gustavo-gatica/
It’s one of the saddest and most infuriating images I’ve seen in a long time … no matter where you are and you want to join a protest … wear safety glasses and save your eyes. Police might not try to aim for your face but if they do, they’ll just make the excuse that you shouldn’t have been there in the first place and blame you for your injuries.
“There is no more important safety rule than to wear these: safety glasses” - Norm Abram
They’ll confiscate them in France if they manage to search you before you join the protest. Because of course protection means you’re a terrorist.
Most safety glasses look no different than bog-standard sunglasses these days - make sure to get those.
Exactly … get a designer pair that can be passed off as sunglasses and wear them
Jesus Christ … all the more reason to smuggle in eye protection … and bring extras and hand them around
Oh i had to think about your wording for a bit to realize you didn’t mean that all French protests were pre-kettled.
Most of them are though, to make a protest legal you have to declare the planned route and you can be told your protest is illegal (so anyone showing up there and then can be arrested and fined).
Yeah that’s true in the US too. It would seem odd to me, however, if many protests adhered to such regulations.
There’s gotta be a lot of ppl realizing they have tear gas immunity these days… (it’s fairly common, military basic training always has that one guy who’s unaffected).
Also a lot of people realizing after the fact how much it tore up their bodies in ways that don’t ever get better. Chemical weapons are bad, whether it’s because they don’t work or that they have lasting side effects.
Its fine. Dumping all this in the water and soil is fine. This is all fine.
The government scientician says it offsets the microplastics.
Genuinely hoping the smog is thick enough to mitogate this.
I did a couple rounds in the tear gas chamber in basic training, because i felt nothing at all. Don’t know if I am immune or lucky
Wait a decade or two and see how your lungs react to that contamination. That exposure might have shortened your life by a few years or decades.
That’s a bit hyperbolic. The fact of the matter is, there has been an irresponsible lack of studies conducted on the long-term effects of tear gas exposure:
https://med.umn.edu/news/u-m-study-shows-little-research-available-long-term-effects-tear-gas-use
However, the CDC does warn that it could potentially cause issues long-term:
https://www.cdc.gov/chemical-emergencies/chemical-fact-sheets/riot-control-agents.html
The bottom line: Governments should be strictly regulating the use of these agents until further research is conducted. The fact that people with asthma can fucking die from the exposure should be justification enough, let alone other potential long-term side effects.
My wife has Pulmonary Fibrosis … a condition where lung tissue has been inflamed by some contaminate and the immune system generates a run away reaction that can’t stop. It inflames one part of the lung tissue and then grows … until you have no more lung tissue left and the person dies from it.
My wife was infected by what we think was a minor virus or bacterial infection about six years ago and since then, the infection grew out of control until she had this permanent fibrosis. It wasn’t because she was weak, was more exposed or less exposed or whatever … I had the same infection but I got over it, she didn’t. And this type of infection can be caused by viruses, bacteria, mold, chemical or biological contaminants.
When I talked to a doctor friend of ours about it later, he said it was just luck of the draw. Your lung tissue is basically delicate tissue that is directly exposed to the environment … it can be affected by anything and sometimes the right event happens to trigger an immune response in the wrong way … it’s like an infection lottery … most times people get infected and then recover … but every once in a while, you win the infection lottery and your immune system is triggered and you now have runaway fibrosis and a ticket to an early death.
No medical expert can say why it happens, how or to whom but it happens … and it almost doesn’t matter if you are unhealthy, healthy, fit, young, old, fat, skinny or whatever genetics, its basically just chance infections … not every time and not to everyone but if you happen to be the lucky person to win this great lottery, then your lungs are screwed.
TIL: I can die from tear gas exposure.
So you get shot at with tear gas at basic training?
Gas mask training. They make you take the mask off.
Nah, they just bring you into a sealed room and light some CS pellets in a little stove. It’s usually in concentrations greater than what a typical CS grenade contains.
Yes and no. Plenty of people have stories about learning to keep their mask quickly accessible. Shit like being on a 5 mile ruck, then 4 miles into it they get gassed by surprise. Usually only a few days after they have gone through mask training, so they should know to have their mask handy. But there are always inevitably a bunch of dudes rolling around with burning eyes, trying to dig their mask out of the very bottom of their pack.
From what I heard it’s not actually a gas but very fine powder, so if you keep your eyes protected a.d don’t rub it it’s doable.
I got tear gassed in the military as part of the gas mask training, I was coughing a lot and my whole face was burning
Getting some flashbacks to this:
What is this picture from?
Probably this?
Ah thanks!
Myanmar, I think?
Before this loaded I thought it was going to be the Sikh farmers getting hit by the water cannons
Is ICE hiring imperial stormtroopers now?
Not the Star Wars kind, but the Nazi kind
Shit. They can aim, people!
They have not hired anyone else. Maybe a janitor or something?
The posts say munitions but I’m pretty sure they’re pelting him with pepper spray rounds and no they’re not missing
but yes they are stormtroopers actually
It proves the police are only there to protect the wealthy and their property.
And their fragile little piggy egos.
I probably would’ve done the exact same thing.
Relevant user and comm name
Truth to power!
Fuck that. dont tell them shit.
Only fools speak truth to power.
Speak truth to the powerless instead.
The guy showed them the finger. That was the only truth I was talking about.
Fair enough. But we are going to have to do better than fingers, I’m afraid.
For sure!
