The ICE Protest Frogs Have a Long History of ‘Tactical Frivolity’ Behind Them https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/10/22/trump-ice-portland-no-kings-protest?ref=404media.co (I normally delete url parameters as a courtesy to the victims of my posts. But 404 media deserves attention.)
Awhile back, I asked some friends why they were so *crafty*, in the sense of making things themselves, mostly frivolous but sometimes practical like "visible mending" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_mending>. I'm not crafty. And when I do something, I try to make it "fit in" as best I can, to hide my involvement. The exception is words/concepts. I like others to know how weird my language/thoughts are. They didn't have a good answer. We rambled on about the difference between "art" and "craft", but never really got anywhere. Anyway, in the only protest circles I sometimes mix with, antifa, there's a significant amount of crafting in the form of [de|of]fensive materials, patches and other signage, etc. Pride parades and renfaires are similarly crafty. Also maker spaces are rife with crafty people/projects, though they are often polluted with Formalists (engineering and mathematics where the objective is to "get it right"). The crafty aren't necessarily social, I guess. But the ones I know *do* really rely on others for ideas of what/how to craft. When talking to such people, I get inauthentic answers about disposable culture or "what I can't create, I don't understand". But I don't think that's the foundation. There's something eusocial/illiberal about these people, akin to waiting in line to get your Labubu doll from the vending machine or talking about the latest Taylor Swift album around the water cooler. Similar to tactical frivolity, the signage is bogglingly layered. -- ¡sıɹƎ ןıɐH ⊥ ɐןןǝdoɹ ǝ uǝןƃ ὅτε oi μὲν ἄλλοι κύνες τοὺς ἐχϑροὺς δάκνουσιν, ἐγὰ δὲ τοὺς φίλους, ἵνα σώσω.
.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
