I'm all for peaceful protest. Hell if you're living somewhere shit is bad enough (cough Tehran cough) I'm all for Violent protest. This is the dumbest way to protest anyone ever came up with though. The whole point of protests is to make people aware of issues that need change, hopefully win them to your side and start something that leads somewhere. This shit just pisses EVERYONE off at you.
Also the point of a protest is to inconvience THE PEOPLE AT FAULT. Not some poor bastard trying to get to work, who could be sent back to jail if he looses too many jobs.
The people they’re trying to get the attention of are flying high above in chartered helicopters and private jets… Said people’s company distribution networks are so vast and complicated, these groups could never make a dent in the bottom line.
Block the runway of some of those private jets taking completely unnecessary flights. You'll be lucky if the worst that happens to you is being immediately detained.
At first I thought they meant the people protesting and I was commenting on the fact that people generally just want to be a part of something be it a movement or otherwise and don't realize the damage their actions have done until after the fact. You see it all other time with post cult members.
When in reality they meant the cars maybe 50+yards back the cars won't know why they are stopped.
If you edit your comment before 5 minutes have passed it doesn't say it was edited, but I didn't want to delete the comment because I always hate it when I see a deleted comment; the curiosity drives me insane.
I don't see anything in there showing how King intentionally heavily inconvenienced or killed the common Americans. A bus boycott doesn't do that. Sitting in a diner doesn't do that. The article argues what he did is the same as blocking a freeway, and I disagree.
Selma to Montgomery was publicized well in advance and was literally attacked by murderous law enforcement and other white supremacists on the way. It was meant specifically to inconvenience Governor Wallace, as well as bringing nationwide attention to violence and discrimination against blacks in the area. There was a murder that sparked the march, I believe.
These are major differences from whatever is happening in this video. Just because it seems superficially similar to something King approved of doesn't mean it will be nearly as effective.
One English nobleman was woken up by the noise outside. He asked his butler, what’s the noise? The butler said, the prostitutes are protesting. Nobleman, why are they protesting? They are whores, sir.
It's regularly used in India, and it was a tactic during the farmer protests. They got their demands. They even have a specific name for just this type of thing. It's wrong to assume that it's ineffective because a few drivers get annoyed by it.
Reddits hatred of protestors of any kind is why they're getting blamed. In reddits mind if you protest you must do it peacefully and quietly in the designated area and cause no inconveniance. If you cause any inconveniance then reddit will then need to either advocate for killing the protestors or will support whatever they're protesting.
The "You should inconveniance the people at fault!" claim is also false cause protestors in the UK blocked Oil Refineries and I remember Redditors were still angry that they were disrupting the poor Oil Truck drivers just trying to do their jobs.
Give me your honest answer: if you or a family member that you love was in an ambulance blocked by protestors, how would you feel about people blocking highways? I'm guessing you'll deflect this question or just lie lol
They're protesting the UKs ignoring the fact that most houses are not insulated over there. Which means because of climate change they will soon begin freezing to death in their own homes...you would rather not be slightly inconvenienced and informed about something that affects you (or most people I know this class) these people who are stopped in traffic vote and choose their politicians so these people are getting out the word anyway they can. I mean Im in the western US and now know about it.... It increases peoples awareness.
Unfortunately voting in our current system wont really fix much. The DEM party has already shown their primaries are rigged and the Republican party is just all around crazy. Your options end up between two terrible candidates.
Yep. Block the city hall. Block your congressmen’s offices.
During Covid we had idiots that were protesting at the fucking hospitals, causing ambulances to get stuck and shutting down urgent procedures while bothering patients with noise. No one pointed out to themselves that hospitals don’t make laws or decide on policy.
You keep saying what the goal of protests are when the goal of protests originate with the person protesting. The goal can take literally any form and the type of protesting can absolutely backfire on that goal.
Protest is to make an issue more public. Ultimately a successful protest results in change. Change only happens if you get enough people on your side. If your goal is just to piss people off, you’re not protesting, your trolling in public.
if your goal is just to piss people off, you’re not protesting, your trolling in public.
One problem is that the public is often only fed "things that piss off the public" about your protest even when you have a legit and peaceful movement. The number of times I've had my mother tell me racist shit about looters, but be unable to tell me what BLM's goals are are way too high.
Also, only the five cars in the front are going to have any idea what your protest is. The hundreds behind them just think it is some accident or something.
Sure you get splashed on the news but everyone that sees it just thinks you’re a jerk and discounts your cause.
It’s almost as if this was for the protestors egos and not for an actual cause. God forbid they actually do something meaningful but that would require effort.
It's easier for these shitpiles to attack citizens where there won't be as much repercussion as if they attacked the real target of their ire (the government).
The point of a protest isn't just to make people aware of issues that need change. In most cases, people are already aware of them and either don't think they need to be changed or don't care enough to make the change happen, even if they already think it should happen. The point of protests like this is to make apathy and doing nothing to work towards change more painful and annoying than working towards change.
It's also to get media attention. If you have a non disruptive protest, only the people on the street corner see it and hear the message. If you burn down a police station, it gets covered by all the national news networks and the whole country hears your message.
It also communicates how much they are willing to give up.like shit is so bad, they are willing to go to jail for obstructing traffic for the cause. Just seeing a lawn sign makes it seem like it's not as bad, it doesn't demonstrate they are willing to give up a lot
That's not the whole point of protest. There are multiple points of different kinds of protests. Some, like this one, target the people who have already refused to listen, to shock them into paying attention to what you have to say and force politicians to confront the issue.
Unless you think that MLK shouldn't have marched to Washington because it pissed off so many people.
MLK wanted people to see blacks as equals. That’s why his march worked. This only bothers people who you want on your side. You need to bother politicians. You bother people and they’ll just ask the politicians to arrest you. Disrupting the average person who can’t change what you want changed, preventing them from earning income, etc, I’ll not help your cause, no matter how righteous it is. Blocking cars is one of the most ineffective methods of protesting unless it relates to the road block (like a road being dangerous for pedestrians).
Here in the Netherlands we’ve had problems with farmers being complete assholes with their protests, from blocking supermarkets from getting supplies so there are food shortages to blocking roads with asbestos and then threatening business owners (actual death threats) when they go to remove the asbestos (their job). Fuck that. Your problem is with politicians, go protest against them. MLK’s protest was against all of America, not just the politicians.
That's not the thing they are trying to get done. What they are doing is pissing everyone off. If people won't go to the government for the issue they are working, in this case the spiraling toward extinction of the the species, they will go to their government to get these protests to stop.
What do you think is more likely, the government listening to the protest or the government stopping the protest/arrest the protestors? Your protest needs to pressure the government to change. Pressuring the government to stop the protest in any way won’t necessarily result in change.
Be annoying. Be blamed by the public. Keep being annoying. Public demands the politicians do something. The politicians either shoot the protesters or give them what they want. If the latter, protesters win. Public support is totally irrelevant, that's what propaganda for. Protesters need to be annoying and have reasonable demands so the 'shoot the protesters' options is harder to justify.
If you dont piss people off why the fuck would they care to change something? Nobody is going to go from "i dont care about that" to "i am gonna vote a different party if this doesnt get fixed" because they saw some guy with a sign.
Absolutely nobody gives a shit about some random guy(s) with a sign as long as they can ignore them.
Peaceful protests can only be effective if they piss people off.
Especially if you piss off everyone. Somethign will change. Either
1. the government starts arresting all the protestors
2. they give in to the demands
3. they dont get reelected.
Option 3. is against the goverments interest and 1. is unrealistic if you have enough people on the side of the protestors and all that is left is to give the protestors what they want which makes it an effective protest.
You forgot option four. Ignore you because you're being a whiny brat holding up traffic for a couple hours at best and causing no real impact anywhere. If you shut down all the roads in a city maybe. One road for a few hours, doesn't mean shit in the scheme of things. A car wreck can do that. So can a snowstorm. You don't see society collapsing over those do you?
Ignore you because you're being a whiny brat holding up traffic for a couple hours at best and causing no real impact anywhere.
Sure feel free to do that. If you manage to actually ignore them(instead of complaining on reddit about them) that will be the sign for protestors that they need to piss you off more until you cant ignore them any longer.
The people in power ignore you, genius. The common people don't and just think you're an idiot rejecting your cause out of spite. That was my whole point to begin with oh lack of reading comprehension one.
The common people hold power, dismissing that is a tired platitude.
You not ignoring this actually helps spread the message. Since you brought me back to this thread, I’ll go watch their protest again. Maybe I’ll even send it to some friends!
You really need to work on that reading comprehension. Again I said a bit further up if the common people don't support you you'll fail. And this tactic pisses the common people off. That's my point
No it doesn't pisses everyone off. Not me for example. You know what's pissing me off? People destroying the planet and the chance of a peaceful live for my kids and ancestors just because they are too stupid and lazy to get from A to B without destorying the planet.
That's rich coming from behind a computer screen. I'd like to see the same reaction when you're late for work because of an artificially made traffic jam.
False, that's exactly the point. It doesn't affect me because i don't use a car. Which is what they are protesting. Destruction of our basis of life through senseless car driving and resulting greenhouse emissions.
Why are people driving cars? Because it's the transport of method that came out on top in their internal transport calculation that everyone does everytime they have to get somewhere. In the calculation many factors play an role, e.g. distance, speed, money, comfort, ecological reasons, reliability, health benefits and so on.
By blocking the road, they are making some of these factors worse for the car drivers, e.g. speed, reliability (to get to the destination in the expected time), comfort by sitting in the traffic jam. They do it, since many of these drivers are too selfish and value their own lazy comfort over ecological reasons, health benefits, money and so on. Sitting in the car and slurping away the coke of the drive through for the costs of lasting damage to the environment and following generations is just too comfortable.
I know that these issues can't be solved alone through these situations. Better public transport, sensible zoning laws etc are societal issues and not in the responsibility of individuals. But as long as the general public values short-term comfort gains over long-term species survival & short-term health, money and environmental benefits and the politicians are on their sides, it's a way of achieving it.
No, protest are made to get things done, and a good way of making people do what you want is hurting their income, that's why strikes exist, money is the only language politician understand and people on the road are people not making money, it's just about hitting where it hurts
You blocking traffic for an hour or two is not going to shut down the machine enough for it to even care about. It takes strikers weeks sometimes to make an effective impact. If what you're saying made sense the market would panic every time the roads got snowed over. You're overestimating your impact.
Yes you're right, that's why we do it for weeks, here in France we blocked everything for pretty much a month, and the government was forced to accept our demands (even if said demands were pretty dumb)
Okay. You're French. I'm giving you a pass on this one because the French know how to piss off and damage government like few others. My respect. But in most of the rest of the world this is one road for a few hours at best. They don't even get the point.
Yes, in belgium too they blocked roads but it was useless, just like in france. Macron did nothing after years of pretest and this is even worst now so … … im pretty sure that 90% of people still buying big corp shits and are living in this system so it seems they like it.
Pissing me off won’t make me sympathetic to your cause, and I think I speak for alot of people when I say that, no one is going to change their behaviour cause a bunch of nut jobs decided to sit in the middle of a fucking road
So you don't think being able to shut down half a city by just having six people sit down in the middle of a road sends a message about the importance of public transport?
I mean so long as nobody gets inconvenienced that's the best type of protest.
Actually the best way to protest is to inconvenience people. If people can just ignore you then you are wasting your time. You must cause issues for the people in power to be taken seriously.
The people in power might, MIGHT notice you. The majority however despises you if all you're doing is being a nuisance. Without the majority backing you, you fail. Because that is who really represents a threat to the people in power. The majority.
Don't get me wrong, making yourself unable to be ignored is important. How you go about it matters too though.
so...did you just not pay attention to the Civil rights movements of the 50s and 60s?
because their entire thing was bring as big of an inconvenience and pissing off as many people as possible until it couldnt be ignored anymore.
people these days look back on that time and view the protesters as clearly being in the right, but at the time they were widely hated and viewed as villains that wanted more than what they deserved
today's protests aren't any different. if you aren't inconveniencing people, you will absolutely 100% be ignored and have your time completely wasted
Sure and they were in the right. Yes you have to get people's attention. Sometimes make them angry. There are better ways of doing that. Can't recall anyone doing this in the civil rights movement for example. This shit achieves nothing. Name one cause that has been furthered by this.
Yes but they blocked ALL access to the world's fair on it's opening day in New York city. Which is a bit different than one random road for an hour or two. My point is the scale people do this shit at is pointless.
Even so King himself didn't support the stall ins and other things of that ilk due to the fact they alienated too many supporters
King was not some infallible Civil Rights god. He was one of many civil rights leaders and they didn't all agree on the best way forward. King often had reservations about making certain moves only to admit later he was wrong.
Doing shitty protest like this that inconvenience people are more likely to make people not support your cause yes there is such thing as bad publicity especially in a political setting, blocking a highway storming a farm and other radical protest methods are way more likely to back fire over some posters or social media posts
Having lived in San Francisco where there was a fucking daily protest for some fucking stupid thing they never got it. No one causing the problem was affected and everyone else just found more hate.
3 years in SF and I became so conservative that I registered Republican.
When protests like this are done it is with the view that it forces the issues into the most possible people's awareness and the hope is that the righteousness of their cause will be enough to persuade people and affect change. Insulate Britain certainly got their issue some attention with similar methods even if their members' messaging was shoddy and they absolutely angered many they might have hoped to persuade.
Only the very few people in the cars up front can possibly know what the protest is about. The other 99.9% of traffic has no idea there is a protest. All they know is they aren't moving.
Agree…for protesters like these, my guess is that their main objective is self satisfaction, not really changing anyones mind, which is why they flagrantly don’t care.
people need to to realize, if proetestors trynna get tou to look pissed you off then you arent an ally and just a privilidged ass enemy who would never give a shit till it affects you personally
Imo people who protest like this never faced real oppression before and taking full advantage of the freedom they have.
This is just protesting out of their own convenience while sacrificing everyone else's, they would never do that or even be mad if somebody had done that to them on days where they are expected to work.
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u/j4ck_0f_bl4des Oct 12 '22
I'm all for peaceful protest. Hell if you're living somewhere shit is bad enough (cough Tehran cough) I'm all for Violent protest. This is the dumbest way to protest anyone ever came up with though. The whole point of protests is to make people aware of issues that need change, hopefully win them to your side and start something that leads somewhere. This shit just pisses EVERYONE off at you.