You identify a problem, you then call the attention of your family, friends and peers and really anyone who will listen to your rantings and ravings. After which if enough people support your claim to give confidence of legitimacy, you voice your concerns to authority. Or governing body or anyone that has been designated for the responsibility of resolving issues that arise within the realm of the aforementioned wrinkle in the rug. Only in the direst of need would would you and your conglomeration of dissatisfied citizenry shout, picket or otherwise raise a ruckus to your needs but life is such that needs be great at times. Go figure.
No, typically your movement starts with a letter campaign, phone calls and emails. If you’re real lucky you might get a tête-à-tête with someone and if you’re doubly lucky, on your way to resolution. It doesn’t go down like that for most causes, most of the time it’s all but ignored. Fear not seekers of change there is a way to avoid a fizzle out, get more people to join. Of course you could jump straight to hard disruption of daily life but letter writing, emails and phone calls are considered good places to start. Needs be great though and ignorance is willful and bliss. About now is a good time for ye ol’ controlled rabble rousing… (it’s a joke) but good intentions don’t account for the actions of others though property damage doesn’t trump a just cause. The bill on justification will come due and I expect to be satisfied. Feelings on rainbows don’t meet my admittedly meager standards on letting your opinion be known, not that anyone asked.
There’s not much recourse for your average person if the effects of your stance did not sway affections, unless that person is a multi-billion dollar corporation (cuz come on guys, corpos are people too) then you just drown the problem in money until it’s buried or washed away to become someone else’s problem. Most people are left with a problem unresolved and a pain in their chest that’s not from the cuts, bruises or contusions that can accompany making your displeasure publicly known.
I would like to take this moment to tell you how stupid anyone is that intends to create change with the destruction of life that is not their own. I make an exception for self-immolation. If you believe in your cause so strongly that your only option is to extinguish your own flame in a dazzling display of sheer will. You get my respect for your force of determination if not your cause. The only 72 things anyone else gets though is in being blasted to 72 different dimensions of pain and shrapnel and good riddance too.
That is all to say that if you can’t pay and you won’t choose violence what other avenue is left to pursue?
Stop the machinations that allow people to remain willfully ignorant of the problem. I am sorry that you might be late to work, I’m sorry that couldn’t get your triple pump whateverthefuck you’re getting in a cup that makes you feel like the emptiness inside isn’t so vast, I’m sorry you were delayed running those errands. I’m sorry for your death during a cardiac episode stuck in traffic. I am sorry. But to the point where your life has to stop in its tracks so you will listen, it’s important. Some person decided to put their own life in danger to warn you that your own and those around you are also in danger. I’m not saying it is not a bitter pill.
Let us not forget that all of this is predicated on the assumption that when the piper cometh those ends were indeed justified by the means. What constitutes a worthy reason is beyond the purview of the arguments I’m laying forth. As for the eggs that are gonna get cracked, I don’t mourn the loss of property only loss of life. In the many words I have used, I am saying that there is a reason the right to free speech and assembly are enshrined in places around the world and I believe in that reason. Whether or not those rights are protected in an equal and fair manner is a whole different can of worms.
tldr; I wrote this for amusement and for the play on words, doesn’t mean I don’t believe it. By default I care more about my own bodily waste than I’m going to care about your reactionary opinion. Exceptions will be made for adding to the conversation, upgrade to better-than-what-I’m-scooping-out-of-the-litter-boxes-at-home levels of interest.
I thank you for joining me in this ramble. Have a wonderful day.
Anywhere else, this would be an unpopular opinion. Here on lemmy… it’s most everyone’s opinion.
I would have guessed less popular than it’s turning out to be but I will admit that some people really do not like what I have to say. Keeps things lively.
Good post. I completely disagree with this opinion. Stoping traffic and holding up the lives of ordinary people is attacking the wrong target. We’re all out here in traffic, not because we want to be, but because we’re struggling to survive. Not all of us are on a frivolous trip to star bucks mate. Take your grievances to the court house, city hall, or a police station, hold up those people’s lives, shout at them. I have to pick up my kids before the daycare closes. Don’t protest at me, I’m not the one voting on legislation that keeps people in debt, funds foreign wars, and keeps people from having access to healthcare. Those of us stuck in traffic are not willfully ignorant of any of these problems, we’re just fucking helpless to do anything about them because the system is designed to keep us that way. Protesting on highways doesn’t accomplish what I assume is your goal, to educate people and get them to agree with you. It just makes them not like you and not want to support you in your cause.
You know the goal is not to educate but to apply pressure sometimes. Everyone feels if an inner city is continually and or randomly brought to a standstill even in part. The point is to hurt, and if things stand still you just sit there in your car while the business and government around you start to lose “productivity” or in other words control. If this is done enough they have to change their behavior because we will keep going and they will continue to lose control. That’s the hope at least. And for climate specifically what good does the childcare do if the world your children grow up in stays on it’s current course on climate. I sorta assume you know all this as well. It’s fine for you to want to live your life and for stuff to be annoying, just don’t disparage those who just want to lash out because lashing out is a perfectly reasonable reaction. Not for you maybe, but for the once that have that reaction right now, know they are fighting for you as well.
What I’m saying is don’t lash out at me. I’m not the problem. Organize in a Walmart parking lot if you want to lower “production”. You don’t think that if you protest and block people from entering a court house that you won’t be on the news? Take your complaints to the people you’re complaining to. As for the climate, I’m an electrical engineer. I push for solar power on every project I’m involved in and get it to happen about 80% of the time. I’m doing what I can to actively work on the problem, so please don’t protest on the highway and let me get to work.
Lashing out is by default at everything, there isn’t target selection really, because if you select specific targets you open yourself up to increased resistance.
There is nothing left other than that this need for change, and that you have some bodily power to fight for it.
You are trying to argue on civility, cooperation, and still raising awareness, the protesters have determined there is no civility, and there is no one listening and acting on it, so why should they care. They specifically are complaining to everyone, maybe they specifically want to hurt, damage, or sabotage everything.
The highway might be the most destructive target depending on where you are, precisely because people like you who cost 100s of dollars per hour, and shipments, and everyone is stuck. Like the defect is diffuse, but you should know that the more you control the more it ultimately hurts if things go wrong (not in the bodily but financial sense).
It’s great that you do what you can and you likely have a lot more power if you can push for things within the structures you are in, but you must realize their ultimate power is in their bodys and in what destruction they can cause with them, because they don’t have those structures, that agency, but of course not the pressure and work that comes with it either.
The Walmart parking lot shuts down 1 Walmart, the courthouse 1 courthouse, the right street shuts down 10s maybe hundreds of places (at least partially), it binds more police and personnel, and it’s hard for the city to prepare for. It’s the right move if your mindset is to cause damage, which I think is just as reasonable as trying to use the power you have inside of the systems that already exist, especially for people that don’t have that much power.
What I’m trying to say is maybe you understand how you percive the world, but there is legitimate ambiguity and differences of circumstance that lead to also completely normal, but different from yours, perceptions of the world, and that maybe instead of trying to defend yourself you just might need to accept that. Like there should be room to have compassion even for people that don’t have compassion for you because they are still human beings.
Haha, ok buddy.
I respect your positioning but to arrive at my conclusions these beliefs had to be abandoned. Obviously that seems irrational and insane but I’ve never had a good claim on reason or sanity. It’s a constant struggle of whether I’m the crazy one or if everyone else are the ones with the cracked marbles. Only experience has forced me away from what is normal and accepted and I wouldn’t wish the strife that molded me on anyone else but it’s not my fault that human nature’s best teacher is misery.
The difference is that sit in’s were directly related to what they were protesting against.
Shutting down highways to protest oil, shutting down campuses to protest funds going to violence, shutting down businesses that profit from settler colonialism…
…these are all directly related. It’s concerning that you don’t know this.
How does shutting down a highway punish oil companies? It hurts the person just trying to live their day. You want to punish oil companies? Block their trucks, not your average person. Oil companies couldn’t give less of a fuck about a random blocked highway.
same way sit-ins punished racist politicians: it doesn’t.
it’s important to remember: protest is not about punishment, it’s about sending a message. if you’re seeking punishment, direct action might be more appropriate. protest is all about spreading awareness and making a statement. not punishment.
How is blocking highways sending a message! Who is listening?
apparently not you :) try harder. enjoy your day.
It’s sending the message that we are going to make a bunch of cars idle and burn even more oil. Oil companies rejoice!
The thing is there have been protesters that demanded their campus stop funding Israeli research, and some of those campuses weren’t even doing that in the first place, but they still had to contend with protesters. Defacing museum work doesn’t make people think “oh, now I’ll stop burning oil”.
Yes, some of those protests are at least relevant, but there’s quite a few protests that are doing their causes no favors.
if that was even a minorly significant proportion of any movement i would care
i am never going to tone police the larger movement for the sins of a margin when the intentions involved include saving the lives of children and the future of their planet 👍
as soon as you find yourself in the place to bring your concerns to the leadership of a poorly-acting protest community, i highly recommend it. but doing so broadly and with no target is nothing more than concern trolling.
Protests aren’t supposed to be convenient
Agreed. It isn’t really a protest unless it inconveniences people into paying attention and, maybe, taking action.
I think it’s a demonstration where you gather to raise awareness but not disrupt.
both based and unpopular, a rare gem for this sub
So glad for your edit, added some interesting points.
Maybe turning this into the trolley problem will shed some light on how I think for ya. I will always sacrifice the few to save the many. Put my parents, my partner, my lovely cats on the line and as long as what I’m sacrificing is less than what stands to be saved then Imma pull that fucking lever and rail the few for the many. But it’s all hypothetical, we can’t for sure know what any of us would do until the shit actually hits the fan. I could always be a coward.
Now you don’t have to like it or even understand the way I feel and view the world but you should know that only arguments equally as convincing as the circumstances that lead me to where I stand could ever begin to sway me away.
i’ll put it this way. if a protest is held and the cops injure or kill protesters for doing the right thing, that’s a poignant sacrifice.
if a protest happens and the only casualties are accidental and preventable, that’s the epitome of bad optics. “sorry” isn’t enough—i need for protest leadership to take the very minor in the scheme of things steps necessary to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
tldr, your attitude is just a little flippant. i’m sure you know i’m with you 99% of the way there, i just find your attitude toward death to be weirdly condescending. if you know medical emergencies happen, and refuse to plan for them, that’s intentional harm.
None of the things you’ve said were unreasonable and I freely admit to knowing my attitude towards death can be shockingly cavalier but sometimes you have to be willing to cross the line. I have a sense that old age or natural causes aren’t in the cards for me and I hope that it’s my actions and not my words that do me in, I just will never know for sure until my time is up.
It doesn’t work if there isn’t a deep understanding of personal responsibility. While there are causes that have gained my participation I have yet to find something I’m willing to bleed for much less possibly harm someone else by doing the things I say I believe people have a right to. If I catch an involuntary manslaughter then I caught an involuntary manslaughter and I will be made to pay, either time or cash for the benefit of society. And for my benefit I hope to find or create an opportunity to lessen the burden of death on my hands. That’s all I can do, all we can do and the buck don’t stop at sorry.
Any prevention that can be taken should be taken but what is preventable isn’t always so and what was impossible to account for is sometimes within the plan. You do the best you can at the time and roll with the punches as they come.
The only acceptable way to protest is in designated free speech zones located out of sight so that nobody can hear or see you.
That was exactly what MLK and other civil rights leaders did.I really wonder sometimes what’d happen if modern protestors started staging bus takeovers or restaurant occupations
I wonder what would happen if every anonymous hackerman got all the dirt on all the bank execs and fortune 500 CEOs necessary and created neat little dossiers…
And then all the unemployed folks clogged up every bank branch in every major city to apply for frivolous loans, grinding their ability to conduct business to a halt, just hoping some branch brazenly discriminates against them and denies them the opportunity to present their loan application. Casualty of the cause? Sure, well sue a bank for discrimination.
Then slip the neat little dossiers under some neat little doors/into some neat little mailboxes.
And THEN, then, we take to the streets and protest. Clog up traffic. Dare them to stop “phase 2: cause traffic” when promptly before it came “phase 1: get their testicles under my boot.”
First grab those in power by the balls. Then take to the streets. This is how scientology did it. It can be done for good just as it was for evil.
It would certainly be interesting. But instead, they keep targeting lesser-privileged people and leaking all of their data, ruining lives, etc.
Gotta love it 🤷♂️
It depends. Part of the reason for the bus protests and sit-ins was precisely because those were the segregated spaces that they were protesting. So if your protest doesn’t specifically have anything to do with buses or restaurants, you’ll probably end up confusing people.
In the absence of a modern day analog, might be better to just pick larger public spaces to protest in where you’ll attract more attention than random bus routes or restaurants.
It depends on what you are protesting for.
Ending the genocide in Palestine or standing up against police brutality? You are gonna get some police brutality no matter how oeaceful you are.
Protesting against a valid election because tour orange wanna be dictator list? Minimal police resistance compared to any actual social issues.
I agree in principle, but if you put people in danger or could put people in danger, I consider that crossing the line of the Golden Rule of Liberty. That includes trapping people on highways and bridges.
So while protests can and should be disruptive and inconvenient, they must never endanger the general public.
See the thing is that most protests that adopt these tactics do permit emergency services to cross the picket. We just hear more about the ones who don’t because reasonable behavior doesn’t make for click getting headlines.
Trapping people is harm. It’s kidnapping at best, and putting lives in danger at worst. “Allowing emergency vehicles through” is not good enough. If the protest is structured in a way that the public needs to take a different/longer route, that’s one thing… but if someone is trapped by such a takeover with no way out, that is an unacceptable infringement on the public’s natural rights; particularly the right to not be trapped or imprisoned (in either person or property).
There’s no disputing that it’s harm but if the harm caused is less than the harm that is possible then the actions are worth taking.
I could write a long tirade on the terrifying flaws of this logic, but instead I’ll just share a reminder that barely anyone is the villain of their own story.
Don’t promise me a good time and leave me hanging.
I literally described how they don’t engage in trapping normally and you proceeded to write a paragraph about “WELL I’M STILL MAD ABOUT IT!”
Also where that energy at for police kettling?
You said they allow emergency vehicles through, not that they don’t engage in trapping.
If a protest isn’t trapping people, I don’t have a problem with it… and hence I don’t have a problem with the vast majority of protests (especially “occupy” protests). I’m just saying that there are lines, and I say that because it seems like they are slowly being crossed more often, which tends to erode the power and ethical justifiability of all protests.
Sidenote: I consider kettling deeply unethical in the extreme. ANY state intervention in peaceful protest, actually. As it happens I am capable of caring about multiple problems at once. ❤️
You did not address that, you addressed emergency vehicles
Trapping people is harm
This I agree with. Am I wrong or would it be dead simple to do a protest on a highway where it doesn’t trap folks and causes no harm? Like two steps:
- hold it not on a bridge and just after an exit
- allow any/all emergency vehicles through, coordinating with them as much as possible
Obviously this is still a major inconvenience, which is good per the whole point of protesting. Perhaps I need to read more on protest history and strategy as I know there is a whole body of literature on the subject.
That’s exactly the right idea!
If you’re just a person in your car, the protest has no way to know you may be having an emergency
Endanger the general public with wrong ideas
This is really good.
I speak for no one but myself: violence is never the answer, risk of accidental death is ever present. If my actions, my words creates a loss of life I submit myself to judgement and atone for all that I am liable.
Your freedoms extend only so far as they aren’t encroaching upon others freedoms. Blocking my freedom of movement included
Until individual freedom encroaches on the others is right. Move, be moved or lose all freedom. Joining costs only the freedoms you’re willing to sacrifice, turning away costs only what you’re willing to take with you.
You and I won’t agree but I appreciate your point of view.
I don’t even understand what you’re trying to say there lol. You don’t have a right to block people from driving their car to work, under any circumstances. Period.
It’s not justified, no matter what the cause you’re trying to bring awareness to. It’s selfish.
Selfish is matter of perspective. Selfish to impose collective will on the individual or selfish to impede progress for the masses in the name of personal freedom. Something has to give, someone is going to lose.
No, I don’t get to care about any of that bullshit, because I need to get to work so that I can feed my family. So it’s great that you have some hill you want to die on, but my family will die if you stop me from getting to work. See?
I understand your position but respectfully your family is as important to me as my hypothetical cause is to you.
“Your cause” is some macro thing, and blocking my car will have zero effect in achieving whatever you’re looking to achieve. My family is all that maters to me. And blocking my car will just result in you getting run over. So don’t do it
What an idiotic argument
Zero effect on you but not the person sitting next to you or the one behind you. If you are willing and able to crush one or several people under your vehicle for the sake of your precious family. Do so. The person impeding your path needs to be alright at that possibility.
The collective will is objectively that you can and will be arrested for protesting in a way that deprives others of their rights. We live in a democracy, and already have a way of deciding things collectively, which is far superior to mob justice.
It would be easier for me to acquiesce to this argument if it felt like democracy was a voice for collective will and not just the rich few. If I’m willing to be punished for my actions shouldn’t others be too?
You not believing in democracy where you live gives you the right to force potentially deadly consequences upon others?
You seem too bright for this to make sense mate.
If you still stand by it though, I’d strongly recommend you start working towards a career in politics to be the change you wish to see in this world. If people like what you wish to change, you should do well.
OP comments like the ketamine is working
Just a little pot nothing any stronger, this is just my normal unhinged self.
I’m 100% ok with places of business or college campuses!
I’m not ok with freeways/highways, though. People having medical emergencies could die while stuck on the highway. I’m a Type 1 Diabetic and have had some really scary incidents needing to get home and get food or soda because my sugar was low. If I was delayed 20 or 30 minutes by an unexpected road shutdown, I would have died.
I understand this perspective and persuade you to convince your area to add lanes specifically for care vehicles/bicycles so this will not be an issue in the future.
Edit. Added bicycles and corrected car to care.
So every road should be extended with an extra lane reserved for ambulances? That seems like a hugely expensive waste of space.
Agree, never trap people, even for an important protest. Consent and freedom of movement are fundamental
I feel like it’s easy to agree with some parts of my opinion and disregard or refute the rest. I know it is no consolation to the deceased that the responsible ones for their departure be held accountable but it still wouldn’t deter me from the same course that caused harm or death, hypothetically speaking.
There are cases where this applies, when a significant issue is censored across all media and you can only reach the rest of the people with greater power to resist the oppressors.
In most cases, it doesn’t. We have somehow normalized the assumption that people will listen more to protests. But do you really? Don’t reduce it to issues you already pay attention to. Think from the perspective of the uninformed target people. Think of political ideas you don’t tolerate. Will you listen more to them, if they block your way, ruin your day and may even harm your life instead of having a conversation with you?
The climate crisis, previously the Iraq War now Ukraine and Palestine, trans rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, abortion are not at all “censored” and are still worthy of civil disobedience to course-correct imo.
There are cases where this applies, when a significant issue is censored across all media and you can only reach the rest of the people with greater power to resist the oppressors.
This is the condition upon which I rest my case.
It’s so contextual on if the person agrees I feel it should be allowed no matter what due to that. I’ll also add I’m high and drunk and read nothing and am reacting instead of reading.
Cheers mate, have another for me.
So it all depends on context for you huh? I can dig it, leave the problem for when it actually comes up.
I’m not sure how else to approach such a topic. Some protest I agree with. Others I don’t. Shit. I’m being fucking selfish. 💀 Hrm.
Okay. I read through your words. I love you. Thank you for espousing your views. Shout them loudly and proudly. We need to hear them.
In my opinion, there is no democracy without the public being able to protest. If the powers that be are not making decisions or actions of the people, for the people, how are they to know how upset they are; unless the powers don’t care and send tanks or armed forces to squash disgruntled protesters.
Even if you disagree with the protesters, you should allow them to voice their grievances publicly, otherwise you don’t actually want a democracy, imo. I see so many uncaring takes or indifferent takes, it’s the silent insidious part of humanity, like a cop watching a crime happen but don’t want to get involved.
Then people should have a right to shut down protestors.
They already do. It’s called a counter protest.
OK. then i think things are balanced.
What does this even mean?
It seems clear to me. What’s wrong?
I don’t know what you mean by shut down exactly.
Put an end to their disruptive activity.
That just seems to be a synonym to shut down. How do suggest this be done exactly?
Yeah, there wasn’t much to interpret. How would you remove disruptive people?
I don’t think we should remove protestors. How would you remove protestors?
I follow thw idea that we should be maximising the function of human freedom. Doing such ironically must restrict some freedoms eg removing your freedom to remove others freedoms. This has interesting implications upon your stance here mainly that whatever inconvenience ie restriction of freedoms your cause must be lesser than expected value of freedoms gained. This is thus my calculus of if the means justify the ends.
However, the issue we are currently facing is not a matter of how free speech is enacted but the simple fact that some people think that other people are not entitled to it. For example all the large social media companies censor people (as is their right as a private company) at the request of the government. Free speach is to protect is from the government and as such they should have no right to request any restriction upon speach of private companies.
I can see that in the future there will be attempts to restricts neuter sue and outlaw federated media by governments of the world. We as federated peoples pose the greatest threat to government restriction of free speach since the advent of the internet itself. I suspect we have already started seeing psyops to build distrust in federated services.
Ps i think ur headline does sound a little extreme and your words are complete purple prose.
Gotta say that I hadn’t heard of purple prose before but it is by far the greatest compliment I have ever received. Flowery and too poetic, that’s me to a fucking T.
The paradox of tolerance protecting itself by becoming intolerant of intolerance. Eventually we fight absurdity with absurdity but the trick is knowing when to scale back to abject reality. I let that be the concerns of other people.
“Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion” - Karl Popper
I think the pardox of tolerance as its often used in popular discussion is use to justify to intolerance of any idea that is even a little intolerant(i would argue this is nessasary eg we should not tolerate pedos) where as i take the source material with its included context to mean that we should be intolerant of intolerance in its actions not its utterance.
