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Its the only tool that is easy to use outside of elections. Don't need courts, politicians, famous people to attract the cameras and television crews, and the coverage gets you message out. get And they are effective as noted by many posters here.
Like anything its not 100% but better than doing nothing.
The only way peaceful protest works is if the protesters have an overwhelming numerical advantage. Otherwise you need violence or the threat of violence.
Yep, that is basically how America broke free from England (American revolution), had those people NOT resorted to violence, its doubtful they would have succeeded.
Its strange that so many people today seem to preach 'non-violence', since the nation was basically founded because of that!
Go back to the days of Vietnam. It was the protestors in the street who guided the US to its worst loss ever. But there is more to the story than that.
The US policy in Vietnam consisted of inane rules of engagement, which led to thousands and thousands of unnecessary deaths. Add to that the fact that so many of the servicemen were unwilling draftees, Cronkite had spoken out against military involvement, and Johnson had promised a utopia here in America and the whole thing caught fire. It was awful. (I'm a Vietnam vet)
Did the protestors accomplish anything? ....... probably. But they were misled by the Johnson administration every bit as much as the BLM protestors were misled by the Obama one. Poor leadership - I'm talking about Johnson and Obama has serious, long term consequences. Protestors feed off it and sometimes cause a change in policy - sometimes it is what they want and sometimes it backfires on them.
True then but now... Not so much.
Various lobbying groups OWN congress.
The US is corporate run that allows freedom of speech because the speech does not matter.
Its the only tool that is easy to use outside of elections. Don't need courts, politicians, famous people to attract the cameras and television crews, and the coverage gets you message out. get And they are effective as noted by many posters here.
Like anything its not 100% but better than doing nothing.
But that's why protesting seems ineffective though, cause you don't have courts, politicians, or famous people to attract cameras and television crews. What good is protesting if you don't have those things? Wouldn't protesters be doing a better job, if they just became lawyers and politicians to try to evoke their cause, rather than protesting?
But that's why protesting seems ineffective though, cause you don't have courts, politicians, or famous people to attract cameras and television crews. What good is protesting if you don't have those things? Wouldn't protesters be doing a better job, if they just became lawyers and politicians to try to evoke their cause, rather than protesting?
You don't "become" a lawyer or politician.
Protest can bring change, just not immediate change.
The Constitution gives us the right to protest. (Freedom of Assembly) I say, use it.
Vietnam, civil rights, women's suffrage/women's rights, environmental protection, gay rights ... Only those who were born yesterday or who didn't pay attention in U.S. history class wouldn't realize what change protests can bring about.
Agreed, the OP wonders why there does not seem to be some instant effect, with everyone changing their mind at once. The Civil Rights and Vietnam War protests went on for many, many years. It was their persistence that finally led to change. Fortunately that change happened with minimal violence. But those protests had a huge effect in the long run.
The length and scope of those protests was in direct proportion to how many people they affected, and how severely they were affected. Getting drafted at 18 and mangled or killed by a tripwire mine in a jungle in Vietnam was a pretty severe outcome - especially when you didn't even have the right to vote. Being lynched and hung from a tree and displayed for the public because of the color of your skin was a pretty severe outcome.
Americans do not go under the boot quietly, it is not in our nature.
Last edited by GearHeadDave; 02-12-2019 at 01:42 PM..
Sure they gave us the right to do it, I just thought it was ineffective. Nobody cares about crowds of people holding up signs, I thought, but maybe I'm wrong, if the change is just not that immediate.
Sure they gave us the right to do it, I just thought it was ineffective. Nobody cares about crowds of people holding up signs, I thought, but maybe I'm wrong, if the change is just not that immediate.
I get what you’re saying though. I dated a girl who went to some kind of political rally and I didn’t really agree with it...she actually said “To be honest I don’t really follow politics that closely, so it’s just something to do with friends.”
There are a lot of legitimate protests, but it’s also a lot of people who just like the feeling of making a difference. A good chunk are people who want to virtue signal and get satisfaction from attending, even if it doesn’t really achieve much.
Oh okay, well I guess maybe it does achieve in the long wrong, it just seems that the government is probably not going to care about what people with signs think, or so I thought.
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