The thing is if everyone said “fantastic! This will be huge” and the actual protests are underwhelming, well that serves to confirm the false narrative that a very small minority of people are upset.
Declaring high expectations and delivering low is a path to undermine your cause. Waiting until after the fact to explain why sounds like making excuses rather.
The protest in my region was like maybe 50 people. I don’t think this is because people are broadly happy, it’s because as many many people pointed out, this was poor planning. The optics of pulling off a huge protest in only a week would have been amazing, but just impossible in the real world.
as many many people pointed out, this was poor planning.
So fucking organize it better then.
Jesus this American shoulder-shrug-why-do-anything-if-it-isn’t-perfect is so frustrating to watch.
The thing is if everyone said “fantastic! This will be huge” and the actual protests are underwhelming, well that serves to confirm the false narrative that a very small minority of people are upset.
But nobody did, they just said “this day this time go protest in your capitol”.
The optics of pulling off a huge protest in only a week would have been amazing, but just impossible in the real world.
It was a protest across the entire country, and it can be done again, and again, and again.
Seriously do you guys even need opponents? You just give up and convince each other to not do anything unless it’s perfect and then sit back and watch your neighbours get put in camps, declaring that you sure don’t agree with those actions.
Even if it was a huge protest, the psychopaths in charge will walk over their backs and casually walk into the capitol.
Protests don’t do shit because you cannot convince people who don’t feel emotion to suddenly care about your situation. They only care about self-enrichment, power, and self-preservation. Do you have enough political capital or leverage to influence a politician?
Maybe if you threaten their sense of self-preservation, you might cause them to notice.
Maybe if you threaten their sense of self-preservation, you might cause them to notice.
I think that’s really the unstated point of large protests. You get hundreds of thousands of people being present and obviously angry, but “peaceful”, you have to be doing the calculation of how many of those are on the brink of something more if their voices are not heard and things proceed or even accelerate.
Of course, on the other hand we are dealing with an administration that thinks an ethnic cleanse of Palestinians to set up a resort city sounds like a safe idea, so not sure there’s anyone really thinking about the risks.
Haha, that happened in 2011 with the Wisconsin Act 10 protests. It was literally the most peaceful thing you ever saw in your life: singing, chanting, mutual aid stations, pizza, people on their goddamn hands and knees cleaning salt and sand off of the floor of the Capitol in the evenings.
And the Republicans were cowering in pants-shitting terror! (I mean, more than their usual.) The governor would enter the Capitol through the utility tunnel from a nearby state building. One legislator was terrorized by scratches on their car, and got the State Patrol to investigate the attack. (The SP concluded that the perpetrator was a stone kicked up by the wheels.) I know people who got arrested for having cameras in the Assembly chamber.
The thing is if everyone said “fantastic! This will be huge” and the actual protests are underwhelming, well that serves to confirm the false narrative that a very small minority of people are upset.
Declaring high expectations and delivering low is a path to undermine your cause. Waiting until after the fact to explain why sounds like making excuses rather.
The protest in my region was like maybe 50 people. I don’t think this is because people are broadly happy, it’s because as many many people pointed out, this was poor planning. The optics of pulling off a huge protest in only a week would have been amazing, but just impossible in the real world.
So fucking organize it better then.
Jesus this American shoulder-shrug-why-do-anything-if-it-isn’t-perfect is so frustrating to watch.
But nobody did, they just said “this day this time go protest in your capitol”.
It was a protest across the entire country, and it can be done again, and again, and again.
Seriously do you guys even need opponents? You just give up and convince each other to not do anything unless it’s perfect and then sit back and watch your neighbours get put in camps, declaring that you sure don’t agree with those actions.
Even if it was a huge protest, the psychopaths in charge will walk over their backs and casually walk into the capitol.
Protests don’t do shit because you cannot convince people who don’t feel emotion to suddenly care about your situation. They only care about self-enrichment, power, and self-preservation. Do you have enough political capital or leverage to influence a politician?
Maybe if you threaten their sense of self-preservation, you might cause them to notice.
I think that’s really the unstated point of large protests. You get hundreds of thousands of people being present and obviously angry, but “peaceful”, you have to be doing the calculation of how many of those are on the brink of something more if their voices are not heard and things proceed or even accelerate.
Of course, on the other hand we are dealing with an administration that thinks an ethnic cleanse of Palestinians to set up a resort city sounds like a safe idea, so not sure there’s anyone really thinking about the risks.
Haha, that happened in 2011 with the Wisconsin Act 10 protests. It was literally the most peaceful thing you ever saw in your life: singing, chanting, mutual aid stations, pizza, people on their goddamn hands and knees cleaning salt and sand off of the floor of the Capitol in the evenings.
And the Republicans were cowering in pants-shitting terror! (I mean, more than their usual.) The governor would enter the Capitol through the utility tunnel from a nearby state building. One legislator was terrorized by scratches on their car, and got the State Patrol to investigate the attack. (The SP concluded that the perpetrator was a stone kicked up by the wheels.) I know people who got arrested for having cameras in the Assembly chamber.
Bunch of craven idiots, the lot.