Protest: Means and Ends (demonstrations, civil disobedience, destruction of property, riots, etc.)--Any thoughts?

seriously -- no senseless destruction of property. don't give the knuckledraggers and ashcroft more ammo.

I don't know which side bugs me more: hawkish, jarheaded "Love it or Leave it" Republican yahoos or ridiculously clichÈd, cartoon-character protesters. Our current reality was a foregone conclusion, regardless of how many flags ever got waved or how many "No Blood for Oil" buttons were distributed. Just remember this rage you're currently feeling and bring it to voting booth next time, and vote this born-again monkey out of office and into the history books as the nation's worst-ever president where he belongs.

jess: if you stole an election and no-one seems to give a fuck, as well as having everything else in life handed to you on a silver platter and certain sycophants whispering that you're "chosen by God" in yer ear, would you give a shit about some protestors?

and i wouldn't vote for Nader even if he handed out a five-course gourmet meal with pudding.

You don't vote = you should be beaten if you open your mouth IMO. It pisses me off. One person doesn't make a difference. 3 million people who think they don't make a difference DO make a difference.

I'm just so frustrated, I refuse to generally talk about war or similar. So instead I will point out that GWB is one of the most unattractive famous men ever.

This is a good point. (I do vote anyway, wisely or not.)

and while my contempt for Ralph Nader is almost as deep as my contempt for Bush, at least those who voted for him are in a better position to bitch and moan than those who just sat on their fucking asses on Election Day.

Well OBV the answer is NO bcz they're all 'REPUBLICRATS' and aren't I so clever for SEEING THE CONSPIRACY unlike the rest of you sheep

has public protest ever *prevented* a government from going to war?

i don't think this means that all protest is pointless. i just see the importance of the recent marches etc as more symbolic - a show of unity and dissatisfaction - than practical.

(no british government would have behaved differently in the current situation, and certainly no other labour leader.)

ppl should register their dissatisfaction if they want to.

Not foreign policy, but the poll tax riots did that job pretty well.

churchill was voted out, resoundingly (and correctly), at the end of WW2

One of the smallest (and shortest) demonstrations I've been on, but still worthwhile, I think. It was interesting to see the change in people's behaviour, at first a bit reluctant to do anything (myself included), then quickly emboldened by the realisation that, yes, if we step into the road nothing too terrible is going to happen. No big plan, no major disruption, nothing too noteworthy happened. Except a couple of hundred people actually felt like they did something, and they'll be a lot more confident about doing something more next time.

And I'd agree with mark s, more generally it's about registering disunity. If the protest on Saturday is a lot smaller than the last one, it'll be taken by Blair (along with a shift in the opinion polls this week) as a sign that the country had big doubts about the war before, but now that it's happening they're starting to come round. He needs to know that we're not all rallying around "our boys".

the assumption that established power has everything locked up forever makes no sense to me, politically (the only way to lock everything up forever would be if everyone agreed that everything was fine and without fault)

wars are semi-controlled chaos, a deliberate disruption in the (unspoken or agreed-on or whatever) order and placidity that precedes them: you could say they're won by the side which turns out to have the MOST control over events as these then unfold, but you can just as well say they're won by the side whose LACK of control is least catastrophically disabling

conservatism after ww2 won elections yes, but for 30 years it basically acquiesced to the consensus achieved in re the welfare state (which though instituted by atlee was arguably actually created by i. the coalition war-govt's radical overhaul of empire's necessary state centralism, to turn all these mechanisms of global rule into a system to keep a smallish north atlantic archipelago alive, and ii. the people of this archipelago transforming this overhaul to their own better ends)

the Lib Dems are objectively better than Labour, and have been at least since Blair took over.

The poll tax riots got rid of Thatcher, Marcello. That's pretty indisputable, imo. As for the Tories, if that pro-war vote in the House the other night is anything to go by then they're still in power.

Have a look at the history of the north of Ireland since the late 60s: a very stark illustration of how direct action (and I mean civil rights protests as much as I mean IRA bombs) can make a very big difference indeed to the actions of the Ps that be.

most of the ass being her own citizens ass:(

The poll tax riots I don't think would have had much effect on her standing with the electorate - in the same way as Blair will most probably get back in next time, despite the war and the protests - though the "he's a newbie, give him a chance" factor probably helped Major to win the '92 election.

and, oh yes, that should have been "Westland" helicopters, not Westlake.

Without the background of social disorder, none of the personnel shift in the party would have happened. It was the sense of "things fall apart" which produced the urgency, and the decision not to just keep on keeping on. (Heseltine had also had a specific role in the mollification/rebuilding of Liverpool after its riots, a project he invested a lot in personally — if the cities burned again all that was thrown away and dissed and forgotten, and hius own marvellousness overlooked.)

However, Marcello is probably correct that the Tory Party's inward-lookingness was unusually extreme in those years: its lack of sensitivity towards and awareness of the dynamics and implications of social change it had itself instituted led directly to its own startling implosion in the mid-90s.

Why is blocking traffic so common in protests? I'm sure we can all think of a number of reasons why it is the worst fucking idea, but is there some perceived tactical advantage or political benefit or something?

Blocking traffic is a kinder, gentler way of ensuring someone notices your protest than, for example, throwing bombs. Protesters, as a rule, hate to be ignored.

As I'm thinking about, pedestrians taking over the least pedestrian friendly transportation routes is a pretty powerful image and statement

Traffic/cars are symbolic of power systems and oil/gas drive environmental abuses by huge multinational conglomerates as well as the war economy. Cars also encourage territorial thinking and promote potentially violent anti-social behavior.

there's that, and also disrupting traffic is symbolically and literally disrupting the flow of ordinary life, which is the purpose of protests. in general, protesters don't think that things should just keeping going along as usual

Car plows through protesters at Ferguson rally in south Minneapolis

Second vehicle runs through Ferguson march in Minneapolis

So it's basically for very abstract reasons and doesn't take into consideration the wage earners who have to get across town to clock in, the people who need to pick up their kids from daycare or get them to after school activities? People who have doctors appointments. People who are already stretched pretty thin in terms of work-life balance. Those people are worth shaftng over symbolically striking against "power systems"?

Putting a question mark at the end of a statement doesnt make it a question

The purpose is to disrupt the flow of ordinary life to ensure that a) the protests can't be ignored and b) that the protests do actually have a material impact on the wider community. That is not abstract. If you don't want to have your day disrupted, work to change the system that led to the protests. That's not always justifiable but it's been an essential part of pretty much every justifiable protest movement in modern history. You can make the argument that Gandhi should have had more consideration for people trying to get to the office by 9:30 when the Indian independence campaign was blocking railway tracks but would you really want to?

People who are already stretched pretty thin in terms of work-life balance.

this is something they should consider protesting over imo

LOL

People trying to get around a city are daily inconvenienced by greedy private companies, corrupt town planners, ideologically motivated politicians etc who fail to invest properly in infrastructure/customer service/road repairs and the like. Your ire would be better directed at them, rather than people trying to make a positive change or highlight an inequality, imho.

If you don't want to have your day disrupted, work to change the system that led to the protests.

That sounds like a strong-arm tactic.

It just seems incredibly insensitive to people who are at the margins and struggling to get by. Not everybody on the road is driving a Lexus. Some are driving broken-down 20 year old civics held together by duct tape. I can't speak to how people reacted to what Gandhi did. But I know that people I know who got stuck in traffic in Baltimore were pissed off. And whenever my commute has been held back by protests in the street (from Palestine to pro-lifers) it hasn't done anything to change my mind about the issue.

In the grand scheme of things would you rather know that your route to work might occasionally be disrupted or know that you live in a society that is broadly comfortable with the idea that your family has no proper legal recourse if a police officer decides to shoot you?

I don't think it has to be an either/or question!

The primary purpose of such demonstrations isn't really about changing the mind of the individual - it's about showing that the hegemonic and seemingly monolithic status quo can in fact be disrupted and challenged. It should give people suffering under the cosh of capitalism more hope, not less.

Yep.

As things stand, the options for affecting change without putting social and economic pressure on the broader community are limited.

It's the inconvenienced motorists my heart really goes out to at times like this

how about a boycott? is a black friday boycott a good tactic?

lol @ someone actually doing won't someone think of the inconvenienced motorists. I sure hope no network tv schedules are affected

xp i'm gonna sit at home on my ass and protest people being forced to work retail on Thanksgiving, cause that is bullllshit