How many protesters does it take to change a light bulb?

[Jenne]

Oh you guyz... *blush

[Adios]

This is abuse! I came here for an argument!
I'm going to stray off topic for a second. If I have an opinion that differs from yours, its only because I feel that way, not because I'm trying to offend you. So maybe a conversation is possible now? Not just mud-slinging like politicians?

Anywho, I agree that different methods yield results. The more active you are, the more effective it will be. I think public awareness is good, but it seems the reason the public is not aware of certain issues is because they don't care. Its probably really hard to present all the facts of an argument in certain situations, and most people don't want to read a pamphlet or flyer while they are out doing errands. What would be the best way to get a point accross and actually make people think about it?

So you got your argument. Now quit fucking whining.

[Bruno]

ITT: Getting hit on the head lessons.

HWAAAAAH!!

[East Coast Hustle]

Fuck Maine.

no, fuck YOU.

[breakerslion]

Just one, with a well-aimed brick. If you're not throwing things and/or getting arrested, you're not doing it right. If you let them herd you behind the protester playpens, you're just a wuss. Commit or get off the pot.

Someone upthread asked if a riot was the same as a protest. What do you think?

So I went to a really liberal artsy kind of school, packed with far-left ideologies. They had this really moronic protest agains the iraq war in the social science building. Which is stupid, because it's not like the people in the SS building are causing the war or anything. Most of the teachers spoke out against it.

Some things never change. When I went to a scumbag corporation masquerading as a University in NJ, there was a protest against the U. holding Coca-cola stock.  No, I'm not bullshitting, Google "Coca-cola" and "Apartheid". So the protesters get kicked off Dean Wormer's lawn (ok, that's bullshit his name was Blaustein), and are told they are permitted to protest on the grounds of the Student Center. The Student Center, where all the shuttle busses come and go from the other campuses. Where you had to step over the protesters and wound up late for your next class because of the bullshit protest that wasn't inconveniencing anyone but fellow students. I told the assholes to apply for transfer, request transcripts sent to other colleges, and threaten to drop out if they wanted anyone to listen, but get the fuck out of my way. They were having too much fun doing nothing to listen. All they needed to top it off was a prayer vigil. If I knew then what I know now, I would have been selling candles and dixie cups.

[Cain]

If you're getting arrested, you are most certainly doing it wrong.  Note I make no mention of breaking the law here.

I also refuse to pick fights with people who are more heavily armed than me, when I cannot level the playing field before hand to assure victory.

I have an aversion to getting my skull cracked by riot cops, who seem most unconcerned whether the person they are hitting actually constitutes a threat or not.

[Jenne]

If you're getting arrested, you are most certainly doing it wrong.  Note I make no mention of breaking the law here.

I also refuse to pick fights with people who are more heavily armed than me, when I cannot level the playing field before hand to assure victory.

I have an aversion to getting my skull cracked by riot cops, who seem most unconcerned whether the person they are hitting actually constitutes a threat or not.

TITCM

[Jenne]

Just one, with a well-aimed brick. If you're not throwing things and/or getting arrested, you're not doing it right. If you let them herd you behind the protester playpens, you're just a wuss. Commit or get off the pot.

So you've btdt?  Cuz otherwise, you, too, sound like you don't know your ass from your elbow.

[Cain]

I had a very good look at the Heathrow protests over the summer.  The violence, little of it that there was, was started by journalists from the rabble-rousing right wing press (the Telegraph, as it happened) to initiate a larger crackdown on the protestors.  While it mostly failed, the riot police moved in and beat the shit out of people who were trying to get away from the violent element.

[Verbal Mike]

Can't be having that kind of cowardice, now can we?
This is a time of war! If protesters get to break and run with no repercussion, our good boys might be tempted to do the same. Running away from violence is no way to support the troops!

[Jenne]

If you're there to get a message across, chances are you are not going to get that message across with bullshit violence for violence's sake, other than the fact that YUO TOO CAN BE BEATEN AND ARRESTED HAR HAR!  So sure, if your main point is to indeed "throw a brick," then throw a fucking brick.

But don't front like those of us standing there with our signs and writing/phone calling and faxing are not getting it done, either.  That's fucking bullshit, and it's a way to knife your neighbor and try to look cool about it.  Fuck that shit.  Get the fuck out of my breathing space if that's what you're about.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

The above passage from the Declaration of Independence hits this nail on the head. Our society is not immune to large-scale protests that effect actual change (also known as a "revolution"), but it isn't going to happen so long as people are generally comfortable, or the injustices we suffer are not of such magnitude as to make dying for your cause preferable to just putting up with it.

Also, you will find that humans are great at imagining themselves as being very high on the morality and intellectual ladder, but pretty terrible at actually holding that position. No revolution is fought on purely ideological grounds -- ideology is too easily ignored or altered to matter that much. This is why people will riot far faster when they do not have enough food, than when they know their leaders are guilty of genocide. People do not care until it hits their front yard. And the price we charge our government for our continued silence on such matters is so small that no developed nation should ever have to worry about revolution.

[Cramulus]

SUPPORT THE REVOLUTION:
VOTE FOR OPPRESSION

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Just one, with a well-aimed brick. If you're not throwing things and/or getting arrested, you're not doing it right. If you let them herd you behind the protester playpens, you're just a wuss. Commit or get off the pot.

You go right ahead and get yourself tossed in the can, and give The Man all the propaganda he needs.  You will accomplish nothing except to be the next example of why protesters have no credibility, and - of course - to amuse me when I see you get gassed and clubbed into semi-consciousness.

I'll be sabotaging elections and doing truly horrible, undetectable shit to monkeywrench everything I get near.

Thanks for the camoflage, dumbass.

[ShoobyDB]

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine. -Thomas Jefferson

Every generation needs a new revolution. -Thomas Jefferson

I'm not entirely sure if these apply to the conversation 100%, but T-Jeff was the man!