Rebellion or something.

[LMNO]

And yet the Overton Window appears to be moving Right?

[Doktor Howl]

And yet the Overton Window appears to be moving Right?

I disagree entirely.  The loud bastards in the window just make it look that way, as they are dragged to the left.

Gay marriage is now considered to be a right by most Americans.
Most Americans don't give a shit about whether or not you smoke weed.
Most Americans are becoming outraged by our prison system.
The GOP congress now has less than a 9% approval rating, due to obstructionism and insane bills.

You have a few portions of the government still in the hands of the whackos (SCOTUS, for example), but even THEY are softening their tone.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

And yet the Overton Window appears to be moving Right?

How so? 

[Doktor Howl]

And yet the Overton Window appears to be moving Right?

How so? 

The media is portraying that, but it hasn't been true for about 7 years now.

[Doktor Howl]

Gonna write Objection II now.

[LMNO]

Hmm.  I was looking at it like, the current administration's policies, for a large part, seem further right than many republicans in the 60s and 70s, and Obama's considered a "Liberal".  But I can see your point.

[Doktor Howl]

Hmm.  I was looking at it like, the current administration's policies, for a large part, seem further right than many republicans in the 60s and 70s, and Obama's considered a "Liberal".  But I can see your point.

Obama is considered a "liberal" by the sort of people who thought that Bachmann would make a fine president.  Again, they are few, they are LOUD, and they are DUMB.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

This discussion got off the track of my original statement, which was that the Protest Culture™ is largely ineffective in the West. I was not talking about actual protests/riots that have overtaken a number of countries around the planet and resulted in at least some kind of deviation from the established norms in those countries. I was talking specifically about what it means to protest in the West, specifically in America.

And what I was saying was that here, where things are relatively comfortable for most people, protests are pretty harmless to the status quo. Occupy has done absolutely nothing to threaten Big Money, or really even to spread meaningful awareness of the problems caused and exacerbated by the financial industry. Throngs of people in Wisconsin didn't stop Governor Brown from sticking it to unions. In Texas massive protests failed to garner the support of anyone who wasn't already on the protesters' side, or impede the advancement of the draconian laws on their agenda. Anonymous has been known to take a web page offline for a day or two, and seriously annoy a handful Scientologists, but beyond that I'm not sure exactly what it is they're accomplishing.

It isn't that protests are inherently powerless, it's that they are now a known entity and as such the status quo can stay out of their reach. A protest is just a lot of people stinking up a park for a while, as far as anyone in power is concerned. Protests can't last forever, and even if they could, who cares? A permanent street fair isn't going to hurt anything. To be successful, a mass protest must be a display of popular force, not popular sentiment. That doesn't mean rioting or property damage is necessary, but you've got to do more than just show up with a picket sign and chant slogans. Organized civil disobedience is a form of protest that goes a long way toward making a difference, for example.

I'm just saying that as long as there are so many people more interested in identifying themselves as subversive than in actually subverting anything, their squawking is mostly harmless. And any movement that gives people a venue to vent their frustration will be allowed, and even encouraged, so long as that movement remains ineffective at really upsetting the social order. Anonymous manufacturing their most recognizable symbol in a sweatshop isn't the problem, but it's symbolic of a situation where identifying yourself as an agent of change is culturally equivalent to actually being an agent of change.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Additional note:

[Doktor Howl]

This discussion got off the track of my original statement, which was that the Protest Culture™ is largely ineffective in the West. I was not talking about actual protests/riots that have overtaken a number of countries around the planet and resulted in at least some kind of deviation from the established norms in those countries. I was talking specifically about what it means to protest in the West, specifically in America.

Again, do you think the right for Gays to marry just happened?  Or the right for them to not have the shit kicked out of them with a wink and a nod from the legal system just appeared?

That's one example.  I can name a lot of others.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

This discussion got off the track of my original statement, which was that the Protest Culture™ is largely ineffective in the West. I was not talking about actual protests/riots that have overtaken a number of countries around the planet and resulted in at least some kind of deviation from the established norms in those countries. I was talking specifically about what it means to protest in the West, specifically in America.

Again, do you think the right for Gays to marry just happened?  Or the right for them to not have the shit kicked out of them with a wink and a nod from the legal system just appeared?

That's one example.  I can name a lot of others.

No, but I'm not convinced it was protests that got that done. Protests were part of it, maybe, but I think most of the progress in that area specifically came from a cultural shift at the lowest levels. The LGBTQ community was portrayed positively in media on a large scale; gays began to tell their stories and share their experiences and come out of the closet in larger numbers; almost everyone in the country can say they have a gay friend, relative, or coworker. It wasn't Gay Pride parades or picket signs that changed America's mind, it was forcing people to account for the way they personally treated others that caused a huge shift in popular sentiment.

[Doktor Howl]

This discussion got off the track of my original statement, which was that the Protest Culture™ is largely ineffective in the West. I was not talking about actual protests/riots that have overtaken a number of countries around the planet and resulted in at least some kind of deviation from the established norms in those countries. I was talking specifically about what it means to protest in the West, specifically in America.

Again, do you think the right for Gays to marry just happened?  Or the right for them to not have the shit kicked out of them with a wink and a nod from the legal system just appeared?

That's one example.  I can name a lot of others.

No, but I'm not convinced it was protests that got that done. Protests were part of it, maybe, but I think most of the progress in that area specifically came from a cultural shift at the lowest levels. The LGBTQ community was portrayed positively in media on a large scale; gays began to tell their stories and share their experiences and come out of the closet in larger numbers; almost everyone in the country can say they have a gay friend, relative, or coworker. It wasn't Gay Pride parades or picket signs that changed America's mind, it was forcing people to account for the way they personally treated others that caused a huge shift in popular sentiment.

The American public doesn't change its mind unless it has been shamed.

Pride parades showed America that Gays were actually people, and that they were actually kind of cool in their outrageous flamboyance in some of the parades.  Then you show them the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard.  The effect isn't very much different than the civil rights movement, where the Blacks were shown marching and calmly demanding their rights, contrasted with yahoos and bull cops beating on them.

[Junkenstein]

With the shame thing, it's also kind of a public suffering thing.

Horrific shocking act against X (repeated often enough, or just once, really really badly) = eventual rights/liberations.

Once it's at the point where the media cannot ignore it and it strikes enough of the populace as fundamentally, morally wrong you start getting change.


Considering the effect of protest in general on western governments, it seems to me to be largely ineffective. Protest marches don't get the same kind of result as bloody headlines generally. Riots tend not to cause serious policy discussions in the same way as a missing/murdered child would, even when there are several innocent dead as a result of the protests.

Good reform laws seem to come from someone being fucked up is what I'm trying to get at. Need to think about this more.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

This discussion got off the track of my original statement, which was that the Protest Culture™ is largely ineffective in the West. I was not talking about actual protests/riots that have overtaken a number of countries around the planet and resulted in at least some kind of deviation from the established norms in those countries. I was talking specifically about what it means to protest in the West, specifically in America.

Again, do you think the right for Gays to marry just happened?  Or the right for them to not have the shit kicked out of them with a wink and a nod from the legal system just appeared?

That's one example.  I can name a lot of others.

No, but I'm not convinced it was protests that got that done. Protests were part of it, maybe, but I think most of the progress in that area specifically came from a cultural shift at the lowest levels. The LGBTQ community was portrayed positively in media on a large scale; gays began to tell their stories and share their experiences and come out of the closet in larger numbers; almost everyone in the country can say they have a gay friend, relative, or coworker. It wasn't Gay Pride parades or picket signs that changed America's mind, it was forcing people to account for the way they personally treated others that caused a huge shift in popular sentiment.

The American public doesn't change its mind unless it has been shamed.

Pride parades showed America that Gays were actually people, and that they were actually kind of cool in their outrageous flamboyance in some of the parades.  Then you show them the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard.  The effect isn't very much different than the civil rights movement, where the Blacks were shown marching and calmly demanding their rights, contrasted with yahoos and bull cops beating on them.

I won't argue with that at all. But again it's the two sides to the story that have to be illustrated -- both the peaceful demonstrations and the brutal oppression of those outside the popularly accepted definition of "equal." Showing up for a protest is only half the story. The other half of the story will never be told if the Status Quo can manage to contain its urge to smash people under tank treads or conduct widespread illegal home invasions in broad daylight.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Having watched the protests here in Turkey and talking with the people who were in the front lines (and had a back, arms and chest full of bruises to prove it)... both sides of the coin were present. The 70 year old grandmas that were handing food out to protesters weren't trying to be part of a brand (one lady was handing out bread and apologizing because she couldn't carry fruit from her fruit tree to them, because the bag was too heavy for her). Then 80 year old guy that stood in front of a dozen cops calling out "yazıklar olsun" (shame on you, pity on you) wasn't trying to be part of the in-crowd. At the same time, some fool dressed in a cape and a Guy Fawkes mask was walking in the streets, basically daring the cops to go after him.