Jusentantaka, on 10 June 2010 - 03:33 PM, said:
And internet protests: less useful than a signature on a petition, because anyone and everyone can be on the internet and can say whatever they want. No accountability for supporting some random ass internet petition. Its just 'oh look my facebook efriend sent me this link! *clicks and signs on to nuke the whales* ' At least picketers are standing out somewhere showing their support or anger. "I'm in an Internet protest!' just doesn't have any oomph behind it to me.
Tapper, on 10 June 2010 - 11:56 AM, said:
As for internet protests... it is basically the same as signing a support petition. It's low maintenance and easily accessible, for some things, such a passive way of protesting is enough, for others it will fail in any way whatsoever to get attention.
But around here, and I wonder if it is the same in a lot of other places, do they really even hold as much water as a physical petition piece of paper? Our provincial gov't won't even accept anything but a paper petition. I guess it keeps the (and I quote) "random jerkoffs" (RJs from now on) from just signing a petition they don't care about, but it also makes it difficult for the organizer of the petition (who is usually one or a few individuals) to demonstrate what might be wide support. As much as it makes the petition more accessible to RJs, it makes it more accessible to the folks who support the petition but can't drive 2 hours to the next city to sign a piece of paper.
Reason I bring this up is because I'm on the Avaaz.org mailing list through no fault of my own, and choose stay on it just to read up on the random subjects of their protest...and occasionally skoff at said subjects of protest.
The site always protests via mass internet petition, but nothing stops an individual from signing more than once and there is no requirement to list your contact info. That organization, to my knowledge, gains donations from subscribers to the website, and talks a big game, but I've never heard of them actually accomplishing anything whatsoever (beyond taking out a few political protest ads in newspapers) from any other news source. In this way AVAAZ comes off as a small group of dedicated Random Jerkoffs, taking advantage of a much larger population of slightly lazier random jerkoffs and doing nothing worthwhile with the resources they accumulate.
I think I'm mostly with Jusentantaka on this one. The RJ population far outweighs the concerned citizens on the internet and we are right not to pay attention to the protests at all.
Salk Elan, on 10 June 2010 - 12:48 PM, said:
cerveza_fiesta, on 10 June 2010 - 11:43 AM, said:
Free tibet protests preceding 2008 summer olympics?
Heard of it since then? They just don't have to care for a maybe a bit tattered reputation abroad. We are all doing business with them anyway.
Jusentantaka, on 10 June 2010 - 03:33 PM, said:
And G-protests fail because the people in the summits could give a fuck what the people protesting care about because they know their people at home will forget about it by the next election.
Cold Iron, on 15 June 2010 - 04:58 AM, said:
I was wondering why you didn't reply in the oil thread cf.
I'm personally a big fan of public protest as it can be an exceedingly difficult task to significantly change public policy, especially when a large industry stands to lose money or when a large arm of bureaucracy is threatened. The media is constantly manipulated by those in power, protest is simply a way for those with an alternative agenda to attempt the same. Either a movement creates a groundswell and gathers enough support to facilitate more rapid change, or it doesn't - democracy in action.
I certainly don't think that any government is prone to giving in to the minority demands of protesters, indeed even when an issue has broad majority support it is common for a government to pay lip service only and continue on with the status quo. Governments are large, slow moving entities with a lot of momentum, it takes a huge effort to change the trajectory of a state and I have yet to see a government over reacting or taking too drastic action on anything in the public interest. Indeed where it comes to policy making I'm in favour of the Richard Dawkins style reaction where in order to allow people to find the just middle ground, one must match the exaggerated position of the opposition. Lives are literally at stake in many of these issues, and we live in an age where people are too busy being outraged to notice a moderate and sensibly stated case, regardless of relative importance, relevance or risk.
Hmm...gave me something to think about there. It makes sense that the subject of the protest, be it a politician's policy, industrial practices, offending superstore, or whatever, needs to have some other incentive to listen to the protesters.
In the example of the gigantic waste-of-time FREEE TIBET protests, chinese gov't had zero incentive to change, zero desire to change and no consequences for not changing, so they gave a colossal "fuck you" to everybody involved and even sent the army to beat the shit out of a few tibetans just to shut the lot of them up. The dictatorial-ish regime in China ensured silence among intelligent protesters (ie the upper-class doctors/lawyers that might have jumped onboard) and the stranglehold they have on worldwide manufacturing ensured that no important nation could sanction them. This combined with their belief in their right to govern and control Tibet meant that they could literally do whatever they wanted.
In the example of the tea-party rallies, They have a strong, vocal minority (though some might argue "majority") literally spreading half-truths and exaggerating out-of-context, fabricated interpretations of the bill (death panels) in a convincing manner. Nobody could stop them (due to free speech laws), they had a sympathetic mass-media platform (Fox news), the government in power stood to lose some of that power if they didn't give in and so they were extremely successful.
Do you think that the message itself is a crucual factor in protests? In my first example, we (as in western society) have no experience with tibet or any real evidence of severe oppression by the chinese gov't of the tibetan people. So, invariably the RJs and hippies of the world jumped onboard without much support from the masses since nobody could really relate. In my second example, we have extremely loud-talking minority, backed by the republican base (for the most part) all with a vested interest in seeing the president fail at something. The message was easy to spread, easy to vocalize and everybody could relate on some level.
Or with the proper spin+media support, could any protest at all be taken to tea-party levels of success?
This post has been edited by cerveza_fiesta: 16 June 2010 - 05:14 PM