this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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Well who showed up to a protest with just their own weak spindly body against a fully armored roided out line backer with decades of counter protest maneuvers and training.
The clownvoy were fucked but they managed to build a pretty good playbook for how to protest. Show up in a way that overwhelms the authorities and has no chapter in their playbook. I remember cities scrambling because they knew there just wasn't enough tow trucks in the city to do anything and most tow truck drivers were siding with the convoy.
Modern protesters are unappealing to most people to the point that every single person with a job would prefer to the be the boot and that's just PR. I've seen so many protests where I agreed with the cause but hated seeing the protests because they just set things back, never forward anymore.
Sorry... you're blaming police violence on the nonviolent protesters?
You're not a very convincing troll considering you're on a forum where everyone can see your post history.
This one is worse than a troll. I'd call them a flooder bearing Palestine flag on their profile picture but almost calling for unconditional Biden support under all posts and a lot of comments of the same posts individually.
On second glance at their full profile, this is mostly a bot account utilizing some sort of Cambridge Analytica-style, actually trying to undermine support for Biden through the spammy, braindead "I'm on your side, let's support this thing with the same zeal and rabidness we criticize the right-wing with" false-flag operation on social media.
Sure, I'm blaming protestors for not being effective. And not specific to any particular event. In general most protests I see in my life have been useless and theatrics. Telling people to just show up and hope for the best in my mind is immoral, unethical and should discussed more.
That doesn't mean the violent police reprisals are the protestors' fault.
Dunking on protestors "not being effective" is just the worse. It might be useless to you, but to many it is a useful launching point of some meaningful discussions.
The worst is seeing important causes lose traction and ground others fought for because some group decides they want to take action without properly being prepared and organized.
Just because you're not prepared to talk about the protests in a way that gives traction to the issue doesn't make the protestors wrong.
What do you mean by not prepared to talk in a way that gives traction to the issue?
That these type of events are inevitable and one can prepare and organize to respond with solidarity that shapes the message in the way you think would be beneficial.
They're not inevitable and the ask would be that if you do something do it right. If people decide they will get to this point that they take greater care in representing the issue as they have now elected themselves as the face of it.
Going back to the fuck cars group. Most people know deflating tires is wrong and will make people angry. Going out and doing it for attention and saying its for climate change harms how serious other people perceive the issue. But my options are not be a coward or go out and show solidarity by shaping this message while I deflate tires. Its being responsible enough to know I don't have the ability to drive positive change publicly and so I find other ways.
This has been every protest. Only in retrospect do most people think about protestors as being people fighting the good fight. Every single complaint I have ever seen for contemporary protests I have heard from boomers, and their parents, about the Vietnam protestors. My grandparents and great grandparents generations thought this way of those rebelling against the robber barony.
This is how it is.
I have been to a bunch of major protests in my life. This doesn't describe them. Most of them hold until the government uses violence to stop them. This is still the same shit people have been saying about every protest ever. If it's not too violent it's impotent and useless. The vast majority of the opinion of people about protests, at the time they are happening, is negative. Doesn't matter what the reality was. Anything short of a perfect gathering, where nothing, and no one, gets damaged, and huge change is made for a positive everyone can agree on, will be treated like you see protests currently being treated.
We're saying the same thing.
There's a reason for that. Protests are filled with people who don't have the awareness to know why opinion of them are overwhelmingly negative.
There is lots of room beyond your options here to have effective protests. The clownvoy showed a great example of this. To the point people were bringing their whole family down to listen to bands, have a bbq's and sit in hot tubs while the police couldn't do jack shit since they did not have the resources and since most of the resources they could access were owned by people who favored them.
I don't find the clownvoy effective. They blocked traffic aeverywhere they went along with intentionally creating insane amounts of noise, as well as having nazi's with them. Not a single place they went really had a good opinion of them. They were obnoxious, stopped people from going to work, destroyed property. The one thing they had going was that they were right wing, thus the police literally gave them special treatment and, unlike left wing protests, they had major media corporations acting like they were just the bestest people ever that definitely had no nazis with them. Even with the kid gloves and advocates they were still hugely unpopular in real life, didn't accomplish their goal, and got a number of laws written that effectively made what they did illegal everywhere it mattered.
Yeah, it's weird that they keep bringing them up. What exactly did they achieve with their infantile protest?
I see them as effective in that they were mobile and so large police couldn't stop them. Even if they did stop them they couldn't process them because they convoy made it so they would have to do much more work by having trucks and cars with them. They were effective in organizing. It was different enough. Other protestors seem to walk right into the cops fists all on their own over and over again. With some tweaks the convoy is a great example of ways to counter police efforts.
Nobody cares about the arbitrary qualities you think every protest should aspire to possess. What did the “clownvoy” actually achieve? Or was all this “effectiveness” for absolutely nothing?
I still see cars with convoy stickers. They achieved a protest that forced federal governments to shut them down because they rendered local authorities useless without any violence. That's more than any protest ive seen in my lifetime
They got blocked out of, and kicked out out of, places by normal police all over the place. The feds took over when they arrived DC, because it was DC. There is also that the police largely supported their protest. That had more to do with it than them not being able to. There was literally police chiefs and sheriffs telling their local media they would not interfere with them. If they wanted the riot police could have easily cut them off, cut off exit routes, and went in. They aren't the first mobile protest. They didn't do that because they police liked them. There are BLM signs, stickers, posters in a lot of places I go. Hell I still see occupy stickers and signs around. In fact those protests are still talking points where as I rarely ever see anyone mention the clownvoy anymore. People are already coming around to the fact that the Occupy movement was right, because middle america is now at a point where they can't deny what investment firms are doing as housing becomes unaffordable. I also see a growing anti-police sentiment, and that's not just me, the government, and independent research, is backing this up. As this sentiment grows people I knew who staunchly stood against BLM are slowly softening their stance. Saying things like "well, I don't agree with rioting, but I see why they were so angry" which is far toned down from the "their complaints are BS, and they are just a violent mob, who doesn't want to follow the law" a couple years ago.
Like I said before, hindsight perspective often shifts the large scale sentiment on these types of protests. It takes years, multiple waves of outrage, and growing discontent with the same things that are being protested, by the people who where originally in the "my life is fine, nothing is wrong" crowd. I am willing to bet that most people don't even remember what the convoy protest was even about, let alone become more positive about it. I haven't seen it mainstream headlines for a good while now, while I still even see protests from the Bush 2 administration being brought up.
I am not the one downvoting you BTW. I know it doesn't matter, but, ya know, etiquette.
Thanks though for saying it. Appreciate it.
Um, Gandhi?
Get out there and show them how it's done then.
Sure, I will not go out there and organize a useless protest or convince people to slash tires in the name of climate change leading to alienating more people to important causes. Seems simple.
Ahh so you are a coward. got it.
Why am I a coward?
My option in life is not get out and protest or not.
That's actually a driver of why I get pissed at these protesters. Its like in their mind the only option they have is protest regardless of outcomes. They have no consideration for consquences and demand everyone accept that what they do is a necessity. They can't fathom that what they are doing is hurting and driving progress on issues backwards. Like you're doing here, they will draw these hard lines of believe vs non believers.
I would put good money on the fact that many protests are driven groups paid for by entities that are being protested.
actually I know of one recently. The Loblaws boycott in Canada is a pretty good example right now of what I think is good civil action. People are building a community and inviting everyone in to participate. No one is Guilting others. But what happened is flyers started to appear saying "steal from loblaws". The main boycott groups rejected this and pointed out this was likely pro loblaw groups trying to get the general public to sway against the boycott. It is easily believable that many people online would have taken the bait if the loblaw boycott groups did not keep a level head. Unlike many other groups like the r/fuckcars sub reddit that encouraged people to go around town deflating tires of random people or other protesters that convince people to go block highways with just their own body during morning commute.
You claim you can get out there and do better but won't.
You are a coward.
No I don't claim that I can do better and that I don't organize people to show up because I would get them arrested and harm whatever cause I decided to drag people out to. That's the point I am making. If you're dragging people out you have their trust and if you're plan is drag them out, get their heads kicked, arrested and charged in the hopes that maybe people notice then it is cruel and immoral and people should do better.
Like what are you saying though. Should every person who talks about police brutality go become a cop and if they do not then they are a coward? How do you resolve that statement?