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Perhaps it's worth waiting until the wild mobs actually go burning noble small business owners at the stake to litigate this? There's kind of some bigger enemies out there right now.
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Nov 14, 2016 02:05
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Locally we're organizing a march next saturday. We're also organizing a campaign to put pressure on local and state government officials to make a pledge to resist the trump agenda, and a campaign to get our city officials to designate the city a sanctuary city. Small group is preparing squads to go out into the rural areas to help educate and provide resources to agricultural farm workers who might be at risk for deportation or harassment from local police. Also trying to organize a unified student/faculty group at the community college I work at and the big state university in town.
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Nov 14, 2016 02:07
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blue squares posted:Nobody is saying anything like that except for you, psychopath quote:You're not going to convince the angry to not be angry just because it's a small business in the way rather than a big one. Riots are what happens when popular anger needs an outlet and doesn't have one. And purely putting the blame on outside anarchists isn't going to make the people who are rioting give a gently caress. If that ain't making excuses while leaving yourself an easy out if anyone tries to call you on it, I dunno what is.
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Nov 14, 2016 02:10
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This poster loves police brutality, but only when its against minorities!
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Maybe the reason American protests are so vulnerable to agents provocateur and anarchist assholes co-opting the message is that they're such a shitshow in the first place? It's pretty easy to derail a protest if it's just a bunch of dorks screaming incoherently and banging drums and looking for something to break. Socrates figured this out 2500 years ago: a disorderly mob is no more an army than a heap of building materials is a house. If you really want to strike fear into the hearts of the ruling class (and, I suspect, if you want to convince more people to join your cause), show up in a tie or at least business casual, march in an orderly fashion, stick to a few slogans, then go home. Show up again next week and do the same. Do this and connect like-minded people with one another so they know they aren't alone. This approach would be orders of magnitude more effective and attract many more people than what the left has been doing since forever.
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Nov 14, 2016 02:28
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DeusExMachinima posted:If that ain't making excuses while leaving yourself an easy out if anyone tries to call you on it, I dunno what is. I'm not saying people should do it nor that I plan on doing it, I'm saying that it's a bullshit thing to cry about hypothetical windows when actual people are getting shot in the streets. quote:If you really want to strike fear into the hearts of the ruling class (and, I suspect, if you want to convince more people to join your cause), show up in a tie or at least business casual, march in an orderly fashion, stick to a few slogans, then go home. CNN posted:One hundred people marched for god knows what reason, now our human interest segment for the night Protests either get ignored or villified, there is only extremely rarely a middle point to that unless they don't threaten the status quo.
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Nov 14, 2016 02:33
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Kilroy posted:Maybe the reason American protests are so vulnerable to agents provocateur and anarchist assholes co-opting the message is that they're such a shitshow in the first place? It's pretty easy to derail a protest if it's just a bunch of dorks screaming incoherently and banging drums and looking for something to break. Socrates figured this out 2500 years ago: a disorderly mob is no more an army than a heap of building materials is a house. If you really want to strike fear into the hearts of the ruling class (and, I suspect, if you want to convince more people to join your cause), show up in a tie or at least business casual, march in an orderly fashion, stick to a few slogans, then go home. Show up again next week and do the same. Do this and connect like-minded people with one another so they know they aren't alone. This approach would be orders of magnitude more effective and attract many more people than what the left has been doing since forever. Marching politely in a tie never changed a thing. The successes of the Civil Rights Era didn't happen because black people were nice and well-dressed. They happened because boycotts put economic pressure on businesses which then looked to government to give the protestors what they wanted, and they happened because the Black Panthers and Malcolm X scared the poo poo out of white people until they felt it was better to give in than hold out.
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Nov 14, 2016 02:40
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yeah I'm sure everyone can afford to go out and buy a business suit to protest that's the most bougie statement I've heard in a long time These protests are happening because of hate crimes spiking and many people (poc, muslims, women) feel at risk. People are literally scared for their safety, and the safety of their loved ones. These protests are about civil rights. If you are here and tut-tutting activists now, talking about respectability politics and "Oh my god! the property damage!" You are no better than the racists who told civil rights activists in the 60s to "calm down" and stop being so drat violent and uppity. If you are more worried about how the protests may inconvenience you than the fact that people are literally being murdered, harassed and threatened because of their race, religion and sex, then you are part the problem. Do not offer "solutions".
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Nov 14, 2016 02:41
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blue squares posted:Marching politely in a tie never changed a thing. The successes of the Civil Rights Era didn't happen because black people were nice and well-dressed. They happened because boycotts put economic pressure on businesses which then looked to government to give the protestors what they wanted, and they happened because the Black Panthers and Malcolm X scared the poo poo out of white people until they felt it was better to give in than hold out. Koalas March posted:yeah I'm sure everyone can afford to go out and buy a business suit to protest I am not worried in the slightest if these protests inconvenience me - I hope they do that means they are doing something. I absolutely want the carnage to end and I think BLM is actually a very effective protest movement compared to what we usually get. A couple hundred people marching in Cleveland or whatever is nothing. It is a blip. I want more people to join these protests, actually. I want to join one myself but from what I can tell there is nothing worthwhile there aside from possibly meeting like-minded people which may get me to overcome my aversion to going. Other than that though, it seems like a waste. Sorry if I'm coming into your thread with my bougie "solutions" and pissing you off. I do want to get more people involved. It doesn't seem to me that's going to happen with the way things are going.
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Nov 14, 2016 02:57
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People talk about the MLK / Malcolm X dichotomy a lot but they too often seem to use it as evidence of "we need more / less organization and more / less violence or threat of it". The whole point of doing a protest in the way I'm suggesting is so that you have it as a point in your favor when the hammer comes down as it certainly will. If you were already acting like an rear end in a top hat when it does, no one is going to care.
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Nov 14, 2016 03:01
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None of this poo poo about marching in business suits is new and I can say I've heard it about literally every movement since I've been politically aware, which goes back to my teens, so like early Bush II years. People dressing seemingly nicer at MLK marches was easier when that's what fashion was at the time, and when it wasn't actually an expensive outlay for clothes you won't wear more than a handful of times every year. It's not the reason people listened to them.
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Nov 14, 2016 03:43
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Kilroy posted:Sorry Malcolm X organized poo poo, blue squares. He did not sit in a drum circle with other patchouli-scented hippies and sing songs. He did not try to win for his cause with sick burns on placards. As for the Black Panthers I think that sort of thing is going to see a resurgence and good on them if it does. I actually like BLM in contrast to the rabble we usually see from the activist left. I mean, that kind of seems like you want a fully formed civil disobedience movement to spring out of the ground so you can join it. If you want it to snowball go to one, meet people, and help organize the next one.
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Nov 14, 2016 03:55
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Kilroy posted:Sorry Malcolm X organized poo poo, blue squares. He did not sit in a drum circle with other patchouli-scented hippies and sing songs. He did not try to win for his cause with sick burns on placards. As for the Black Panthers I think that sort of thing is going to see a resurgence and good on them if it does. I actually like BLM in contrast to the rabble we usually see from the activist left. Ok the past page has been pretty back-and-forth and not the most constructive on either side's part so I don't want you to feel like I'm singling you out or whatever, but this quote:I want to join one myself but from what I can tell there is nothing worthwhile there aside from possibly meeting like-minded people which may get me to overcome my aversion to going. Other than that though, it seems like a waste. is completely loving ridiculous. These are spontaneous protests, some organized by a multitude of different groups, that are happening all over the friggin country, and you can tell there is nothing worthwhile to be had despite never even going to a loving protest?! What the hell. It's fine to criticize the protests in this thread and even the "constructively" part can be pretty low effort, but you claim absolute ignorance and absolute knowledge in the same sentence! Please, highly consider reexamining your own belief as well as the possibility your perception might be based on pre-existing biases, and most importantly, at least show up to a protest to watch what is going on, if for no other reason that you can then tell me to shut up. apropos to nothing posted:Locally we're organizing a march next saturday. We're also organizing a campaign to put pressure on local and state government officials to make a pledge to resist the trump agenda, and a campaign to get our city officials to designate the city a sanctuary city. Small group is preparing squads to go out into the rural areas to help educate and provide resources to agricultural farm workers who might be at risk for deportation or harassment from local police. Also trying to organize a unified student/faculty group at the community college I work at and the big state university in town. That's great to hear, keep the updates coming 
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Nov 14, 2016 03:59
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Fair enough - both of you. I'm not in the country right now but will go to one of these once I'm back.
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Nov 14, 2016 04:23
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Kilroy posted:Fair enough - both of you. I'm not in the country right now but will go to one of these once I'm back. Ok that's a pretty good reason not to go to a protest. I apologize for my harsh tone.
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Nov 14, 2016 04:36
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Koalas March posted:yeah I'm sure everyone can afford to go out and buy a business suit to protest you should go out and get a thrift store business suit so you can get a job one day, if you're anywhere above homeless on the hierarchy of needs you can afford it as an extremely good investment for all sorts of situations where society rewards the respectable-looking you'll be overdressed for the kind of protest where punk kids who learned about politics from the internet go to get arrested for street cred, but you can probably talk your way into a city council meeting in one. A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 06:00 on Nov 14, 2016 |
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Nov 14, 2016 05:56
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City Council meetings are open to the public due to open meetings laws. Any taxing body can't close their doors and discuss anything about policy. Executive sessions are used for personnel matters. No suit required!
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Nov 14, 2016 06:37
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:you should go out and get a thrift store business suit so you can get a job one day, if you're anywhere above homeless on the hierarchy of needs you can afford it as an extremely good investment for all sorts of situations where society rewards the respectable-looking This is really loving condescending and insulting. This thread is many things, but one thing it absolutely is not is yet another thread where low-effort drive-by posters poo poo on Koalas march. I'm not even going to bother with joking about requiring more effort in your trolling. Don't post like this in this thread. If you can't manage that, get out. A big flaming stink fucked around with this message at 10:51 on Nov 14, 2016 |
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Nov 14, 2016 06:42
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waffles beyond waffles posted:City Council meetings are open to the public due to open meetings laws. Any taxing body can't close their doors and discuss anything about policy. Executive sessions are used for personnel matters. No suit required!  they might go if they think they're getting away with something
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Nov 14, 2016 07:01
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Yes, I agree on all counts Indeed, I also find it productive to wear my business suit when hiking, mowing the lawn, hell even company baseball games! It really is very important to make a good impression. VV So I expect you'll be turning out in fine affair? Feral Integral fucked around with this message at 08:52 on Nov 14, 2016 |
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Nov 14, 2016 08:21
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A big flaming stink posted:Ok that's a pretty good reason not to go to a protest. I apologize for my harsh tone.
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Nov 14, 2016 08:49
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If the purpose of protests is giving people a place to publically congregate and build a network of resistance and support and a constant reminder that they are not alone in this fight, then the current dress code of "whatever you want and a sign" seems fine. Neo-Nazis marching in perfect formation and in uniform don't convince people of abhorrent poo poo because they look snappy. I'm not sure why you'd think that progressives would somehow be different even though their message is morally much better. Protests don't really change anyone's mind ever, however if they continue then either people will start to see through Trump and his ilk has incompetent buffoons who can not keep order at all, or protestors will be subject to extremely harsh and unjust violence which was pretty much Ghandi or MLK's goal with non-violent protests.
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Nov 14, 2016 09:37
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You've been talking about how you need a concrete goal for your protests. You should make demanding Trump fire Steve Bannon one of them.
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Nov 14, 2016 09:58
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Why are people protesting against a democratically elected government that hasn't done anything yet?
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Nov 14, 2016 12:33
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doodlebugs posted:Why are people protesting against a democratically elected government that hasn't done anything yet?
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Nov 14, 2016 12:35
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And they're taking advantage of the national outrage and momentary boost in political awareness that follows an election to organize more people toward progressive ends. People got complacent and let a demagogue slip into office with a mandate. That's bad, people are scared, and they know that if they don't act now, poo poo will normalize and people will forget as everyday life takes over again. Then the erosion of liberties begins and well, that's bad. It's been said a lot through this thread that these are just the starting points for new progressive political coalitions, and that if they persist long enough the natural leaders will emerge and rise to the top. Those are the people you want fighting to both have and win the next election cycles. Both the house and senate are going to have a LOT of R seats open in 2018 and two years is far far longer than our national memory span. Just watch out for the malignant narcissists, because they're on the left too and loooove to be in charge. zxqv8 fucked around with this message at 12:44 on Nov 14, 2016 |
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Nov 14, 2016 12:42
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Will that actually happen?
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Nov 14, 2016 12:44
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doodlebugs posted:Why are people protesting against a democratically elected government that hasn't done anything yet? i don't know man, wish there was a thread where people talked about it tho
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Nov 14, 2016 12:47
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doodlebugs posted:Will that actually happen? It could happen, a lot more easily than I'm comfortable admitting. People don't want to even allow the possibility. Yeah, we hosed up the vote, but recriminations won't change the results and this is what can be done right now. Protest is really the only voice of the disaffected in the US. We're an oligarchy and the landed elite don't listen unless the peasants gently caress with their wealth. People have to get their voices heard somehow, so getting in the way is how they do it.
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Nov 14, 2016 12:50
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zxqv8 posted:It could happen, a lot more easily than I'm comfortable admitting. People don't want to even allow the possibility. Yeah, we hosed up the vote, but recriminations won't change the results and this is what can be done right now. Maybe you should wait until Trump does something horrible and focus on what horrible thing he does rather then what you imagine he will do.
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Nov 14, 2016 12:56
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doodlebugs posted:Maybe you should wait until Trump does something horrible and focus on what horrible thing he does rather then what you imagine he will do.
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Nov 14, 2016 12:58
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Hmm ok let's just wait until he does something horrible...and done. He has used disparaging language towards women, latin peoples, and immigrants. He has called for a religious ban on all people of the Muslim faith. He has promised to forcibly and violently remove millions of people from our country based on their immigration status. He has just yesterday appointed a white supremacist one of his senior aides. I think that's more than enough to get angry and organize over.
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Nov 14, 2016 12:59
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doodlebugs posted:Why are people protesting against a democratically elected government that hasn't done anything yet? trump lost the popular vote by a significant margin yet is still president elect, and this is the second time this has happened in the last 20 years. he's also an unqualified xenphobic rapist intent on hiring the worst people imaginable to cabinet positions, but the part about the popular vote looks better to the protest police. had i not been 9 years old at the time i probably would have made some noise about bush v gore back in the day, and i didn't even know that bush would be the worst president in modern history.
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Nov 14, 2016 13:00
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FactsAreUseless posted:Or protest the many, many damaging things he's promised to do, before they do all that damage. that is true but I think only thing that will be effective is voting against him in the next election edit: spelling doodlebugs fucked around with this message at 13:13 on Nov 14, 2016 |
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Nov 14, 2016 13:09
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apropos to nothing posted:Hmm ok let's just wait until he does something horrible...and done. He has used disparaging language towards women, latin peoples, and immigrants. He has called for a religious ban on all people of the Muslim faith. He has promised to forcibly and violently remove millions of people from our country based on their immigration status. He has just yesterday appointed a white supremacist one of his senior aides. I think that's more than enough to get angry and organize over. I think you mean a former Goldman Sachs executive  Media normalizing this poo poo is bad enough at this point.
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Nov 14, 2016 13:09
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doodlebugs posted:that is true but I think only thing that will be effective is voting against him in the next election You're not wrong, but the strongest message I've taken from this thread is that these protests serve to get more people engaged with the political process so that when 2018 and 2020 roll around, progressives WILL actually vote against him and his party. They start as people feeling angry going out to vent their anger. Then people who share that anger start talking, and start organizing. If they wait for Trump to do the horrible poo poo he's promised to do, far fewer people will be around to mobilize because their lives will have intruded and three months of media normalizing poo poo will have robbed whatever wind may have been in their sails.
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Nov 14, 2016 13:25
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It also ensures that the media can't ignore a cause, it keeps issues visible in public, and it helps to prevent complacency. This is why so many protests include things like civil disobedience. If you inconvenience people, they can't ignore you.
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Nov 14, 2016 13:26
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A big flaming stink posted:This is really loving condescending and insulting. This thread is many things, but one thing it absolutely is not is yet another thread where low-effort drive-by posters poo poo on Koalas march. I'm not even going to bother with joking about requiring more effort in your trolling. Don't post like this in this thread. If you can't manage that, get out. I was just in Greece and watched one of their job protests first hand. It was very well organised, grouped people by dress (suit, business casual, casual, political dress, exc) and age (very old all the way to small children). They all chanted the same message, started exactly at 6PM, and followed the predefined route with police escort the entire way and all roads were blocked off hours in advance by the police. So no motor traffic. Overall, as someone from the outside looking in, it was very professional. They were very organized, didn't throw slurs or break stuff, and the grouping by age and attire really emphasised that this was a community effort and not some hurt feelings group. And the grouping really shoved it in everyone's face without being obnoxious about it. It added a lot of legitimacy and I didn't even know what they were protested for or what they were saying. But their actions got me interested enough to go ask some locals about the protest. After finding out what it was about the visual message they were sending resonated even more with their cause because it helped emphasize that they were protesting for a community problem and the way it was organized showed that all areas of the community supported finding a solution. I was impressed. Your take away on this should be that a strong visual picture can and will sway openions before even the first word is heard. Having people dressed in suits (even goodwill ones) and business casual (slacks and a button up or polo), is a force multiplier because it shows that the entire community is there in support. If you need to run a donation box, then do it. Your goal is to get your message heard in a positive light; formal well planned out, polite, protests with pre approved routes, and police escort will take you further than a group of ragtag people holding signs of profanity and that Trump = Nazis. Rioting is unacceptable and should never happen. You should be ready to formally cancel the protest if it turns to destruction and violence. But these aren't new tactics. MLK Jr used this exact format during his walks. Just because you don't like suits doesn't mean you can't use them like a tool to further your goals. But, since I'm a gun owning, Republican, Trump voter from Texas with a marketing degree, who is legitimately offering you an olive branch, from Greece even, you can always just ignore my advice and throw in some personal attacks like you did to the last poster. Up to you.
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Nov 14, 2016 14:47
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Two Feet From Bread posted:But these aren't new tactics. MLK Jr used this exact format during his walks. Just because you don't like suits doesn't mean you can't use them like a tool to further your goals. MLK did everything in his power to walk the line and be peaceful but he was still met with dogs and waterhoses wherever he went, and he was still harangued by pretend concern trolls who tried to shame him for rabble rousing and 'inciting' riots. I'm sorry but you clearly have this whitewashed view of how much poo poo MLK had to put up with and how little in the way of 'olive branches' he was given by people who opposed him or pretended that they were liberals at the time. Question, does it bother you that a literal anti-Semite Jew hater is in the white house? I mean I could understand why you might hate Mexicans and muslims and think they're taking your jobs given ho how you voted, and that your olive branch is kind of illusory given how many peoples lives are going to get ruined by the conscious vote you made to vote in a racist sex assaulter who is going to take away many peoples human rights, protections, freedoms and healthcare, but surely, SURELY anti-Semitism would rattle a few bones in you, couldn't it? Here's what I'm going to bet you:- No matter how clean cut, shirts tucked, pants pulled up, boots strapped, cross wearing the people who opposed trump is, you're mind wont get changed, because at the end of the day, it never has been about any of that, it has been about pure unbrididled misguided hate at the economic situation, at the end of the day, you voted for millions of people deported, you want entire religions banned, you want African Americans to experience a level of discrimination with more Treyvon martins, and you want women to be deprived of their rights, you want climate change deniers to wreck the earth, and you want anti-semites backed by the KKK in the white house. All of this is wrapped with concerns over jobs. The difference between what you saw in Greece (which included massive riots by the way, if you're capable of reading history) and what's going on now, is that the main disagreement in Greece was over the overall serious economic direction of the country, that's it. not the fact that millions of greeks lives was about to get destroyed and humiliated and deprived, not that the millions of immigrants who eventually became citizens were going to be deported, not that abortion was under threat, none of that was in the offing, I guarantee you, that if the elections in Greece had also involved human rights and human life as much as it involved 'the economy' then not a single building in Athens would be left standing. I guarantee you, that if a single member of the Nazi golden dawn party was allowed into the government the same way steve bannon was allowed into the white house, the greek people would've overrun their parliament by now. You don't want an olive branch, you want people to stay silent and accept the incoming massive deprivation and humiliation they're about to experience, so no, I'm sorry but they have every right to call you names and have signs and protest loudly because to many of them it's life or death and it's their basic human rights at stake. and you know what the best part is, you're going to get as much hosed when paul ryan takes away your healthcare and turns it into a premium private insurance bonanza, so have fun with that. Al-Saqr fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Nov 14, 2016 |
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Nov 14, 2016 15:34
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there's been a whole longrunning thing of stay-at-home liberals trying to use respectability politics to choke off all political action more radical than voting for Hillary Clinton so insisting protests have a dress code is going to be a nonstarter, but taking deliberate control of your own public presentation is sort of a fundamental political tool to be considered in a discussion about protest strategy, and if your first reaction to the assumption that an adult would own one set of nice clothes is 'check your privilege shitlord' you don't have anything to say to the halls of power or poor folk who need to put forth effort to survive in society.
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Nov 14, 2016 15:36
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:there's been a whole longrunning thing of stay-at-home liberals trying to use respectability politics to choke off all political action more radical than voting for Hillary Clinton so insisting protests have a dress code is going to be a nonstarter, but taking deliberate control of your own public presentation is sort of a fundamental political tool to be considered in a discussion about protest strategy, and if your first reaction to the assumption that an adult would own one set of nice clothes is 'check your privilege shitlord' you don't have anything to say to the halls of power or poor folk who need to put forth effort to survive in society. Oh I'm all for wearing suits and stuff, I just know for a fact that people who view it as their deal breaker are loving liars who wouldn't do anything even if every protestor could scrounge up the money to by Armani suits for every single person protesting. Because underneath that suit a the end of the day is someone they don't view as worthy of having their human rights respected. I mean, how many suits do people need to wear to convince you that sexually assaulting women or having a rabid anti-Semite in the white house is a bad thing, or are these guys really that dense and stupid.
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Nov 14, 2016 15:40
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