this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2024
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How old were you back then? These kids awake to a world fucked up by the older generation. They try to take every step that comes to their mind to steer away from desaster. What is your personal input in that task? Criticism. Well done. Go out and teach them, if you're so clever.
I do. When I attend a protest, I share my knowledge and experience. First rule is keep it safe. Second is keep it legal. Third is keep it together. Fourth is keep it heard.
The key to a successful protest is knowing the law and planning around it before organizing.
Have you successfully protested before, and can you link me to such a success?
Many times. I determine success as being heard without being hurt. Protesters shouldn’t be injured or prosecuted if they’re following the law. Wrongful arrests happen when officers want to end a protest, but those are easily dropped. I’ve never experienced that personally, but some of my friends were charged at Occupy in 2011.
In that case, perhaps we have different metrics for success
That’s fair. Be safe out there.
Oooh, oooh, I got one.
I went to multiple protests after the Iraq war and got my Iraq war-supporting government to immediately plummet in support and lose the next election. It was nice. No harmed irreplaceable monuments that I remember. The marches I attended were entirely peaceful, as well.
Oh, spare me that rhetroric. Protestors in the 90s and especially the 2000s felt just as disenfranchised. That's how you end up protesting in the first place. And those were the nice ones. The stories my parents could tell you about the 60s and 70s.
It's not like "don't be an idiot" is a struggle only now. I was in protests back in a different millenium where the smart ones were already standing in front of cops and bank windows to stop the idiots from throwing rocks at them and spoiling the whole thing.
The despondent "you just don't get it" online discourse is pretty new, though.
You get it. I saw some bad shit at the Oil Wars and Occupy protests.
It’s all one action. We need to keep it together for the clarity of message. Even more now in some states where one bad actor won’t just end a protest, but get everyone charged.
And beyond getting charged it's the optics. I am from a place where you're less likely to get shot by police and where serious charges are not likely to come from protesting (at least back then, it has gotten worse). But even then the marching orders were that if cops charge or disrupt the protest that's good optics, if the protestors riot unprompted that's bad optics, which should be pretty straightforward to understand.
Absolutely. The people you need to reach are outside of the movement. Performative radicalism is immediately discredited by your target audience, and only praised by those who are already supporters of the cause.