Well its in the news so it worked. Protest is literally one of the only thing that's ever actually effected change in this country so stick with it. The more people it pisses off, the better. If a protest leaves people feeling safe and comfortable, it wasn't a protest, it was a parade.
this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
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I would say that this kind of protest just makes people mad at you and your cause. If I was stuck in traffic for X hours I would probably be mad at the protestors and not sympathize with their cause.
See, in this image, you would be the one standing in the back pissed off they can't just get their lunch and would be mad at the protestors.
History happens every day. You need to not be mistaken where you stand in it.
Firstly, getting food is different than literally being imprisoned in your car. Secondly, they could go to a different place and these people are actively attacking them not being victims of their protest.
I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice
If your devotion is to order, where your allegiance is to the polite convenience you've come to accept and expect as a first world consumer, you are no ally of justice.
I dont know what you are trying to get at. I think you should realize that getting on freeway and making everyone mad = bad protest; doing a sit-in and getting the harm visable = good protest.
Its that you make this comment without any comprehension of history.
In 1958, you would have been writing this exact same comment about a sit-in protest being "bad protest". Your worldview just rewrites you into being on the right side of history on things, when now, when you have the opportunity to be on the right side of history while its happening, you aren't.
Dude, I literally havent take a side, I am just telling you what I think works and what doesnt. If you think getting people fighting mad on a freeway is a way to win people over, I would have to disagree.
Again with another poorly thought out opinion that does not logically connect your message with any real measure of virtue. Here you're excusing the conduct of people who would block traffic by chalking it all up to countering the white moderate preferring an absence of tension, which is not a logical conclusion whatsoever as it could be similarly used to argue for hanging racists in the street. It's ignoring the severity of the impact of the protest to break it down into a binary of support/nonsupport. "Either you're with us or you're against us." is the mantra of forced conformity of thought. Seriously, do better.
Nah. Its you that needs to do better. No protest needs to apologize for inconveniencing you.
Your hand wringing is precisely what MLK was talking about.
"And what is it America has failed to hear?…It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity."
- Martin Luther King, Jr
I mean, you're right about the people directly impacted, but if you're on the 405, this shit happens all the time. I was stuck for a few hours cause of a jumper. It's annoying, and it's hot outside, and in the moment I would certainly be anti-protester if not anti-everything. But that's just people there at the time inconvenienced.
So, it's probably a net good for their cause since more people aren't in traffic than are, although at this point I feel like everyone has made up their mind on Gaza (and honestly, images and recounts from people on the ground there are a thousand times more persuasive than whatever this is)
That makes sense, I would just be mad at them if I was on the freeway. I am personally not very positive on them because they do things that seem pretty shitty on a regular basis.
Exactly, the worthy message is completely lost in the immoral delivery.
I can see it would be good if it were done on a smaller road that is visable, but fuck keeping people stuck in their car when they dont have any way around it.
Nah, the message is getting lost in the delivery. I support BLM too but had the same issue with their freeway-blocking tactics. Nobody is going to swing to your side of the argument because you blocked their route home...nobody. People have emergencies, parents and kids need to get places...people have important jobs and need to be able to get to work such as doctors, first responders, air traffic controllers etc etc.. Yes, Gaza and BLM are both worthy causes but there are many other worthy causes as well. You can't block traffic for every worthy cause...block people from living their lives to put what you personally feel is the most important social issue at the top of their world by forcing it on them through essentially trapping them. It's just plain wrong and nothing is going to change that. Yes what's going on in Gaza is more wrong, and yet it's still illogical af and morally wrong to pretend that this provides justification to trap people on freeways.
Is there anything you feel strongly enough about to protest like that?
In trying to look at it from the perspective of "what could make me do that" I can only think of some downright heinous shit. To get to the point that you're willing to stand in front of cars and have people hate you for preventing them from living their lives? It's pretty hard to imagine.
And on top of that, to know that your actions are going to ruin you in some way or another; that you're facing jail time, bodily harm, or extreme financial burden? Either they're being both sensitive and stupid or they're so fed up that they feel like there's no other recourse. It's insane to me to think about being pushed so far that that seems like a good idea.
But then I think about how they must have gotten there, and the things that would get me there, and they're not so different.
Not sure how shutting down roads has anything to do with Israel, but I'm glad the roads are shut down. If only it could be done permanently.