ProdigalFrogNationwide No Kings Protest is Today! Find A Protest Near You in The Post Body! #50501
🍉 Albert 🍉will complain about how it’s a useless parade, but I’m still going.
LibertyLizardIs it the most effective possible protest? No, but I wouldn’t call it useless either.
lots of people go there and use all their energy on that one event and do noting else.
but the best part of these useless parades is that its great to recruit people and collect signatures.
But if you get a tiny fraction of those people involved in other things that are useful, doesn’t that make the whole even useful?
In general, there is a pretty dramatic drop off in activism the more effort is required. Most people who go to a march are never going to do more than that, and I think it’s OK to give them that avenue to have some impact, even if it is small. Especially if you use the event as an opportunity to pull some of them into a deeper level of resistance.
a protest is a show of force. it isn’t an informal poll to inform politicians. it’s an implied threat that if they don’t change what they are doing shits going to hit the fan, strikes, riots, civil disobedience… ie, let corporations be greedy or have a working state? Instead, the way the media portrays the “discent” in protests does the exact opposite.
it celebrates and idolizes the “peaceful” matches, the only legitimate form of discent, completely pacifist, about writing songs, and having clever signs. meanwhile they demonise when protests turn to riots, when they actually work.
most US organisers are afraid organize a protest without getting a permit from the city first!!!
if protests don’t escalate, if their goal isn’t to fix things, then they are useless and are designed to benefit the status quo. because those who go to these regularly approved parades, feel like that’s all they can do and are satisfied with themselves. no one told them how little they did, they are even less activated than before.
the only good thing about them is that they are excellent recruiting opportunities. and once recruited, they can be woken up.