| Kasz216 said: Well actually I take that back, I can think of one time protesting works. Though, only a specific very negative type case. Which is when the protesting takes on a sense of implied violence instead of actual belief differences. EX, angry dudes standing outside an abortion clinic making teen mothers fear for their lives. Though even then, not always, since well, Greece politicians sure avoided such threats and stuck with austerity, change instead needing to come via elections. (well because avoiding austerity is suicide.) |
To cut through the noise, to make the news cycle, protests got more and more extreme in nature. Occupy broke through by doing something unique, parking near Wall Street, then doing the Brooklyn Bridge march, getting large arrests, then going worldwide all over. It was unique stuff. It exposed some things and work. It also wrapped itself in a mystery by not having a formal list of demands. All it, in a slow news cycle in 2011, make for big news. But then, it settled in and the authorities dislodged them from parks, and they had nothing else to fall back on. It was cute for awhile, had an impact, but then faded.
Prior to this, you have groups like act up, and protestors operating under the delusion that you make noise by getting arrested. It was done so much, post 1960s, it is hard to break through. In America, one can't break into news cycles often. And then you run out of ideas. With the Internet, 15 minutes of fame is more extreme also, with Linsaity being big, and then fading. All along the way, so much noise and news, people can't keep up. End result, protests end up fairly useless. Hard to get enough people interested, and most people driving by do NOT want to protest, they just want change. The media and political parties push voting as a big deal, and numbers think replying to blogs, or calling into talking head shows, and so on, counts as participating. Throw in also that the media has turned protests into the circus part of bread and circuses to.
So thus, protests are pretty useless. Actually coming up with solutions and doing them would be of greater help.
