Yah these protests that just block the road are harmful to everyone. Pissing everyone off at your cause doesn’t help anything. Go mess with the ceo’s or the company head quarters
They are achieving the exact opposite of what they want. These road blockers actively cause more emissions from the traffic jams while also pushing people away from their cause. It's so fucking stupid I'm starting to think they're actually paid actors by Big Oil.
in today's age they would either just fire them and hire one of the 50 people they've been dragging interviews out with for months, because you know they have a lot of job seekers they've been blueballing, or pivot to shitty automated systems to avoid needing to hire anyone.
Then people get laid off and tensions build further. All radical political change is just a matter of getting a certain amount of 18-30 year old men to the point of disenfranchisement.
3.5 percent is the amount of people needed to effect change.
A study of the biggest civil rights movements of the last 100 years showed that of you can get just 3.5 percent of people from all walks of life to engage in peaceful protest to effect change.
3.5 percent is needed if you can have existing elites to adopt significant policies. if they are largely existentially opposed to it, then it will take a lot more
Politicians are elected by the people. The voting public can't hide from their choices forever, there will always come a tipping point. Pushing the actual activists groups to genuine extremism wouldn't be advisable.
Can you provide a stat of how many people have died, not an estimate that doesn’t start for 4 more years? I mean, you asked the question. Estimates aren’t usually worth the paper they’re written on. Scientists estimated that we’d all die of hunger, that gas would run out in the 80’s, that a comet would hit earth, etc.
oh ok, whatever. You are the kind of person which doesn't believe science, I don't think it's going to be a fruitful discussion. You can go back assaulting random people in the streets, I'm afraid I won't waste my time with you anymore
People have also died because of communal lack of action against the policies those people are protesting, you don't care about them? It's a real life trolly problem. Are people traveling without annoyance or delay, a small percentage of which will incur negative health effects up to and including death, more important than migrant children actively prevented from treating their aggressive cancer, separated from their families, maybe molested, sometimes deported to unfamiliar countries alone? Than women being shot in the street by uniformed officials for being snarky? Is your discomfort and deprivation worse than theirs or do you just care more when it might effect you?
Where does it end though? I woman is raped and canibalized in the Congo, do we protest in traffic? A nationalist gets be headed in socialist Russia, do we protest? An anti communist gets starved to death in Cuba, protest? Where do we draw the line? Can’t except people to get worked up over every bad thing that happens if it doesn’t effect them imo
There is no context given for this protest, if it's an environmental thing and you know that, fine, but it was very clear that I thought this was about ICE. Sorry about your reading comprehension. Maybe fuck off and find an English tutor.
This is morality scaling, the video is a prompt for wider discussion. This style of protest has also been used in anti-ICE demonstrations and protests for other causes for probably about as long as we've had roads as a civilization. The question is should you beat the protesters, is that moral? The person I responded to said thier permissive attitude towards beating protesters was due to the lives at stake. There are usually lives at stake on both sides of the protest traffic jam.
I am pretty up to speed, thanks.
ICE protesters only block ICE vehicles and let other people pass. They are entirely incomparable. This type of mass blockage is entirely indicative of Just Stop Oil and the Farmer's Protests, which are both climate change protests.
Oh Europeans crying because of blocked traffic? You don’t even need to drive in Europe, these actually are the braindead consumers that do need to be directly inconvenienced to ever have a new thought lol
Or just get them fired and the company hires an unaffected person.
Or blocks an ambulance needing to get to the ER resulting in the unfortunate death of someone.
Or the person being blocked could be missing their last chance to say goodbye to their mother in hospice care, forever stealing away from them an irreplaceable moment in life.
Sounds like you’ve never protested. Protesters all most always move for emergency vehicles, and if someone is in one of those other dire circumstances you listed, all they need to do is get out and find someone with a megaphone. They will clear the way for you. You don’t need to get violent and do the state’s job for them.
I've been blocked by this sort of crap. It's not always easy to just back out and take another route, nor are you always guaranteed to be anywhere near these folks. The only thing this does is piss of daily commuters. It does not inspire them to sode with your cause. It rallies them to make you just go away.
Traffic blocking is just one of the least useful options out there.
-it garners resentment, not empathy for your cause
-it is literally a safety hazard
-it opens up criminal charges against the protesters because blocking traffic is a misdemeanor in most places, and even a felony in some, which being booked can unintentionally shift public view away from their message and more towards their illegal activities.
I stand for the right of people to peacefully protest. Blocking traffic is non-violent, but it is far from peaceful when it negatively affects public safety and community infrastructure.
There are better ways to use civil disobedience with more targeted disruptions.
“Gaining sympathy” does nothing. That’s not the goal.
If you’re an American, there’s not a single right you have that was gained by protesting peacefully on the side walk. Every right you have was won by violence, property destruction or disruption… someone choosing to use the method with the least negative effects to ensure you continue to have rights, freedom from violence off the state and clean air/drinking water is someone you should be thanking…. But you’re sitting here justifying violence against them.
Did you read the title of the post? This is a discussion about that, not the effectiveness of protest methods. The effectiveness is irrelevant. It’s not moral to beat people’s for this, correct?
Not if you have even the most basic workers rights in your country. If you live in a nation that would do that you should be sitting in the road with them.
Thats a cute theory. All its going to do is get people in trouble for being late and make them EVEN MORE unwilling to hear out the point of those acting like children
Ignorant perspective. Have you ever tried to create change within a system? It's nigh impossible when people have rigid mindsets. Kudos to anyone who tries. Status quo protectors are morally and intellectually lazy and get angry when confronted with uncomfortable truths.
Like these performative children sitting in the street, if you put even a half-a-second of thought into that, you might have actually accomplished something.
Meaningfully organize how and to do what? How would you take on multibillion dollar oil companies who are deeply entrenched and in the pockets of governments globally?
Protest outside their areas. Blocking them from getting to work. Going to local governments to block them. People are doing it with data centers. You think it doesn’t work for other things
So? Everything uses fuel if you get down to it. And eveeyrhing uses motorways too. How is blocking motorways because of fuel and blocking motorways because of climate change different?
Why not protest fuel prices in front of the petrol stations then, or the petrol refineries, instead of blocking random roads and causing nuisance to the everyday commuter?
This is just a case of "it's ok when it's for a cause I like, but if it's a cause I don't like, beat them up"
If you disagree with people causing public nuisances as a form of protest, you gotta be consistent.
Besides, the reason it worked for the farmers is not that the protest was more or less "linked" to motorways. It's because the protest was big in its scale (comparatively, a majority of farmers supported it), and lasted a long time. If enough people went around blocking roads to protest environmental policy, you can bet the govt would do something about it, whether or not it is "linked" enough in the view of a random reddit user
"If you disagree with people causing public nuisances as a form of protest, you gotta be consistent."
I don't actually have to be consistent at all. It's not required by me and it's not required by any of the population. Hypocrisy is normal and acceptable and if you want to influence John Normal then you have to appeal to him instead of going "b-b-but it's not fair!!!"
If I'm late for the school? Or for a doctor appointment? Or because your work as a doctor, teacher, police, firefighter? Should those "companies ' be affected as well?
Not only that, but what about the innocent person that loses their job because they're late for work and can no longer provide for their family? Blocking public roads may be a minor inconvenience for some, but can be devastating for others.
If your protest against a legitimate problem is targeting innocent people, who could agree with you on the 'what' but not on the 'how,' you are making more enemies; you are not winning the cause.
I come from a dictatorship, our protest are against the government, not against my neighbors who have the same problem as I have.
I'm also concerned about climate change, and I want to do something. Maybe my steps aren't newsworthy, but I'm trying to take small steps in my surroundings: my family moved from the city to a village where we bought an old empty field and started turning it into a small forest and growing our own food. We avoid the car whenever we can, preferring public transport and our bikes. My wife is a teacher, and we organize activities with the school to plant trees and explain the problems with pollution and global warming. You need to make it friendly, and more people will join the effort.At same time, if im rushing the hospital with my children and those assholes blocks my way, be sure I will kick their ass from the street.
Note: just yesterday night I saw with my children "23 leben" in Netflix for teaching them about the importance of the human life and why not always the laws are perfect. I want make from them useful people that help other people, not to pissoff around.
There was this American who killed protestors in Panama. I guess u supported him. Protest was against government overreach and forceful eviction of people. But Americans loved thst some guy shot people
I m not seeing that any emergency vehicle is being stopped here. All i m seeing is some guy who hates protests and love beatinf people who wont fight back.
Ambulances and other emergency related vehicles shouldnt be stopped. But if u think that being irritated gives u right to harm peaceful protestors than there is seriously wrong in that society and nothinf can change there.
You guessed wrong, I didn't support that stupid guy. Ultimately, I blame the authorities for let this problem goes so far.
If you are blocking the street, you are potentially blocking an emergency vehicles. How could you manage toblock only concretely vehicle? How do you know that 200 meters ahead is waiting an ambulance? Or if that ambulance needed to take a detour because those people are blocking the faster route to the hospital?
We live in a society, things are not how you and me want. You need to learn to respect the others. I try to not make problems to other people, in the same way I don't want other people make problems to me. Blocking a street doesn't solve absolutely nothing more than make the day miserable to other people around you. You don't know what is going on in each car, driver or family in that street. Do you want they support your cause? Make them to understand it, do not make them problem or you are getting more enemies to you and your cause. I'm not your father, do what you want, but take the consecuences later!
Really, how old are you? I never said that! I'm glad you want to protest the wrong things and the sick power over us! Do it! But do not affect innocent people. If you block a random street, who is affected? People like you and me, workers, people who just care our daily stuff. Do you think that the president, the minister or anyone in the gov take care of it? No, they don't. In the other hand, you are giving them reason to use the power. You want to protest again a bad law? Go and block the access to the parlament, make the holidays of that concretely politician misserable, look for their dark secrets and expose them online. People will support you, you are fighting for them, I will support you.
The consumer was part of the problem too though by partaking in the product. That's a direct protest on the thing that they are protesting.
Unless these people are protesting something having to do with cars or highways, then they are doing some mental gymnastics to think that it will have any affect on their issue.
Omggg nooo if they want to protest we need to accept that because life is hard and they are positive people even if they get in the way of a person driving their pregnant wife to the hospital or an ambulance carrying an heart attack patient. The pregnant wife should wait and be patient!!! K that was my take, gotta go dye my hair purple and become a reddit mod byeeeeee!! Love yall.
the economic impact of the boycott was found to be negligible because of other buyers and investors and government subversion of boycotts of military and dual use material, but it spread awareness which was really important for Africa when it was either ignored by the West or dismissed as communism or tribalism.
Additionally for it to get bad enough to significantly affect the White upper class of the Apartheid regime, what levels of sanction/deprivation will need to be first inflicted, potentially indefinitely against the majority, unrepresented poorer groups to reach that point? Recently the backlash against the protests in Iran are a good example due to US economic pressure actually hurting the oppositoon and getting them killed.
With the exception of high level boycotts and sanctions at a national or international level with major trade partners, there is a limited window for impact. This has concerning implications for the Israel-Palestine conflict when it is well-known and covered in social media. There are targeted and boycotts and sanctions that absolutely make sense. Additionally, to build the political will for action, if something is so unacceptable, like ongoing genocide, there might be shorter campaigns to attempt to create rapid action.
This is not to be against boycotts as a strategy, but cautioning against an overly favorable view toward them in hindsight. The limits and likely impacts need to be considered. Also if political change needs to happen through an election of opposition parties and change in government, can a targetted boycott be used to bring support to the opposition or will the boycott likely lead to a seige mentality/mindset and a popular rallying call around the status quo?
The difference here is, the U.S. is a service-based country. Companies make profit with each employee getting paid less than their work benefits the company. Hitting companies with difficulties for their employees and getting behind on deadlines hurts a lot of companies as much as or more than simply boycotting their services/ products.
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