What are the point of protests?

What are the point of protests?

Even the largest peaceful protests in history have largely been completely ignored by those in power. "NVR" has historically only worked when it presented itself as the face of neogitation against the actual violent resistance being carried out from behind, for example, MLK was the face, while the power/threat behind was the Black Panthers, Malcolm X and the rioters or Sinn Fein was the face, while the IRA was the power/threat behind.

The Iraq War protest was the biggest protest in the world, 15 million people. 3 million in single cities alone. No one paid attention to it, it was completely ignored and now we are living with at least a million dead, terrorism spread throughout the world and entire countries in ruins. So if you can get 15 million people out there in the streets, entire city blocks as far as the eye can see just jammed packed with people, and those in power still don't give a single fuck, then what is the point? Why still bother with these movements when their non-effectiveness has been shown time and time again?

I used to go to protests when I was in my late teens and early 20s, but I haven't been to one in years because I know they don't do anything or achieve anything beyond making yourself feel good.

So why is this method of resistance so fetishized?

Why don't the liberals utilize human stampede tactics if they really want to get things done? Getting a million people to stand still one spot is the ultimate example of a half measure.

MLK Jr. wasn't "protesting" he was engaging in Civil Disobedience. It's totally different.

It doesn't require much commitment other than showing up and standing around and it's actively pushed by the government as a means of "resistance" since they know it's ineffective unless you a violent wing waiting with you

The march today was to bring attention to the disenfranchisement of women. This isn't a hard concept to understand, retard.

My galpal who is a refugee and a "POC" gets so fucking pissed off at liberal "Violence is bad" retards. It's great, she has the ultimate oppression Olympics defence, refugee, PoC, so it's so funny seeing liberals get absolutely destroyed by her and the whole "non-violence is the only way" shit is the thing that really sends her fuming.

Will will be forgotten about by tomorrow. Great resistance and attention.

Specifically a woman being denied an office when it was her god damn turn.

This. You can actually tell this is the case because almost all major movements of the past are whitewashed of their violent struggle to pretend that non-violence works. When you are actively white washing and cherry picking and rewriting history, that is when I know something is afoul and there is ulterior aims.

Great example is Gandhi, in the west framed as the lead of the Indian independence movement, in India the leader was actually Bose, who was a violent revolutionary and had double the size of support for his movement, than Gandhi had for his. In many was, India was a tactical withdrawal as well, as the UK had simply lost the manpower the continue the subjugation of South Asia and due to the violent struggles and terrorism taking place across British colonial holdings much closer to home (Middle East, North Africa) they were forced to withdrawl.

Daily reminder that 65% of the Black US population supported the Black Panthers and said they share the same views and goals.

65% of black people in the US supported a violent militant Maoist organization.

Imagine if just a 100 people in Occupy, using the people as cover, just molotoved the fuck out of Wall Street, just ran in the buildings, started through molotovs, disrupted trading and you saw some of these buildings, with billions of dollars with of equipment and data stored in them, just come burning to the ground, with trade distrupted and the stock market falling.

I would make a bet that we would have seen straight after the breakup and restructuring of the banks and a "new deal" style policies be thrown on the table. If this much damage could be caused by a 100 people, what if this mass of what was it? 500,000 people? Turned violent.

NVR simply doesn't work because it's approved by the state and doesn't threaten anything, only when those in power see the threat of a militant wing, and think "oh this could spread" does the movement and it's demads start get taken seriously. The last thing the Government could deal with is mass riots with thousands of people.

NVR shouldn't be dismissed, but it has to work in tandem with a variety of tactics.

It also should be noted that NVR is an incredibly muh privileged position, violence is already being brought down upon so many communities. What gives us, the upper working class white suburban proletariat the right to say those being violently subjugated shouldn't be allowed to fight back?

Maybe if she used some of that violence in the shithole she came from she wouldn't be a refugee, and go around talking shit to people who paid for her to enter the country and not get raped.

They mean nothing without violent alternatives.

>>>/kitchen/

There was some talk about this in the direct action group but they quickly became focused on bullshit situationist pranks against the cops instead.

It's because many protests are just exercises in walking or standing, not movements with clear goals, that can gather people around selected issues throughout longer period of time.

It's crucial for a protest to have clear goal and polices it targets. If you gather 100 000 in "defense of democracy" all you can accomplish is to have day or two of media attention around multitude of blurry issues, if your message is "end to two party system, reform our elections" then popularity of your movement and proposed policies can have impact on political parties of power and opposition. Such movement can push attention to it's propositions and force political parties to take a stance on the issues represented.

Meh fuck her and her black friend too. Why do reactionaries think if they can produce one minority that agrees with them they've won.

Hi FBI

Blocking freeways, trains or ports would do way more damage to their profits than firebombing Wall Street where all their trading is done on servers co located through out NY

On the other hand killing bankers is pretty good propaganda of the deed and doesn't piss off lumpens

It's the calm before the Storm.

?

Haha I wish I was FBI, my bank account with $20 in it could use it.

But honestly, the reason I just said that is that the left really needs some real symbolic victories. "Storming the Bastille", "Storming the Gates of the Provisional Government", "Throwing the tea overboard" these are images that live on in history, nothing lives on from occupy apart from people talking about how they lived in filth in a park. If they at least did some damage to the porky as fuck bankers, if they overran Wall street and just smashed shit up, at least there would have been something in the minds of he people afterwards.

Also most of the public wanted to see Wall street hang after the GFC, it was open game and nobody took it. The left would have been praised as heroes by the public for smashing those fucks, instead, the banks got completely away with forclosing on hundreds of thousands of people illegally.

OUCH!!!

The causes of march itself is not the main goal of op's criticism. Rather the impotence of such a form of protest. And I agree with op. It's fucking amazing that you can gather such an amount of people for a cause or a set of causes and yet not do anything but yelling and waving posters. There is no will behind it, no force pushing towards their goal. Where are the threats?

Bullshit. MLK's big achievements were the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The Black Panthers weren't even founded until 1966.

The problem is the left keeps putting the cart before the horse.

Honestly, you don't need mass mobilization of people. The Bolsheviks won with only 5% support in the fucking population. You need good organizations who know how to build networks of very intelligent dedicated strategists and revolutionaries.

As much as I shit on Vanguardism else here from a "It leads to totalitarianism" viewpoint, for the direct revolutionary period itself, it's 100000000x more accurate than any sort of of other movement.

100000000x more efficient than any sort of of other movement.

The point was to flip off Trump. It's a little strange: a protest with no demands, no threat and no disruption. You don't need to point out that it's neutered. Might as well go into Trump tower and have everyone fart in the lobby at the same time.

I feel like Trumps actual victory had deflated ethusiasm for these kinds of rebuttals. Now it just seems like all the empowred voices never really did anything– huffpo and salon editors were just content and fat on themselves riding a political wind and acting as if they were rowing the boat.

You just discovered why some of us resort to molotov cocktails and bash the fash as a solution. Congratulations.

Good

Anarkiddies need to take this shit a little higher and kill some fucking Trump supporters and cops

That's pretty edgy talk for a socdem, but consistently alienated.

The left's response to the rise of the "alt-right" has frankly been pathetic.

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t. socdem

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fuck off Holla Forums

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The protests let you say "told you so" and build a popular narrative after the fact.

At the time of the war, more than half of Britain backed it - but now if you ask them to "remember" it, 70% will say they were against, and know about the protests, which makes the decision to go to war "against public opinion" look even worse (Even though it was in line with public opinion at the time.)

We need more riots and fewer people condemning the riots like the good little proles they are.

It gets tiring seeing the same, "grow up snowflakes" or "here's your participation trophy Hillary supporter" or how the protesters are stupid on Facebook.

Americans are the worst enemy of Americans and should be shot with their lovely bourgie masters. American political thought of "you didn't support x so you MUST support y!!!!" Is also shit.

liberals with comfy jobs fetishized it

srsly it´s the easiest example I know, but there are others. If yoo give up on protest, you might aswell give up on yourself.

Because it's impotent and thus, allowed and encouraged by the state

Conservatives lose to Obama.: They spend the next eight years systematically retaking both houses of Congress and a massive number of state legislatures, decimating the democratic party and ultimately regaining the white house while the entire establishment apparatus, the media, and the world tried to stop them


Leftists lose to Trump: They sperg out and start committing random acts of vandalism and impotently protest before a riot cop bashes their skull in.

Every true political activist is a monk at this point. All protests / riots are funded by CIA etc to make movements look bad and easily monitor people. There are literally organizations built by your masters whose sole purpose is developing and employing social engineering techniques to prevent anyone from every challenging those with superior blood. Anyone who was effective and actually getting through to people was isolated from the world. If you actually believe in your values and dont just want handouts prepare for some pain. You will lose all your friends, money, eventually your sanity, and then youl spend every day wondering if suicide is the answer. If you see a "political activist/"human rights" activist who is happy they are a fraud. Anyone actually trying to get freedom isnt a liberal arts professor.