For your consideration: When is a protest more than just a protest?

[EarlG]

Full disclosure: I was born in 1974 so my awakening to the wider world of politics probably began somewhere around 1990. The protests of the 1960s and 70s are something that I can only understand through history books, because I was not there to experience them in person.

When I participated in large protest actions during the 2000s -- the selection of 2000, multiple marches against the Iraq War, the March for Women's Lives, etc. -- they felt very much like protests. We made our presence felt, and we made our voices heard. Hundreds of thousands of people participated in those marches, they shut down the streets in DC (legally), and they were almost entirely peaceful. Of course in a crowd that size, you're always going to get a handful of people who act out and get hauled off by the cops, but my memories of those events were that the VAST majority of the crowd was entirely peaceful.

One of the anti-war marches that I participated in was routed along Pennsylvania Avenue between 15th and 17th streets, directly in front of the White House. We didn't think Bush was there at the time, but we sure as hell yelled like he could hear us. There was of course a police presence, but as long as we kept moving, there were no problems.

During this time, I seem to recall groups like Code Pink and others setting up small encampments near the White House, for a more permanent protest presence, but they were largely ineffective. With hundreds of thousands of people marching peacefully in the streets, these small enclaves felt like what they were -- extremist elements of a much larger movement. The deal, generally, was that you arrived at the protest location, engaged in a peaceful mass action, and then went home afterwards.

Fast forward to 2011, and Occupy Wall Street. I did not participate in this, but it's the first time that I can personally recall a major protest as not just a protest but an "occupation" -- the purpose was not merely to march around the Wall Street area, but to set up a permanent camp there. It obviously drew a lot of media attention -- especially because the protesters were generally left wing and the president at the time was a Democrat. After that, "Occupy" became quite the buzzword. People were "occupying" everything (we even still have an "Occupy Underground" here at DU).

Since then, over time, it seems that organized protest marches have gradually fallen out of favor, and have been replaced by more attention-grabbing "occupations," and, unfortunately, violent actions and vandalism.

This does make some sense in the age of social media. Nowadays, the ONLY thing that matters is getting eyeballs and attention -- and there's something to be said for this. Twenty years ago we had hundreds of thousands of people coming together and marching to draw attention to our opposition to the Iraq War. Nowadays all you need is one small-to-medium sized protest, a decent cameraphone, and an influencer account on Twitter or Instagram, and you can reach millions of people. (And with this dynamic, some quality shots of people breaking windows or fighting with cops can really boost your reach.)

So here's the question: When does a protest become something more than just a protest? The following are all technically acts of protest, with most peaceful at the top and least peaceful at the bottom:

• Permitted marching, large peaceful gatherings, speeches -- for example, MLK's March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.


• Peaceful civil disobedience -- for example, unpermitted sit-ins, where you acknowledge that you are breaking the law by blocking traffic or occupying a particular space illegally, but you also do not resist arrest, on the understanding that publicly taking the punishment is part of the protest.


• Occupations -- where you take possession of a public space in the style of a sit-in, but you stake a claim to that area, call it your own, and resist arrest if authorities attempt to remove you.


• Violent protests which may begin with peaceful intentions, but which devolve into mass acts of vandalism and/or combat with police, either due to the intentions of many of the protesters, or due to violent oppression of the protest by police.


• Large scale out-of-control acts of mass violence -- for example, the LA riots of 1992.

It seems to me that the true art of political protesting, for maximum effectiveness, is to find the perfect nexus between maximum possible public exposure, but also maximum possible public sympathy.

Nobody will care if you go for a march with three friends around your local town. But at the other end of the scale, you very much risk driving people away from your cause if you, say, go for a march with ten thousand people around DC and then attack cops and assault the Capitol Building.

Ultimately, you want as many people as possible to hear about your cause, and you want as many people as possible to sympathize with your cause. I think a possible error that protesters on all sides are making in the social media era is that they believe they only need to appeal to people who already sympathize with them. (This explains why so many January 6 insurrections are surprised that they've ended up in prison.)

It's honestly unclear to me how things are going for the current student protests in this regard...

[Voltaire2]

1. Thanks for a thoughtful essay on this subject.

I’d like to make one point on the ‘violent protests that may begin with peaceful intentions’ category. In my experience, which goes back to the 60s, the escalation to violence is frequently, but not always (see for example J6) deliberately instigated by the police. As an institution of state repression they have about 150 years of institutional expertise in tactics and strategies for suppressing the left. They are very good at it.

[LauraInLA]

3. It seems to me that a lot of the "violent" actions in this movement

have been instigated by protestors, however, such as breaking into buildings, vandalizing property, harassing other students. These may have been committed by a minority of protestors, but the overall group will need to monitor themselves better if they don’t want to be associated. I think one main lesson from this is that encampments are a bad idea — they seem to breed this kind of “bad behavior”. I wouldn’t be surprised if encampments were officially banned at this point and broken up much more quickly.

[mopinko]

16. i was at the same march in 03. w my bff, a fallen away catholic w a jewish hubs. some assholes

wearing the uniform of watermelon isis, a half doz maybe, were circling around w an israeli flag. putting it on the ground, stepping on it, and inviting others to do the same.
it had been quite a while since i’d been to a protest, but i knew a shit stirrer when i saw 1.

also remember some mom’s group organizing on fb. a friend tried to start a local chapter and was deluged w trolls. she took on some monitors, but at least 1 was a plant. they made a stink about the straight white women running the group. shutting out black and brown voices. i tried to point out the disruptors. i told her they’d crash it. she didnt listen. she shut it down w/in 2 wks. an amazing shit show for an itty bitty neighborhood group.

so, yeah, very effective tactics.
i cd prolly make some good money doin that shit. anyone have soros’ phone number?

[The Mouth]

33. A protest that does NOT devolve into violence requires organization and leadership

I've seen both kinds:

-A church group or advocacy organization organizes an event, co-ordinates with the police regarding road closures and **HELPS** police identify and isolate the inevitable jerks who just want to break and burn things. Point is made, the community gets the message that a *LOT* of people are concerned. For example several protests during the George Floyd events were organized by a local church group. This group had many members who kept a close lookout for the 'black block' anarchist twits from outside the area; they were 'escorted' everywhere and the police were able to keep an eye on them and quickly intervene when one or two (rich white kids from nearby Berkeley, it turned out) started to try to break into and loot a store.

-Some dolt puts up flyers for a 'protest', cops regarded as 'the enemy', hundreds or thousands mill about maybe march, maybe chant, but often the crowd ends up following the loudest and most assertive folks; the bad actors - maybe out of town, maybe agents provocateurs start breaking things, throwing things, and setting fires. The police respond, situation escalates. The community comes to the conclusion that the people associated with this cause are lawless troublemakers and exactly ZERO is accomplished, often with major loss of credibility. We had idiots get onto the freeway, and then get irate when they almost got hit (by people who had NO reasonable expectation of a crowd of idiots in the fast lane).

Peaceful protest is a right, rioting- meaning the destruction of property or causing people minding their own business (such as trying to get somewhere and ending up in the middle of a wildcat protest) is a crime, and should be treated like such.

If you are breaking things, or threatening people who have nothing to do with your event (such as someone who drives down a street who would have had NO way of knowing there was a 'protest' happening and mobbing their car) then you are not only a terrorist and criminal, you are actually on the side of the opposition, a useful idiot.

Protest is a right; *ALL* rights come with responsibilities, parameters, and sometimes consequences for their assertion.

[RandySF]

2. Preventing students from moving about campus

Threatening university staff.
Promoting violence against fellow students because they’re Jewish.
Trashing university facilities.

A lot went wrong during these recent protests.

[EarlG]

4. Perhaps it's easier for things to go wrong if you're not properly organized

The social media era has made it much easier to create spontaneous, unorganized, large scale protests. In some ways, that's not a bad thing. But at the same time, it's made it much more difficult to control the peaceful message that MOST of the protesters are presumably trying to convey.

Participating in organized marches may seem "square" and old fashioned, but they do have the benefit of creating a legitimate separation between the people participating "properly" and people who have shown up to cause trouble. When spontaneous protests end up persisting over multiple days and sprawling across public spaces, it seems that more time is allowed for troublemakers to get involved, and it's easier for the message to get lost beneath the spectacle that's been created.

[FSogol]

8. Social media makes it easy for bad actors, zealots, and extremists to show up and derail your protest no matter how

noble the intent.

Another problem with the modern protest is that when the press does notice and pay attention, you better have something good to say.

When Occupy's big moment came, all the could say was, "we have no leader and we want a paradigm shift!" The press then totally ignored them.

When Columbia's protesters got the spotlight, they whined about not having bottled water or food provided. The ending up sounding like little unprepared kids and got taken down. They'll end up getting the blame for the destruction by the bad actors.

IMO, these types of protests are little more than vanity projects. There has to be a better way to get the points across than camping on school property.

Anyone comparing these protests to the 60s and 70s hasn't been paying attention for the last 50 years.

[Cha]

35. "Promoting violence against fellow students because they're Jewish. Trashing university facilities."

Mahalo for all these reasons why these Protests are NOT helping people in Gaza. In fact there are those in Gaza who say they're "hurting them".

[Ping Tung]

5. Most of the civ il rights/anti-war protests I went to were peaceful until the very un peaceful

cops interfered.

The cops definitely weren't there to protect civil rights or free speech. And, the billy clubs weren't used to brush their teeth.

[EarlG]

9. Protests are a form of political speech -- a way to sway public opinion

and police violence can be used as a tool in this regard. When an obviously peaceful protest is broken up by police violence, it can make people sympathize with the protesters if they are broadly viewed as the victims rather than the instigators. In some ways, police violence can be a boon to the well-organized protester, if it simultaneously draws attention to the protest AND creates sympathy for the protesters.

When you have situations though where people are causing vandalism or violence, public sympathy almost always goes out the window immediately. When violence or vandalism is occurring, the number one concern of most disinterested third parties is restoring public order, so they'll automatically side with the cops regardless of what the original protest was about.

[Ping Tung]

14. Agreed. Demos are supposed to bring attention and sympathy for the cause.

The cops became seen as goons protecting the status quo with force and the protestors became seen as citizens exercising their rights being attacked by thuggish cops.

The demos didn't end the war, the Vietnamese did that, but they did wake up Americans who had viewed America as the Good Guys for most of their lives to the reality of war and injustice.

[mopinko]

18. beau of the 5th column had a vid about this the other day. about the book.

there’s literally a book, dont recall the name, that lays out the rules for an effective protest and 1 is- if the cops r called, it will spread.
i’ll see if i can find it.

[mopinko]

22. watch this-

[LeftInTX]

6. I agree with this:

It seems to me that the true art of political protesting, for maximum effectiveness, is to find the perfect nexus between maximum possible public exposure, but also maximum possible public sympathy.

At what point does it drive people away from your cause?

People have the right to turn people away from their cause.

What can I say? I was raised to win people over to my cause. No matter how small. I was a bratty kid, hence I was schooled on my attitude.

The protests that I have participated in have always been organized: Such as marches or protesting outside a congressman's office for a few hours. Always with the intention of drawing people to our cause. We have always remembered that we want the media to be our friend. It's not unusual to have elected officials or civic leaders speaking at our protests.

Protests that last 24/7 have the potential to devolve because protesters become disorganized.

[flamingdem]

7. Leaders who can communicate and articulate help

Movements without leaders seem to devolve into chaos.

This movement was simply unclear about boundaries. Plenty were shouting slogans and
attacking Jewish people and zionism. They didn't seem to know the offenses involved
and how it would be perceived.

Also unclear - do the protesters support Islam? Head covering for women? Can they
justify covering up their identity and then committing acts of vandalism or violence?

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Are you too young to remember the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp of the 1980s?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenham_Common_Women%27s_Peace_Camp

They sometimes blockaded the base, or cut the fence, and got arrested. I think they kept the subject or nuclear weapons in the public eye, and probably influenced some people.

[EarlG]

13. I have some vague recollections

I was kinda young at the time. IIRC, despite their civil disobedience, they were peaceful and were not seen as a threat to public order, which brought sympathy to their cause. They may have sometimes blocked the road or cut the fence, but they were mostly interfering with a military installation as opposed to, say, blocking traffic in London during rush hour. And it was classic civil disobedience -- they took action knowing that they would be arrested, and they didn't resist arrest.

[ShazzieB]

32. I'm definitely old enough to remember that time period.

But I don't remember Greenham, possibly because it took place in the UK, and I live in the US. I'll admit I wasn't much of a news reader in those days. I read news voraciously now that it's all online, but I wasn't in the habit back then.

I am part of the generation that came of age during the Vietnam War years, and I took part is some peaceful marches very much like the ones EarlG described in the op. I've participated in some similar marches since then, as well as and a couple of demonsrrations outside my worthless then Congressman's office. I love doing that kind of stuff, being part of a crowd that is unified in its passion for an issue that I feel strongly about.

I have no personal experience with the encampment type of protest, so I don't know how well they work in general. What bothers me about the current protests is the mixed messages they seem to be sending, intentionally or not. I absolutely understand being upset about what's happening in Gaza, but there seem to be a lot of protesters who don't know how to express what they feel about that without using antisemitic tropes that I believe many of them may not even recognize as antisemitic. When they are accused of antisemitism, they hotly deny it instead of apologizing to those who feel attacked, and things escalate further in an endless angry cycle. For that reason, as well as the blocking of campuses and wrapping keffiyeh around their heads in ways that obscure their identity, I don't really feel a kinship with them.

[littlemissmartypants]

11. If we'd bring back the soapbox we wouldn't have these dilemmas. After all, it only supports one protester at a time ...

And we might even relearn how to share and take turns. ❤️

[Doc Sportello]

12. Authorities are usually responsible for the violence

We will have to see what happens going forward with the current situation. I believe that the vast majority of the students are protesting peacefully. The damage done to a building at Columbia was done to a building, not to people. Pointless action in my opinion though, as were the Code Pink actions. The other violence I have seen has come mostly from the police overreacting and, at UCLA, from pro-Israel demonstrators. I don't know the extent of violence overall or if some groups are intentionally looking to seed violence, nor have I seen proof of that, despite the claims of some.

I was involved in the protests of the late 60s and early 70s. The authorities at that time - the Nixon administration and the FBI and some states leaders - used agent provocateurs and informants to either promote violence that they could use to prosecute or to take actions such as the murder of Fred Hampton. The only time our group crossed the line was entering an Air Force Base at the urging of an FBI informant and agent provocateur, one William Lemmer. It was dumb and pointless but it got several of the men sent to federal prison. Lemmer was a Vietnam vet with some personal issues, but he did lots of work for the FBI in promoting violence as a leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War in order to subvert the antiwar movement. Of course, I don't believe President Biden would ever engage in those tactics like Nixon did in this situation, nor likely would the current FBI.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gainesville_Eight

[returnee]

43. I'm glad someone finally mentioned agent provocateurs.

They’re an under-appreciated source of violence at demonstrations. Last night on ABC News the term “outside agitators” was being used prominently. Just because one is not a student dies not mean one is causing trouble.

We must be clear in our terms.

[Doc Sportello]

46. That term was also used a lot during the 60s protests

It was over inflated in its use purposely to distract from the message, diminish the protestors, and to justify greater use of force.

[cachukis]

15. My earliest recall of protest was a strike.

My father was in management and had to pass through a picket line.
He mentioned that he supported the picketers, but had a responsibility to keep the company running.
When scabs crossed the line animosities were more vehement.
Both sides settled after a week.
What I took away from it all, was the protest had to be specific and reasonable.

I protested against the war in '69 while in high school. We unplugged the juke box and demanded to present our opinions on some of the posters on the walls. "Better red than dead," contrasted with "Live Free or Die."
This was at an all boys Catholic High and heaven played a role.
The conversations filtered into classroom discussions all year. We all had draft cards by graduation.
Most, by now, realized the war was not justifiable.
I protested again in '72 to present my opposition, but realized the Presidents and Dean's at my school had no control over the war. It felt cool to be part of a national mood that was anti war, but the real test would come when my number came up in the lottery.
It was 86. Thankfully I had a student deferment.
We had Cassius Clay say nay. We had draft card burnings. We had Tet.
But realize, we weren't and still aren't a liberal nation. The country feared the uncertainty of tolerating the long hairs fighting the establishment.

It seems today's protests are much more organized and the agendas are quagmire. There is a legitimacy to stop the death of innocents, but anti this and anti that lacks definition.
There are forces intruding for what purpose, I'm not sure.
Occupy opened eyes, but the opposition moved to discredit
Likewise, with BLM.

The mix of antisemitism, Islamophobia, and anti intellectualism is energy towards a blurry resolution.
Forcing universities to rearrange their portfolios is not going to stop Netanyahu. Embarrassing a university administration may bring about a minor change, but if it is not going forward with intellectual rigor, the system folds.
Will these protests inspire some to be anti Biden? Perhaps, but if he loses then shame on those who bit off their noses.

[surfered]

17. It seems that peaceful disobedience worked for Martin Luther King and Gandhi.

[LeftInTX]

24. Gandhi had his hands full! He had to deal with Nehru and Jinnah in addition to the Brits.

Nehru and Jinnah weren't very keen on his methods. He herded tons of cats from umpteen factions.

[IronLionZion]

30. Both were assassinated

somebody didn't like it badly enough to kill them

[surfered]

39. Yes, but they knew their cause was more important. "I may not make it there with you."

[wnylib]

19. Thank you for an excellent post on protests.

I was around during the 60s, but will leave them out for the sake of people who
weren't.

I also participated in a DC protest against the planned attack on Iraq. It was everything you described - huge and peaceful. I even chatted with a DC cop who was patrolling the march alongside of us.

I went with a caravan of buses from Buffalo. The organizers paired us off with at least one person in the pair having a cell phone and list of contact numbers in case we got lost finding the buses afterward, or in case an emergency developed. (Cell phones were not as common then as now.) All very safety oriented.

The protests did not, of course stop the war from happening. I think that today's protesters are willing to use camps, provocative language, and occupations - especially occupations - for two reasons. One is to gain sympathy out of being forcibly removed. They can then claim loss of 1st amendment rights and depict police as a branch of "oppressive" government that needs to be resisted.

The second reason is that occupying buildings or a section of lawn that blocks usage gives them a "bargaining chip" to force the agreements that they want, e.g. what happened at Brown when the administration negotiated an agreement to put divestment up for a vote with the board. It's a form of extortion. They are not willing to just make their views known. They want to force the kind of action that they are protesting about.

Those reasons are similar to MLK's peaceful protests, but with some notable differences. ( Oops. That is a 60s reference, but one that I think everyone is familiar with.) People sat at lunch counters breaking an unjust law In order to force attention which would lead to the corrective action that they wanted - a change in the laws. In the case of Freedom Riders on Greyhound buses, the desegregation law already existed, but was not enforced in segregation states. The riders were not breaking a law. They were drawing attention to segregationists who were breaking it.

But, some differences between the civil rights protests and today are that, as you pointed out, the MLK civil rights protesters were peaceful, passive resisters. They had training sessions in passive resistance.
They did not shout derogatory names at opponents. The points that they made in protests were factually indisputable, e.g. segregation laws. Today's protesters use narratives that are sometimes dubious or partially true.

[cally]

20. My earliest were taking over University Buildings for sit ins organized

To protest investment with South Africa during Apartheid. I chose to not be arrested and left when police came but I have always felt cowardly about that decision. We learned protest techniques and trained to not resist arrest.

Years later, as a professional, I discussed with Professors hurt by our protests and I have a fuller understanding of both sides now.

I honestly have not engaged on the backlash against the students today protesting because of this.

I encourage all to look up Chris Hayes segment last night on student protests. (I am recovering from elbow surgery and have difficultly on computer now.). There is a long history of this.

By the way, President Obama also was involved in anti-apartheid protests

[ClaudetteCC]

21. anything that holds another person captive or impedes them

by keeping them trapped on a bridge, preventing someone from accessing their home (like the occupation that happened in Seattle a few years go) goes way over the line and is not expected to be sympathy generating

[SpankMe]

23. The "occupation" stage is where a protest becomes more than a protest, IMO

But, it depends on what, where and how you're occupying.

If you vandalize and disrupt nominal public usage of the space for a certain amount of time, you'll lose credibility and sympathy from the public by inconveniencing them. This is what the students are doing in many cases with Gaza protests. They should be subject to arrest.

But, if you're a Native American tribe out on a hill in the middle of nowhere blocking oil companies from getting to their stuff, then it's closer to "protest" by my own sensibilities.

When Ammon Bundy's assholes were occupying the ranger station in Oregon some years back, that was a crime. (He got acquitted, by the way. Fuck him.)

Also, a "protest" must have the goal of publicizing your position and making the public understand your POV. A protest must not be a direct ultimatum to force a particular institution to do something specific - i.e., we're sitting here pissing on your floor until you divest from Israel.

One other problem (slightly off the subject of this post) is that many of the young people were unable to articulate and defend their positions. They had some of their facts wrong and were unaware of the history of the region. Before you attend a Gaza protest or occupation you need to know everything that has happened in the Levant from 1948 to the present, and you should know about the British Empire's administration of Palestine before that, AND Ottoman Empire's hold on the region before the British.

[wnylib]

29. Great points. I especially like the point about

being informed on the background of what you are protesting instead of acting on slogans and superficial knowledge.

Also agree with the distinction between types of occupy protests.

[ClaudetteCC]

34. was Bundy

the guy who was protesting his lack of access to federal lands for his private business or am i confusing him with someone else?

[Alice Kramden]

41. Yes

Bundy illegally grazed his cattle on Federal land

[TBF]

25. I was in high school & college in the 80's - the Reagan years

but my parents were young in the 60s. They were in a small town and not part of Woodstock and all that, but it was those times. My dad went to Vietnam (naval service) and my mom was very much a liberal thinker despite the surroundings. Eventually, when my dad returned from the service they both worked union jobs (midwest) so I grew up hearing about strikes, picketing etc. My dad felt the union was a necessary evil, not perfect due to the violence (this was north of Chicago - the paper and auto unions were violent against scabs etc), but it was all they had. He said they had to stick together or management wouldn't give them anything.

I went to college and never worked for a union. I was influenced a lot by my parents, but also some by the conservative surroundings and Reagan years. My own daughter is in college now and doing her postings on social media for Palestine, despite my pro-Israel ravings ... I am proud of her because she thinks for herself (even when she's wrong - lol!).

I don't have a problem with the protesting and the awareness it brings - they are in the news every night (and all over social media). I don't even get worked up over destruction of property - still my father's daughter. Really don't care if owners have to rebuild something if they've been a total ass to people all along. But I'm having a hard time with the anti-semitism & the Jewish college students watching lessons on Zoom because they've been so intimidated. Maybe the protestors don't mean for them to take it personally, that they really are targeting the Israeli government, but that needs to come out a little more I think. Right now they are feeling very intimidated and hated.

[Wild blueberry]

26. One key is non-violence

Throughout the United States' Civil Rights protests and into most of the Vietnam War protests, the key was non-violence. Those who were protesting were trained in remaining non-violent. That was very effective. It also created the maximum amount of sympathy for the protesters and their cause.
I vividly remember the spring of 1970. I was finishing my freshman year in college in Minnesota. We had teach-ins and leafleted the nearby shopping centers that fall. That spring, Nixon invaded Cambodia. We protested en masse, shutting down the main street at the college (a city bus had to turn around) and sitting in at the administration building. All the male students were subject to the draft. Then Kent State happened on May 4, National Guard troops killing four student. So it was personal for all of us. I remember thinking, our government is killing us.
Our Student Council pooled all its remaining money, and sent some twenty of us stand-by to Washington DC to meet with our own representatives and senators. We were drawn by lottery, and I won one of the tickets. We got to meet Eugene McCarthy. My own Illinois congressmen were not very helpful, particularly Philip Crane who merely asked us What about Israel? We were there about Vietnam.
We were sincere, dedicated, passionate, and peaceful. Our school supported us and gave us leeway.
I have never forgotten.

[Think. Again.]

27. It seems a lot of people are...

...overlooking the fact that modern protests serve the goals of more than just the initial group that wanted to amplify a particular message.

As we learned the hard way during the BLM actions, a well-publicized civic action is also a free ride for opponents to the initial cause, and anyone else wanting a little attention (kyle rittenhouse?).

When is a protest more than just a protest? When instigators, oppositionists, provocateurs, social media fame-hunters, and yes, even law enforcement (the cop with umbrella calmly and methodically breaking store windows?) add chaos, violence, and public confusion to the protest.

[LisaM]

28. The Women's March in 2017 seemed perfect to me.

Last edited Thu May 2, 2024, 05:20 PM - Edit history (1)

And, I think it had an effect. We started electing more women governors, for example. Trump was eventually drummed out of office. Those pink hats were amazing, I walked in it but watched before and after on TV and was amazed at the river of pink in cities all over the world. Unfortunately the damage had been done in the 2020 election, but women have done well in elections since then.

There were other groups that tried to crash the party, but, at least where I was walking, they were turned away or spurned. It was so peaceful and everyone stayed on message and the coverage was uplifting.

I have walked in plenty of demonstrations but that was the best one I remember.

[SunSeeker]

36. Me too. The Womens March in LA in 2017 was magnificent.

We need marches, not occupations.

[LisaM]

37. Oops, I meant 2017.

Going back to fix that now.

[brooklynite]

45. And the Women's Marches (multiple) got permits...

…and worked with local officials to design routes and provide advance notice to the public to be successful. No need to insist that those not involved be forced to engage.

[bluescribbler]

31. I was in college in the 1970's.

While there, I heard a speaker who led a commune in Tennessee. He said that you have to convince "the honest squares", if you hope to make any progress. He cited examples. The civil rights movement of the fifties and sixties went nowhere until the "honest squares" saw the police dogs, fire hoses and beatings on the evening news. The insurrectionists of J6 made no effort to speak to the "honest squares", and now find themselves paying dearly. The "occupiers" are likewise making no effort to gain sympathy for the Palestinian cause. I fear they are doomed to fail.

[MustLoveBeagles]

38. K&R

[calimary]

40. This is a really thoughtful analysis, EarlG.

It's not clear to me, either, about how things are going for the current protests in this regard. But it seems to me that somebody better start thinking about that. And acting accordingly.

[wnylib]

42. K&R

[WhiskeyGrinder]

44. Obsessing over the peacefulness, purity or form of a protest rather than engaging its message makes it very easy for bad

actors to disrupt it.

[Passages]

47. More concern about protests than the subject matter of the protests.

Last edited Fri May 3, 2024, 02:33 PM - Edit history (1)

FREDERICK LAWRENCE: I think when students rise up on any issues around the world or on their local communities, as well, universities have to begin with first principles. We exist for the purposes of creating and discovering knowledge. That requires free expression and protection for free expression. We talk about balancing free expression on the one hand, safety on the other. And although I understand that, it somewhat misses the point, which is to say safety is essential for campuses, but safety is instrumental to protect the fundamental goal, and that’s free expression.

Link to tweet

[snot]

48. Excellent analysis of protest tactics:

Pulitzer-winning former NYT Middle East Bureau chief Chris Hedges interviews Vincent Bevins, former foreign correspondent for the LA Times and WaPo, and author of “If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution,” re- how leftist uprisings are crushed: https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-chris-hedges-report-with-vincent?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2