To think protesting doesn't work anymore?

[022828MAN]

From BLM, Extinction Rebellion, Anti lock down protests in Melbourne.

I'm not arguing whether the context or reason for the protesting is justified or not, but I just wonder whether protesting is ever going to get results for anyone in this day and age.

It seems as though it's just the go-to answer nowadays, yet I've not seen anywhere it seems to have yielded any results. All I see is prolonged anguish, anxiety, vandalism, violence and arrests.

I feel like police / gov actively won't respond to demands through protesting as they believe it will show them to be able to be manipulated, and therefore they purposely do not give in to protests.

I'm not here to say people shouldn't be vocal when they believe in something, but is protesting the answer in modern times?

The problem is that ER aren't engaging those whose support and accord they seek - they're bullying them instead. Stopping ordinary, payday to payday, working people from getting to work was an enormous own goal and I think it sealed the opinion of many. The optics of entitled middle class twats stopping the working classes getting to work and further, the tube train they stopped was green transport ffs. In the meantime, many of them were travelling by bus, car or even private plane to protests, which was ok, because they're doing right.

In that moment, they made clear they didn't want green, they just wanted attention and tantrums and their emblem has sadly now become an eye rolling joke. On protest days, the opinions commuting office staff can be heard openly expressing, unchallenged, to universal nods of agreement, are loathing. ER have lost the masses.

I heard one on the radio the other day. They'd blockaded printers to stop newspapers getting out, one of which was the Sun. It turned out that the Sun had a special feature piece on the environment - by David Attenborough - that day. Protest Guy said that wasn't good enough as the rest of the newspaper had adverts for our consumerist lives. Totally unhinged.

Blackberry, I'm sorry if I sounded terse, having just reread your previous post and the rest of the thread, I realise I borrowed two of your phrases, not twigging they'd both appeared in your post. I honestly didn't mean to single your post out. But you have expressed very clearly how many people feel.
Also, it is interesting that people feel that XR, for instance, have free rein to disrupt. XR protesters have not got free rein, they frequently break the law and have been arrested in their thousands in the last 18 months.

@LBisFallingDown

I totally agree, XR aren't helping the cause at all. From what I've seen they're very privileged young people who are making a big show of protecting the environment by wrecking the environment. Shouting about global warming whilst taking selfies and then getting back in their cars to drive home. That's what people are talking about, not their cause.

They're a joke.

But the Black Lives Matter protests are getting people talking. The conversations being had now about white privilege are important and having an effect.

That said, I've seen videos within that where over privileged white (presumably) students have hung their heads in shame because they've travelled in from a nearby town to protest (aka trash the place), and been bollocked by local residents.

Maybe the issue isn't the protest but who's doing it, why and how?

Walking down a street waving banners has never worked.

This is so utterly untrue. This is how women got the vote! This is how working class men got the vote. And at the time most people grumbled about their protests and said they were disruptive and annoying.

Look behind any important and necessary social changes that we all benefit from and they have come about through protests. Many of them violent and disruptive and causing great inconvenience to people.

Mumsnet bingo. Same old clap trap about the suffragettes. Stop peddling this mythology. Protesting and terrorism by the suffragettes did not lead to women getting the vote. Social changes and necessity after the 1st World War led to this law change coupled with reasonable arguments being taken up within parliament. New Zealand awarded women the vote in 1907, this was not groundbreaking.

I'm sick of people justifying every terrorist cause with this inaccurate suffragette comparison. For what it's worth, if you want people to view you as their equal, hurling bricks through windows, hunger strikes and setting fire to buildings is not the best way to show that you are reasonable and competent human beings.

I’ll pay more attention to someone waving a banner but as long as they’re not trying to campaign to save the environment whilst holding a disposable coffee cup in one hand, fuel guzzling car keys in the other, alongside keys to a palatial house and daddy‘s credit card in the back pocket, or Emma Thompson standing next to them.

I'll admit I don't know enough about social / political history. All I know is how I hear and see people respond to the recent protests. Very little of what I see and hear is positive. I've seen many left leaning, Liberal friends (myself included), distance themselves from the modern left. It does feel that everything is cause for uproar recently. The more protests that happen, the less impact they will ultimately have. We're naturally built to become desensitised to things, and add in protestors rioting, vandalising, blocking workers, ambulances etc from doing their jobs, no one is going to take it seriously after a while.

Yep, protesting does not work. The government decides, on the basis of assuming a "mandate" given between a highly simplistic binary choice every five years. That choice is further dictated by being made within repeatedly-gerrymandered geographical sectors. Everyone then has to do what they say, from councils down to individuals. Discussions of reality and practicality even from councils are not wanted. Discussions on how it all affects the lives of individuals, whether 100s, 1000s, millions, half of the population by sex or half of the population by choice, or met with total disinterest. The government can award themselves new powers whenever they feel like it.

I am not entirely clear on what is the difference between this and the traditional terror of a one-party dictatorship to be honest. If you check on wikipedia the system is defined as a minimal democracy. The government are even attacking the judicial system and the electoral commission now.

The BLM protests in America have been directly responsible for the arrests of several murderers. The state refused to arrest the men who murdered George Floyd and the men who committed other police-related murders of other black men and women. It was only societal pressure that forced the state to do their damn jobs and not let murderers roam the streets. So yes protest absolutely works.

The men who slaughtered Breonna Taylor shot her while she was peacefully sleeping in her one bed, after breaking into her home. Cold blooded murder and not one arrest has been made even though they know exactly who murdered her.

The racists whining about “virtue signalling” need to shut up. You are racist, racist, racist. We all see you. If you want to blame anyone for the breakdowns in society blame Trump who literally send armed tanks into civilian areas where the opened fire on people quietly sitting in their own homes. Police attending protests who open fire on TV journalists covering the protest, or who open fire on people watching from windows. And of course the white supremacist and other right wing groups who infiltrate peaceful protests in order to commit violence and incite riots with the intention of making BLM look bad.

Was just coming onto say that women got the vote for a complex myriad of reasons NOT because an unhappy woman with mental health issues killed a horse at the Derby but I see Sleep has put it better.

New Zealand awarded women the vote in 1907, this was not groundbreaking.

New Zealand women received the vote in 1893. First full country to do so, top work by Kate Sheppard.

rainwater flow I appreciate your concern for what is happening in America, where they are is where we are going. However please remember most people on here are not American, and Britain is not America. "The racists whining about “virtue signalling” need to shut up. You are racist, racist, racist." is not appropriate for our situation.

I think to generate change you need to be clear on what you want to change. There is lot of disagreement in the BLM camp on what it is they want the same with extinction rebelion. If they gave clearer objectives and engaged with mp,s then they may get further.

But in my experience no it often doesn't work. During the Iraq war there were protests, Mp,s resigned, people wrote letters but we still went to war.

A local hospital was closed the local mp supported the course and joined the march it still got closed down.

@EvaHoffman

Walking down a street waving banners has never worked.

This is so utterly untrue. This is how women got the vote! This is how working class men got the vote. And at the time most people grumbled about their protests and said they were disruptive and annoying.

Look behind any important and necessary social changes that we all benefit from and they have come about through protests. Many of them violent and disruptive and causing great inconvenience to people.

Did you even read what I wrote?

To all the people asking what is the alternative, errrrr, isn’t it obvious? Ever heard of joining the system to change the system?

Most causes start out with a merit based argument and then get hijacked by Marxist students or anarchists. Neither have any stake in the system they are trying to destroy. To have some credibility, you have to be part of the system so people can see you have skin in the game and more importantly influence.

Angry shouting from the sidelines is tiresome and frankly annoying.

It’s never inappropriate to call our racism.

The thread is specifically about BLM (plus climate change activism plus the anti-Covid conspiracy theorists, which is frankly a bizarre conflation). BLM started on the US. Much of this thread is about America and some of the negative and racist comments are explicitly about America.

Multiple posters have referenced BLM protests in America in a negative and hostile way. Yet strangely you take no issue with anti-BLM posters making posts about America?

Why is it that racists are allowed to rant about America all they like but the second a BAME person calls them racist it’s “inappropriate” to mention America?

Too much black and white thinking.

Protests have contributed to some social change, at various times, alongside a complex set of simultaneous activities. Thinking that they just “work” in all contexts, for all subjects, is silly.

There’s been many, many protests that have amounted to precisely nothing. And much social change that has arisen via processes other than protests.

I agree OP. There are protests every week in London at the moment and as someone who doesn't protest I see it as utterly pointless and a good way to spread a virus in a pandemic.

There is also the issue of the rent-a-mob element who then cause trouble, get into fights, vandalise property, etc, and the whole point of the march is tainted by the actions of a few who are there to cause trouble.

Protests don't have the same impact any more as they did many years ago. Fewer people watch mainstream tv news, fewer buy a paper, for starters.

rainwaterflow. Your situation in America is colouring your reading. This thread is about protests. I’ve seen mention of the suffragettes, and lots of references to XR. I was myself thinking of the protests against leaving the EU and against proroguing parliament. British affairs. Racism here is different, one part of the kaleidoscope of prejudices in Britain, and I think we should save that for another thread anyway. We never had segregation here.

to be honest I've thought this ever since the 2003 protests against the war in Iraq. Over 1 million people (which when the population was just under 60million, and bearing in mind all those who were too young/too old/couldn't afford/feasibly travel to London) was just an insane amount, and coupled with coinciding protests all over the world and....nothing.

Agree with the point re: the suffragettes too. My understanding was that the Conservative govt at the time realised they had to expand enfranchisement to the male working classes (most people don't realise that the majority of men didn't even have the vote prior to 1918) after all they had done during WWI or face huge backlash, however they were worried that this would mean a huge influx of new voters who would be likely to vote labour, so they tried to counter this by adding middle class women (thus the age and property restrictions for women compared to men) to the register, who would be more likely to vote conservative, first due to their natural social inclinations (and a hope they would be influenced by their husbands and fathers and also out of gratitude to the government).

Saying all that, I don't necessarily know what the best alternative is although I agree that celebrity endorsement by complete "do what I say not what I do" hypocrites is the quickest way to turn me off message.

Pepperwort I am not American. I live in London.

Please explain why it’s okay for posters to rant about how BLM protestors in America are just tedious virtue signallers using an opportunity to riot, but it’s not okay for someone to challenge them.

Why are only certain posters allowed to discuss America?

I’ve thought this for a while, our voices just aren’t of value.

Like HS2. Costing billions, irreversible damage and with very very little support. Yet no one listens, the powers that be continue.

What do you mean anymore? It's never brought change overnight, only after a long sustained campaign.

Fair enough. Take it up with them, if that was what they said, in the context of America. I missed any such in my skimreading. Btw if you want to start a raising awareness thread of what looks more like serious civil unrest in America it would probably be good for us all.

Some protests work then, some don’t. Suffragettes didn’t, Iraq didn’t, leaving the EU didn’t. proroguing parliament protests had some effect. Is it that protests only work when they are aligned to the interests of one of our simple binary groups in the corridors of power? Those that they have no interest in go nowhere. Which is part of the reason why ‘joining the system to change the system’ unfortunately does not work - another being that only the select few can join.