I'm pretty sure running over someone with a 50 ton earth mover would cause more than "road rash" and would be a bit against the law. Not saying I have a problem with puree of hippy mind you, should be more of it. Fuck the hippys, I've gotten stuck into a small group of them who were friends of friends, they had just come back from protesting the Tarkine Link Road in Western Tas. They fit the stereotype to a tee, dreds, ponchos, brown cords, scraggly beards etc. I asked them what they were trying to achieve, saving the Tarkine or looking cool to their friends? They got upset, I went onto explain that middle Australia (the target demographic), would take one look at them on the news and immediately write them off as smelly waste of skin hippys and flush their message accordingly. I made the point if they all presented as clean cut, middle to upper class kids (who they all fucking were) people would stop and take heed. This would increase the chance of achieving the goal of saving the forest. They disagreed, because “people should be able to dress however they like “ etc I stopped trying to be constructive and amused myself at their expense. Hippys are easy to fire up.
I accidentally walked through both the huge tea party rally in DC and had no idea what was going on. I think if I lived there I would have to get a megaphone and just stand next to people and just shout the next crazier thing I can think of. Think God hates fags? I agree. In fact, God is so pro-hetero that he also hates men who like ugly women or women with small tits. No blood for oil? Absolutely! 100% guaranteed safety on oil rigs and for people who drive gas trucks or no oil at all! A bit more on focus, I helped organize one of those annoying student rallies while at 'Bama. My roommates were all music majors, planning to be band teachers, and I was in high school band with them. The city was planning to cut music programs, so we got a ton of people to show up at a school board meeting with signs and stuff. Mine read "What Would Jesus Fund?" It got me on the news. A couple months back I went to a Roy Moore rally (he was the Alabama Chief Justice who got removed from office after putting up the 10 Commandments monument and ignoring a federal court order to remove it). He was running for governor (lost the primary, 4th place), and I just went to see that much concentrated insanity. I was not disappointed. There was also a Christian country-rock band. I don't know how anyone can enjoy anything so preachy. I think I may go over to the Fire Nancy Pelosi rally tomorrow. It's fun to watch the crazy people, but awkward to interact with them, because it's as though they don't understand that moderates exist.
Subject: I WILL SCREAM UNTIL YOU AGREE WITH ME! ….aaannndd after that is where we part company. I agree with both you and frylock that the vast majority of protesters only do it for their own personal gains or self satisfaction (sound familiar 60’s draft dodging hippies?) However I believe that you marginalize your own argument when you say that its “engineered to make white people feel good about themselves in one way or another” you are excluding a shit ton of self important jagoffs. I have a sneaking suspicion that you are an agnostic liberal….correct? While there is nothing wrong with that at all, (I am a west coast asshole) I feel that it is clouding your assessment of political activism today, as the current climate does not fit your idological bent. I am possibly wrong here but I believe that your anger and arguably racist comments were directed toward the tea party movement. If I am wrong then please accept my apologies. However political activism did not begin with the civil rights movement and end on haight ashbury. Should all the20 something middle class assholes fighting for “tree rights” or other such nonsense be cast into the black void of stupid..Fuck and Yes. However when the very people that support this fragile system take time off of work (Hippies: work is something that you do to earn money which you then exchange for goods or services) to turn out to protest the very direction that the country is headed, then I would argue that that is a very powerful form of political activism. These are not people with a silver spoon and nothing better to do that day, they passionately believe in what they are doing. They are not just “put in their one afternoon of standing around like jackasses, and go home to nap in a cocoon of smug self-satisfaction.” That is exactly what college age plastic hippies do. I realize that the above could have me mistaken for a tea party schill (which I am not, I believe they are actually doing more harm than good to the Libertarian movement) but the tea party is the current example that true political activism is not dead in America. Does it have its share of ignorant whack jobs,(I'm looking at you Glenn beck) hell yes. Did the civil rights movement, yes, just not as well publicized. Did the original hippies, ahh yup. The whack jobs in each group do not diminish the movements original intent and purpose. Can they diminish the public perception of the movement, yes (hey Beck, Jackson, Sharpton, Limbaugh, I need to see you after class. Oh, and bring those batshit insane ladies from code pink, peta, and madd with you) And to your argument that more lobbyists should be hired...isn't that just promoting business as usual, and the very reason a lot of people are in the street? Finally, whether we agree with it or not, healthy debate and activism is necessary on both sides of the spectrum in order for us to move forward. Once again, political activism did not begin with the civil rights movement and end on haight & ashbury.
No it doesn't mean they were wrong to publish it in the first place. That's not my point. The newspaper, and he, had every right to do what they did. That doesn't mean he had a GOOD reason to do it. He knew it was just to get a rise out of Muslim students, and they weren't burning him in effigy, or touting extremist views. The guy just wanted attention.
Well, seeing as how people make things like the Piss Christ and go "Hurr hurr hurr I'm being offensive" and no one goes and kills them, I'd say that you're wrong. Yes, if you do something offensive to a Christian, you're probably going to either get him to storm off or give you a mouthful of preachy bile, but you definitely aren't going to get huge riots that kill dozens of people. Hell, there have been dozens of political cartoons in widely read newspapers that criticize the Catholic church, many in bigoted and offensive ways, and the Pope hasn't called any Crusades against the New York Times. Why? Because our idea of a Christian extremist is actually pretty moderate compared to the crowds of nutcases saying that the enemies of Islam will drown in their own blood. There are a few ridiculous exceptions, like the abortion clinic bombers and the Westboro Baptist Church, but as a whole, while preachy, fundamentalist Christians are harmless prudish dumbasses. This thread is going to get locked soon. It's just too hard to avoid politics in a thread about political protest. Back on topic: I love watching that Penn and Teller video where they get a bunch of hippies to sign a petition banning dihydrogen monoxide. "It's in baby food, and power plant companies use it to cool their nuclear reactors!" Makes me smile to see so much good-intentioned stupidity.
That's all I was saying. No reason to get angry. Of course he doesn't have a duty to uphold the tenant. Never did I say that, and while I don't know what the Muslim students thought, I don't think they were forcing their beliefs on him by protesting. The guy wanted to get a rise. My ONLY point, was that he did it to make people angry, it wasn't constructive, and he didn't make any points that hadn't already been made.
I'm not saying offend them. The poster before me said it was ridiculous for Muslims to feel that non-Muslims have to follow their religious practices and ideas. Most people would probably agree with this. I'm trying to be as apolitical as possible, but there is a small minority in this country that feel that everyone, regardless of religion, should follow tenets imposed by Christianity or the Bible. Hence, my tongue-in-cheek joke.
I went to University of California Santa Cruz, which is a hippie, ultra leftist school that loves to protest over anything. I also knew many people who went to Berkeley, and have been there during their protests as well. For most people, especially college aged kids, it really is about protesting. They tend to know fuck all about what they are protesting, and only offer vague platitudes and rhyming chants. Ultimately the protests that consist of college aged kids fails for a specific reason: The fact that they don't have specific goals. Usually what will start out as a protest revolving around a specific thing that raises their ire, lets go with the most recent from my alma mater: increased tuition. However what it descended into was: 1. the normal people who are legitimately upset about having to pay more money 2. the people who show up just to protest 3. The people who show up to protest their particular flavor of what ever they believe in.You will see signs at a protest about increased tuition ranging from "Legalize gay marriage" "Legalize it" "George Bush is a nazi" 4. People who turn up to wreck shit. Now the protest was about the increased tuition. Here was the list of demands released: (Remember this was about making school affordable) I will highlight everything that will cost more in red, and I will explain why some are stupid. This is because of what I have said earlier. There is a lack of ability for large groups of people to focus on a single issue at hand. Spoiler 1) Repeal of the 32% fee increase Ok. I understand. It is a big increase 2) Stop all current construction on campusThey want to stop construction because it is for the sciences, and not for womyn's studies(yes they spell it that way)and they want to "keep the current flavor of campus. Why will it cost money? We took out bonds for these buildings. No matter what we have to pay for them. Therefore your demand costs money 3) UC funds and budget are made transparentThey already are public. Every last cent can be tracked. 4) Verbal and written commitment to Master Plan. Apparently they want to kill the jews 5) Total Amnesty to all people occupying buildings and involved in student protest concerning budget cuts including: Doug G., and Bryan Glasscock and Olivia Egan-Rudolph 6) Keep all resource centers open: E Squared, Women's Resource Center, and all other diversity centers Keep underused campus resources open. Smart. And you wonder why your tuition goes up? 7) Keep the campus child-care center open This costs money people. Where is it going to come from if you aren't willing to pay more fees? 8) Repeal cuts to the Community Studies Field Program 9) Re-funding the CMMU field studies coordinator positions 10) Get verbal and written agreement from Admins to shut-down campus for one day for the purpose of educating students on the budget cuts Basically they just wanted a day off from class. 11) Said support for AB656. Wait, we had to get 11 points in through bullshit until they asked for support for an assembly bill to increase funding to the university? Fucking morons. 12) Said commitment to work-study for all who are eligible 13) Making UCSC a safe campus for all undocumented (AB540) students and workers What the fuck does this have to do with increased tuition? 14) Keeping LALS professors Guillermo Delgado and Susan Jonas Again: What the fuck does this have to do with increased tuition? 15) Repeal all furloughs to all campus employees, renege the 15% cut in labor time for custodians Where are you going to get the money without increasing fees? 16) Stop the gutting of funding for fellowships and TAships and the re-instatement of TAs who lost their jobs due the budget cuts from this quarter 17) Re-prioritizing funding so that essential student services i.e. the library get adequate funding to ensure regular library hours 18) Censure Mark Yudof This is the chancellor who has been busting his ass since he got in to get more money for the universities wherever he couls. But like petulant children, they just look at whoever is in charge as responsible. 19) Un-arming UC police of all weapons including taser What the fuck does this have to do with reduced fees? 20) No SCPD (the city police) police on allowed on campusSo what happens if a kid goes nuts and starts shooting. Campus PD can't do shit disarmed. City PD can't come up) 21) An apology from the regents and the state 22) Creating a free and permanent organizing space on campus for student activists and organizers (first option : Kresge Town Hall) 23) Due process for students: 1. trial by peers 2. constitutional rights for students tried under the UC Judicial System 24) Making rent affordable for Family Student Housing, ensuring that the price does not exceed that of operating costs Long Term: 1) No student fees 2) Return to Master Plan 3) Abolition of Regents positions 4) Abolition of all student debts 5) Tripling of funds from the State to public universities. Where will the money come from. This is consistent with just about every protest I have seen. As you can tell by looking, they are demanding things that counter their own goals, and then fill it with nonsense that has nothing to do with what the topic at hand is. Can you imagine if the Civil Rights protesters in the 1960's also demanded a laundry list of things that have nothing to do with their cause? They would have foundered like a quadruple amputee in the ocean. They had a set of clear demands. Equal rights. The same rights as every white person has. Clear, honest direct. And that is why they won.
Sub-focus/ Anti-focus? I just found out today that in two weeks the Westboro Baptist Church is coming to the high school right down the road from my college for a protest. As is their right, I have no disagreement on that point. However, I still intend to go there, find Fed Phelps, and punch him squarely in the fucking face. Yes, I will be arrested. Yes, I still feel that it will be totally worth it. Fuck those people. From what I hear, their leader is a lawyer who tries to fund their cause by suing all the people that assault them at these things. Good news on that front is I'm a 21 year-old college student. Sue me. You can't bleed a stone.
I'm a big fan of hunger strikes because they are so often misunderstood by the people undertaking them. For a hunger strike to be effective, someone has to give a shit about you. That's what made Gandhi's strikes so effective, he was so beloved in India that the British didn't want him to die in their custody, and later that both Hindus and Muslims didn't want to have his blood on their hands by perpetuating the conflict that was causing him to fast. But your yuppie middle class "cause"? Go fuck yourself. 99% of you don't have the willpower to go through with it, so who gives a crap if you even start, and the remaining 1%, well we just don't care if you kill yourself. We won't feel guilty in the slightest. From Wikipedia on Barry Horne: Nice job asshole. I'm sure the animals thank you for your tremendous sacrifice, but the humans just went from thinking you were a tosser to thinking you were a dead tosser.
Some jackfucks at my school went on a hunger strike. They didn't eat any food. Well except for liquids. Like juice, and milkshakes, and smoothies. I was pretty sad, because I was hoping they would die of starvation.
As usual, The Onion says it best. I live in DC and have seen a lot of protests. On multiple occasions I've been woken out of a drunken coma because some group is walking down 6th street while yelling and beating drums. My most memorable experience came about three years ago during a big anti-war protest that was walking from the White House to the Capitol. I went to go see it with a couple of friends who were visiting me. We ambled around, bought hot dogs from a street vendor, and somehow- I'm don't remember exactly how it came to be- found ourselves caught between the anti-war protesters and the anti-anti war protesters. Both sides thought we were the other group. The next few minutes were very loud: "Nazi Fascist!" "Hey Faggots!" "Fuck you, fucking baby killer!" "Traitor! Go back to Russia!" In the end, we managed to push our way through to the other side of the anti-war protesters and found ourselves free of any kind of protesters. Then we went to the bar. I love the idea of the Stewart/Colbert rallies, and I'm hoping to go to one or both of them. I'm thinking about making a sign like "Ezekiel 25:17" or "All glory to the Hypnotoad." Suggestions are welcome.
I'm just going to cut the shit and say what I want to say. I've already made clear my feelings about the never-obeyed 'no politics' rule. If you have to delete this, delete it. The Tea Party Movement is not political activism. It's a demographically defined reaction to a Democratic congress that contains as much opposition to the social realities of 21st century America as it does to actual governmental policy. They can call themselves "grassroots" all they want, but the moment they (in their many forms) allowed themselves to be co-opted by opportunistic individuals looking to capitalize on waning support for mainstream political parties, they became a vehicle for the politicians who now speak for them and are being elected because of them. That's not protest. That's complicity with a system they claim to oppose, in conjunction with politicians they think they can trust, both of which will inevitably disappoint them. And that's the difference between Vietnam-era protesters and modern "activist" groups like the Tea Party. The moment they are discovered to possess any real power, there will be politicians swooping in to claim sympathy with the cause, armed with pre-existing clout and funding and a willingness to say anything to convince these people that their interests are a) legitimate and b) achievable, whether they are or are not. Lined up behind said politicians will be reporters waiting to publicize the group in whichever way suits them best. "Heroes", "crazies", "visionaries", "nutjobs", whatever buzzword it takes to catch the interest of their target audiences sitting at home. From humble beginning to sensational end, the stated goals of any given activist group anywhere on the political spectrum will be so thoroughly bastardized as to be rendered utterly impotent by the time it reaches the ears of the public. At this point, they are no longer protesters. They are entertainment. The louder and more real it appears, the better, which is why the Tea Party is such a goldmine. You were right to say that these are passionate people with genuine concern for their country, and that passion is reflected in the rallies they hold, the speeches they deliver, the quips and quotes and statements that are plastered on news websites every day, commented on by pundits every night, and satirized by Jon Stewart every week, all for our viewing pleasure. Now Under The Big Top: Real Live Protesters! Angry! Yelling! Out of their league! Only Five Cents Admission! If they wanted to remain sincere activists instead of zoo attractions, they would have publicly denounced the support of any individual who has ever held public office in the United States, or who has ever been a member of the mainstream media . They did not because they figured out pretty damn quickly that they could not. That is the reality of modern American politics, and why I made the comment about hiring a lobbyist. One way or another, if you want your voice heard, you're going to have to hire someone to speak for you. One way or another, they will inject their own personal interests into your cause. And, one way or another, you will owe them for it. This goes for any group, anywhere, professing any ideology. Genuine, for-the-people-by-the-people American political activism is as dead as the Kennedy brothers.
Focus: I was born in 1983 so every protest I have been to was a waste. Even the protest I went to in Canberra with my father, at the age of 8 or so, trying to draw attention to the war in Croatia. No-one cares about slavs. But I was down there a year later when a whole group of the Croatian diaspora was building the embassy for the new country to help their newly independent homeland. Cooler than "walking with hundreds of thousands of douchebags screaming about the Prime Minister/President/whoever being a cunt" and actually demonstrative of the importance of the issue to those who protested the year before. The most effective protest in recent times that I can think of? When Milosevic tried to ignore the results of the 2000 election in Serbia. <a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5th_October_Overthrow" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5th_October_Overthrow</a> My office is located right outside a popular protest spot here in Sydney, and the most irritating of the lot are Sri Lankan Tamils. Less people care about them than the slavs - yet they are the ones most determined to have 3 day long "hunger protests" which seem to be little more than a get together and camp out in the city accompanied by incomprehensible daka-laka gibberish
The reason I got angry is because you have zero reading comprehension. And this is relevant to the thread, because how many times do people go rabid for a cause which they don't understand or haven't considered within the 'big picture'? If you can, show me where I have used the words "50 ton earth mover", advocated breaking the law or putting people in danger of losing their life. You have certainly made out that I have. What I actually used as an example was people strapped to the bottom of a truck. As long as they're not on a drive shaft or wheel, the chances of getting seriously hurt are very small. And no, they're not on something hot; they strapped themselves to an already running truck. What you've done is a classic example of how people twist/misrepresent a set of circumstances and then act indignant and aggressive about them. If you add that to a bunch of ignorant assholes, you get the majority of bullshit protests that go around. We had massive problems here when the state government introduce fluoride to the water supply recently. Now, I don't know if it's beneficial or not; I'm no doctor or scientist. But we had people claiming all sorts of shit about how it was bad and would do this, that or the other and they were simply parroting what some crank had said. They may have been right, they may have been wrong; the point is they would have only been right or wrong by luck. They had zero comprehension or understanding of the degree of truth in their words. That is very dangerous.