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I was in downtown Toronto on February 15, 2003, freezing my ass off in a protest march of nearly 100,000 people who were, in turn, part of a global march of bet
by RyanMcGreal 15y ago
I was in downtown Toronto on February 15, 2003, freezing my ass off in a protest march of nearly 100,000 people who were, in turn, part of a global march of between 10 and 20 million people protesting the invasion of Iraq. It was the single biggest protest in history, and it was against a war that hadn't even started yet.
Popular protest against the Vietnam War didn't take off until the war had been grinding for several years.
- thebigshane 15y agoSorry if this is rubbing salt in a wound... but, that protest really didn't have any effect. Did it? I agree with Maddox here that both protests (while impressively sizable and passionate) were equally ineffective.
- RyanMcGreal 15y agoIt's an open (and probably unanswerable) question whether the invasion would have gone differently if not for all the popular global protest (though I can imagine that the US would have been less restrained if they knew the world wasn't watching). I was responding to the OP's contention that the Boomer generation was more committed to protesting in support of social justice than people are these days.
- unreal37 15y agoYes I remember that massive worldwide protest against the impending invasion of Iraq. But the US was still able to get 20+ countries to go with them into war. Based on the "get off your ass and actually do something" theory of the OP, why didn't this have any effect?
- mindslight 15y agoI remember that date, being in New York myself. Seeing the police embrace their militaristic fantasy of being under attack; seeing the futility of organized dissent when it came to changing the course of an autonomous government. That was my last protest. "Cypherpunks write code".