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"Why don't Americans protest?", everyone wonders... Edit to clarify: perhaps the various sentiments described in the replies didn't come about entirely organic
by anonymars 10mo ago
"Why don't Americans protest?", everyone wonders...
Edit to clarify: perhaps the various sentiments described in the replies didn't come about entirely organically
- kelseyfrog 10mo agoI had a conversation about this with my French teacher a few months ago It was striking how different our outlooks were on the effectiveness of protests. Her position was that together, she and her fellow protesters _could_ enact change. When I look around, the stench of preconsigned defeat permeates the space. We've lived in it for so long that we've become blind to it. We've learned to be helpless. Not to mention, when a fresh face inevitably proposes large scale action, the responses always include FUD about needing to solve the poverty issue first so that participants can even attend such action. The end result is that it's stopped at the idea stage, nothing changes, and six months later a new freah face will repeat the cycle. Part of the issue is that without social safety nets, much of the public is afraid that missing a week to a month of work will guarantee them homelessness.
- antonymoose 10mo agoI feel like, historically, protests have beared fruit in America for leftist / progressive causes. Everything from Suffragettes and Civil Rights / anti-Vietnam to the Floyd protests of the modern day. Maybe they didn’t overthrow an entire government but the marked forward progress of each one is clear.
- asveikau 10mo agoI feel there is currently a bit of of internalized propaganda about protests being stupid or worse. Witness any cause which involves protesting by blocking the street. You get an army of internet trolls talking up the idea that this is somehow evil. In the civil rights era, events like crossing bridges on foot were a key feature, done by people like Martin Luther King. In the modern era, if you see a protest on the golden gate bridge as an example, they'll be called terrorists and people will advocate for violence against them.
- watersb 10mo ago35 years ago, protesters blocked the Golden Gate Bridge. I'm pretty sure they were protesting the war with Iraq (Bush the First) in response to Iraq's invasion and capture of oil wells in Kuwait. But far more clear is my memory of the searing rage of a coworker that day. She was flying on it, the hatred coming out of her mouth. It shocked me for a couple of reasons. She was close in age to me, just out of school. I think that my college years had led me to presume to most young people would be more sympathetic to opposition of general warfare. There was lots of talk of forcing military enlistment among people our age. But the main reason was that the trigger for her rage was the temporary threat to her right to drive her car wherever she wanted to. You think Americans are nuts about their guns, don't you ever threaten their right to kill people with cars. Any sympathy she could have felt for the protesters' cause was gone because they blocked a highway.
- cool_dude85 10mo agoAnd nowadays, if this happened in Florida, she could pretty credibly run the protesters down in the street and avoid even getting charged.
- ThrowawayTestr 10mo agoUnpopular opinion but blocking traffic is akin to cutting power lines. Don't fuck with people's utilities.
- nebula8804 10mo agoI've been thinking about them recently. Did any of them "directly" threaten capital? I'd argue that Suffragettes and Civil Rights ultimately helped capital. Maybe anti-Vietnem since it directly affected defense contractors income streams?
- pixelready 10mo agoI believe this is the intended effect of maintaining some level of homelessness and unemployment in American policy decisions. Full employment and suffering reduction through a strong safety net are the correct moral imperatives, but they reduce the leverage of a central authority. You can see whose priorities win out. I think there is a soft self-destruction happening among millennials and beyond in the US and similar societies. They have been so worn down by living in a system that refuses to invest properly in them that they are taking the fatalist route of simply refusing to participate in the building of a future. Limited procreation, disengaging from politics or mindlessly bandwagoning demagogues, deaths of despair, etc… it’s not universal but the trend lines are certainly worrying.
- rhelz 10mo agoCan't speak for everybody, but maybe it has something do with hundreds of thousands of us being laid off, and we're just too busy trying not to go under.
- ChromaticPanic 10mo agoThis is why people need to be protesting not the other way around.
- ch4s3 10mo agoI think many American movements tend to take on an everything bagel quality and it becomes too unclear what the actual demands are and what any politician could do to achieve the goal.