1999 Seattle is a great example of this. Anti-globalization became part of mainstream media vocabulary, the organization saw enormous cost overruns, and another conference has not been held in a US city since.
It also achieved Martin Luther King and Gandhi style aims - pissing off the kind of people that reveal the violence of the system in situations where complacent people can more easily recognize it and sympathize with the oppressed. The city has settled with over a hundred activists, and a federal jury ruled that demonstrators’ fourth amendment rights had been violated.
This is actually a perfect example of what I meant as good activism. Blocking the diplomats trying to get to their let’s-fuck-up-the-world meetings, even if it basically brings the city to a standstill, was definitely targeted at the people who are causing the problem. It interferes directly and effectively with their ability to do their evil work. I think random commuters who are caught up in it and can’t get to where they’re going, honestly understand immediately that there’s something bigger going on. They may or may not agree with the protests and that’s fine, but for the most part they won’t see the protestors as directly their enemies.
If you’re just blocking some random highway at some random time, the chances are very small that you’re going to derail the WTO’s agenda in any way. The chances are guaranteed that you’re going to punish a bunch of people who are just trying to pay their rent, and they’re going to see it as exactly that. Their reaction (and its justifiedness, and the value of your action in the first place in terms of punishing the guilty parties) are going to be way different.
If you wanted to find out the route Mitch McConnell takes to work every morning, and block it every single day, that to me would sound like a wonderful step in the right direction.
1999 Seattle is a great example of this. Anti-globalization became part of mainstream media vocabulary, the organization saw enormous cost overruns, and another conference has not been held in a US city since.
It also achieved Martin Luther King and Gandhi style aims - pissing off the kind of people that reveal the violence of the system in situations where complacent people can more easily recognize it and sympathize with the oppressed. The city has settled with over a hundred activists, and a federal jury ruled that demonstrators’ fourth amendment rights had been violated.
This is actually a perfect example of what I meant as good activism. Blocking the diplomats trying to get to their let’s-fuck-up-the-world meetings, even if it basically brings the city to a standstill, was definitely targeted at the people who are causing the problem. It interferes directly and effectively with their ability to do their evil work. I think random commuters who are caught up in it and can’t get to where they’re going, honestly understand immediately that there’s something bigger going on. They may or may not agree with the protests and that’s fine, but for the most part they won’t see the protestors as directly their enemies.
If you’re just blocking some random highway at some random time, the chances are very small that you’re going to derail the WTO’s agenda in any way. The chances are guaranteed that you’re going to punish a bunch of people who are just trying to pay their rent, and they’re going to see it as exactly that. Their reaction (and its justifiedness, and the value of your action in the first place in terms of punishing the guilty parties) are going to be way different.
If you wanted to find out the route Mitch McConnell takes to work every morning, and block it every single day, that to me would sound like a wonderful step in the right direction.