Note that this includes things like strikes and boycotts. Obviously non-violent but many people complain immediately when a protest inconveniences their commute by 10 minutes or something.
We’ve got this warped idea that a proper protest is when some people gather in some designated area that the authorities allow them to, and they don’t inconvenience anyone. That’s absurd when you consider what a protest is about.
>They’re a lot of people willing to grind society to a halt over any perceived slight, across all ideologies…let us just unleash the craze then.
That's how society works. Except law enforcement filters out the craze below certain thresholds. Past that threshold, disruptive protests becomes referendums on changing norms. A cause with sufficient support to sustain disruptive protest in face of maximum state power corners power into political change to establish new normal where discontentment/disruption is again below threshold of law enforcement. When multple crazes compete, the more disruptive/sustaining one wins out according to local conditions, that's why tribes/interests/policies break down by geography - when some faction of crazies win the disruption game and carve out their own little bubbles. While it's nice to settle things with debate/voting/process, but such system is easily rigged, and ultimately it's the 2nd derivative expression of violence, the source of power. At some point people will chose to fight power with power.
I don't agree with them and I don't think it's very nice, but anti-abortion protestors can and do scream at people walking into clinics or imply they're working with the clinic and hand out misleading brochures and "gifts." That's their right.
Sometimes they break the law by blocking doors or shoving people (or worse) and get arrested. That's their right too.
Sometimes they break the law and don't get arrested because local law enforcement is sympathetic to their cause. That is a problem. Otherwise, sure, they can protest in ways that inconvenience people.
> local law enforcement is sympathetic to their cause. That is a problem.
Regardless of your political views, I would say that yes indeed it is, local law enforcement is too sympathetic to many popular causes. We have witnessed it with BLM burning and looting stores, Pro Palestinian encampments harassing Jews and Churches being burned down.
No one would be complaining if the law was equally enforced, unfortunately it isn't and it very much depends on the local politics. People get upset when they feel like certain groups are granted privileges for breaking the law whilst dissenting voices not so much.
Not really interested in semantics. Intentionally breaking the law (and accepting the consequences) is often called civil disobedience and I don't fundamentally have a problem with it.
It’s just breaking the law, and is criminal. “Civil disobedience” is just a false way to minimize the fact that they’re acting unlawfully. They have ways to make change legally. If that doesn’t work they need to accept it, not decide to destroy society.
You wish civil rights hadn’t succeeded as much as it did? You think increased investment in the war in Vietnam would have been useful? Regret women getting the vote? Since long before Thoreau, people have used civil disobedience to rouse the common sense of right and wrong to have laws changed.
Any man who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community on the injustice of the law is at that moment expressing the very highest respect for the law.
"The Law" isn't some fundamental property like the speed of light. And its not handed down from all powerful all knowing deities. It's an agreement between members of a society about how things should work and it evolves and changes along with the people. When the written law no longer matches what the population wants, its not really "the law" anymore - its a shackle that to be freed from.
> Otherwise, sure, they can protest in ways that inconvenience people.
It’s not just an inconvenience and I dislike this type of minimization. Breaking the law isn’t okay - we have laws as a society for reason. There are legal ways to protest and argue for change. Standing on a sidewalk and speaking (within noise limitations) is okay in most jurisdictions, provided you aren’t blocking others from passing through. But taking over shared infrastructure like roads or airports or universities is not okay. No one is entitled to abuse society just because they’re unhappy that their views aren’t heard. At least in the US, there are many other ways to convince others peacefully.
You have to be careful you are not sliding into Intolerance for views etc that you don't agree with. Its a very contagious disease these days. People are losing the ability to negotiate and compromise.
In most areas, causes from the right aren’t treated similarly. And it also seems odd that the number of participants matters at all - if you take over some place as an individual, you’ll be arrested. But if there’s 50 of you, that may not happen. The ability to selectively enforce the law based on viewpoint or situation is a hole in our system.
This is called freedom. If you have difficulty with others expressing their freedom, you don’t believe in it. And I say that as someone who thinks that anti abortion protesters are among the stupidest fucking people in North America.
Freedom to deprive others of their own freedoms? Everyone has freedom of movement... until some bloody idiot decides to blockade a bridge over their pet cause.
Those freedoms are freedoms from the government not your civilian peers. The laws enshrining freedoms do so to prevent government overreach, which is part of the reason we have corporations running the show
> Would you say the same for an anti-abortion protest or something similar?
Is your point that since I presumably am pro-choice (correct) since this is a more liberal forum I will disagree with this point? Well I don’t. The same principles apply. Those who want to illegalize abortion or whatever have to follow the same principles.
> We’ve got this warped idea that a proper protest is when some people gather in some designated area that the authorities allow them to, and they don’t inconvenience anyone. That’s absurd when you consider what a protest is about.
OK, fine, but you also don't get to decide how other people interpret your actions. You can fuss and bother about how trivial it is to you that someone's commute got delayed by 10 minutes, but if you're pissing off the person you're trying to get your message to, you're still shooting yourself in the foot.
Persuasion is contextual; you don't get to dictate someone else's feelings and you don't get to force them to see things your way.
That you can’t will other people into feeling a certain way seems quite besides the point.
There’s first of all the point that the sibling comment made (bongodongobob). There’s also the second point of solidarity. Now for those who are too politically liberal to understand that word: it’s about standing together with your fellow person based on some commonality, knowing/trusting that they will also have your back in other contexts. Which could translate to bearing some discomfort because you sympathize with their cause or think that their cause is proximal to your own (see: first they came for X but I didn’t do anything because I’m not X).
This can be seen even in my social democratic country when there is some large strike. Say airport workers. Then the media will immediately be on the prowl, asking leading questions to would-be vacationers about how horrible this strike must be. The more solidaristic ones may choose to bear that burden because they feel that they share a common cause.
Someone who can't be convinced to endure minor inconvenience for a cause is not someone worth persuading.
>yon't get to dictate someone else's feelings and you don't get to force them to see things your way
No, but you can certainly try to inconvenience them until they take action, whether that means pressuring government to capitulate or crackdown. Disruptive protests tend to already assumes it swayed enough minds to go disruptive, the ultimate goal is not to persuade fence sitters but persuade power.
> if you're pissing off the person you're trying to get your message to, you're still shooting yourself in the foot.
"Squeaky Wheels Get the Grease" And if they're inconveniencing you, suddenly the thing you care about is making them go away. And what's the best way to make them go away? To make your local politicians do something about them. Often times the demands are easier to capitulate to than to continue suffering the inconveniences that make your constituents upset that people are angry.
Nope, that's the point. Protests aren't intended to gain allies. It's to put pressure on those in charge. Pissing people off and interrupting commerce is literally the point.
The protest itself may not be about gaining allies, but protests depend on being able to gain allies if those in charge meet them with enough force to stop them.
If protests go too far, to the point where the general public will cheer for anyone putting the protesters in jail for a decade, the protest is going to be ineffective.
There's something profoundly insulting about protesters treating the general public as a simple means to an end, instead of potential allies to connect with. The way I see it, if I believe my cause is righteous, then I'd be doing it a deep disservice by presenting it in the most alienating way possible. I should want to bring people over to my side. Otherwise, it shows I'm not serious---that the cause itself is secondary to my conviction, that I'd rather be seen fighting than go home a victor.
Ok well go protest in a place that isn't visible and doesn't cause any problems. Let me know how it works when no one can see or care. Protesting isn't holding signs. It's disrupting things. Look at the French and German protests right now. That's how you get change.
It's absurd when it doesn't inconvenience anyone who can do what the protest is about. It's like when UK schoolkids "went on strike for the planet". No one who could've done anything was bothered, and no one who could do something about it in the future was educated.
I assume this is parody, but just in case it's not: I am not someone who can do something about this, other than what I'm already doing. A schoolchild "going on strike" is not anything. Other than a less educated schoolchild.
Good thing you're not the single person who became aware of the climate strike! I suspect many of the politicians who can actually influence things also remember the massive school strikes. Many protests are designed to raise awareness in addition to the 'stretch goal' of achieving direct results - so demonstrating that hundreds of thousands of school kids are this focused on the topic is a pretty good outcome even if some of the random people who were vaguely aware of the strikes can't do anything to help their demands. Said another way, it's not about you.
> so demonstrating that hundreds of thousands of school kids are this focused on the topic is a pretty good outcome
I'm sure that 15 years after the "strike" when they all hit voting age this may become useful information, but the politicians today are probably not thinking that far ahead.
> Said another way, it's not about you.
This seems breathtakingly silly. I'm not saying it is about me.
> I assume this is parody, but just in case it's not: I am not someone who can do something about this, other than what I'm already doing.
Maybe other people aren't already doing those things. Maybe some people saw these kids and thought, "You know, those kids are right. I should do something about that."
Are they talking about it "the right way" though? I think there's a hidden cost to associate your cause with negativity, even if it will be remembered.
What in the world could possibly be negative about school kids walking out of school in protest for two or three days? The 'tone policing' of other people's direct action is so tiresome.
> What in the world could possibly be negative about school kids walking out of school in protest for two or three days?
They a) think all protesting is the same as doing something, when actually only specific protesting does something, and b) aren't learning something real that would help them become better at really helping with this issue one day.
Because "literally all the adult population" can't, as you seem to imply, do anything about it?
Protest is not always about immediately having your demands met. It's nearly always part of a longer game. And if you're a 16 year old who has no financial leverage, no job to strike from, no company to make different decisions with, and who won't be able to vote for another 2 years, raising an issue with the people that can doesn't seem like such a bad idea.
Besides, these protests got younger generations' voices into mainstream TV and newspapers. That's more than "appropriate" protest ever did.
Genuinely: what do you know about effective protesting? Are you speaking from experience as a successful organizer who got legislation passed or local policies reformed due to your activism? Do you have sociological papers on the phenomenon maybe, are you a journalist who investigates this? Your criticisms would have more weight if I had a better idea from which the experience you had to make these criticisms.
I genuinely want to know their experience in organizing to get better context as to their expertise. They are the one making claims about what works and doesn't work. I don't know jack shit about organizing, so I'd like to know if I should take their opinion as an educated one or a layman.
Think of it this way. Say a group of people are protesting a Walmart being built in their downtown district. People are out in the streets, traffic is jammed up, and "people who can't do anything about it" get pissed off. Commuters are mad, the local businesses are mad. So these people "who can't do anything about it" call their alderman, mayor, whatever "You need to do something about these protests, it's affecting my business/commute".
It adds pressure for those in charge to capitulate and stop the protests. I don't know why this is so hard for people to understand.
Edit: I can't reply to the comment below this for some reason, but ok they send the police to break up protests against Walmart. Which looks absolutely terrible. "Our mayor sides with Walmart over the people." That adds to the narrative and is paradoxically possible a net positive for the protestors.
I don't think that's what's been happening. The protestors have been so annoying, blocking amubulances, etc, that they are definitely making their causes look bad. And on video.
You aren’t entitled to break the law, steal from others, hold them hostage on highways, etc just because your view is not popular. That’s what illegal protests / riots are - people who are so entitled that they think they’re allowed to do whatever they want until they get their way. That’s not acceptable in a civil society and they should face harsh consequences for it.
Do you disagree with the illegal marches and blocking of traffic during the protests to grant black people and women the right to vote in the united states? Should women who illegally march for the right to vote be "harshly" consequenced?
This is a false equivalence. Those same groups have the same rights today as others, and can push for change within the bounds of our law. In the past they couldn’t vote, but that’s not the case now. Likewise people protesting Israel-Palestine or Trump or whatever have ways to share ideas, influence, vote, and legally protest. If they aren’t getting what they want, it is because their ideas are unpopular and they need to accept that. They aren’t entitled to an audience and aren’t entitled to breaking the law just because they didn’t get their way.
In order to gain these rights, women and black people illegally protested. Famously, a black woman didn't agree to be moved to the back of the bus during racial segregation-- illegally, of course! How harshly should Rosa Parks have been consequenced?
Seriously, what's the difference here? They're doing illegal protests same as like when women illegally protested. If you want to punish some students harshly, you should also support jailing Rosa Parks, no?
Oh - I see. It's extremely easy. Disrupting people who can't do anything about it in a way that turns the focus on you being the problem, not politicians, will mean that politicians will not be affected by the disruption.
No, they complain to the politicians. Then they have to decide whether or not they beat the shit out of people with police or grant their wish. Protests are not about gaining allies, they are strictly about disruption.
My main complaints with protests these days is that they seem to be astroturfed to keep the discontent people busy with protest that cannot bring about any meaningful local changes. Either they are about far away things happening in the world, or they are about vague ideas with no concrete steps to achieve any meaningful impact.
You may want to reconsider your stance on blocking ambulances in case you ever find yourself in one, needlessly dying because of someone else's political cause who will hand-wave the end of your life away as a mere inconvenience
Literally just gainsaying someone on the internet about their insurance. And your gainsay is hedged without actually providing them with some resource they could use to inform them?
You're really making a contribution with this comment. /s
I suspect that I will think very irrationally in a life or death situation, like for example blaming protesters for that. Thankfully I’m not in such a situation right now which means that I can assess the situation in terms of likelihood of doing harm.
I don't get what you're trying to say here. If protestors block you from getting to a hospital and you die as a result, it's irrational to blame them for your death?
Why is that absurd? In most countries, including the US, protests are only allowed under certain conditions. You can’t do things like take over public infrastructure. Such protests are violent, not peaceful, and should be treated as such. I think it’s absurd that some people think that they’re owed an audience for their unpopular ideas. They can use normal discussions and the political system to convince others. But stealing from them (their time and therefore money) is not okay.
Why is it absurd? Because protests are popular (populus) means of compelling someone, like the authorities. So playing by the rules of the authorities is absurd. Of course the authorities have the incentive to make the protests as neutered as possible.
It’s it just authorities. Most people don’t want to hear about the cause of some random protester. Stealing their time is a crime. When protests involve illegal acts, they’re riots not just protests. It’s compelling someone by force. Do I have the right to come occupy your home because you don’t share my ideas? If not why would that be okay elsewhere? We have existing, legal avenues for both lawful protest and political change that people can use.
Oh shit! Is it? Can I finally arrest tourists for walking slowly in my city? They bother me way more than the occasional protest does (less than once a month, while tourists are in my way every day I go outside)!
"Inconveniencing people" is such a...polite? take, which I don't agree with.
* Wife in labor, need to get to the hospital. Stuck in traffic for hours. Mom and/or baby die.
* Job interview, been unemployed for 8 months, late, stuck in traffic for hours. No job.
* Ambulance trying to rush a patient in critical condition to hospital. Stuck in traffic. Dead.
* Trying to pick kid up from daycare. Hours late, huge fee, kicked out of daycare, possibly lose job.
I can keep going.
Let us assume for a second that all the above scenarios are people who are neutral to the cause of the protest. Now they hate the cause of the protest, along with all of the people who felt second-order effects from the "inconvenienced" people.
"Inconveniencing people" is such an arrogant, selfish, self-centered way to view a protest that can have lasting consequences. Accepting that at collateral damage is, frankly, bullshit.
I said what I meant. My experience is informed by examples of people complaining about inconveniences in the literal (not as a euphemism or as a downplay) way.
I can’t help you if you get enraged by hypothetical scenarios.
> "I'm gonna try to get through," Scott said. "My daughter needs me. She's got four little ones there and I'm supposed to be helping take care of them while she's working."
> "Our poor Uber driver," said Brianna & Brienne, two passengers visiting from out of town.
Okay. You certainly have more of a right to be incensed over a grandparent being kept from his babysitting compared to hypotheticals where mothers, babies, and critical-care patients are dying.
I have not and I will not complain about people complaining about real inconveniences when they happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time through no fault of their own.
And all of this doesn’t change the fact that protests should not be discouraged or be made unlawful (although apparently according to that state trooper it already is) considering that protesters have quite important things that they are protesting themselves, according to their own thinking. From that link (one of the “poor Uber driver” girls):
> "Yes it's an inconvenience," Brienne added. "But it's also inconvenient to be inconvenient to a human being in Gaza right now."
I have an issue with collateral damage in the name of a cause. I meant what I said, it is arrogant to decide "my protest is more important than ANYTHING you could be doing right now, because I said so"
It's just fucked up. Protest your face off, don't stop everyone else from getting on with their day.
The bit about peaceful protest being more successful than violent ones is misleading.
People go for violence after the peaceful discussions have failed or aren't possible (I see terrorist orgs in that same boat, there's no middle ground to discuss in the first place). And if these people didn't have the power to move the needle through standard negociation, they'll rarely have more power in a violent fight so they're usually bound to fail from the beginning.
It's all the more true in regimes where the target of the protest has the mean to physically crush the whole population.
> The bit about peaceful protest being more successful than violent ones is misleading.
I haven't read the full article but my impression halfway thru was that it wasn't just a bit about _nonviolent_ protest (which I wouldn't say is the same as _peaceful_ protest), but rather that is the whole premise of the article.
Some people, e.g., Gandhi and MLK Jr, did not go for violence after peaceful negotiations failed, while others at the same time _believed_ such negotiations had failed. But just because someone feels hopeless and believes such negotiations have failed doesn't mean they actually have.
For MLK I see it as a more complex situation, where his movement's peaceful promise shines that bright _because_ the other active movements don't shy away from embracing violence and are a credible threat in case MLK's supporters moved away in mass from his ideology.
People kept supporting him because hope was still there, and his death gave way to riots that just couldn't be ignored, giving the smallest glimpse of what would keep going if rapid change wasn't enacted.
I'm not versed enough in India's history to comment.
Fair, at least from what I learned in the movie Gandhi, which may or may not be accurate, it seemed that both MLK and Gandhi led the force for nonviolence and once they were no longer alive, the nonviolent coalitions seemed to dissipate somewhat or significantly.
I hypothesize because they were talking about nonviolence and people assumed by that they wanted peace and I think these leaders wanted love. I recently have been thinking a lot that there's almost a war between love and peace, where people who want love want to work together to resolve conflict and people who want peace want to get rid of conflict, often by working against each other.
And if you exclude children and people who generally don't participate in politics, elections and social causes (easily >50% of the population) then the 3.5% number is magnified significantly more.
Protest is illegal in most cities in the U.S. This is because the 1st doesn't specify how it can be used. Therefore cities will require permits and move people to areas where the protest is ineffective. Even if its illegal, no one actually follows the law. It's based on what that administration chooses to follow.
I know this is a popular take right now, but it's actually just wrong.
The 1st amendment absolutely protects your right to protest in the US. But practically you do have to be in the right courtroom for that to be meaningful.
I can't speak to "most cities". What is effectiveness in this context? Shutting down a road, or making it clear that many people are troubled with whatever they are protesting?
Twelve million people not working, no matter where they assemble, are going to make the politicians change something in order to placate their corporate bosses.
Pretty skeptical of a floating "3.5%" figure without any additional context. NYT estimates that 15-26 million people participated in the protests following George Floyd's murder. That breaks the 3.5% threshold, and I don't think we have seen a whole lot of serious police reform in the US since then.
Well over 3.5% of Syria’s population fought back against their oppressive regime (peacefully, before the government reacted with violence), but I guess this rule doesn’t account for dictators willing to use biological weapons and call in foreign mercenaries and air strikes from Iran and Russia in a desperate bid to cling to power.
So I suppose there needs to be some rule of law or a red line the people you are fighting back against won’t cross.
I really want to believe in this but I bet you the study has some major methodological flaws regarding all protests that end up in nothing.
I live in venezuela, we've had millions of people on the streets multiple times and we still get screwed over every single time. The dictatorship endures
Not any more, not with police and other government super-powers designed to squash opinions other than the official one.
If the US government and police had the overly abusing powers and trickery they have today back during the protests against Jim Crow and Civil Rights, Voting Rights for minorities (and women) NONE of that would have happened no matter how many people threw themselves on the fire in sacrifice.
Just look at how some states shutdown campus protests this year as easily as forbidding any sitting or eating and police happily arrested people using chairs.
What do you think is going to happen in those states when people have to sit down or eat in line while waiting to vote in November?
Look how hard it is for unions to exist anymore in the USA
China rewrites its history and reality right down to its own maps, no protest will ever overcome that, not this century, not next given even better technology to control its people. Same for North Korea and Iran.
I think this leaves out cases where there is actual resistance by a larger group. For example, a March 2003 Gallup poll showed that 5% of the US population had made a public opposition to the Iraq war, but 21% had made a public display to support the war. Small minorities can't go directly against more popular movements.
Hong Kong never sustained more than 3.5% of the population for several days. It seems the police response was able to force the number of people participating back below that threshold whenever it surged.
Would this work in a different way? 3.5% changing themselves?
Protesting to me has always felt like you are forcing things to happen, but the same bureaucracy that controls the decisions at the very top is still there.
Could 12 million Americans (3.5%) who are selfless and self-aware change the entire country around them? I would love a study on something like this, even if it is for a relatively small city/country.
That reminds me Tolstoy's conclusion in his essay on Anarchism:
"There can be only one permanent revolution — a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man.
How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself."
Not directly relating to protest, but sometimes people vote with their wallet, sometimes with their feet, other times at the actual ballot box.
Seems like 3.5% could also be a pretty good estimate of how many voters or less make all the decisions when it comes to less-publicized local elections.
How about 12 million who are selfish and unempathetic when it comes to very many of their fellow Americans?
> Chenoweth has identified two cases where maximalist campaigns failed despite mobilizing more than 3.5% of the population: Brunei in 1962 (4% mobilized) and Bahrain in 2011-2014 (6% mobilized):
Although I haven't gone through all the source material in detail, and am certainly not qualified to give an opinion, hey, it's the internet:
My instinct is that surely nearly every violent campaign is preceded by an unsuccessful non-violent one, i.e. the low hanging fruit of change is always picked by the non-violent movement before people turn to violence. Thus the problems which violent campaigns attempt to solve are by definition more difficult, and success less likely.
There should be a holiday called "Protest Month" where everyone throughout the year saves up some resources and then all takes off for one month all at the same time.
I have a question, a Burmese friend of mine in college some years back refused to accept the renaming to "Myanmar" since that was apparently done forcefully by the military junta who took control. I think he had just moved to the US right before the 2007-2008 Saffron Revolution (not sure if that's even how people refer to it locally). Because of my conversations with him, it always seemed awkward for me to use the name "Myanmar". I'm sure it's a sensitive topic, but I'm mostly curious how prevalent that is (still calling the country "Burma"), or if even most of the people who oppose the junta have started calling it Myanmar as well.
Stop it. You’re either a paid propagandist, you are an unwitting soldier, or you are knowingly fighting a culture war. Just stop it’s gross and unbecoming. if you are being sincere, I apologize but you still need to stop. Stop watching videos like that that are meant to make you mad, ignore people who are just trying to steal brain cycles from you, and for the love of all that is good don’t go reposting them; you are benefiting the person in that video and giving them exactly what they want and in essence agreeing with their entire perspective. Stop it.
The power of Intolerant minority is covered by N.N.Taleb.. the easy examples are Kosher and Halal foods becoming mainstream even though the size of minority itself is small.
Well. BBC. Their title contradicts their article which says: "And although the exact dynamics will depend on many factors, she has shown it takes around 3.5% of the population actively participating in the protests to ensure serious political change." which is more believable.
I think it's an interesting topic. You probably want to read the original research if you want to get better insight. Naturally with all things human it's not an exact science. Also should we look at the population of China or the population of Hong Kong? Presumably if 10% of the population of China was protesting there's some chance of a political change.
Over 10%? On the peak day mid-June, that may have been the case (although it may not have been. Crowd estimates differ). But the police managed to discourage enough protesters that those levels were not sustained for days.
For another, these numbers ("3.5% of the whole population", "53% of the time compared to 26% for the violent protests") all seems incredibly precise for something as messy as real world protests. Estimating participation, estimating population, estimating "peak engagement - so many components of this are judgement calls at best. And that is before even attempting to engage with cultural and temporal factors. To make such a bold and outlandish claim based on such shaky data feels fraught.
This is utter nonsense. Let's take the Vietnam war protests of 1969 that are so remembered to this day. They were massive and culturally influential. Yet they gave Nixon one of the biggest victories in US history.
The problem is that protesters are often delusional and don't understand complex problems. The civil rights protests were very carefully and accurately led by MLK and this very careful narrative to educate white people was indeed successful.
But the obvious hint is at the student protests about Palestine. That's one of the bad protests. First, it targets only Israel without laying any blame or responsibility on the Hamas (which started this specific conflict and is still holding civilian hostages). This also targets the entire country instead of the current leadership, which again is a bad target. The result of these protests is obvious from miles away:
* The Israeli right gains power and becomes more aggressive - they use the protests to show how everyone hates Israel and there's no point in trying to satisfy the "antisemites" and the idiots.
* Trump gains power - Biden can't control these people... He will make matters worse for the Palestinians.
* Hamas is emboldened - they are the reason Palestinians don't have a state (which Israel offered twice to two separate Palestinian leaders).
* Putin and Iran are emboldened by the weakness of the West.
I understand why people are protesting. They want to help and have good intentions, they are also deeply misinformed (e.g. the UN just updated its casualty statistics which were VERY wrong and are probably still pretty far off). Also the Israeli government is indeed terrible, but Hamas is even worse. Uninformed protesters like this are making things worse for the moderate Palestinians and Israelis.
> it targets only Israel without laying any blame or responsibility on the Hamas
The reason students are asking their schools to divest from Israel but not from Hamas is because no western schools are funding Hamas or corporations that sell weapons to Hamas. You want protest camps set up to demand schools keep not doing that?
> the UN just updated its casualty statistics
I just looked them up (https://www.ochaopt.org/). 34,904+ killed, 70,000 homes destroyed, and 1.7 million people displaced in Gaza. I agree Hamas is probably worse than the Israeli government in some sort of doctrinal or deontological sense, but in terms of actual atrocities committed, it is not even close at this point.
> You want protest camps set up to demand schools keep not doing that?
No. I want protests to have the Israeli flag too. Acknowledge Israel has the right to exist. Also not rip out posters for the hostages that are held by Hamas to keep the war going.
What do you hope to achieve by divesting from Israel?
Make Jews feel persecuted. Mission accomplished. Make Hamas feel that pressure is being put on Israel. Again, success. This is blaming an entire country instead of the people responsible for the occupation and settlements. There are ways to target those. E.g. banning products from the settlements, or banning instituted from the settlements. These are things many Israelis can get behind.
> I just looked them up
They updated the ratio of civilians. Turns out the majority of those are adult male combatants. Not Women and Children like Hamas claimed and was parroted by the media.
> They updated the ratio of civilians. Turns out the majority of those are adult male combatants.
As of yesterday, the UN is reporting that 60% of deaths are women, children, and the elderly. So even if you want to pretend that all adult men in Gaza are combatants, your minimization is verging on genocide denial. (And the total figures are "not including more than 10,000 reported missing or under the rubble" so the death stats are almost certainly low.)
> The UN now claims that in total 24,686 people were confirmed killed,
The correct statement is that “The UN now claims that 24,686 people who have been confirmed killed and fully identified. There are over 10,000 confirmed victims who are confirmed dead, but not yet fully identified, and then there are around 10,000 more missing and presumed dead under the rubble, in undiscovered mass graves, etc. Bringing the total number of dead closer to 50,000.
This site is willfully misleading, and is actively lying by only counting identified victims and claiming that is the total number of victims.
That is simply wrong, they gave the explaination pretty clearly:
> The U.N. says Gaza's Health Ministry has been able to fully identify 24,686 deaths out of more than 35,000 people the ministry says have been killed in the Gaza Strip.
> U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq says Gaza's Health Ministry is still working to fully identify 10,000 or more deaths. Based on the identities confirmed so far, though, the U.N. now says about 52% of those killed have been women and children.
> Haq, who is the deputy spokesperson for the U.N. secretary-general, was asked in a briefing Monday about media reports, one of which was shared by Israel's foreign minister, that said the U.N. had halved the number of women and children it had been saying were killed in Gaza.
> "It's not quite the case," Haq said. "The overall number of fatalities that has been tallied by the Ministry of Health in Gaza, which is our counterpart on dealing with the death tolls, that number remains unchanged," he said, reiterating the figure stands at more than 35,000.
To summaries, they lowered the number because now they are only using confirmed dead and fully identified, whereas previously they included confirmed dead and not yet fully identified. So out of all the confirmed deaths, only about 70% (not half, as you claimed) has been fully identified. The UN is now using that 70% figure.
If you want to get to half, you will have to include presumed but not confirmed deaths (missing, under rubble, in undiscovered mass graves, etc.) this number is believed to be another 10,000, bringing the total number of dead or presumed dead to 45,000. About 55% of confirmed or presumed deaths have been fully identified. The UN is now using that 55% figure.
> The U.N. says Gaza's Health Ministry has been able to fully identify 24,686 deaths out of more than 35,000 people the ministry says have been killed in the Gaza Strip.
Then where did the false numbers come from?
They just made them up. Typically, when statistics are proven wrong you go back to the numbers and then check if other numbers have been completely false. Or maybe a different source of numbers was more correct. Maybe the source for the false numbers is still lying.
The problem is that people use the brand "UN" which is generally a respected brand. Unfortunately, on the ground in Gaza it means Palestinians who are often connected to the Hamas directly. That means a lot of the information that the UN broadcasts to the world as fact is corrupted by Hamas.
To be clear, I'm not saying there aren't many civilian casualties. I'm not saying this is anything less than tragic. I am saying that these casualties are far lower due to a conscious effort by the IDF to reduce these numbers. I'm also saying that Hamas has made a significant effort to increase civilian casualties (especially children) e.g. by using children as couriers between their tunnels and preventing civilians from leaving siege areas (e.g. firing on refugees).
I don’t know how I—or the UN—can make this more clearer, there are no false numbers. There is the number for confirmed and fully identified victims, which stood at 24,686 at the time of writing, and then there is the number of confirmed dead but not yet fully identified, which stands at above 10,000.
It takes time to identify dead bodies, especially in an active warzone where it is not unheard of that whole families are dead, and double so when large powerful munitions are used. And as the health care system collapses, it gets harder and harder to identify quickly, so you can expect the latter number to grow.
Seems like stupid people are very selective on the protests. It is time to recognize that a lot, really a lot, of people could be stupid. Including me, obviously.
Please look at [1]. It is very easy to build a set of such beliefs. The Jewish people control the world is another [2]. When you travel to the world and ask people it is easy to realize.
You’re making an argument against protests as a whole based on the prevalence of certain beliefs which have nothing to do with anything we’re talking about. Hence it fails to criticize anything in particular.
You don’t get a carte blanche against whatever you don’t like based on your standard-issue Internet Misanthropy.
As Einstein said(?) only two things are infinite and he's only sure about one of them.
Maybe stupid isn't the right word. Gullible, subject to being influenced, herd mentality- donno. Intelligent, rational, people with critical thinking skills seems like a very rare phenomena indeed.
What do you mean by "are very selective on the protests"? I go to protests selectively and I don't believe I'm "stupid" so I'm confused by this comment.
90% of people think they're above average drivers. And no, the flat earthers e.g. think we're stupid. I'm not sure stupid vs. smart is the right axis here though. Plenty of people with apparently high I.Q. believe in nonsense.
Well if you want to call me stupid that is fine, we can have that conversation, but I'm not so it won't be very interested. Bringing me back to my original question, a question that was actually interesting.
We’ve got this warped idea that a proper protest is when some people gather in some designated area that the authorities allow them to, and they don’t inconvenience anyone. That’s absurd when you consider what a protest is about.