Ouch.
Savage but completely accurate.
Their intent was to march, not to block traffic.
A protest occurring at the establishment they were protesting against.
A protest occurring at the establishment they were protesting against.
and its disappointing to see that someone you assumed was rational does not see the difference between simply calling attention to your cause with creating a situation which at best inconveniences and at worst endangers the lives of of others who have no malice towards the protesters goals.
I forget, did those single incidents change the minds of a sufficient number of people of all skin colors, including all those white people who did their part, to end segregation, or did people of all skin colors work together to win over the hearts and minds of a majority of voters?
Assholes who block traffic are still assholes.
Assholes who create a disturbance in restaurants are still assholes.
Assholes who prevent coffee addicts from getting their fix run the risk of possible injury.
It’s lovely that you prefer to piss people off, but changing hearts, minds, and votes requires the ability to ACTUALLY HAVE A CONVERSATION with the other side.
Is this because this “stealing” is somehow more egregious than other, presumably “consensual stealing”? :dubious::rolleyes:
Why not just throw a few more superfluous qualifiers in there, to really heap on the negative connotations? Why not “lawless anarchist non-consensual stealing”?
You’re a tiresome liar.
Nobody prefers pissing people off. We do prefer a just and equal society though. However we don’t yet have that. What are you doing to help move us to a place where nobody would feel the need to protest?
Not surprised to see you call the Selma marchers “assholes”. So did Sheriff Jim Clark and his allies.
We Pit each other.
Regards,
Shodan
…and happily agreement is short lived.
What is it with right-wing nutjobs who want to murder people with cars?
If I understand your opinion about the Chicago marchers, you think they can’t accomplish a darned thing; all they want is to attract attention.
Is that an accurate summary of your view?
As I read it, they applied for and got a permit to cover two lanes of traffic with 300 marchers, but brought 25,000 marchers. In what meaningful sense was their intent not to block traffic, given that they brought 25,000 protestors to a major highway?
As for your others, I don’t know what the hell cases doorhinge was talking about anyway, so I have no idea whether he’s looking at people disrupting restaurants when the restaurants aren’t the target of the protest.
I have to confess that my memory of that time might be fuzzy but I could have sworn that the news reports showed the march with automobile traffic still able to flow although slowly in both directions.
In any case I would still assert that if MLK intended to stop traffic (I don’t think that he did) that his cause may have been just but his actions were detrimental to drivers who had no malice towards his cause.
AS for the restaurant protests I was pointing out that THOSE protests got it right. Take your argument directly to the problem area. Get the attention of those that would sympathize with your cause without disrupting or endangering their lives.
The “problem area” is the whole city, since the whole city votes in mayoral elections, and the Mayor is the one who has the power to more equitably spend development tax dollars. Therefore LSD seems like a pretty appropriate place to me.
By the way, you all have spent far more time bitching on this message board about this protest than what you could possibly spend in traffic that day if you don’t bother to plan around the march.
Sure, they were detrimental to drivers who had no malice toward the cause–but the detriment to those drivers is eclipsed by the, er, “detriment” to black Southerners living under a terrorist regime.
What about Woolworth’s customers who just wanted a burger but couldn’t get one due to the protestors? No malice toward their cause, maybe, but their lunch breaks got disrupted!
Point being, disrupting business as usual isn’t just incidental to effective nonviolent action: it’s central. If nothing is disrupted, there’s no impetus for change.
There are legitimate ways to critique individual protests, and in general I don’t know if this one is a well-organized, effective protest. But the criticisms raised in this thread are precisely the sort raised against MLK.
If you haven’t read the Letter from a Birmingham Jail recently, here’s that link again. I’m not a big fan of gospel, but this essay is damn near perfect in its analysis of nonviolent resistance.
Another excerpt:
Not quite sure I follow your logic of “you used a superfluous adjective, therefore you are a liar,” but I’ll go with it.
Based on similar logic and regarding your post above, I feel I can conclude you are an unerringly truthful scholar and gentleman whose debate skills are as steely sharp and razor honed as your mental processes. Kudos to you, sir.
From (individuals)!
Unfortunately, they pretty much are, but he tries his best.
Regards,
Shodan
That would be because those two statements were not related. Trying to follow the logic between two unrelated statements is illogical, at best. One was a criticism of your prose, the other a criticism of your honesty.
That is quite the compliment to someone who just called you out as a liar.
Okay, so you hear on the news for weeks that LSD is going to be shut down for a few hours. You know exactly when, and for how long, and you are given ample advance notice.
If you get stuck in that traffic, isn’t that really your fault?
If not, then do you have the same feelings towards construction workers who schedule to shut down roads to improve them as you do with politically active people who schedule to shut down roads to improve their city?
It’s still far better than driving yourself.
Ah, so here, you admit that it is the subject of the protest that you hate, and therefore, it doesn’t matter in the slightest how polite they are in trying to bring your attention to the plight of people suffering in your community, you hate them, so you will take exception to anything that they do.
Given that you will hate them no matter what they do, why should they care what you have to say about it?