Here’s something slightly but not quite off-topic:
Here we have a post by a noted right-of-center figure on this mostly left-leaning board which seeks to make fun of a leftie group. Some jokes ensue, as well as some discussion which ranges from “meh” to “they are actually damaging the cause”
Imagine if you will a 180 degree situation, with a similar post by a lefite type on a right-leaning messageboard about a rightie group organizing a silly protest. What would be the result? Light bantering? Thoughtful comments about how the rightie group was unhelpful? Or banning of the OP?
And even with these players, if the “mostly left-leaning board” in question were not the SDMB, then another reaction might well ensue there.
So if the thrust of your commentary is that the left-leaners accept gentle mocking better than the right-leaners… I’d say that’s probably a true statement. But not based on this set of examples, which I think are two narrow to show the point. In general, I agree; but I have seen some pretty vicious left-wingers and some pretty sedate right-wingers, so it’s far from a universal truth.
If that was not clear, I was joking. At least as far as I myself am concerned - never did demonstrations, never mind demonstrations I didn’t believe in. That being said, I’ve got a good friend who’s part of a similar protest currently headed for Bruxels from Spain (and grabbing protestors as it goes along) and I am kind of :rolleyes: about it.
Don’t get me wrong: they’ve got heart. And the things they’re protesting, well, I’d protest them too… the thing is, they don’t provide alternatives, or even engage the people who are doing these things in the first place. It’s just an outraged cry of “this is bad, we won’t take it any more ! Stop doing that !”. I agree with the sentiment, but the idea that a protest is going to change anything is… cute.
Of course, voting or even trying to reform things from the inside isn’t going to change shit either, so that’s where I diverge from LHOD. I rode that disillusion straight to the “haha, let them fuck shit up and make one retarded and unethical move after another, I got popcorn” stage.
So, the Republicans won an election. The only sensible thing, therefore, is to give up. Only an idiot would keep voting if it doesn’t work the first time!
Kids these days! With all these silly costumes and nonsensical demonstrations! Why, I doubt a single one of them could give you a good explanation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, or even begin to understand the function of a revolutionary cadre! And that so called “music”! Just a bunch of noise, you ask me!..
I would remind my fellow onion-belters that for all our pious intonation, what exactly have we accomplished in terms of tightening the grip of law and reason on the Wall Street Casino? Squat, that’s what. Their actions are ineffective? Compared to whom? Maybe they’ve noticed this. Maybe that’s what they’re pissed about.
And effective for who? Are they trying to reach us, or their own? Do we disdain a political consciousness amongst the young? On what grounds, pray? Apathy is still the number two enemy, right after Cognitive Dissonance. If they give a shit, I say may the Goddess hold them close to her bountiful bosom all the days of their lives! Giving a shit is far more important than the means by which you demonstrate that. I can’t count the times we’ve pissed and moaned about how the young don’t vote, etc. Well, if this is what does it, let 'er rip! Hell, I’ll Twitter somebody, if it’ll help anything! I’ll look a damned fool doing it, but better than I look dancing.
So, hey, Dopers! Leave those kids alone! All in all, you’re just another Bricker in the wall!
(Sorry, Rick. Couldn’t help it. Didn’t try much, but I couldn’t have anyway.)
Yeah, the thing is, I’ve seen people giving a shit. 40 years ago. (OK, so I seen 'em on TV since I wasn’t even born then). The very same people are part of it now, either mocking their own past ideals, or having surrendered them because whatareyagonnado. That’s really it, and the whole of it: it’s not apathy, it’s resignation.
I lost that fight, even though you’d better believe I had it in me a handful of years ago. And in a way, I’m ashamed of having lost it. Ain’t a day passes by I don’t reflect on it. But you know, fuck it. Doesn’t matter nohow.
While your sarcasm is understandable, I think you’re missing my point. I didn’t say anything about not voting, but I want my voting to be part of a larger strategy to advance progressive goals. I believe the 2010 cycle, and not just the election itself, revealed the weakness of Markos’ approach. It wasn’t so much losing an election, as it was the failure to fight for a stronger response to the worst recession since the Great Depression, to advocate a course of action that would start putting people back to work in a time of >9% unemployment and something like 16% underemployment.
We might’ve lost the 2010 election anyway, things being what they were, but the absence of any sort of fundamentally Democratic message in all of 2010 was what revealed the failure of “more, better Democrats.”
We had as many Democrats in Congress as we’re likely to get in the foreseeable future, and we even had a fair number of ‘better’ ones in there, but in the end, the Democratic Party of 2010 failed to stand for the things it would have reflexively fought for if this had been 30-50 years ago.
If there were such an entity, the Democratic Party, as uniformly and determinedly progressive as we might wish. But a simple perusal of how many Congressgits have a (D) after their name doesn’t really tell you much as to how much political clout can be mustered. Democrats aren’t the “progressive” party, they are the not-batshit party.
Which includes some very entrenched Blue Dead Dog, three-legged, menshevik, Clinonista, business-friendly “centrists”, they should all go fuck a penguin.
I spent the night helping to direct folks to center of the areas in the demonstration permit. I spent the morning locating and advising people on alternative places to assemble that were legal, and those that were illegal for persons wishing to be arrested. I spent most of the day waiting for the demonstration leadership to present speakers to address the desire for the immediate end of the War in Vietnam. What I heard were pleas for Native American Rights, Gay Rights, Drug Rights, Women’s Rights, and a hundred other issues.
It was the second Moratium March. The movement was only two months old. The revolution was fought and lost on the Mall. There were half a million people there. It was on television.
What did we want?
Everything.
When did we want it?
After I have my chance to bitch about it.
I am now saving only the part of the world that is within arms reach. It’s going ok.
The funniest thing I’ve read so far re: the protests is that they are calling Zucotti Square “Liberty Plaza” as a form of protest, or possibly in honor of the Middle Eastern popular upsrisings. see, e.g..
Um, no.
They are calling it Liberty Plaza because that’s what everyone has always called it.