Stupid protesters, unclear on the concept

The BBQ Pit
1

Thishappened today:

[QUOTE=sfgate.com]
BART closed three East Bay stations for a time this morning, one of them twice, after hundreds of youths jumped fare gates on their way to a protest in San Francisco against federal immigration policies, authorities said.
[/QUOTE]
Not so bad, you might think; BART over-reacting to a few kids jumping the fare gates.

Not so fast. Not only were there hundreds of these people jumping the gates, they held up trains by holding the doors open.

[QUOTE=sfgate.com]
“This was a peaceful protest. We were not trying to start anything,” said Kenya Ramirez, 17, who traveled from San Diego for the rally. “We were just trying to get our message out. Our message is civil disobedience.”

She said the students held train doors open at several stations so fare jumpers could get on board.

“The other people were getting upset because they had someplace to go,” she said. “We’re doing it for them. They were being a little selfish.”
[/QUOTE]
(bolding mine).

Oh, I see. These “other people”, who were not participating in your protest, were being selfish for being upset. They may not be immigrants or in any way connected with or benefited by your protest, but you’re “doing it for them.”

Give me a farking break. You come in from out of town, screw with our mass transit system, inconvenience untold numbers of innocent bystanders, and then get pissy because they don’t approve of your tactics?

In the scheme of things this is probably pretty small potatoes. But I couldn’t let this level of cluelessness pass without comment.

Feel free to share your feelings if you were one of those who couldn’t get where they needed to go today because of this benign act of civil disobedience.
Roddy

2

Dear protestors: civil disobedience has to have something to do with the issue being protested. For example, the lunchroom sit-ins protesting segregated counters, or the bus boycott protesting being seated at the back, and being made to get up when a white person got on. What the ever-living fuck does immigration have to do with subways?!

3

Maybe they half-remember what they learned in school about the Underground Railroad.

4

I plan to protest the war in Iraq by taking free Mountain Dew out of the cooler at 7-11.

It’s civil disobedience, man. You’re not uptight, are you?

5

My feelings? Mostly FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!

I HATE people who let their protests get in the way of everyone else’s lives. I feel the same way about the Critical Mass idiots in SF - I get that you think cars suck, and that getting in their way gets their attention, but YOU ARE BLOCKING THE FUCKING BUS IN AS WELL!!! Christ, you’re just pissing off people who are otherwise sympathetic to your cause, asshole.

Oh, and as for the protest having something to do with subways? That’s the lovely part - they weren’t even protesting in BART, they just felt entitled to not pay the goddamn fare on the way TO the protest! Oh, but they’re exercising their CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to protest! BART was trying to infringe on their free speech by making them pay! God, you’d think these people were taking a lesson from Palin.

Fuckwads.

6

Oh, but they’re such sincere, caring people, they should be entitled to whatever they need to make their point. How dare you expect them to put themselves out? What they’re doing is IMPORTANT. When was the last time you did anything that mattered?

7

Thank God for fire hoses and mace, is all I can say.

8

Let them lie in front of the trains (trams?) if their cause is that important.

9

I so want to believe that I wasn’t that idiotic when I was 17 but I’m not entirely sure…

Civil disobedience isn’t a “message”, it’s a “method” - just like shouting isn’t a message, it’s a method. I like how the woman who was on the way to see her mother in the hospital and was upset at being delayed was being selfish.

I take AC Transit so this will hopefully have zero impact on me.

10

Another bunch of idiots displaying their stupidity in the Bay Area. And I’m with the poster who threw these guys in the same idiot hut as the critical massers (and I’m a cyclist!).

Solution? More powerful doors with claws to hold the idiot as they close and scoot off to their next stop.

11

Clearly these are amateurs. All they had to do was call up the SF juvenile probation director and tell him they were coming to town for an immigration protest; he’d probably have sent them all bus fare, a bag of BART tokens, and directions to City Hall.