Forum Post: Does protest work in the absence of Democracy?
Posted 10 years ago on April 24, 2013, 10:39 p.m. EST by elf3
(4203)
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Has it ever worked...does it work in China? I am asking since we have been taken over by a corporate oligarchy can it work here? Is it not too late?
Tyanny can't prevail without our cooperation. That knowledge is the most powerful weapon on earth.
Protest backed with non cooperation desegregated the buses in Montgomery Alabama, freed India from British rule, and most recently freed Iceland from austerity.
It only works when popular support for change can be stirred up. It doesn't seem as though the population in general even sees a problem.
Protest facilitates in building communication and rallying supporters. But to actually change things, especially when under the rule of a psychopathic oligarchy it takes more action than just walking around with signs and shouting.
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Actually, protest rarely works in any situation. That's just the way it is.
I think that might depend to some extent on what the demands of the protestors are.
Did protest work in Russia or in the Union of South Africa or even in the United States?
There's no more Soviet Union but few would consider Russia to be truly democratic state.
There's no more political apartheid in South Africa but economic apartheid still prevails.
There's no more separate but equal in the United States but racial discrimination abounds, women are still valued less in the workplace, worker rights are diminishing, and groups of people are still successfully prevented from voting.
Like Vietnam, people protested against the war in Iraq that continued on long after the protests ceased to be news.
People across the nation protested against the criminal abuses of Wall Street executives yet the executives continue to profit despite reports of other abuses coming out in the news.
When people were enslaved 200 years ago, many engaged in means of covert protest by sabotaging plantation production but others escaped to freedom by joining Maroon colonies. The protesters remained enslaved while the escapees lived free in the land of slavery.
If people aren't going to form their own financial community of coops, credit union, and mutual insurance company, they needn't protest what Wall St. is doing.
If people aren't going to exercise their political strength through trans-partisan cooperative voting, they needn't protest what politicians are doing.
Protest only works for people who are willing to do something beyond protesting.
It doesn't work in the presence of it either.
In a Word -YES.
[-] 0 points by DKAtoday (24603) from Coon Rapids, MN 1 hour ago
In a Word -YES. ↥twinkle ↧stinkle reply edit delete permalink
From +2 to 0 - with no comments as to why you did not agree with the comment.
Seems pretty petty.
Do you have a problem with acknowledging the truth?
Or just have a problem with me.
The history of China is full of protest. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rebellions_in_China
Take the Taiping Rebellion for example, 20 million, yes 20 million people died in the 19th century, makes OWS pale in comparison, but in the end they got their "Communist" government. Later in the 70's, though, Deng Xiaoping brought in the "capitalist" economy. So, did it work? Not if they brought in capitalism. No, I'd argue, it did not.
The biggest lesson OWS can learn is based on the
recent background check numbers
90% of Americans wanted it passed
but 45 senators - a MINORITY stopped it
it was NOT nra money that stopped what all sane Americans wanted -
it was nra members calling their senators by the hundreds & by the thousands
THAT IS THE "PROTEST" LESSON THAT OWS MUST LEARN