To protest or not to protest?

[punisa]

Ok, this might be a sort of basic question, but are protests generally good or a bad thing for our cause?
Lately I dislike them very much and would rather drink hot beer then accompany it.
Why? Ok, obviously there are two major types of protest crowds out there:
1) because of the necessity
- worker strikes and such, genuine need for a quick change and reform.
2) because its hip and cool
- lots of strange emo kids with pierced heads, young intellectuals playing chess and fantasizing what sexual intercourse is really like, burgouise people like artists, philopsohers, theater actors etc..

Maybe I'm ranting a little bit and I go over the line, but I feel bad about people who protest against some injustice without having any remote idea how to cure the disease.

case scenario) you have a crooked mayor. People gather on the streets: "we want the mayor to resign ! NOW !"
Eventually they might even succeed, but what then? Another mayor comes along and everything is back where it started.
On a larger scale you can take US, I feel bad about all those people who genuinely felt that Obama would bring about the change he spoke of.

Having said that, I'm still no defeatist - I just don't believe in random gathering on the street without some tangible idea behind it.

What do you think? What's your stance on protests?

[Enragé]

i would like to add

3) focal point for activists, revolutionaries etc in trying to bring together people in struggle against this system/aspects of it.

This outlook sees protests as a way of building resistance. The action i participated in/co-organised this saturday in solidarity with greece and against budget cuts here, was such an action. We didnt have any illusion that our small protest (approx. 150 ppl) would attain its stated goal ('stop the cuts'). After we held a meeting where we invited those who want to organise more actions with us, which was a success (double the number of the people organising the protest saturday were present, hopefully a number of the new people will remain to actually pave the way for actions). Earlier we had done a similar thing, organising with 4 people a picket at the greek embassy to which 35 people showed up, with 10 of those we organised last saturday's action.

Use protests as a stepping stone to organise/build groups of resistance.

[Chambered Word]

http://www.socialistpartyaustralia.org/archives/2549


After over two years of campaigning, the Deaths In Custody Watch Committee (DICWC) has won some concessions from the State Government in Western Australia. DICWC has been fighting for justice after the horrific death of Warburton elder, Mr Ward, who died in the back of a privately operated prisoner transport van.
By David Suter, Socialist Party

Christian Porter, the WA Attorney General and Minister for Corrective Services, announced that a $200,000 interim payment will be paid to the family of Mr Ward. This money is desperately needed as the family has been surviving off donations. This comes off the back of a recent rally at the state parliament, attended by several hundred people including a delegation from the Prison Officer’s Union. Porter was so scared to address the angry demonstrators that he ran for cover inside. The crowd chanted and taunted him demanding he explain his actions (or more precisely inaction).
After the rally, demonstrators filed into the public gallery where they made it clear to Porter (who now had nowhere to run) and the Barnett Government that they expected their demands to be met. The crowd disrupted the parliament and forced the speaker to clear the gallery. It was not long after this that the interim payment was announced. When announcing the payment Porter made the point that the militant actions of the DICWC had nothing to do with his hand being forced – a sure sign that the actions did actually have an effect!
In another victory for the campaign, a parliamentary inquiry into WA’s prisoner transport system has also been announced. Even the West Australian newspaper was forced to admit that this was the result of the “two-year campaign by the Deaths in Custody Watch Committee”, which collected more than 5,000 petition signatures.


This happened in Perth, which is not exactly a shining example of political awareness. It's a good example of why protesting is not useless IMO.

[eclipse]

burgouise people like artists, philopsohers, theater actors
They are? Why?


pierced heads, young intellectuals
ruled out a good part of radical activists. Seperate between culture and politics.

Protets are not perfect, but compared to other actions often those which show mass support for certain causes most effectively. Everything else except mass militancy, trikes, blockades is just small groups symbolic action (even "revolutionary" terrorims is that in a way), an these do not work without protest either.

It`s inevitable that lasting change cannot be made without revolution, but protests for short live reformist gains can work as empowerment and be used to infuse the movements in question with radical ideas.

[9]

I don't know, some protests are pretty terrible. I went to one of the protests in Seattle last month over the Gaza flotilla raid and it was definitely the shittiest protest experience I've had in a while; after about 45 minutes, I felt like laying down in the middle of an intersection lol. I think really it depends on what the protest is about and what you're trying to achieve by going.

[Terminator X]

I'm against protest politics in general, because most of the attendees rant and rave about some grievance, then get into their luxury SUVs and are happy to ignore the problems they were protesting until the next chance to "see and be seen" or get on TV comes along. They very rarely have a course of action or solution to the issues they are "protesting."

[NGNM85]

The protest is a valuable tool and a tried-and-true method of expressing greivances and making ourselves heard. Not every protest results in substantial change, most don't, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth doing.

[Rusty Shackleford]

how a protest/demonstration is organized and who its organized by has a HUGE effect on its outcome.

when organized by disciplined and revolutionary groups (PSL being one example but not the only one) can have a lasting effect based on material used and provided by the organizers.

when a disciplined and revolutionary(as opposed to liberal) organization is at a demo, it can provide a unified and more long term point of view for other attendees.

i support them because it also builds networks. no matter how shitty they are, they are still useful. not every demo will end in the internationale and a revolution.

[Shokaract]

Protests are sometimes useful for finding potentially revolutionary-minded individuals.

ex. If at a protest against a certain war, then one could try to illustrate the systemic nature of the problem.

[Raúl Duke]

Punisa, I myself have had a similar concerns about protests...

But consider what 9 said:


I think really it depends on what the protest is about and what you're trying to achieve by going. Personally, I think it's one worthy reason of getting into a protest if you have the logistics to disrupt a certain activity (g8, g20, etc) that is remotely worthwhile to disrupt. However, in many cases perhaps one does not have the means to disrupt the activity and thus one should consider not having/attending that protest

Second to that reason, and more importantly, are protests/strikes that have direct relevance to people's lives in your community, examples (besides most strikes) like anti-gentrification protests and protests against homelessness/foreclosures. One could also think of more or less different tactics, for example in Miami there is a group (Take Back The Land) that created Umoja and also had a project involving putting homeless people in empty foreclosed houses. This tactic offered immediate solution to homeless plus media attention that was arguably more effective than what a protest would bring. These innovative (more or less) tactics are what's needed than just only having protest/strikes (especially to no ritualized protests).

Most protests as they are designed are made so to recruit more leftists and not to agitate the masses/working class, this last part should be the main goal of any leftist/leftist org that views itself organic/within the masses/working class. Concerning "spreading the message," some protests do not succeed in this.

In a way, I'll say eclipse is partially right:


protests for short live reformist gains can work as empowermentIf one helps and takes part of the struggles that the working class find pertinent, and if such protest/strikes/etc succeed, it helps empower the class to have confidence to do it again and again as it defends and fights for its class self-interest. Eventually, among other factors (including the reactions of the bourgeoisie, etc), this could perhaps lead to a revolutionary situation at some point.

[nuisance]

Protesting is about as ghey as this thread, and this thread is hella ghey.