Reply With QuoteI think it's part hype, part truth, and part people on the side taking advantage of the hype. Either way I haven't paid much attention to it...but it's sorta hard to miss.
What are your opinions on this...um..."movement"?
Legit? Overly-sensationalized?
IMO, it's a bunch of people with very real problems that represent themselves in a very shitty way.
I think it's part hype, part truth, and part people on the side taking advantage of the hype. Either way I haven't paid much attention to it...but it's sorta hard to miss.
Considering how much of a public obstruction it is, I'd figure yeah. There was one here in Philly a week or so ago. TBH, I'm growing kind of weary of protests in America (or most first-world countries), as it often ends up being about the protestors and not the actual message. As I said regarding the London riots: it's only a matter of time before the actual point is lost and this just turns into another forgettable "police brutality" fiasco.
Capitalism is the greatest.
TBH I don't even think this is an issue of capitalism, which is a term being flung around wayyy too carelessly. Essentially all OWS protestors are fighting for capitalism...they just want to reset the wealth distribution so they have a second chance at getting ahead in the game. Ultimately, it's just a lot of people asking "why am I not rich?"
It's pointless. Peaceful protest has never accomplished anything against tyrants.
Capitalism? They keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means.
This. Very much so this.Originally Posted by CypressDahlia
*cough* Ghandi? Or were the British not tyrants?
Gandhi's movement, like all successful 'peaceful' protests, carried behind it it the implicit threat of violence. Gandhi did not occur in a vacuum. Behind him were countless other Indian freedom fighters who were willing, and sometimes did, use violent means to try and cast off the British. And that's without getting into the fact that India was costing a lot of money to control, and in many ways the Brits were just kind of tired of doing it. Plus international opinion was turning against colonialism.
The fact that Western culture so heavily promotes peaceful protest and idealizes men like Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. is not because peaceful protest works (it doesn't) or because these were great men (well, they were, but that's not why) - but because it is in the best interests of oppressors that oppressed people be non-violent and when pushed resort to ineffectual non-violent countermeasures.
Well your statement "Ghandi did not occur in a vacuum" works both ways. The valiant freedom fighters were not alone in opposing oppresion. Are you arguing that removing the peaceful element of the protests would have made no tangible difference to the movement?
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