Protesters

[Ezekiel]

Man, 99% of the time I am shocked by the stupidty of protestors. I'm watching TV, and they are showing these women protesting against tree cutting. So they bring a tree trunk into an office, chain themselves together, and sit. The cops say they can leave or get maced.


"You cant use chemical agents on us, that's torture techniques."

No moron, that's a warning. It's called private property. So they get maced, and whine the whole time. In the end, they are arrested, and in pain. They try and sue like idiots, and lose. They accomplish nothing.

Same goes for PETA. Now, I'm not saying to murder animals. I'm not a fan of people clubbing baby seals, or killing puppies. But if an animal is hunted for it's meat, that's fine. It's called the food chain, and whether you like it or not, it's happening. Now if an animal is killed for meat, and then it's fur is used for other substances, that's okay. But if I got my mother a fur coat, and some hippy tossed red paint on it, expect there to be a problem. And PETA isn't as caring as you'd think. It's a fact that some of their members have been arrested for animal cruelty. Keep fighting the good fight, brothers! That's dedication!

So, what are your thoughts on protests? Do you think it really accomplishes anything? Do you think protestors have the right to sue when they are taken away by force, after being warned?

I know it's case sensitive, so feel free to bring up any event you want.
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[Gil-galad]

Yes, it certainly is case sensitive. The right to protest, over all, is a very important right. The right of people to speak out against what they feel is wrong is really a core right of 'freedom' in general. For example, civil rights protesters accomplished much throughout the mid-1900s. Even though police brutality towards said protesters did occur, they didn't stand down, and were able to achieve some of their goals. Of course, there is still a way to go, but it does show the effectiveness of the right of protest.

When it comes to PETA, as far as I know, most PETA members are more against the cruelty to animals in such places as factory farms, which can create pretty horrible living conditions for various farm animals-- especially chickens. I know that many of them aren't trying to convince anyone to become vegetarian, just to make a statement about where exactly your meat is coming from. When I think about where the majority of our country's chicken is produced it does sicken me a bit. So in that regard, PETA has succeed in part of their goal in their protests. Raising awareness about the treatment of animals in the factory farm setting.

In the end, I suppose all groups of people have their "idiots", who don't quite execute their plans as well as they should despite sometimes having a good cause. Other times you get people like the Westboro Baptist Church, who "protest" to create hate. Despite the fact that there are some people who abuse, or misuse the right to protest something, in the end I believe it is really a necessary right in a free country.
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[Vextor]

I used to be involved in may protests-- I was very much involved in numerous causes, including animal rights and environmental conservation. I've invited Ingrid Newkirk (founder of PETA) to my college to give a speech on political activism, and I've personally been involved in organizing a couple dozen protests. I'm obviously a PETA member, and although I dislike some of the stuff they do, I think they perform a very important function within the overall scope of treating animals in a more humane manner.

Whether protests achieve anything... you say "shocked by the stupidity of protestors" but what you describe just one type of protest-- "civil disobedience."
Civil disobedience was exactly what brought change to India under the leadership of Gandhi, but protests can also be done without breaking laws (most protests are done peacefully without breaking laws). However, some groups will opt for more extreme methods of protest--not only civil disobedience, but even as far as destruction of property or acts of "eco-terrorism." It's pretty important to distinguish between these and understand that not all groups agree with the extreme methodologies. Things tend to be pretty complicated, after all.

For example, a while ago there was some discussion here on how the Sea Shepherd vessel "Farley Mowat" rammed into a Japanese Whaling Ship to disrupt their whaling operations. Greenpeace vessels who were also in the area helped the Japanese Whaling Ship and denounced the attack by Farley Mowat. So there's two groups who both aim at "making the world a better place for whales" disagreeing with methodology. Sea Shepherd is pretty much a privateering quasi-military group who have weapons on their ships, so obviously they wouldn't have the same type of methods in mind when compared to Greenpeace, which is a lot more mainstream and moderate in their approach. Who gets more accomplished? That's hard to say. Greenpeace has more political power due to its sheer size and capital--they can influence politicians. Sea Shepherd is smaller, and and even though they cooperate with militaries of certain countries to fight pirates (poachers), they have little political say in the scope of international politics. However, they make an impact through direct action, such as how they managed to force the Japanese whaling ships to leave due to damage.

Lawful protests are tamer compared to the stuff Sea Shepherd does, but the theory is basically the same. The purpose of protests is to cause annoyance against another party and deplete their resources, while you express your viewpoint and make the public aware of an issue. The more media attention you get, the better--because that sort of stuff worries the other party who often don't want the public to know the stuff they do. Thus, the fact that these folks who chained themselves to a tree trunk or whatever accomplished their purpose by getting media attention. The police also has to spend their resources to deal with them, and if the protesters did sue, it means they have various fees they must also incur (court fees, attorney fees, etc). Anybody can sue anybody for whatever reason within civil court in the USA, so there's really no such thing as "do protesters have the right to sue." Anybody has the right to sue.

Political activism of this kind is also multi-layered. You have these people chaining themselves in the front lines, while you have moderate activists who try to bridge the gap between the more extreme activists and the general public (much like the Sea Shepherd / Greenpeace situation). You also have environmental lawyers and lobbyists doing their thing behind the scenes, using these protests as leverage to influence politics. For that reason, what seems to be "pointless" would actually accomplish a number of objectives in reality--but most people won't see that, at least not very directly. You'd have to be pretty naive to think that a protest can suddenly resolve a problem and the other party would suddenly repent and change their course.

Oh yes, and "case sensitive" is being used the wrong way here. "Case sensitive" is pretty much an exclusively computer lingo meaning that you have to input something in the correct case (upper / lower case ie. proper capitalization). What you want to say instead is, "sensitive case"-- as in, "this is a sensitive case."

[Ezekiel]

[Scott]

Vextor, sometimes I wanna have your babies. You make such well thought out posts.

Back to the topic at hand..Peacefull protests are great, I think. These sorts of situations are always so complex. It certainly can get things done, weather it be peaceful or violent. Not that I advocate Violent Protests. As said above, I feel the right to protest is indeed a very important one. Afterall, it has brought about many changes.

India, as Vextor mentioned, is a good one. The protesting here in the middle of the century brought about many Civil rights changes. The protest that broke out at the Stonewall Inn all those years ago brought Gay rights to larger media attention and has, I think, helped the cause in the end.
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To relive those Halcyon days of youth

[HarmonianHiccup]

While I respect the right that every person has to protest things they think are unlawful and/or unfair or immoral, I kind of lost my respect for many people who participate in such demonstrations.
My Alma Mater was a fairly sedate place--there was very little that happened to make people unhappy enough to protest anything. So when they opportunity came along, the students who were interested in being politically active would take any excuse to protest. Anything would do--they did it simply for the sake of protesting and demonstrating. Alot of them even admitted that they didn't even care about the issue, they just wanted to demonstrate.

I found that highly distressing--if you're going to interrupt peoples' lives, at least do if for something you actually believe in...
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Proud Owner and Operator of The Hiccup's Speciality Grassland Atelier, the only place to find Electric Whiffle Bats!

[Sniper_Zegai]

Just for balance PETA also purchased a large number of huge freezers? Why is this important.

Mainly becuase they are used for two things. Storing meat, which PETA would'nt do. And dead bodies, surely PETA dont keep dead bodies in their freezers? Not humans at least, probably about 2000+ animals were euthanised by PETA, this was found out after an investigation into the group.

They also use violence but what the hell, animals are more important than humans.

P.S. Gil-Galad covered all that freedom to protest stuff. I was gonna comment but you can just look at his post.

http://s82.photobucket.com/albums/j270/maulrat1967/Videos/Penn%20And%20 Teller%20Bullshit/201%20PETA/ Penn and Teller's Bull$*!# PETA episode can be found here and its informative to say the least
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[Firefly]

While I do support PETA's general message, I hate some of the other things they do... Protesting fur? Great! Protesting animal shelters and threatening the president of a certain animal shelter and his family? Not so great. I understand that PETA is upset that these shelters put animals down, but what else are they to do? They are so many homeless animals, not enough funding or space for all of them. These shelters exist to help animals the best they can, and they don't deserve to be harrassed by PETA.

You'll also find evidence that PETA and the ALF (Animal Liberation Front) share some ties, and the ALF has bombed a few animal testing labs. I'm sorry, but I don't think lab rats are worth the risk of harming human life due to bombing those labs. Not to mention, the research done on these animals helps save human lives. On the Penn and Teller show that Sniper linked to, I think they mentioned that the vice-president of PETA takes drugs derived from such animal research. She defended it by saying that she needs these drugs to stay alive so she can help save lives of more animals... hypocrite much?
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[Amyral]

I'm not really a big protester or into activism, largely because it's a conflict of interest with my work.

In terms of civil disobedience, when we compare Sea Shepherd vs. Greenpeace, I think it's much more difficult to determine which is more effective, because Sea Shepherd's piracy may have more of a short term impact, but Greenpeace has far more political clout to make actual policy changes. I think we'll be better able to tell in that particular case in the future looking back, as it's hard to tell the impact as its happening.

I think a better scenario when trying to compare civil disobedience to the more aggressive type, I think the civil rights movements (particularly the black civil rights movement), are a good group of movements, as they generally had both aggressive/violent movements and civil disobedience. I think, in the long run, the reason that we remember the civil disobedience moreso than the violent protesters is because of their impact.

Now the difference between the whaling and the civil rights scenarios is one of the target. The whaling companies are obviously going to be easier to take down than a superpower government, so it's not going to be an exact comparison over which techniques are going to be more effective, which is why I'm not really comfortable in comparing them.

For protesters in general, in the US it's one of the most important rights and has brought about many positive changes. In general, it has been one of the more dangerous rights to participate in. I think everyone who does so should know that and realize that they may get shot with rubber bullets or sprayed with mace if it gets out of hand. For the most part, they are generally innocent.

However, if you want a story of protesters who didn't really know what they were protesting, I went to my brother's graduation in Colorado Springs. He graduated from the Air Force Academy and the speaker at his graduation was the Secretary of Defense. As you could probably imagine, there were people outside of the base (the Air Force Academy is on an actual base, which prevented them from entering) protesting the war. I expected it, even though he likely came in on helicopter and they would never be seen. However, one sign caught my interest. It caught my interest because it was addressed specifically to Donald Rumsfeld. The problem with the sign was that the graduation occurred in June. Donald Rumsfeld left office in December last year. The sign wasn't even addressed to the right person. Either they reused it and were too lazy to make another one or they didn't really know who they were supposed to be protesting to.