this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2024
872 points (98.3% liked)
interestingasfuck
6107 readers
1 users here now
interestingasfuck
founded 2 years ago
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I've always said this but got chased out of the room (downvoted to hell), peaceful protest is a bunch of bullshit and won't do shit. It never will. It's always just ignored. Rioting and violence IS the only option when protesting peacefully is ignored. I mean look at the George Floyd protests and how they actually made change. Look at the French and their protests.....etc. Peaceful protesting is quite literally a bunch of people kidding themselves.
People love to use examples like MLK and Gandhi as the poster children for peaceful protest achieving results, and years ago I'd have naively agreed.
But the reality of it is that they could not have succeeded without the threat of violence from more militant alternatives, such as Malcolm X/The Black Panthers or the Ghadar revolutionaries/Babbar Akali Sikhs.
It's the carrot-and-stick metaphor. The powers that be will ignore any nonviolent attempts for reform until a violent movement makes the nonviolent alternative more appealing.
Capitalism has long asserted that there are checks in place to protect people. Consumer protection laws, industry regulations, collective bargaining, and voting with your wallet are some of the myths that capitalism says are supposed to stop bad businesses from hurting people. But when we see these systems failing en masse, and the powers that be refuse to do anything about it, what recourse is left?
The peaceful protest has a purpose. It is the purpose of due diligence. It is to show an escalation. A point at which other avenues were tried and ignored leaving one with no choice but to try others that are more militant. You try all the avenues. And leave the last resort as a last resort. But historically we know that more often than not real change happens when there is either the threat of violence or the actuality of violence.
People as a whole don't seem to be invested until it impacts them. It's hard to impact people enough with peaceful protest to change their minds. That's why blocking highways or major thoroughfares were threatened with violence. Because the point of protest is twofold. It is to educate. But more importantly it is to inconvenience people. Because without the inconvenience, they do not get invested.