What is your first reaction when seeing a protest?

[ColbertWatcher]

It's near noon and you decide to go to lunch with the kids. Everyone hops in the car for the drive downtown to get a bite to eat and maybe catch a movie depending on how hot it's going to be.

As you're driving to the restaurant you see young people marching and carrying signs near your destination.

What is your gut reaction to this image?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. Buncha' durn troublemakers. The country needs more of them.

"Young wolves, show me your teeth." - John Steinbeck to Russian literature students during the Brezhnev era.

[ColbertWatcher]

8. I agree.

I would hate to see the day when the youth file behind something obediently.

The world cannot go forward without a little protest and the chaos it brings.

Otherwise, we'd all be republicans.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. My dear ColbertWatcher!

I have honked many times in support of demonstrators!

The big supermarket strike here in SoCal several years ago brought my support to their attention...

I would honk and wave as I drove past, and they would respond joyfully!

I've done some striking and picketing too, and I know what it means to have public support.

I am proud to see this happening!

:patriot:

[ColbertWatcher]

6. Thank you CaliforniaPeggy!

I too am in SoCal and remember that damn strike. I avoided the stores and when they said it was okay to go to Ralph's, I went.

I've stopped using my "card" at all the stores due to my paranoia that they used them to see who wouldn't cross the picket line.

I am proud to say I've never crossed a picket line.

[TechBear_Seattle]

3. Choices 2, 3, 4 AND 5

I would feel a sense of pride that young people are not as apathetic as some believe, and check to see if it's something I support. If it is, I will either honk or maybe even join in if that seems feasable. If it is not, well, I hope they're not blocking my restaurant.

[ColbertWatcher]

5. Just out of curiosity...

...what if they were legitimately picketing the restaurant?

For instance, to start a union or something. What would you do then?

[TechBear_Seattle]

10. Honor it, of course

Then ask one or two of the picketers if they could recommend a nice family restaurant in the area. :toast:

[ColbertWatcher]

11. OK.

:hi:

[asdjrocky]

4. Generally, if there is a protest in my town-

I've started it or know about it. Not sure why, but I grew up with the soul of a protester and I've been arrested more than a few times practicing my right to protest.

[ColbertWatcher]

7. Good for you.

Any recent protests you know about or want to let others know about?

[asdjrocky]

9. What I'm doing for work right now

Doesn't allow much in the way of protesting. The days of going around getting arrested are done, at least until November.

[ColbertWatcher]

12. November is a good month for outside protesting. n/t

[asdjrocky]

16. True, but by then I'll have some more freedom.

[Radical Activist]

13. How come I didn't get an invitation? What's going on?

If there's a protest in town I usually know about it in advance.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

14. If it is a cause I support, I park the car,

bring everyone with me, and join them. I like especially to serenade union picketers with old Union songs like "Hold the Fort" and "The Union Maid".

[ColbertWatcher]

17. You'd bring the kids? n/t

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

21. If I had any, yes

What better way to teach them about the right to free speech? I was at my first demonstration at age 12, after all.

I chose not to have children, though, and don't have friends with children, so the possibility of me taking children anywhere is rather remote.

[ColbertWatcher]

23. "I was at my first demonstration at age 12"

Wow!

Do you remember what was being protested?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

33. civil rights

I believe it dealt with hiring practices of the city where I lived. Now realize my mother brought me to hear the Governor speak, and the demonstrators were there, singing "We Shall Overcome" right beside us. My mother nearly died when I started singing with them.

[ColbertWatcher]

34. How very cool. Thank you for sharing. n/t

[That Is Quite Enough]

15. Well, the only protests in my town are anti-abortion protests, so No. 1.

[ColbertWatcher]

20. LOL! Maybe I should add: "throw pies"? n/t

[krispos42]

18. Other---

"Oooo, what's this about???"

[stray cat]

19. Don't they realize Honk if you love peace is not a policy?

[ColbertWatcher]

24. What is it then? n/t

[knitter4democracy]

22. Honk and yell, "Whoooooo!" if I agree with them.

If I can join them, I do, and if I can't, I tell my kids why protest is important and why we agree with them.

[HEyHEY]

25. "Aw fuck... what now?" - is my initial reaction

Mainly because there is a group in this city that protest FUCKING EVERYTHING. They basically gather somewhere and protest 24 issues at once. They are irritating as hell and I can't stand them. If they were focuses on one issue at a time I'd be more sympathetic.

If it's a legit protest I may or may not honk depending.

[ColbertWatcher]

26. LOL! You Canadians!

But, seriously.

I guess it would get old for people not directly connected to any protest to see constant protesting.

Do you think there are many people who share your feelings toward the constant picketing?

[HEyHEY]

27. Oh yeah, everyone hates them....

About a year ago a women's shelter was going to be closed due to a funding cut. So, the women held a sit-in and specifically asked this group to stay away because their protest would lose credibility if they were around. That's how bad they are.

[ColbertWatcher]

28. Damn.

I don't understand how there can be that many people in one group and yet be so hated, oh, wait...the GOP does it. Nevermind.

So, you really only have this feeling toward this specific group, not just protesters in general.

[HEyHEY]

29. because of that group I always assume protests I see are them - and the often are

[ColbertWatcher]

30. That's too bad. n/t

[baby_mouse]

31. Depends on what they're protesting. There are all kinds.

Mostly I just look at them and think: "Hmf. They're in for a nasty surprise if they think that's going to get them anywhere" as I don't see protest as a terribly useful way of altering policy. Having said that I did go on a couple of the really huge marches against the War in Iraq as I thought their sheer size would make a difference, and I think they did, but not in the way I expected them to.

[ColbertWatcher]

32. I've been wondering that myself for the last few years...

...if protest is even working any more.

I mean the peace rallies you're talking about were huge and millions of people worldwide participated and yet the profiteers still marched us to war.

I don't think people should stop protesting, however.

That would be worse.

[baby_mouse]

35. Well, I don't know if it WOULD be worse.

Think of all the time and emotional energy and preparation for confrontation that goes into it. If that many people can get together to walk about in streets why can't they assemble to form a LETS scheme instead, or to discuss ethical consumerism or green alternatives to power or self-organise in other ways to build the things supplied to them by the corporations for themselves?

To be honest I'm really going off protests. They seem like a sort of grounding of energy, people come away from them feeling very powerfully that they've achieved something but nothing changes and they just go back to their lives. I feel more and more strongly that society has to be rebuilt from the ground up by people changing what they do, and I think that has to be in a directed way. I'm finding it difficult not to think that protests siphon energy away from causes and into nothing. Committed activists put so much heart and power into these things and they just come and go. What would happen if they put the energy into something more targetted? The establishment has shown that if can handle protests. They're looking more and more like a tactical error.

[ColbertWatcher]

36. Sometimes protests allow other people know something is going on...

...plus they can disrupt the target of their protest.

One day's march blocks traffic for the weekend, and can easily be ignored or forgotten.

It seems to me protests have to last longer than just one day to have any effect any more.

[baby_mouse]

37. Well, I guess so.

There have been protests around the UK to prevent land developments to protect the countryside that have been relatively successful. Also i think the fox hunt saboteurs got enough publicity to get the laws passed, but these seem like exceptions rather than the rule. The ones I get dispirited by are things like the G8 summit protests and the May Day protests. My reaction is usually, "my god, all those useful poeple could be DOING something..."

I suppose it's a bit bourgeois of me... :shrug: :)

[ColbertWatcher]

38. bourgeois! LOL!

No, I would never say that!

I just think a certain tipping point has to be reached just to get people's attention.

I mean this forum was up in arms during the lead up to the FISA vote.

But, I suspect few outside DU were nearly as bothered at the prospect of losing a Constitutionally guaranteed right.

Maybe they were too busy working?

[rebel with a cause]

39. If I saw young people protesting here I would be

very shocked. All of our protests are done by the older folks around my age. The peace/anti-war protest happens every Saturday and has for years now. I use to go to them some years ago, but my health and fiction within the group made me stop. I still make my daughter honk and I wave if we happen to pass them by.

The biggest protest I ever did was at a KKK rally around fifteen years ago. That was also the most fightening fun I ever had, and I have had some fearful experiences in my lifetime. At this time myself and a few other protesters ended up having to have police protection from some of the KKK members. Which was comforting in a way, since there were police snipers on the rooftops of the businesses, and to look up and see those guns pointed at those threatening you was something else. I mean, I had lived in NYC and saw SWAT teams on top of tall building before, and had been to a third-world country where the police walked around with sub-machine guns, but on two/three story buildings in a town in the USA with a population under 7,000, it had a whole different impact.