Notice the merelly starting the very sentence sentence you quote from me about the George Floyd protests.
The pigs are still often holding people down by putting their knee on that person’s neck, so how exactly has the largest demonstration in America changed anything?!
Again, my point is that demonstrations have to be more than walking whilst holding a board up - at the very least they have to be opportunities to get contacts from other people with a view of joining grassroots groups for change.
If all that people do is walk and shout with lots of other people and then at the end of it go home with a feeling of achievement and do nothing further, all you get out of it is what you got with the George Floyd ones - empty promises from politicians and no actual change - when what all those millions of American should have gotten was a restructuring of policing in the US.
People here are way over-celebrating something which means very little unless we see that it has led to many following it with getting involved in politics and/or grassroots movements - it’s premature and it makes me suspect that for many who participated this one demonstration was it and they aren’t following it through with next steps.
Notice the merelly starting the very sentence sentence you quote from me about the George Floyd protests. The pigs are still often holding people down by putting their knee on that person’s neck, so how exactly has the largest demonstration in America changed anything?!
Assuming you meant merelly as merely I saw it but your claim that no change occurred is wrong. The change that did occur was unsustained because people in the US got complacent. They protested and cared for a while but then they stopped paying attention and things started back the way the were, now worse in some areas.
Notice how I said sustained effort? The thing that didn’t happen after George Floyd.
If all that people do is walk and shout with lots of other people and then at the end of it go home with a feeling of achievement and do nothing further
“Do nothing further”? You mean further than the protests 2 days ago that set record numbers? Or the ones that have been ongoing every weekend for months? That have been building and increasing to the No Kings day protest? Is that the do nothing further you’re referring to?
People here are way over-celebrating something which means very little unless we see that it has led to many following it with getting involved in politics and/or grassroots movements
Are you in regular contact with the majority of the US population that you can say that hasn’t been happening? I’m pretty sure the growing numbers of protesters is people getting “involved in politics and/or grassroots movements”.
it’s premature and it makes me suspect that for many who participated this one demonstration was it and they aren’t following it through with next steps.
Oh, you’re predicting the future 48 hours post protest. This is just the same bullshit “your protesting isn’t good enough” sentiment everywhere else on Lemmy repackaged and with more words.
I think we’re talking past each other here and we agree on objectives, just not on methods.
In response to public opinion outcry, Politicians will first make empty promises, then superficial changes which are easily reversible, and only beyond that actual structural changes which are hard to reverse hence are more permanent.
The latter ones is what I meant before with “permanent”. What politicians did in response to the George Floyd demonstrations was all the way up to superficial changes, but not structural changes, hence it didn’t take long for things to go back to roughly the way they were, and the underlying problem of police violence in the US of which the George Floyd killing was a symptom, is now the same or even worse.
The only peaceful march kind of demonstrations (so, not things like strikes) which I know of were politicians went all the way to structural changes are the kind which lasted months (and at times they weren’t actually peaceful), and it’s very hard for people to sustain that without organizing.
This demonstration, on the other hand, lasted a single day. I have never heard of any demonstration that lasted a single day and changed anything in a sustained way ever anywhere in the World. I’ll be happy if you find me an example to prove me wrong (as that means there’s hope).
I think we both agree on the need for sustained pressure and for people not to grow complacent, and as I see it that means that people have to get involved in grassroots efforts and civil society groups to force that change and keep up the pressure until the change is structural and hence deep and near-irreversible. Merely going to a one-day demonstration won’t achieve sustained change, but if it acts as a step to joining said grassroots efforts and civil-society groups that keep working well beyond that demonstration then it’s a means to an end.
My point is that loudly celebrating a single day peaceful demonstration without the caveat that “it must be a start not and end”, risk making many if not most feel “mission accomplished”, become complacent and not do anything further, exactly the opposite of your objective of “sustained push for change were people do not grow complacent”.
As I see it, if you want the people to keep on pushing there should be a “what next” after the “good job everybody” in the celebrating of this demonstration, but that’s not what I see in the countless threads here in Lemmy: all I see is people celebrating it as if “showing Trump he’s not liked” was the whole objective of the thing and it was achieved by this demonstration, as if “showing Trump he’s not liked” is anywhere close to enough to achieve a structural change of American politics.
If people were indeed getting into the kind of organizations that can deliver the sustained effort both of us think is required, we would be seeing “this is just the start” kind of statements, but I haven’t seen any yet and this together with the historical track record of peaceful demonstrations in US leads me to believe this one isn’t a beginning of something more, just a one-off.
that’s not what I see in the countless threads here in Lemmy
Your sample size is Lemmy. No issue there, definitely representative of the US and its population as a whole.
Your premise is flawed and the Occupy movement demonstrates it. 5 years of sustained protesting to not achieve the kind of change you seem to expect to see.
Your under the misconception the sustained non-stop protesting is equivalent to sustained action and activism. I’ve already covered this and I’m not going to go over it again, I’ll just copy and paste what I already wrote:
The problems in the US have been building and evolving for decades, if not longer, and they’ll take at least that long to get a handle on.
Non-stop protesting has the same hurdle as a nationwide general strike and is just as unrealistic, especially considering how long it would have to last.
Again, you’re just repackaging the same bullshit sentiment as OP and all over everywhere else on Lemmy.
I’m not going to engage you any further as your agenda seems to be to argue in opposition of the movement occurring in the US.
Notice the merelly starting the very sentence sentence you quote from me about the George Floyd protests.
The pigs are still often holding people down by putting their knee on that person’s neck, so how exactly has the largest demonstration in America changed anything?!
Again, my point is that demonstrations have to be more than walking whilst holding a board up - at the very least they have to be opportunities to get contacts from other people with a view of joining grassroots groups for change.
If all that people do is walk and shout with lots of other people and then at the end of it go home with a feeling of achievement and do nothing further, all you get out of it is what you got with the George Floyd ones - empty promises from politicians and no actual change - when what all those millions of American should have gotten was a restructuring of policing in the US.
People here are way over-celebrating something which means very little unless we see that it has led to many following it with getting involved in politics and/or grassroots movements - it’s premature and it makes me suspect that for many who participated this one demonstration was it and they aren’t following it through with next steps.
Assuming you meant merelly as merely I saw it but your claim that no change occurred is wrong. The change that did occur was unsustained because people in the US got complacent. They protested and cared for a while but then they stopped paying attention and things started back the way the were, now worse in some areas.
Notice how I said sustained effort? The thing that didn’t happen after George Floyd.
“Do nothing further”? You mean further than the protests 2 days ago that set record numbers? Or the ones that have been ongoing every weekend for months? That have been building and increasing to the No Kings day protest? Is that the do nothing further you’re referring to?
Are you in regular contact with the majority of the US population that you can say that hasn’t been happening? I’m pretty sure the growing numbers of protesters is people getting “involved in politics and/or grassroots movements”.
Oh, you’re predicting the future 48 hours post protest. This is just the same bullshit “your protesting isn’t good enough” sentiment everywhere else on Lemmy repackaged and with more words.
I think we’re talking past each other here and we agree on objectives, just not on methods.
In response to public opinion outcry, Politicians will first make empty promises, then superficial changes which are easily reversible, and only beyond that actual structural changes which are hard to reverse hence are more permanent.
The latter ones is what I meant before with “permanent”. What politicians did in response to the George Floyd demonstrations was all the way up to superficial changes, but not structural changes, hence it didn’t take long for things to go back to roughly the way they were, and the underlying problem of police violence in the US of which the George Floyd killing was a symptom, is now the same or even worse.
The only peaceful march kind of demonstrations (so, not things like strikes) which I know of were politicians went all the way to structural changes are the kind which lasted months (and at times they weren’t actually peaceful), and it’s very hard for people to sustain that without organizing.
This demonstration, on the other hand, lasted a single day. I have never heard of any demonstration that lasted a single day and changed anything in a sustained way ever anywhere in the World. I’ll be happy if you find me an example to prove me wrong (as that means there’s hope).
I think we both agree on the need for sustained pressure and for people not to grow complacent, and as I see it that means that people have to get involved in grassroots efforts and civil society groups to force that change and keep up the pressure until the change is structural and hence deep and near-irreversible. Merely going to a one-day demonstration won’t achieve sustained change, but if it acts as a step to joining said grassroots efforts and civil-society groups that keep working well beyond that demonstration then it’s a means to an end.
My point is that loudly celebrating a single day peaceful demonstration without the caveat that “it must be a start not and end”, risk making many if not most feel “mission accomplished”, become complacent and not do anything further, exactly the opposite of your objective of “sustained push for change were people do not grow complacent”.
As I see it, if you want the people to keep on pushing there should be a “what next” after the “good job everybody” in the celebrating of this demonstration, but that’s not what I see in the countless threads here in Lemmy: all I see is people celebrating it as if “showing Trump he’s not liked” was the whole objective of the thing and it was achieved by this demonstration, as if “showing Trump he’s not liked” is anywhere close to enough to achieve a structural change of American politics.
If people were indeed getting into the kind of organizations that can deliver the sustained effort both of us think is required, we would be seeing “this is just the start” kind of statements, but I haven’t seen any yet and this together with the historical track record of peaceful demonstrations in US leads me to believe this one isn’t a beginning of something more, just a one-off.
Your sample size is Lemmy. No issue there, definitely representative of the US and its population as a whole.
Your premise is flawed and the Occupy movement demonstrates it. 5 years of sustained protesting to not achieve the kind of change you seem to expect to see.
Your under the misconception the sustained non-stop protesting is equivalent to sustained action and activism. I’ve already covered this and I’m not going to go over it again, I’ll just copy and paste what I already wrote:
Non-stop protesting has the same hurdle as a nationwide general strike and is just as unrealistic, especially considering how long it would have to last.
Again, you’re just repackaging the same bullshit sentiment as OP and all over everywhere else on Lemmy.
I’m not going to engage you any further as your agenda seems to be to argue in opposition of the movement occurring in the US.