“A caravan of vehicles blocked inbound lanes on Airport Way to protest the conflict in Gaza on Monday afternoon, the Port of Portland reports.”
“A caravan of vehicles blocked inbound lanes on Airport Way to protest the conflict in Gaza on Monday afternoon, the Port of Portland reports.”
This is all thoughts and prayers equivalent for the left. It doesn’t serve any purpose in reality but to make the protesters feel better about themselves. Go do this in DC or fuck even at the governors office.
Regardless of what you think about these kinds of protests and their effectiveness, it’s the last step before violence, so is it escalation you’re begging for for effectiveness’ sake? We’re too spread out in this country for everyone that has an issue with the federal government to fly or take a bus to DC. You know that’s not realistic, right?
Million man march, million women march. Those happened in DC. The problem isn’t how spread out it’s how disorganized and disjointed the movements are.
And both of those were prior to the patriot act. Leftist movements are disorganized not only because there’s a million kinds of leftists who all argue against each other, but the federal government has a pretty big motivation to keep it disorganized. I’m not saying it’s impossible to have a bunch of people show up to DC, but it’s far easier to protest in your own city than spending a week’s paycheck to fly across the country.
And that’s why it is unfortunately ineffective. Because convenience and ease are prioritized and the message never impacts the people who can effect change. It just serves to turn people off to the cause locally.
Its ineffectiveness also is tied to what you think their goal is. If you think their goal is to win the hearts and minds of those who are sitting in traffic and missing work, I’d say you’re correct that it’s ineffective. But I’d say that it’s pretty effective in keeping Palestine in the news where it’s been slipping from the front page recently. I’d say that cutting off a major artery for the beating heart of a city will always have some sort of effect on people and companies who make the most money in the city. I’d say that upsetting the status quo was pretty effective. Also, with the sharp increase of anti-protest legislation (which thankfully most of the recent federal legislation has either failed or expired), I’d say it has to be somewhat effective, but in ways that aren’t immediately apparent. Oregon passed a bill that classifies “protests that disrupt daily life” as domestic terrorism. This includes blocking traffic. This is a wild response if you think the protest as just a nuisance. But if they’re majorly disturbing the flow of money, that bill makes way more sense to me (not that I agree with it).
I suppose by your metric climate protests and nuclear disarmament protests back in the day were also ineffective and useless. And sure, the main goals haven’t been met with either group, but I wouldn’t call either ineffective. Being a stepping stone might be their fundamental goal for protesting even though they want big change to happen. But big changes don’t happen unless stepping stones happen first.
Here is one great example, of many.
and then on the “Day of Desperation” when ACT UP protested against the first Gulf war by occupying Grand Central Station and interrupting television news programmes, chanting: “Fight Aids, not Arabs.”
We would then do non-violent creative direct action, to communicate through the media (not to the media) to pressure the institutions to change.
Although you don’t really have to look any farther than MLK Jr. and the civil rights movement. It’s really sad how quickly Americans forget history, often willingly.
And where did MLK do his protests? In progressive cities without Jim Crow laws or right in the south and in Washington where the people who could actually effect change lived and worked. That’s the point I’m making, not that protesting isn’t effective, but it has to be done with real intent. The impact to businesses here in Portland because random people were prevented from making flights isn’t even remotely close to the level of organization and impact MLK had with his protests. What happened here was performative, not effective.