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Topic	Politics Containment Topic 258: Imminent Song
metroid composite 01/11/20 7:15:01 PM #82:	Nelson_Mandela posted... Also these people are risking their lives. There are no real stakes for any American protesters anymore. That's not exactly true given that there have been deaths in protests in the US recently (Heather Heyer for example). Protestors of the Dakota Access Pipeline were badly injured in some cases, when police threw concussive grenades. Some were arrested (including journalists and Jill Stein) and a few were actually prosecuted. The state also had proposed a bill that would make it legal to run over protestors with cars, but I don't think that ever passed. Outside of physical threats, there are other threats. Technology is changing the nature of protests in the US. Police can spoof a cell phone tower and scan the phone information of everyone in a crowd (or everyone who brings their cell phone). Facial recognition technology is also being used regularly. Sometimes if the government does not like the cause you can end up on an FBI watchlist as well (happened to some leaders in the black lives matter movement). And regardless I don't think there needs to be risk of serious consequences for protests to at least mean something. Democracy is not supposed to be fire and forget--in between elections we're supposed to be able to show politicians that we dislike a particular decision they are making. In theory, they are supposed to see these protests realize that they should change course or they will lose votes. Even without risk of physical harm or risk of ending up tracked by the police, protests still take time and effort, still show that people care about an issue. Politicians ignoring all protests is a sign of a weak or broken democracy. (Obviously you can't listen to every protestor, you can't please all the people all of the time, but ideally protests let a politician know when a move would be extremely unpopular). --- Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision <cite>metroid composite posted [p:932788515] in Politics C... [t:78321545]...</cite> <quote>Nelson_Mandela posted... </cite> <quote>Also these people are risking their lives. There are no real stakes for any American protesters anymore.</quote>That's not exactly true given that there have been deaths in protests in the US recently (Heather Heyer for example). Protestors of the Dakota Access Pipeline were badly injured in some cases, when police threw concussive grenades. Some were arrested (including journalists and Jill Stein) and a few were actually prosecuted. The state also had proposed a bill that would make it legal to run over protestors with cars, but I don't think that ever passed. Outside of physical threats, there are other threats. Technology is changing the nature of protests in the US. Police can spoof a cell phone tower and scan the phone information of everyone in a crowd (or everyone who brings their cell phone). Facial recognition technology is also being used regularly. Sometimes if the government does not like the cause you can end up on an FBI watchlist as well (happened to some leaders in the black lives matter movement). And regardless I don't think there needs to be risk of serious consequences for protests to at least mean something. Democracy is not supposed to be fire and forget--in between elections we're supposed to be able to show politicians that we dislike a particular decision they are making. In theory, they are supposed to see these protests realize that they should change course or they will lose votes. Even without risk of physical harm or risk of ending up tracked by the police, protests still take time and effort, still show that people care about an issue. Politicians ignoring all protests is a sign of a weak or broken democracy. (Obviously you can't listen to every protestor, you can't please all the people all of the time, but ideally protests let a politician know when a move would be extremely unpopular). --- Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision</quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
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