What Do Protesters Want?

Discussion in 'Protests & Riots' started by John Brunner, Jul 20, 2020.

  1. Al Amoling

    Al Amoling Veteran Member
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    I don't think they want that but they certainly deserve the biggest boot ever given.
     
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  2. Hal Pollner

    Hal Pollner Veteran Member
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    What do they want? They want it their way!
     
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  3. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    Then they should just go to Burger King and forget about all of this rioting, vandalizing, and shooting people. The rest of us would be a lot happier, and so would Burger King.
     
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  4. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    Not everyone realizes this, but all of this stuff is preplanned, particularly today. To a large part, it always has been but today's technology allows for them to be scripted. If you hadn't noticed the professionally printed signs and shirts, or if you hadn't heard that pallets of bricks are conveniently placed wherever these things occur, you might have the impression that a large number of people were angered over a police action or whatever the supposed motivating factor might be, and that they all showed up as a grassroots effort to make their anger known. But no, all this stuff is planned ahead of time, to be used whenever a motivating factor presents itself. Professional agitators and paid participants are at the forefront of these riots, supplemented by whoever they can get to come out to raise the numbers.
     
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  5. Nancy Hart

    Nancy Hart Veteran Member
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    What Do Protesters Want?

    In general ...they want to call attention to a problem. They want to show that there are a substantial number of people who agree there is a serious problem. They want smart people in power to get together and find solutions.

    Elections alone don't always solve problems. Nixon promised to end the war in Viet Nam in 1968. Would it have lasted longer without demonstrations? No one can know for sure, but I can't see how it hurt.

    I blame the mainstream media partly for this, because they too tend to show scenes of protests only when there is violence

    The protests in Portland have been going on for 60 days. Where was the media showing peaceful protests for all the days in between, before the feds showed up? Few would have been interested, because there would have been nothing to get outraged about.



     
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  6. Cody Fousnaugh

    Cody Fousnaugh Supreme Member
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    Peaceful protests do make news! We've had at least three peaceful ones here where we live. Even the head of our P.D. said he was proud at how peaceful both the "for" and the "against" the P.D. happened. Protests were done during the day. No violence or destruction done. Then again, we have an extremely small black population here of 0.46% for a little over 78,000 people. The major crime here is DUI and store theft.
     
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  7. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    I don't think very many people have a problem with peaceful protests, but these have been everything but peaceful, however often the media and Democrat politicians might use the word in describing them.
     
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  8. Lois Winters

    Lois Winters Veteran Member
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    They do not want a level playing field. They want to be top dog without earning it. There have been many programs offered the Blacks just as were offered to Native Americans and they have blown it every time. When Africans were brought to this country in chains and sold as products in a market as slaves, they lost their culture, had their names changed and religion beaten out of them. Unlike Europeans and Asians who came here freely, bringing their culture, language, religion and names with them. They lived in enclaves in cities, and the plains until they were comfortable with co-workers and neighbors. Then they assimilated. However the Black man was at a loss after the freeing of slaves. Some smartly fled to the north and made something of themselves. But most were lost without any validation of who they were and most have been in that rut for over a century. Ask the Black millionaires and billionaires who came to Yankee land and made an identity for themselves and assimilated. They know it must be earned and what is going on today is not the way to do it. If these successful Blacks speak out against the rioting etc, they are derided and so they just sit back and wait for the self destruction. I know many in the black community who work hard every day and are absolutely appalled at all this and are fearful as to where it will all end for them. That is the saddest part of it all. But it is a Black problem, nothing more.
     
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  9. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    I don't think Black Lives Matter is driven by black people or intended to be for black people. It's just the movement of the day, following Occupy, the pink vagina-hat people, and Antifa, who are still very much a part of it. They are using "Black Lives Matter" because, after all, who can argue that black lives don't matter? The people behind the movement don't care anymore about black lives, in general, than they do about the guy who was killed by the cop in Minneapolis. He was just the target event for a riot that had been preplanned, waiting for the right target event to come along.
     
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  10. Nancy Hart

    Nancy Hart Veteran Member
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    Yes, the key for serious protesters is to cut it off at dark I think (and stay away from federal buildings ;) ). But there is something about a challenge some can't resist. If you tell me I can't, I'll show you I can. I hope they figure it out and get more organized.
     
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  11. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    As someone who was involved, even at the planning stages, as a member of the War Resisters League, I can tell you why the focus would be on federal buildings. Actually, you've probably figured that out too. It's the federal government and, in this case, specifically the Trump Administration, that they are protesting, so it makes sense to target federal buildings.

    That I can understand. When I was in college at Northern Michigan University, I got into an argument with Abbie Hoffman, which is a name you might remember from the 1960s and early 1970s. He was at NMU as the nationally known figure of a protest we were going to do in Marquette, where NMU is located. He wanted to picket the post office in Marquette, and I questioned what the point of that would be when we had KI Sawyer Air Force Base just a few miles out of town. "What the hell did the post office do to us?" The reason, which he didn't express, was that he felt that he was too important of a guy to be arrested outside of a relatively unimportant town in the UP of Michigan. They went with the post office, and I went back to class.

    One difference, as I see it, between the antiwar protests of the 1960s and 1970s and those of today, is that if we were breaking the law in any of the things that we would do during a protest, we expected to be arrested, were willing to take that chance, and didn't go to jail like whiny little babies who didn't understand that actions had consequences. Today, the whole country is supposed to accept that none of these spoiled brats should have to suffer any consequences for their actions. We may have believed the action was worth the consequence, but we weren't clueless about the possible consequences.

    If we didn't believe that the action was worth the consequence, we opted out, and I did that plenty of times. I never took part in any protest that involved bombing buildings or hurting people, and I wasn't at all interested in being involved with any of these idiots who were berating returning soldiers. The idea behind that was to create a climate where enlisting in the military or obeying the draft was in itself unacceptable, but the action itself was despicable. These people didn't start the war, and most of them sure didn't want to be there. My brother was in Vietnam, and he wasn't in favor of the war - even if he were, that would be a difference in opinion, and if we can't allow for a difference of opinion, we're surely not the good guys.

    That's another difference between then and now, I suppose. While there were people then who couldn't accept that someone disagreed with them on an issue that was important to them, they were in the minority and they were fighting against the norm. Today, children are indoctrinated from elementary school on to never question the progressive mindset, and to refuse to tolerate anyone who does.

    But anyhow, I can understand why they are targeting federal buildings. Government buildings symbolize the federal government they are fighting against. However, they should then expect a federal response. Actions have consequences. Not many people learn that any more.

    Most of the idiots on the street don't even know why they are targeting businesses and private citizens, but it is to create general chaos. This is an election year, and the planners behind the riots are betting that people won't want to reelect a president who has presided over such unrest.
     
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  12. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    Imagine people so naive as to be advocating for socialism while objecting to secret police taking people away.
     
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  13. Lois Winters

    Lois Winters Veteran Member
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    Most out there causing all the mayhem haven't a clue as to what this is all about. The movers and shakers behind all this want to place the uneducated Blacks in charge so they can ultimately control them and of course, then us, the white dude who has worked to allow for all this chaos. Vicious circle.
     
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  14. Cody Fousnaugh

    Cody Fousnaugh Supreme Member
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    So far, SOF............excellent replies, just plain excellent!!

    And, Ken, you have hit the nail right on the head. Perfect aim and hit!!
     
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  15. Dwight Ward

    Dwight Ward Veteran Member
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    My best friend from about age 5, who lived two yards away was one of the bravest people I've ever known. He was on the small side but could back down any bully around, no matter how big. He was the one who climbed our trees higher than anyone else and he'd explore places in the woods and on the rivers around here that no one else went to.
    He went to Vietnam and became part of an elite hunter-killer squad who would spend weeks in enemy territory. He'd go awol and come home to his parents' house to party and rest. The army would come get him and he'd go back to Vietnam. Eventually he got a DD and came home for good. One time he drove across country with his wife to visit me while I was going to college in Oregon. I wasn't home when he arrived so he didn't wait around - he just turned around and drove back to Maryland. People think I made this up. In spite of my direct experience with J and other vets, I never joined the war protests. I never could be part of a 'movement'.
    He gradually went crazy. He drank and did drugs and finally was served with a court order denying him visitation with his son. I tried to spend time with him periodically but his behavior became so bizarre that I felt he was a danger to my friends and I saw that I could do nothing for him..
    I don't know where he is now or how he's doing.

    A reason I'm relating this is that I think the protesters of that war were protesting something that was really wrong in their eyes. The protesters today have definite grievances like police brutality but beyond those, do they even know what they want themselves? I'm falling away from the left/right paradigm. Anti-Trump? Pro-Trump? I don't much care anymore. I just want things to be better for everyone.
     
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