Protests are only good if they’re annoying. They’re meant to be annoying. They’re meant to make other people notice, to stop traffic, to cause delays and ideally an economic hit to the city. If nobody felt the protest, how do you expect it to have an effect?
Protests are definitely meant to be noticed, and should also make you think. Ideally they should also be attractive for others to join, allowing the protest to gain momentum. But being annoying (at least to regular people) seems counter productive to that? Sometimes it is unavoidable, but I don’t think it should be desired.
Of course being annoying to the body being protested against is definitely desired.
Protests are not made for other people to join, protests are made to show the government/ruling class that the workers are angry and how much harm they could do to their business. People joining in and becoming interested in the fight is a nice side effect.
(Those kinds of) protests aren’t for convincing the average person. The point of a protest is to tell the people in power “there are a lot of us, and you can’t afford to ignore us.”
Protests aren’t always for the “benefit” of nonparticipants, as much as for those taking part. Being surrounded by people with the same concerns as you who are also willing to take some kind of action is very heartening. Not only does it bring joy to people who may otherwise feel powerless or overwhelmed, it presents opportunities for making connections for further organizing.
Without public protests, you may have a lot of individuals that believe they are alone in their outrage. Feeling this, nobody will ever act and so be defeated without ever fighting at all.
Protests do more harm than good to a cause, especially annoying protests.
Protests are only good if they’re annoying. They’re meant to be annoying. They’re meant to make other people notice, to stop traffic, to cause delays and ideally an economic hit to the city. If nobody felt the protest, how do you expect it to have an effect?
Protests are definitely meant to be noticed, and should also make you think. Ideally they should also be attractive for others to join, allowing the protest to gain momentum. But being annoying (at least to regular people) seems counter productive to that? Sometimes it is unavoidable, but I don’t think it should be desired.
Of course being annoying to the body being protested against is definitely desired.
Protests are not made for other people to join, protests are made to show the government/ruling class that the workers are angry and how much harm they could do to their business. People joining in and becoming interested in the fight is a nice side effect.
Well that’s what I mean by doing more harm than good. People notice, and then say “I hate whatever those people stand for”.
(Those kinds of) protests aren’t for convincing the average person. The point of a protest is to tell the people in power “there are a lot of us, and you can’t afford to ignore us.”
Protests aren’t always for the “benefit” of nonparticipants, as much as for those taking part. Being surrounded by people with the same concerns as you who are also willing to take some kind of action is very heartening. Not only does it bring joy to people who may otherwise feel powerless or overwhelmed, it presents opportunities for making connections for further organizing.
Without public protests, you may have a lot of individuals that believe they are alone in their outrage. Feeling this, nobody will ever act and so be defeated without ever fighting at all.