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Comment by taneq | Hacker News Reader

> As MLK explains, the point is to create a more general disruption so that everyone has to take notice of an issue they might otherwise ignore

The problem with this approach is that unless you do it in a way that's relevant to the original issue, you're just dragging innocent people into your fight and victimizing them. Depending on how much of an asshat you are to them (like, say, stranding them for several hours at an airport when they've just got off a flight), there's a good chance you'll push them to be less sympathetic to your cause.

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To the extent that that's true, I'm not sure what the standard for "relevant to the original issue" should be. Taxi drivers are disproportionally Muslim and Sikh and disproportionally immigrants. (noted here: http://democracynow.org/stories/17050 ) Does that count as relevant enough? If not, what would? If so, what else would?

I think that protestors should be careful about their tactics, but I don't think they should have to invent ways to tie a protest's theme to its objective. We protest when our moral values are offended, and that's enough of a reason.

I felt the London Tube strikes went this way. The arguments put forward for each strike never seemed convincing enough to be causing everyone so much inconvenience.

The media coverage plays a good part in this. At least here in Brazil it's very common for them to evade the motivation of the protesters 'bigly' and put a big focus on how it's disturbing others and etc... The result is predicable.

Innocent people are already being harmed. Here, refugees and Muslims. The protest is to call attention to that harm.

But let's run with your notion. Suppose there is somebody who says: "I guess I didn't know about the civil rights violations and the deaths that this policy will result in. And I guess it's terrible that these refugees have been waiting years in limbo trying to rebuild their lives. But what's really important is that I expected to be home on time for dinner, so now I won't help them."

I don't think a person like that was every going to be sympathetic to the cause. They weren't going to do anything. They were going to ignore it.

And that's exactly the point of MLK's style of protest. It is to make a problem for some into a problem for all. It is to make it impossible for comfortable people to keep ignoring the problem.

You sir have a lot of patience. I read the "arguments" as "the children don't want to be bothered". That thing about order x justice sums it up. They don't give a shit.

Thanks. I have some compassion, because none of us really wants to be bothered. I too would like to stay in my comfortable bubble. But sometimes people wake up.

> Innocent people are already being harmed.

So the solution is to harm more? That's not a peaceful protest, that's terrorism.

Raise awareness. Be loud. Be visible. But if you base your protest around screwing up someone else's day the response you get will more likely be "hey maybe you deserved it" than "wow we should help these people."

Ok. If you really can't tell the difference between "hour late for dinner" and terrorism, then either you're trolling or you're beyond hope.

If you think you know a better way to lead protests, by all means show us how. But I have no time for armchair experts whose only contribution is "u r doin it rong bcuz I dont lik it".

The people who would say, "maybe those refugees deserved it" because something was mildly inconvenient for them were never, ever going to stir themselves to do the compassionate thing. Ditto the people who value a sliver of comfort over helping legal residents arbitrarily ejected from their homes.

Your claims here are those of the white moderates that MLK called the greatest stumbling block to black freedom. Apparently you haven't yet bothered to read his "Letter From A Birmingham Jail". But I'm done trying to spoon-feed it to you, so if you'd like to pursue this further, take it up with him.

It was only 1 hour. Doesn't anyone ever protest in America? It feels like this concept is so new to you.

Yes - some people might be less sympathetic, those are not the people the protest set out to influence. It's the people who haven't made up their minds yet, the people who think that "This will all blow over soon" and want to get on with their lives in their bubble. They NEED to be inconvenienced to react, to make up their mind that this is something they can't ignore. Only then when you engage the apathetic can the protest grow, and protests must grow otherwise most of them fizzle.

It seems it's pure misdirection at this point. I also notice that people sort of become "trained"(unconsciously) to be incredibly sensible to anything that may deligitimize any sort of critical action or against the status-quo in general but then using a whole different weight for other stuff(maybe because they're "normal"). Results seems to be: demobilization, immobilization.

It's not only to influence the people directly affected, it's also to generate news coverage which will get the greater population talking about the cause of the protest. Which is what is currently happening obviously.

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