Comment by astorsnk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by astorsnk | Hacker News Reader

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> This protest in particular isn’t very disruptive

As I said it depends on the style of protest. This is not disruptive. Blockading roads during rush hour (a frequent tactic in the past year) is and is something I have more of an issue with. In the art gallery cases (of which there have been several) I would be annoyed if the art was damaged in any way. Damaging something that’s been taken care of for so long to make your point is selfish. In the case of climate protestors invading the track during the British Grand Prix I also have an issue. If the race hadn’t already been stopped due to an accident there was a very good chance protestors or drivers or spectators would have been killed.

Regarding the demands generally being of only the upper class, looking at British liberal politics in general, there is a focus on climate, immigration, gender etc and little focus on economic policies. When so many people are struggling financially the focus needs to be on economics first and everything else needs to take a backseat for a while.

It sounds like you’re saying that as long as their aren’t negative consequences, then the protests are fine. Is that accurate or an oversimplification? I think by definition there need to be consequences, as that is what forces people to notice and to talk. A common retort to this is that it will actually harm the movement more than help it, since the press that is generated tends to skew negative, but the research on the blowback effect is inconclusive.

Also, do you think that the climate crisis is not an economic issue?

It’s an oversimplification. Protests that cause disruption are not a problem, but you need to keep in mind who you are disrupting. For example: some action to block/prevent private jets from taking off and disrupting wealthy users = great. Blocking the road to airport causing families that have spent years saving for their family trip to miss their flight = bad.

I also disagree that “by definition there needs to be consequences”. Marches, showing the strength of feeling via the number of participants, have been successfully many times and cause little disruption other than closing some streets in the city centre.

Regarding the climate crisis being an economic issue - that doesn’t matter to the people struggling to heat their homes, or feed their children. Those concerns are much more immediate than how we can build a new green economy over the next decades, or how we may be impacting their grandchildren who don’t even exist yet.

So are you only in favor of protests if they don't disrupt the general public? How do you feel about the sit-ins in the US during the Civil Rights movement? Or mass protests against the Vietnam war? These things were very disruptive to everyone, even the non-wealthy. Did you feel like the response to George Floyd's death in the US was wrong, too? The riots, enormous protests, etc.?

> Marches, showing the strength of feeling via the number of participants, have been successfully many times and cause little disruption other than closing some streets in the city centre.

But these _do_ cause disruption. Surely the family on the way to the airport could still miss their flight if a protest forms in response to Roe v. Wade being overturned, right?

Also, it doesn't _seem_ like there are very strong class divides when it comes to concerns over the climate crisis [1]. I'm curious what you're basing your belief off of that working class folks don't care enough about the climate crisis to support protests in favor of change?

This is also ignoring the fact that whether or not lower income people care about the climate crisis, the protestors still make good points. Climate crisis is an issue whether or not people are principally concerned with heating their homes and feeding their children, so it doesn't invalidate the protestors points, right? If people are more concerned about food safety, that doesn't mean the protestors advocating for changes to our response to climate crisis are mislead, or not caring about issues of food safety/affordable energy, or anything. You seem to be thinking that we should only protest against maybe one thing at a time, regardless of the future consequences, and that thing should be decided by what the working class is concerned about. That doesn't make much sense to me.

1. https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2021/research/cl...

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