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Comment by teachrdan | Hacker News Reader

Meh. People in power always say the militants were too militant and actually hurt the cause - whether it's true or not.

When you think about it, the only thing the establishment wants is an opposition too weak to effectively stop them. Winning movements almost always have a radical edge. You mentioned Malcolm X, but even Martin Luther King was accused of hurting the cause for black equality by being too extreme.

And even if all the militant suffragettes did was make the mainstream suffrage movement look more acceptable, that's still a huge impact for a numerically small group.

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There have been some studies showing that militant tactics in the civil rights era provoked conservative backlashes compared to geographic areas where militant tactics were not employed. We're not in the realm of pure hypothesis and supposition anymore.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/new-study-shows...

It's worth considering that the people in power who say the militants are hurting their cause may be speaking the truth. Rather than dismissing them out of hand because you find their motives suspect.

That is a really confusingly written article, but the study does seem to say what is claimed.

There's a faulty premise that militant action is a strict choice. Once the police start beating and arresting people there's often no going back. Look at all the movements that in the US that no one cares about. That study seemingly doesn't say anything about why the riots happened, it might very well be that "social control" was more politically prevalent at certain times which reflected in both in violence and in public opinion.

Militant action is a choice. People choose violence. Sentient human beings are always capable of not choosing violence. Therefore, I believe the premise to be correct and valid. Do you have a reason for believing otherwise?

The study doesn't just look at years. It looks at county-by-county voting patterns.

Well. HN is probably not the best place for this, so I'm not going to make this too long, but there are a couple of point.

Few movements will survive its more prominent members being beaten and arrested, which is what happens when there's no power balance. Even fewer movement will survive going out and doing the same thing all over again. No seasoned movement can ever guarantee that a protest won't turn violent if the police start arresting people. I'm not saying you should go out and do militant things, but you can't make is easy for the authorities to stop you from protesting. If the choice is between your movement being silenced and trying to defend yourself then maybe that's not really a choice as such.

Of course the US is so far beyond any reasonable protest culture that you might as well not protest at all.

> Of course the US is so far beyond any reasonable protest culture that you might as well not protest at all.

Really? It seems like it's all some people do anymore. You can even become a professional activist and monetize your own victimhood. In the past year we've had people literally rioting and burning down buildings while the intelligentsia provided apoligies for them. "This is self-expression of a voiceless people, that burning car is a statement...."

Are you upset that you're not allowed to stop traffic during rush hour and chant slogans at people? Name one thing you can't do in the US that's part of a "reasonable protest culture"

Your not really offering any arguments to this discussion. If you're interested you can compared the student tuition protests in the US and Canada[0]. Violent or non-voilent, no protest can occur if people don't believe in the right of making your voice heard. In the US you are very good at rationalizing away those rights. I would do that to if I faced the US justice system and frankly that's why I don't spend a lot of time in the US. Plenty of incidents have been written about, from unlawful arrests to free speech zones and jail time for simple Internet attacks.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Quebec_student_protests [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper-spray_incident

The pepper spray incident you linked was just about the best thing that could happen to those protesters. It was the plan, and then after it happens you go "oh my god we never saw this coming!" It's political theater - they got pepper-sprayed while trying to get arrested. Yeah, the cop was a jerk, but I'm not sure what linking the article is supposed to prove.

I have no idea why the Quebec students were even protesting - you're getting tuition subsidized so much that it's cheaper than the areas that are subsidizing it? Unless it's a remarkably worse education that doesn't any sense to me.

Seriously, don't just wave your hands at somebody asking you to back up a serious claim you made. This is why you're so easy to write off. You said we're so far beyond a reasonable protest culture that we shouldn't protest at all. You posted two links - one showing political theater is alive and well in the US and the other showing what look like some unreasonable students getting their way in Quebec. If that's your idea of "reasonable protest" then why should we even want it?

A reasonable protest culture is where people step up to defend others right to protest even if they don't agree with them.

Protesting in the US means potentially facing physical harm, detention, bail you can't pay, overworked public defenders, overzealous prosecutors, civil forfeiture, court fees, harsh sentencing, plea bargains, restrictive parole and being discriminated again because of your record. And most of that even if you don't go to prison. Of course you don't even have to be protesting, just be close enough to one and panic when the police, maybe even undercover, comes to abuse you and you'll be just another footnote in the history of the US justice system.

What happened in Montreal was that when the police tried to crack down on the protests everyone who remotely agreed started protesting too. When the government then went on to enacted a new law to limit the protests, even the people who didn't agree with the original protests started protesting. Then the government was subsequently voted out in the next election. That is a culture where it's reasonable to protest. Because even if worst comes to worst, you at least have some chance of people coming to your aid. Instead of rationalizing what you had to go through by proclaiming essentially "you shouldn't have been protesting".

So in Quebec there was no physical harm, detention, high bail, etc? I think you like Quebec's way because the protesters "won"

You've yet to name, specifically, one thing you can't do in the US that you think you should be able to do. You just use a blanket term "protesting" like anything under that umbrella should magically be OK. You're like a child complaining that the ice cream isn't there. But when you're talking about intentionally damaging property (spraypainting, breaking windows, burning cars and buildings) or disrupting infrastructure yeah you don't get to do that.

If you want to deal with the paperwork you can get 10,000 people and walk down major streets with a police escort even if the police don't like what you stand for. But you can't do it on a Tuesday when other people need to go to work. You can't force people to listen to your ideas.

In the history of the entire world has it ever been easier to have not only a voice but a LOUD voice than in modern day US? In the 1800's maybe they'd shut down your printing press and literally prevent you from distributing information. Today that's not the problem. Today people are sick of hearing it.

Plus Canada has a much smaller population than the US. You have 35 million people total - we have 46 million people living below the poverty line. We have more illegal immigrants in our country than you have people in Quebec. Quebec doesn't have problems America has because it's 90% white people with the same religion living in a large area. Our major cities have 4-10 times the population density of Quebec City. Overall the US has 5 times the population density of Quebec. We have one state (of 50) with a GDP as small as Quebec's. It's an apples and oranges comparison.

"You've yet to name, specifically, one thing you can't do in the US"

What makes you think it would be about one thing? One thing doesn't make the difference. It's overall climate that matters. If you can't de facto exercise your right as much as in another country that right isn't worth as much.

"You're like a child complaining that the ice cream isn't there"

Of course you have to resort to calling names when you can't make a good argument, who's really the child here?

"disrupting infrastructure yeah you don't get to do that"

In many countries you can disrupt traffic because of a protest without the need for a permit. Now you have your one thing. I'm guessing you're now going to tell me how it doesn't matter?

"You can't force people to listen to your ideas."

You've made that point very clear. I've stated repeatedly the differences between protesting in the US and elsewhere and you keep changing the question to something that suits your own thinking and rationalizing the problems.

"a police escort even if the police don't like what you stand for"

The US police are no exactly known for being unbiased.

"You have 35 million people"

No "we" don't since I'm not from nor have ever been to Canada. I have friends and can read material from there though.

"In the history of the entire world has it ever been easier to have not only a voice but a LOUD voice than in modern day US? [...] Today people are sick of hearing it"

I quite specifically talked about protest culture i.e. how people care about other peoples voice and your "counter" argument is that "people are sick of hearing it"? Some great logic right here.

"It's an apples and oranges comparison"

So you agree it's the situations are different now? Or is this just a case of the magic "but US is different" excuse. The US has much higher free speech ambitions than most other countries. Maybe there should be more footnotes in the constitution.

> Of course you have to resort to calling names when you can't make a good argument, who's really the child here?

I didn't call you a child. It was a metaphor suggesting you're being shortsighted and entitled without understanding that the things you want don't just magically appear. A child just wants ice cream, they have ice cream at Johnny's house so why can't he have ice cream at home? The child stomps their feet and says "It's not fair!" An adult grows out of this mindset.

> In many countries you can disrupt traffic because of a protest without the need for a permit. Now you have your one thing. I'm guessing you're now going to tell me how it doesn't matter?

That's great - which countries? They don't get arrested for it over there? You're sure you're not idealizing them because it supports your feeling of outrage?

That's the one concrete thing you're upset about and it's ridiculous. Other than that you're upset Americans don't just blindly go support protesters because they're protesting. Key word there is 'blindly.' That's the protesters fault for not knowing why they're there, not being able to express themselves clearly, and frankly for being so idiotic so much the time. Protesters have trained us that protesters are idiots.

I looked up the Quebec protests you linked - that's the point right, to raise awareness for an issue? - and it looks like a temper tantrum that happened to work.

Few governments can beat and arrest more than a few movement leaders (unless those movement leaders were behaving violently).

Arguably, the only reason a relatively free society would want to beat (or kill) a movement leader (if they're rational) is to provoke a riot in order to discredit the movement. Even then, it's a risky move.

"unless those movement leaders were behaving violently"

What you consider violent and what the police consider violent isn't necessarily the same thing. "The individuals who linked arms and actively resisted, that in itself is an act of violence" [0]. Read comments on YouTube [1] for extra confidence in humanity. In reality you don't have to be violent to get beaten and arrested by the police, you essentially only have to not comply with whatever they say.

[0] http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/UC-cops-use-of-batons-on-... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_f06VQOkI4

A little poke from a baton will do more to harden a protester's stance than scare them off. And it will create massive backlash by spectators.

The fact that you're pulling out a 4 year old article about it shows how counter-productive those tactics are.

Even though I don't have any opinion on that particular protest (I don't know what it was about), I think that whoever let that happen should be sacked, because it would have only escalated the protests.

In some cases the conservative backlash helps persuade the majority that the militants' cause has some validity.

Yet there's also the clearly demonstrated possibility of a counterproductive backlash. This is not something to be dismissed idly or a risk to be taken lightly by rational people in pursuit of serious goals.

provoked

Oppression isn't provoked or a backlash. It's cold and calculated for purposeful effect. The banal logic of colonialism is why Reginald Dyer's troops had .303 Enfields [and the used because they were too wide armoured cars] at Jallianwala Bagh. [1]

Jim Crow, the Klan, George Wallace and segregated public schools were long established before events such as those which earned Edmund Pettus Bridge [2] it's National Historic Register status. Though I suppose "conservative backlash" one could mean the Cahaba Boys [3], I'm not really seeing anything that I would qualify as provocative in a neutral sense of the word.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre#The_...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Pettus_Bridge#Civil_rig...

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_church_bombing#Pros...

OK. Then use a different set of words. Violent protest in these historical contexts has been demonstrated as causally linked to political changes antithetical to those preferred by said protesters.

Happier? The exact same phenomenon has now been described without using either of the words you object to. What has been gained by this exercise? The phenomenon in question has not changed because a vocabulary some people might consider more neutral has been used.

Do you have something to contribute to this conversation?

The reason why Martin Luther King is the person we as people in 2015 know about is because he was selected by the administrations of his time as the black rights leader they would and did endorse.

Likewise, the reason why people in the West know Gandhi and not Bhagat Singh is because the British Empire selected Gandhi as the entity they would transfer power to.

It seems extraordinarily questionable to claim that the reactions of existing power holders is the benchmark by which we should measure liberatory struggle.

It also seems likely that there were strategic and geopolitical reasons why the power holders selected those groups, rather than others, to legitimize and endorse. Certainly Johnson, the man that fabricated the Gulf of Tonkin incident in order to bring the nation to war, did not select Martin Luther King as the torchbearer for civil rights purely because he believed the man's cause to be just and his morals pure.

I wonder, what do people who oppose radical groups say to the continued efficacy of the Afghan people at expelling occupiers from their nation? Certainly, attacking Soviet tanks and American patrols can only increase the resolve of an occupier. If only they knew of the power of nonviolence! Then they could really achieve independence rather than remaining crushed under the boot of oppression for so long.

Bhagat Singh/Rajguru/Sukhdev or Ram Prasad Bismil/Ashfaqullah are good examples but Subhash Chandra Bose would probably be a slightly better one for the sake of generalizability

And any criticism of militants is always framed and dismissed as coming from "power" or "the establishment".

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