We all remember how the anonymous protester was declared the person of the year. Today, however, we can see that the wave of protests that was witnessed by a variety of Western societies recently fizzled out without achieving anything of value.
The Spanish Indignados brought the Conservative Partido Popular to power and will now see their country subjected to a massive dose of PP’s austerity measures.
The Russian protest didn’t do any damage to Putin’s regime and has now turned to clownish support of the useless Pussy Riot.
The #Occupy protests in the US haven’t managed to become any sort of a force to be counted with in the current US elections. Just as many people support the party of the 1% as would have done had these protests never happened. If you don;t believe me, look at the stats for the 2008 elections and compare them to the 2012 presidential race.
So what can we conclude from all this?
First of all, that protests whose only platform is “let everything be good and nothing be bad” will never achieve any lasting change.
Second, street protests are useless. As I’ve been saying this entire time, if you want change these days, don’t go into the streets. Go to the Internet. Social networks and blogs have managed to do a lot more in the past year than all these street hullabaloos combined and multiplied by eleven. And you know why that happened? Simply because when you gather for a street protest, you don’t face the need to articulate any actual message. All you have to do is come up with a short meaningless slogan like “Greed = bad, compassion = good.” Online, however, you are forced to verbalize your grievances and list your demands. The streets are a great place to chant and to moo, but try doing that on a blog, a website, or even on your Facebook page. You will lose all readership within days. Hell, even Twitter requires a greater capacity to articulate your thoughts than any street protest.
In the end, street protests nowadays are counter-productive because they allow people to let off steam, feel better about things, and return home prepared to accept much worse things than the ones they originally gathered to protest. It is not surprising that the protests in both Russia and Spain culminated in producing much more oppressive regimes than the ones the street protesters denounced. I only hope that we don’t end up in the same situation here in the US.
Clarissa's Blog 
Leave a comment