What I find deeply annoying is that 100% of theorists believe there is some sort of a subversive potential in the impotent, embarrassing and silly protests that have been occurring in pretty much all rich countries since 2007. Nobody has even tried to analyze them realistically without yelping “Yay! Rrrrrevolution!” like excited puppies.
7 responses to “A Theoretical Gripe”
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I think that they are trying to cling to the hope of significant change to the status quo, and analyzing and questioning these protests might not give them the answers they want.
I think that many of these protests are a good sign and demonstrate that people want real change, but I think the question is how can protests and people’s real dissatisfaction be used to produce real results. And with our current two-party system and all of the money in politics, I’m very skeptical about the possibility of radical change (e.g., debt-free or free college, true universal health care, $15 minimum wage, expansion of voting rights, criminal justice system reform, etc.)
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The civil rights movement and the anti Vietnam war movement in the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s had concrete effects. Such things take decades, but they do work.
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How can you compare the heroic movement for civil rights with a bunch of spoiled, bored consumers in pink hats throwing tantrums? This hurts my sensibilities.
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But those were more radical movements, and there were true radicals behind the more moderate faces now lionized … and much got defused / many causes were lost.
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Plus, the civil rights movement had real demands directed at entities that had the capacity to grant them. Today’s protest movements have no demands and there are no demand-granting entities anyway.
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“Plus, the civil rights movement”
Plus, the civil rights movement (at least in retrospect) had a more or less clear end when it had achieved most of what could be achieved by protests at governments. There’s a reason that 1969 is given as the end of the movement proper.
How is the universe ever going to satisfy the endless demands of the pussy hatters?
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Any protest that doesn’t have at least one specific demand addressed to a specific agency that has the power to grant it is nothing but a feel-good joke.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
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