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maeil | on: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
This only ever happens when protesting those with fairly little power, very lower middle management, and those in actual power don't care.

It's also become less and less common over time, as the focus on next quarter shareholder returns and hoarding of wealth even when past the point of ever being able to spend it all has increased every single year for decades. And this focus overrules everything else.

Syria had plenty of peaceful protests against Assad. Russia against Putin. China aginst the CCP. The participants generally aren't doing very well. Hong Kong had enormous, mass protests. Georgia (the country) has had big ones recently.

Occupy Wall Street was big and peaceful. What did that accomplish again? Everything they protested against has only intensified.

roenxi | parent | next
You seem to be talking about protests. Protests will rarely succeed because protesting is something of an already-lost-the-battle tactic. If the protesters had any effective options they'd be doing that instead of protesting. Protesting is for people who don't have the numbers/power to force change, don't have a persuasive argument to get what they want through formal channels and can't think of a better strategy than basically shouting complaints into the wind. Sometimes they can achieve success regardless, but generally protests don't work. There might be protests because people like outdoor activity, but they are a sideshow or charitably an opportunity to meet people. Effective non-violent tactics don't involve on protesters.

For something interesting consider the topical Roe v. Wade decision, both in its establishment and removal. That involved some significant questions of rights and was settled without violence. Protesting, on either side of the issue, was largely ineffective compared to small groups of organised people working to align the legal system over long periods of time.

thefounder | parent
It won’t happen overnight. It’s not like violence beings best results that fast. What did Bin Laden accomplish in the U.S with his violent protests/terrorism ? Or the Islamic state? Not to mention the latest wonder from Gaza…it didn’t go down that well, did it?
ben_w | root | parent | next
> What did Bin Laden accomplish in the U.S with his violent protests/terrorism ?

He convinced one of his enemies, the USA, too eliminate one of his other enemies, Iraq's Sadam Hussein. (Or the US was incompetent enough to do that all by itself, hard for me to be sure).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein_and_al-Qaeda_li...

And the Taliban is back in charge of Afghanistan.

> Not to mention the latest wonder from Gaza…it didn’t go down that well, did it?

No, it didn't. On the other hand, it triggered such a response from Israel as to make Israel a pariah in the eyes of many, and attempts at prosecution for genocide — something I have been told motivated some of the Israeli protesters against Netinyahu.

| root | parent | next
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A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 | root | parent
The parent's comment is fascinating isn't it? One of Bin Laden's stated goals was to get US engaged and bled out through protracted and costly war, which he actually managed to achieve..

I mean this is not ancient history and lot of it at this point is public record.

thefounder | root | parent
So the strategy was to lure the bear on your turf and become a punching bag. After getting beat up pretty bad you celebrate that the bear left your turf. Now you hope someone else will engage the tired bear. Who would want to be the next punching bag?
maeil | root | parent | next
> Not to mention the latest wonder from Gaza…it didn’t go down that well, did it?

How had it been going up until that point? Very poorly too. The idea that peaceful protests by Palestinians would've changed that would be so awfully naive that I've never even encountered that argument.

thefounder | root | parent
Well now a good chunk of Palestians are dead and Palestina finds itself in an even worse situation(politically,economically,socially). Surely there is a better way than poking the bear to see what happens.
Draiken | root | parent
It won't happen.

It's too easy to forget that even our beloved weekends were only achieved after bloodshed.

The people in power successfully managed to sell us the belief that we can achieve change by sitting on our asses and yelling really loud. If we spend 5 minutes thinking about the current power structures, it's clear that no amount of peaceful protesting will ever achieve any meaningful change.

The only real power we have is to withhold our labor on strikes, and somehow even those need permission (!) to run.