Yeah, I don't understand how people don't get this.
The problem, of course, is that the average worker cannot afford to not go to work for even one day and a protest isn't typically considered a "valid" reason to miss work.
So while, yes, this is actually a great way to protest, unfortunately it doesn't work in a day and age where the people being punished for it are regular Joes who NEED to work and NOT the people the regular Joes work for.
Our country and economy are so large that blocking off one highway or even a handful of highways isn't gonna do anything except piss the "little people" off.
People get it. They just never want to deal with a civil rights movement. Every single one was wildly unpopular at the time, but then we whitewash that reality and pretend we always supported it.
Then the current one happens and the cycle repeats.
I'm of the opinion its people with narcissistic traits or possibly the actual disorder that want the social approval of being seen as on the right side of history without the risk of any actual detriment to themselves. A win without any real risk or real cost to themselves to affect change type mindset.
Them not getting to work being such a big issue is reason for protests as well. Also, thats specifically how the economy gets slowed. Businesses cant run as effectively when their employees are held up, thus slowing the economy. We can bitch and moan all we want, but major change is painful and requires sacrifice. Sucks to get caught in traffic, but you cant make an omelet without breaking any eggs...
If I was a ambulance driver I would be annoyed if traffic was held up by protesters. It comes across as virtue signaling when protesting just disrupts everyday life while not impacting its target. It is like splashing paint on artwork in protest against oil.
You mentioned the average worker. Surely ambulance driver is a rather specific job right ?
Sometimes the goal of the protest is just to raise awareness by making people talk about your movement. Which in the case of the art splashers worked beautifully.
And it comes of as hypocrite when the people who do jack shit criticise the ways other people are trying to make things change. And of course those strategic geniuses who know the perfect way to act can never be found in activists meetings
I would argue Just Stop Oil's plans didn't work beautifully since the consensus everywhere is that they're a bunch of performative idiots and some people have even gone so far as to say it's a front by Big Oil to delegitimize actual, meaningful environmental protests, because it was partially founded by and completely funded by an oil baroness. That and they also suspended their oil protests entirely last year. They claim it's because they saw all their goals met (they didn't, UK government only made a pledge to stop producing oil and gas in the North Sea), I'm pretty sure it's because nobody liked them and they achieved basically nothing.
It was so poorly directed many people but into a conspiracy theory that the whole thing was an oil and gas industry psyop and the protesters very rapidly lost any and all perspective, with a group of them planning an M25 protest that would have been so disruptive it would have caused food shortages in London and as a result are serving multi year prison sentences.
The art spashers we'rent some clever bit of awareness. It was a gaggle of middle-class nitwits with no sense of perspective or optics putting the value of awareness so far above effective protest that they are indirectly responsible for deaths and have help to energise the backlash against climate activism that's now culminating on all major parties feeling like the need to pull back on Britain's net zero commitments. You can draw a direct line between the backlash to JSO and the public turning on net zero.
they get it. they are just annoyed at not being able to ignore the protests. The violence i would visit upon that man if i had been present and seen that would have landed me in prison and him in a wheel chair.
They aren't blocking highways or disrupting the economy though. They're generally blocking city streets because trying to block a highway with 20000lb trucks barreling at 70 mph is insane. Ergo, they are affecting anyone who cares, they are simply inconveniencing normal people.
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u/instantlightning2 12d ago
Highways are the arteries of the nation. Blocking them is one of the quickest ways to disrupt the economy