How social media killed the protest — For a certain kind of activist, politics has been reduced to pure performance

Comments

• PostmodernPythia@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  At a point where we ignore people who set themselves on fire in protest, it’s hard to argue that nonviolent protest by itself accomplishes much anymore, soo…🤷🏼‍♀️

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• artair@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I was able to bypass the paywall using Google Search’s “cached” view of the page.

  webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_Uu…

  As for the content, although I agree with some of the tentpoles to this article, the rest seems a bit saggy. It’s more of an op-ed piece without much more than subjective opinions. If the Financial Times wants to paywall this kind of stuff, they’d better make it worth the price. (This definitely wasn’t.)

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• Gsus4@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Aren’t all protests performance? In the sense that they are made for others to see and to bring awareness? What else are they for? It’s not for debate or promoting alternatives, it’s too messy for that.

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  • HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    It is supposed to be a disruption of society or a show of force to convince political leaders to change policy.

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• uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  It’s been well established public serving policy (say the recognition of a human right) will not be attained with anything short of a direct threat to the status quo. Action has to threaten a significant cost to commercial interests.

  And then, the state is going to first respond with the brutality of law enforcement.

  So at this point protests exist to offer an opportunity for negative press coverage to the state when they send anti-riot troopers and they are brutal to the protestors. (And this will not faze conservatives who believe that is an acceptable consequence for disobedience of authority by others.)

  Hence how the next step is a sabotage campaign as per How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm. (The book itself is very little about the logistics of destroying an oil pipeline, but an explanation of how we have run out of alternative ways to demand redress of grievances from the state and from plutocratic interests.)

  Blaming social media (or blaming apathetic protestors) is a misstep, and might be an intentional effort to redirect outrage to those who are not responsible for the problems. The state isn’t acting on police brutality / the climate crisis / union-busting / toxic work conditions / wages below sustenance (etc. etc.) because we’re failing to protest hard enough. Our representatives don’t represent the public, rather they are thoroughly captured by plutocratic interests. So all protests land on deaf ears.

  If we want a public serving government, we have to have the capacity to cost them enough that they’ll agree to any demands, unconditionally. And the people have to retain that power perpetually, because capitalists will lie, cheat, kill or do anything to retain power, which they’ve demonstrated globally for over a century.

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• lemann@lemmy.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Anyone kind enough to bypass the paywall pretty please?

  I don’t think @autotldr@lemmings.world supports this article URL…

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  • inspxtr@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    archive.ph/6Fr9a

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    • lemann@lemmy.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Thankyouuu

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  • autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I’m sorry, I don’t know how to handle links for that site. You may contact my maintainer, @rikudou@lemmings.world, if you wish to add it to supported sites!

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• spittingimage@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Paywalled. :(

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• NotAnonymousAtAll@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I will not put effort into bypassing a paywall for something that judging by the title is most likely just a hit piece on any kind of activism the author does not personally agree with.

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