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Chirol
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Chirol

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November 5th, 2005

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Protests Break Out

Protests have broken out all over the world. Here are a few photos:


In Argentina

In America




In France

In Germany


….in a parallel universe. =) But really, how come we never see protests like this?

Comments to this entry

Gabriel Mihalache
November 5, 2005
8:30 pm
Why we don't see protests like these? ... the answer is simple, there are no real radicals for individual rights and capitalism in the spotlight.

And a similar phenomenon is that--please don't take it personally!--the kind of views on politics taken here at Coming Anarchy don't leave the reader with a fiery passion for property rights and justice, but rather with a skeptic and disdainful attitude towards all forms of politics.

You can't be both "too cool for school" and taking the best grades at the same time. You either genuinely care about rights (in which case you don't question the prosecution criminals, for example), or you're a "realist" and a "pragmatist" and then you can't really care about ideology.
Joe
November 5, 2005
9:12 pm
I think that most capitalism/individual rights types also realize that protesting is a stupid idea, and thus don't do it. Either they live in a country that already has capitalism and individual rights, in which case they would be wasting their time, or they live in some authoritarian communist utopia, in which case they would be subjecting themselves to all sorts of fun with police and tanks.

In either event, they can make a much more coherent point through writing and other less flashy forms of expression. "NO BLOOD FOR OIL" works well on a poster; it doesn't work well when you have to explain it, because then it makes even less sense and doesn't have the heat of the moment backing it up. "DEATH TO TERRORISTS," on the other hand, just sounds sadistic on a sign, but makes sense when you explain it.
Joe
November 5, 2005
9:17 pm
On the other hand, I did get to witness some fun right-wing public statements when I was in college at the University of Florida. During the lead-in to the Iraq War, there were rival groups of pro-war and anti-war students duking it out on opposite corners of the main intersection in Gainesville. Also, the College Republicans once set up a dunking booth where you could "dunk bin Laden." That was pretty popular...
Chirol
November 5, 2005
9:53 pm
For the record, after Al-Quds day, and seeing all the funny posters, I was doing Arabic homework and got the idea that it'd be pretty funny to see people with signs like the photoshopped ones above.

Gabe: This was a little comic relief, and a rhetorical question. As for the rest of your comments, I'd be most interested in further elaboration.
theCardinal
November 5, 2005
10:48 pm
I think PJ O'Rourke explained it best in Parliament of Whores...we have jobs to go to and they don't.
Gabriel Mihalache
November 5, 2005
11:10 pm
Well, it's a difficult subject I've already abused because I don't want to make generic statements... the best way to put it, I guess, is to say that the scholarship going on here is comparable with the work done in the best Political Sciences departments... which is more realist, pragmatist and weary of high-minded principles than political philosophy, for example.

People who know about politics (e.g. who realize that Iranian president's comments re: Israel's destruction were for local consumption only) are less likely to take politicians and principles seriously ("naive politics")... the problem is, in my view, is that if you take a 100% consequentialist approach to politics, sooner or later you're question the wiseness of always following your own principles (e.g. Lord Curzon questions the wiseness of a blanket commitment to prosecute war criminals, if I understood him).

The way I'd put it is that if you're mainly interested in getting specific things done and suspicious of the motives of politicians then you're naturally not a good spokeperson for an principle (e.g. capitalism come-what-may, individual rights come-at-may)

Maybe I'm wrong by the Coming Anarchy crowd seems to me to be ideologically closer to 19th century conservatorism (the OK kind, not the neo-con b.s.) than to libertarianism, let's say. I don't think there can be radicals for conservatorism, though.
Dusty
November 5, 2005
11:14 pm
I think theCardinal covers it briefly. The Right has about the same number of principles that the Left has, but only a handful of the Right's principles lap onto the shore of others' lives, whereas the Left's principles wash upon other people's lives like a veritable tsunami.

As a result, the Right has fewer things to get worked up about in an average day while the Left is wound up from the moment they get up to the minute they hit the sack, seven days a week.
Jing
November 5, 2005
11:47 pm
Off topic but Holy Shit Joe, I didn't know you went to UF too. I remember the College Republican/Democrat booths and demonstrations at Turlington Plaza, but I never really paid attention to them. Those cooky evangelists dressed up like Jesus were always far more entertaining.

I also read that you are from Broward County, I'm there presently as well, Coral Springs to be precise, though getting ready to leave for China in a few days. I was around for Hurricane Wilma which was a pain. I didn't have power for 4 days afterwards.

The blogosphere is certainly a small place.
Kenneth
November 5, 2005
11:54 pm
Gabriel's right, such inflammatory statements were probably made for domestic consumption. What puzzles me, though, are all these "principled advocates of peace": they raised a right rucus when the US stormed Vietnam, but said and did nothing when the USSR invaded Afghanistan. I guess "national self-determination" only applies when capitalism is involved.
Joe
November 6, 2005
12:39 am
That's pretty funny, Jing... I noticed that you were in South Florida after your blog post about Wilma. Didn't know you were so close, though. I actually spent my freshman year of high school at Piper, just down the road from you.

My favorite kooky evangelist was the guy with the big sign listing all the people that "God hates," including gays, Catholics, liberals, etc. At the bottom, it said in huge letters: "...AND MORMONS!" Classic.
Michael Turton
November 6, 2005
7:24 am
The Right has about the same number of principles that the Left has, but only a handful of the Right's principles lap onto the shore of others' lives,

Pure mythology. Tell that to the 30,000 ordinary Americans inspected annually by the FBI, now operating in service of the Right, instead of the nation.

Such statements are empty nonsense. Humans cannot live in social groups without "lapping nto the shore of other's lives." How are we to do it?

I think that most capitalism/individual rights types also realize that protesting is a stupid idea, and thus don't do it.

Yes, look how badly protesting failed in East Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Taiwan.....

Michael
Dusty
November 6, 2005
2:48 pm
Michael, please be little clearer with your examples. For what purpose, as you assert, is the FBI investigating 30,000 Americans?

And your assertion that "Humans cannot live in social groups without "lapping nto the shore of other's lives."Â? is what I said (though you take my postive statement and present it in the negative.) Are you suggesting that my pure nonsense is your wise insight?
Saru
November 6, 2005
10:37 pm
Joe and Jing,

The "God hates" guy made it to my undergraduate campus (in an unnamed southern state) too!

I remember one day he was surrounded by a group of people and was taking it from all sides. There was one guy with an electronic Bible pulling up and quoting verses to disprove him. There were several members of an African American fraternity who were angry and threatening to pound him because the sandwich-boarded moron had carelessly stepped on some golden bricks which they had painstakingly laid out Greek letters on the quad. Of course representatives from the campus gay rights organization were arguing against the inclusion of "faggots" on the list of those hated by God. And there were a bunch of atheists who were trying to get a word in edgewise.

Who says religion can't unite people?
Jay
November 6, 2005
11:12 pm
A really excellent take on "ProtestCulture" can be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/9n2ta
http://nerra.com/broadsword/archives/2005/11/05/723/really-fucking-stupid-people/

And Michael:

_Yes, look how badly protesting failed in East Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Taiwan"¦.._

You neglected to mention how "successful" were protests from previous 5 decades or so before. Because, of course, they *weren't*.
And Taiwan doesn't really belong there--that country was in the US sphere of influence, which limited somewhat how harshly their former regime could reply. (Which is more than one can say for, say, East Germany [see 1953].)

Kenneth:
The US wasn't "storming" "Vietnam"; we were trying hard to protect the the Republic of Vietnam, aka South Vietnam, not unlike how we were (and still are) protecting the Republic of Korea.

http://tinyurl.com/35sbu
http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/parameters/03autumn/previdi.htm

http://tinyurl.com/b4g72
http://vietpundit.blogspot.com/2005/04/pham-thi-hoai-on-vietnam.html

Of course the hypocrisy of the pseudo-peace activists was pretty obvious during the last desperate days of the RVN's existence; they
had no problem with North Vietnam's violations of the Paris Accords, no problems with North Vietnam's actual storming of the South in April 1975.