Can somebody enlighten me? Why protest the NATO summit?

[BenBurch]

OK, so there is a NATO summit meeting here in Chicago in a few days, and there are supposed to be thousands of legitimate demonstrators (and dozens of criminal anarchists here to cause only trouble) and I cannot for the life of me figure out what there is to protest?

I know the peace activists will be protesting because NATO is military, but what about the other 90% of them?

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Because it gives them a chance to wear their edgy Guy Fawkes masks.

 

[BenBurch]

Because it gives them a chance to wear their edgy Guy Fawkes masks.

See, I don't get this. I absolutely will protest if there is something concrete to accomplish with it, but this seems more and more like a hobby for these people.

 

[ravdin]

The rationale as it seems to me is that a lot of powerful people will be conveniently gathered in one place.

 

[BenBurch]

The rationale as it seems to me is that a lot of powerful people will be conveniently gathered in one place.

Pathetic, I think.

 

[ZirconBlue]

The rationale as it seems to me is that a lot of powerful people will be conveniently gathered in one place.

And, more importantly, TV cameras.

 

[JihadJane]

OK, so there is a NATO summit meeting here in Chicago in a few days, and there are supposed to be thousands of legitimate demonstrators (and dozens of criminal anarchists here to cause only trouble) and I cannot for the life of me figure out what there is to protest?

I know the peace activists will be protesting because NATO is military, but what about the other 90% of them?

Have you done any research into the topic?

 

[tyr_13]

See, I don't get this. I absolutely will protest if there is something concrete to accomplish with it, but this seems more and more like a hobby for these people.

For some, it is a hobby. Go out, yell, "**** the man," regardless of who the 'man' is, what they're doing, or if it will accomplish anything. It's a social function where they can play activist theater in order to bolster their image as such.

Then there are those who dislike military, even if it is keeping peace (although they would argue that it's not possible to keep peace with military, but whatever).

Then there are those who hate the western world, and for them NATO is an easy stand in. They have lots of bluster and fire, but few good arguments or reasonable goals. Many of them are just in a phase and those who aren't won't be satisfied with anything short of the end of western civilization.

 

[jiggeryqua]

Have you done any research into the topic?

There are other ways to find things out, rather than asking on JREF? Oh, you mean wiki. It can't be trusted, you know

 

[Virus]

They see NATO as the defence of the capitalist imperialist world order.

 

[BenBurch]

They see NATO as the defence of the capitalist imperialist world order.

That's all I can figure. It just makes no sense to me.

 

[JihadJane]

That's all I can figure. It just makes no sense to me.

Isn't that enough?

 

[Wolrab]

Isn't that enough?

No.

 

[BenBurch]

Isn't that enough?

No, because it has no substance to it.

Protest is never effective against cloudy ideas.

Protest has to be specific.

If you have a real goal, and you can convince people of it, you can have a protest that is actually effective.

All this sort of thing (and the WTO riots in Seattle and Miami) shows is that the left is really good at inadvertently allowing itself to be the cover for anarchists who want to loot and start fires.

 

[applecorped]

If you have a real goal, and you can convince people of it, you can have a protest that is actually effective.

This is why OWS fails.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

I kinda feel like protesting just for this:

But the other changes will be permanent. They include: dramatically higher fines for resisting arrest; more surveillance cameras; parks and beaches closed until 6 a.m.; sweeping parade restrictions and higher fees for those events and empowering Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy to “deputize law enforcement personnel” and forge cooperative agreements with a host of state, federal and local law enforcement agencies.

That’s not what the mayor said last month when he introduced the changes at a City Council meeting. At that time, he emphatically stated that the changes he sought were “temporary,” “one-time only” and “just for this conference.”

“I made a mistake. Real simple, OK? I thought when I answered the question, I was answering the question about contracting, OK? So, if I made a mistake, I bear the responsibililty,” the mayor said.

Linky.

A lot of places are just finding out they are going to be closing down and Rahm already backtracked on his reimbursement promise.

The way I see it, there is no reason to host the event here. The locale isn't particularly germane to the topic, so they can Skype for all I care .

Here is a list from NATO protesters.

The maths on the economic projections is... debatable at best.

 

[NoahFence]

Have you done any research into the topic?

Is he not researching it by discussing it on JREF?


....


Personally I don't think we even need NATO anymore. I mean, Turkey - really?

North Atlantic?

 

[BenBurch]

This is why OWS fails.

You got that right.

 

[wollclark]

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/04...ep-for-chicago-evacuation-during-nato-summit/

I don't live anywhere near Chicago, but this planning kind of worries me. What could they be preparing for?

 

[MarkCorrigan]

No, because it has no substance to it.

Protest is never effective against cloudy ideas.

Protest has to be specific.

If you have a real goal, and you can convince people of it, you can have a protest that is actually effective.

All this sort of thing (and the WTO riots in Seattle and Miami) shows is that the left is really good at inadvertently allowing itself to be the cover for anarchists who want to loot and start fires.

This is why OWS fails.

This is what I've been telling people for years.

When I was in University, I had a friend who was a lovely guy with his heart absolutely in the right place and his head totally in the clouds. We agreed on many things although not all, and I found that aside from his support for PETA and his utter lack of science education most of our arguments came from the fact that while I may have agreed with his ideals in principle, in practice they were worthless at best and seriously destabilising at worst.

He hated capitalism, hated how anything could be bought and sold and hated the dominance of corporations. I agreed that unlimited capitalism was dangerous and that corporations had way too much power but that there would need to be plans in place to take up the slack, that the benefits of corporations shouldn't be overlooked and the current economic system needed fine-tuning rather than total revolution. He thought currency was stupid and should be removed. When I explained why that wasn't an option and would make things worse, he didn't understand.


Aside from the vicious psychopaths, con artists and bandwaggoners, THAT is what these protest movements entail. People who know that things are bad but have absolutely no concrete plans on how to fix them. They want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and they want their fix to be instant because they were sold a dream of instant democracy and revolutionary social change by the media and by rose-tinted looks at the 60's. These people, who I would guess are the majority of the protesters at nearly any event, can't be reached by any rational discussion of the facts because the minute you start to bring any form of grey into their black and white world, they lose it. They can't comprehend that someone is a realist on these issues, all they know is "NATO = BAD" or worse "Society = BAD" and they haven't the brains or the courage to actually understand what really needs to be done to get the world fixed.

I say this as a socialist, pro-NATO individual.