The following piece, doesn't actually answer why protest works, but at
least provides, in the second example, an historical triumph that once
seemed beyond hope and reality. Yet, perhaps acceptance of gays and
lesbians worked sooner than the collection of even minimal corporate
taxation because the issue was not as economically charged. Iraq war
protests, historically highest ever in numbers globally, held no sway
against greedy powers. Will Vodafone pay all that is owed to the British
people? Doubtfully, though they'll probably be increasing their prices
to pay upcoming fines and legal fees.
When the public realizes, as occurred with the Iraq war protests, that
their concerns are ignored, and they can't seem to vote in the right
GOP, then I guess we should expect revolution. But even revolution
requires passion, so motivation would have to be something more
obvious--directly out of the public's pocket. Joblessness & homelessness
resulting from the mortgage scandals should have been cause enough, but
barely a protest so far. Have police tactics succeeded in dampening
hopes, or will people wait for a greater devaluation of currencies
before they're sufficiently provoked?
Natalia
PROTEST WORKS
<http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-protest-works-just-look-at-the-proof-2119310.html>
**
*Johann Hari, Independent, UK -* There is a ripple of rage spreading
across Britain. It is clearer every day that the people of this country
have been colossally scammed. The bankers who crashed the economy are
richer and fatter than ever, on our cash. The Prime Minister who
promised us before the election 'we're not talking about swinging cuts'
just imposed the worst cuts since the 1920s, condemning another million
people to the dole queue. Yet the rage is matched by a flailing sense of
impotence. We are furious, but we feel there is nothing we can do.
There's a mood that we have been stitched up by forces more powerful and
devious than us, and all we can do is sit back and be shafted.
This mood is wrong. It doesn't have to be this way -- if enough of us
act to stop it. To explain how, I want to start with a small scandal, a
small response -- and a big lesson from history.
For years now, Vodafone has been refusing to pay billions of pounds of
taxes to the British people that are outstanding. . .
Many people emailed me saying they were outraged that while they pay
their fair share for running the country, Vodafone doesn't pay theirs.
One of them named Thom Costello decided he wanted to organize a protest,
so he appealed on Twitter -- and this Wednesday seventy enraged citizens
shut down the flagship Vodafone store on Oxford Street in protest. . .
The reaction from members of the public -- who were handed leaflets
explaining the situation -- was startling. Again and again, people said
"I'm so glad somebody is doing this" and "there needs to be much more of
this." Lots of them stopped to talk about how frightened they were about
the cuts and for their own homes and jobs. The protest became the third
most discussed topic in the country on Twitter, meaning millions of
people now know about what Vodafone and the government have done.
To understand how and why protest like this can work, you need some
concrete and proven examples from the past. Let's start with the most
hopeless and wildly idealistic cause -- and see how it won. The first
ever attempt to hold a Gay Pride rally in Trafalgar Square was in 1965.
Two dozen people turned up -- and they were mostly beaten by the police
and arrested. Gay people were imprisoned for having sex, and even the
most compassionate defense of gay people offered in public life was that
they should be pitied for being mentally ill.
Imagine if you had stood in Trafalgar Square that day and told those two
dozen brave men and women: "Forty-five years from now, they will stop
the traffic in Central London for a Gay Pride parade on this very spot,
and it will be attended by hundreds of thousands of people. There will
be married gay couples, and representatives of every political party,
and openly gay soldiers and government ministers and huge numbers of
straight supporters -- and it will be the homophobes who are regarded as
freaks." It would have seemed like a preposterous statement of science
fiction. But it happened. It happened in one lifetime. Why? Not because
the people in power spontaneously realized that millennia of persecuting
gay people had been wrong, but because determined ordinary citizens
banded together and demanded justice. . .
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