[allthingsagg]

I just recently began studying at college, and I have been pretty much swarmed with people of varying political view points asking me to sign this or that petition or to take part in some kind of rally or demonstration. I've checked a few of the demonstrations out and they are mostly just some "hip" college kids attaching themselves to some kind of cause from what I can tell. My question is this, do these demonstrations actually accomplish anything? Or are they just some kids trying to feel important?

[benpenguin]

It really depends on what the demonstration is.

I come from Hong Kong. We have the highest number of demonstration per day in the whole world. Our government is very weak, and they frequently got pushed around by the Chinese government, the various political parties, and radical demonstrations. They got pushed around so much they don't know what to do. In that case, demonstrations kind of work.

And across the river in China, if your demonstration involves anything that suggests to replace / take down government officials, you'll get what you deserve...But anything other than that, it usually just gets ignored. In most cases policemen will just come and suggest you to leave (since you're wasting time).

But when the demonstrations are about some random countries in Africa and big corporates destroying rainforests, really no one cares. I suppose you're in America, and your strong government / corporates have a proven track record of ignoring protests - with the exception of tea party perhaps? Still, I find most university / college based protests mind bogglingly retarded. In any part of the world. As OP said, just hippies trying to feel important.

[J Oswald]

Demonstrations usually don't do anything besides block public thoroughfares and prevent people from going about their business. The few times that a demonstration actually accomplishes something are when the demonstrators begin a riot, the government is incredibly weak, or somebody fires on the crowd. None of these three situations happen very often.

[Decky]

Th important thing to remember about political demonstrations (in the west at least) is that they do not have the goals you think they do. If you think they are there to change government policy then yes, they achieve nothing.

However that isn't what they are for, everyone knows they are useless, the biggest political demonstration in the entire history of Britain for example was against invading Iraq, do you think Blair considered actually giving in the the will of the people for even one solitary second?

Political demonstrations are there to organise and recruit. If some fresh faced young protester turns up with no party/ group do you how many people are going round with their only goal being to get him into their party/ group?

[grassroots1]

Demonstrations usually don't do anything besides block public thoroughfares and prevent people from going about their business.

Utter bullshit. It completely depends on the context. First, demonstrations can bring up a certain topic for debate that people care about. In that sense, it puts your message into the consciousness of whoever hears about it. That is an effect in and of itself, it can spread awareness. It spurs debate. Second, demonstrations and protests can cause real change if the powers that be feel that they are threatened. The February and October revolutions in Russia in 1917 are only two examples of this kind of action having some result. Egypt this year is another. Demonstrations ABSOLUTELY do have an effect, although in America it seems that they cannot. This is the problem we face: one of excessive individualism, lack of energy, and lack of belief in the potential for change. These things will change over time, I believe.

[J Oswald]

The February 1917 revolution could be best described as a large-scale riot. The October revolution was an armed coup. Egypt was a prolonged riot with violence on both sides. Your examples therefore aren't even "demonstrations."

Can you provide a single example of a peaceful demonstration that acomplished something tangible?

[grassroots1]

Demonstrations can grow into "riots," the line is anything but clear. If you want examples of more organized demonstrations having an effect in free societies, then you can look to sit-ins and demonstrations during the Civil Rights Movement. You can look to Gandhi's peaceful demonstrations in India.

Edit: Also, Nixon cited unrest in America as one primary reason for him pulling out of Vietnam. These things can have an effect. You're right that the February and October revolutions were probably some of the worse examples I could have used, but I'm reading Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution right now so that's where that came from...

[The Clockwork Rat]

Rarely; as one friend of mine said, they're really more about internal propaganda.

[grassroots1]

"Internal propaganda..." I'm not sure what that means.

[Takkon]

Martin Luther King surely brought a new face to the civil rights movement with his demonstrations. So they can do something.

[The Clockwork Rat]

"Internal propaganda..." I'm not sure what that means.

To make the demostrators feel good about their beliefs. By seeing many other people who hold the same belief(s) as yourself, you feel like you are accepted, that your beliefs mean something.

When I went down to the London protest in May, I didn't expect anything to really happen that day - although I hoped that a general strike would be called - but it felt good to see a bunch of people waving comintern flags and singing the Internationale.

[Donna]

It really depends what you are protesting, what your goals entail and what activity you pursue. Radical environmentalists, for example, have a lot of opportunities to engage in direct action for various reasons (mainly because the destruction of the environment is fairly tangible and something that someone can easily interfere with), but other than that, Western civil society has become incredibly dynamic and more so with the development of communications technology. Becoming politically active is as simple as joining PoFo or sharing a link on Facebook.

If you desire dramatic and violent confrontation with capitalist power for the sake of violent confrontation with capitalist power, you will have to travel to Egypt, Thailand, India, Brazil, etc., or become a green agitator (Asian whalers would murder activists if they could get away with it). Rioting at financial and diplomatic summits has become the most fashionable and accessible form of muscled protest for restless radical-types, but it is easily ridiculed. If you live in Europe, anti-racism activity of any sort is obviously useful.

For the most part, quite literally everything has been done in Western societies. Labor has been organized. Women and minorities have cultivated their affirmation. At best, the continuation of the welfare state - surrounded as it is by debt crisis, fundamentalists and racists - will become a daunting task that will demand blind idealism. It will become the new Soviet Union and it will need all the cadres it can muster.

[The Clockwork Rat]

I'm not saying that people don't go to protests in the hope or expectation that they will change something, only that protests almost inevitably do nothing of significance. Green activists aren't halting the steady flow of oil or destruction of large mammal habitats; emigrating agitators aren't causing regime changes, and G8 summits go on almost blissfully unaware of the rioting outside. No, in the vast majority of cases, political action is insignificant.

That is not to disagree with an earlier comment you made, however, that out of an otherwise futile demonstration something can spark.

[Donna]

Green activists aren't halting the steady flow of oil or destruction of large mammal habitats; emigrating agitators aren't causing regime changes, and G8 summits go on almost blissfully unaware of the rioting outside.

If these are the goals that you hope political action might achieve, it is probably better that you don't bother at all, since these perceptions amount to an abstract moralization of capitalism (eg, its peripheries are so destructive that it must be approached in a total and immediate fashion).

The left or "progressive" social movements actually do retain a long-term purpose and function as they basically arbitrate the welfare state. They may appear ineffective, self-absorbed or even silly, but in the shadow of austerity they become something else entirely. This year we have seen what can happen if the retirement age is raised by a mere 12 months in some EU countries or what can happen in the United States if collective bargaining for reasonably comfortable public sector workers is attacked.

The role of the left in Western societies is no longer about revolutionary change, but rather, exacerbating contradictions within the capitalist system.

[redcarpet]

Yes. a good recent example is that the campaign to oppose the invasion of Iraq, while failing to stop that war of aggression, stopped others planned by the UK government.

[allthingsagg]

Of course larger demonstrations can have effects, to this I can't really think of an argument against that. However, what does everyone think of some of these peripheral type protests to the Occupy Wall Street, here at my university they have an Occupy ______ rally but it was absolutely minuscule and to me seemed mostly just posturing of "student activist" types. Any thoughts?

[bobgnote]

Martin Luther King surely brought a new face to the civil rights movement with his demonstrations. So they can do something.

MLK events contributed to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Also, LBJ could really get out and haggle for votes. He also escalated the war in Viet Nam. Then it took participation by veterans, in the anti-war movement, to result in really good rallies and rhetoric.

But Nixon got elected, by backlash, since the demonstrators went to see the Democrats in Chicago, 1968, and Humphrey was a schmuck, who was going along with the war, against what JFK wanted, which was to withdraw advisors.

Nixon bombed the North to the table, bugged himself, resigned, and when the North attacked again, Ford withheld support for the ARVN, which had no ammo. The US should have stayed out.

The shooting of JFK was the telling event, of all events and demonstrations. Be a great lawyer, sue the crooks to a standstill. That'll work, if they don't dis-bar you.

[The One.]

Of course it does, it is a political embarrassment, but

It is less to intimidate the electorate but to intimidate college professors envious for recognition from their students and cowardly politicians.

It also serves the purpose of creating traffic jams and create sanitary hazards by letting hoboes congregate in one place and encouraging young students into becoming hoboes themselves.

[DudeWhoGetsIt]

Th important thing to remember about political demonstrations (in the west at least) is that they do not have the goals you think they do. If you think they are there to change government policy then yes, they achieve nothing.

However that isn't what they are for, everyone knows they are useless, the biggest political demonstration in the entire history of Britain for example was against invading Iraq, do you think Blair considered actually giving in the the will of the people for even one solitary second?

Political demonstrations are there to organise and recruit. If some fresh faced young protester turns up with no party/ group do you how many people are going round with their only goal being to get him into their party/ group?

this, and it's a good way to pick up starry eyed college girls.

[Paradigm]

Demonstrations essentially serve a function of social outreach. It tells other people that there are others who care about the issue, and provides opportunities for them to network and plug into other forms of activism. So it's not very effective in itself as far as changing the system, but it's useful for movement-building.