Those non-violent protests shook them so bad they wanted to charge non-violent Quaker protestors with terrorism.
Partially because “peaceful” and the definition of what would or would not be accepted as valid protest became co-opted by the management/ ivy league class.
Compare the Seattle WTO protests to the 2003-2005 Iraq protests.
The protests were amazing, nothing like it before or since. The media suppressed coverage of them as best they could. They couldn’t totally ignore them but gave almost 0 coverage. Masses and masses of people packing the streets. Wish we’d had drones back then to get some good aerial footage.
Indeed and wait until Mango Fucking Mussolini decides to invade Iran. That will be one hell of a protest.
as much as i dislike war, and while on the topic, do you think iran should have its own nukes?
This is why the ruling class pushes gun control so hard. Don’t let them do it.
As someone that was at the protest, at no point did I think it would result in the war stopping. It was still worthwhile, however. In retrospect, the war was so much worse than any of us knew at the time and also based on flimsy and/or no evidence of WMD. Business as usual in America. We’d do it all over again today, I have no doubt.
I would say it laid the ground work for OccupyWallstreet, which laid the ground work for modern progressive movement.
What change was accomplished by OccupyWallstreet?
They were angry about economic inequality – it’s worse today than in 2011.
They wanted an end to corporate personhood – still totally cookin’ in 2024 with no end in sight
More regulation of the financial sector – we are more deregulated than ever today
I had to admire their aims, but as a movement it was profoundly ineffective…
I think it absolutely laid down the base for the modern progressive movement - mistakenly believing protests do anything on their own
Occupy was huge, it was global and persisted for a long time, but it didn’t have any teeth - people just stopped paying attention and eventually police cleared people out
No one (rich) was losing money, no one (rich) felt threatened or inconvenienced in any way. They made their feelings known… But most people had no idea why or what they wanted, and politicians don’t actually care what you want. They didn’t even organize enough to be a voting block or clearly communicate their message
They knew there weren’t WMDs and used the fear of 9/11 attacks to push the war. They had OpEd pieces published to further push the idea of WMDs.
No, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, and a bunch of others in the administration championed it. Biden et al supported it. Subtle.
“Two more weeks”
I wish there was a prediction market about this outcome, as I would gladly bet against it. I don’t see America suddenly growing a spine. As long as there is (fast) food available and the electricity and football games are flowing, 99.999% aren’t picking up that pistol.