Friday, November 11, 2016

Trump protest: Breaking stuff is not the right way to go.

Protests are part of democracy. A lady asked "Don't you know protests don't accomplish anything? I said "Did you vote?" she said yes. Woman's right to vote (among many other things) was accomplished by protesting.
 Unfortunately People on the outside can't mentally separate the mass of strangers from each other. Trump is murder, lots of people will be negatively effected in many ways. They are all converging to be heard. Most of us are forming coalitions to defend our people's civil rights from these horrible new leaders. Some are just mad, Some are protesting the corrupt DNC, some would be out there breaking stuff for any reason.
A critical thinker would easily see this but a Trump person isn't exactly known for critical thinking. Don't be too rough on them, they will be joining us as soon as those Trump promises start falling apart like all his other B.S.
 Meantime, people who are behind him are quick to discredit protests and blame the entire mass for the actions of a few. That is so childish. Maybe they are trying not to think they had something to do with the worst decision the country has ever made.
Equating protests with crying or protesting a fair election or other things is a telling view into the mindset of folks who have no empathy or understanding.
It's easy to only see the bad behavior if you refuse to notice 50 grandmothers holding candles.
The system is so broken that half the country didn't vote. It's not the voter's fault, the system is rigged for the slimiest to float to the top.
Trump came on the scene lying constantly and triggering a nostalgic racism and promise of jobs that will never come. They are conditioned by propaganda to tank the whole country into multinational corporate exploitation than share with countrymen.  It's like the family has to deal with the decision of the racist uncle who was listening to the disinformation of right wing AM radio for 20 years.
Our city is behind us, folks breaking stuff is a huge liability. Vandals, angry kids who don't want classmates discriminated against, drunks, agent provocateurs or whatever, they are working against us and discrediting an important movement. The news just keeps playing the same scenes over and over fanning the malcontent from viewers. We noticed viewership during vandalism moments shot up by thousands but when things were calm if dropped back into complacency.
The word "anarchists" keeps playing over and over. I wanted the news guy to stop a so called anarchist and ask then to name an Anarchist. If they have no idea then they are just thugs spraying a circle A. That is just as ignorant as the Trump people. The news wants a good story but it's incorrect not to show the thousands of people protesting peacefully.
So the question is... How should they express angst?
How do we do damage control? We almost went downtown late last night to help with cleanup. We don't actually know how to get that going. We are also protesting in other ways. I'm ditching our bank for a credit union. I'm taking a photo and sending it to Bank of America thanking them for the account but saying I can no longer associate with them because of the funding for the Dakota pipeline. So far divesting in them is working, pipeline production has halted. For how long, we don't know.