Hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in central London on Saturday 11 November, calling for a ceasefire in Israel's war against Hamas. Expected to be the biggest demonstration in a single day over the Israel-Palestine conflict to date, the march began at midday, shortly after an Armistice Day service at the Cenotaph. Scuffles broke out between police and far-right groups opposing the march in a number of locations across the capital, including in Chinatown and Westminster.
Well…over a million marched in London to put a stop to Brexit and it didn’t do anything. Considering this conflict is even less so under the control of the British government I’m not sure what this march will do a damn thing.
Even if nothing comes of it, even if no policy is changed, it’s still important for people to (peacefully) express their opposition to something they disagree with, rather than meekly accept whatever their government does.
This applies to any such protest, not just today’s.
It’s also important that they get out and vote for change when they have a chance.
Hijacking this comment to say:
The point of protest is to (peacefully) coerce the government by means of disruption and lawsuits. This is a huge boiling down of MLKs philosophy, but he was very clear: if you don’t use methods of coercion, the government has no reason to pay attention.
Also very important to remember, the changes MLK fought for only came about after he was murdered by the CIA and there were massive riots, extremely violent in some cases.
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But not The Civil Rights Act of 1964. Presumably you mean The Civil Rights Act of 1968?
I’d like to point out that while some things about the assassination of MLK don’t add up, conspiracy theories don’t agree about exactly who was behind the assassination. A civil case in 1999 pointed to the Mafia and Nashville law enforcement, for example.
Although there isn’t sufficient evidence, I think, to draw a solid conclusion about any of these theories, I don’t think they are outside the realm of plausibility.
After all, the FBI had expended quite a bit of effort to discredit MLK. They had mailed alleged sex tapes to King with a letter urging him to kill himself. And we now know that the FBI had put together a dossier of unverified claims. It’s also well known King was wiretapped on the word of J E Hoover since 1963 and surveilled since 1956.
As threatened as racists in power were by MLK, it isn’t a huge stretch to imagine one of the more corrupt ones going farther than simply attempting to discredit him or push him to suicide, since those tactics didn’t work.
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The CIA in fact, was born from alliances made between nascent “intelligence” agencies and crime organizations.
There is a great channel on YouTube that is doing a series on the origins of the CIA. EyesWideShut is the name of the channel.
I highly recommend it. It shows clearly how corrupt and criminal it was from the start.
So tired of “protests are useless” posting. There are good ways to make a critique of a movements but this is not it.
The past decade around the globe protest movements exploded into radical restructuring of various countries’ way of governing. This particular protest doesn’t seem like it will evolve into that, but no one ever predicted the outcome of past eruptions.
A protest isn’t a reliable or advisable way to create a revolution, but they are still great organizing opportunities and solidarity building events.
Please stop with the nihilism
I was there. Well worth it just to see that good people do exist.