Today's Action In Campus Martius [Ferguson/Eric Garner Protest]

[nain rouge]

I don't get the point of having all the protests downtown. If you want maximum visibility and reach, the protests should be in the 'burbs. Royal Oak or Birmingham on a Friday night. Big Beaver in Troy during rush hour. Woodward in the 'burbs during peak hours. THOSE are areas that would get the majority of the metro area's attention.

Besides some Quicken Loans workers, who's going to care that you're protesting downtown? Most of the people down there are already sympathetic to the protests or don't care. Visibility is poor UNLESS there is a big sports game. Otherwise, you're wasting your time.

[RapBrown]

Actually those are all good ideas nain, I'm not putting them together, just telling you where they are.

[Bham1982]

IMost of the people down there are already sympathetic to the protests or don't care.

Not at Noel Night. People were laughing that the protestors were trying to connect the Detroit water shutoffs with the police incident in Missouri. It becomes a joke if you don't actually have a purpose, and just turn a protest into a laundry list of left-leaning causes.

They should go to police stations if they have a problem with the police. I don't see what Campus Martius, or Woodward in Royal Oak, or Big Beaver in Troy, has to do with supposed concern over police procedures.

[Gpwrangler]

I don't get the point of having all the protests downtown. If you want maximum visibility and reach, the protests should be in the 'burbs. Royal Oak or Birmingham on a Friday night. Big Beaver in Troy during rush hour. Woodward in the 'burbs during peak hours. THOSE are areas that would get the majority of the metro area's attention.

Besides some Quicken Loans workers, who's going to care that you're protesting downtown? Most of the people down there are already sympathetic to the protests or don't care. Visibility is poor UNLESS there is a big sports game. Otherwise, you're wasting your time.

Royal Oak and Birmingham would bring reinforcements and equipment they normally bring out for the Dream Cruise and it would be over before it started. They wouldn't block Woodward or Big Beaver for the protesters to cross either.

The Campus Martius protest was the only thing the media reported about Noel Night. The event was actually fun and not "marred" by the protesters at all.

[JBMcB]

The Campus Martius protest was the only thing the media reported about Noel Night. The event was actually fun and not "marred" by the protesters at all.

That's great news, good for the protesters. I'm all for getting out on the street and letting your voice be heard, but don't bother others doing their thing. The A-holes in Seattle were screaming at little kids trying to sing Christmas carols. That crosses the line from being concerned protesters to being self-centered whiny brats.

[Jimaz]

... The A-holes in Seattle were screaming at little kids trying to sing Christmas carols. That crosses the line from being concerned protesters to being self-centered whiny brats.

That sounds more like the act of agents provocateurs than conscientious protesters.

[G-DDT]

That sounds more like the act of agents provocateurs than conscientious protesters.

Oh, and believe me [[and if not, read your history) they do exist-maybe since before the Maccabeans. Early Christianity, Revolutionary times [[American, French, or otherwise), Union scuffles, Civil Rights movements, any activist movement since. That is why I stayed away from activism in the '90s. A lot of the wrong folks with egotistical, sloganeering, pointless effigyism [[remember the naked activists laying down in coffins in front of a Royal Oak fur-dealer?-yeah, no one is going to look past that to whatever ideology you espouse), and violent tendencies were in the forefront. They spoke the best and the loudest, and they seemed like the real and only deal [[I still recall one-who still has a current prominent weblog-ranting on a porch of a coffeehouse in Wayne State going on about Bobby Sands this and Bobby Sands that, and with all of the girls fawning at his feet. When I inquired-without a lick of contention in my voice-as to who Bobby Sands was, I got my head bit off, and the girls giving me dirty looks at my "pig-ignorance". Always a "shame on me" because I never joined DeMolay or something.).
Fact is, they aren't the real and only deal. They're there to deliberately misrepresent a cause and paint it out to be an unattractive, 2-dimensional thing. That is why only bad representations of Christianity [[like the recent brash of reality-show Amish-bashing) or the homeless [[as I stated before on other threads, most homeless are unseen, trying to stay afloat, not aggressively panhandling) hold prominence in our Western culture.
I recall how Anti-racist activists were so jolly after disrupting a Klan meeting in Ann Arbor. An activist pamphlet was handed to me with the [[almost staged) image of a huge Rastafarian kicking a scrawny skinhead on the ground [[and I say to myself "ooo boy, this ain't going to play out well"). Sure enough, I come home and the front page photo on the Detroit News was the same one with the title to the tune of "Violent Protestors Attack Peaceful Gathering".
I was so disturbed when the most prominent activists that belonged to a certain peace-oriented group [[I belonged to for over ten years) in Boston railed on acting in a violent manner during the Occupy movement [[I still recall a Michigan man calmly debating in the kitchen with two of the ranters-he obviously felt the way we in Michigan have always felt from repeated experience; we had heard enough of the violence in the Mid-west, and we were sick of it.). When I traveled to Cincinnati, Providence, Champaign, and re-established myself more in Madison, each chapter I visited were horrified at what I told them. Nothing of the sort was going on with the activities of our movement during the Occupy.
Beware of the Celebrities [[especially the ones who came out of the '60s undamaged or alive) in these efforts. They may be doing Bike activism or anti-corporate marches [[Philip Morris's "Truth"-oh Lord, I can't believe that tripe has resurfaced.). Yet, they are not on the level.

[JBMcB]

That sounds more like the act of agents provocateurs than conscientious protesters.

Wow that agent provocateur group is really sophisticated. Turns out they were actually running the protests, as one of the protest organizers specifically said their goal was to bother people at the tree lighting ceremony.

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/komo/...rs-5922596.php