Topic: 2012-09-17 YT.com - Police State Mastercard Bitcoin Parody (Read 2715 times)

hey StormCloudsGathering

You know Watchwoord, I was going to trot out the teabonics slides and throw down, but instead I am going to see if we can back away from the vitriol and actually have a discussion.  There are forces that would prefer that people remain divided.  It is incumbent on each of us to resist this and find common ground where we can.  Actually, I think a lot of folks are arriving at a synthesis of what were once mutually exclusive views.  Sites like ZeroHedge, projects like the Rap News, there are a lot of examples these days.

More and more occupy types are figuring out about the Federal Reserve and the evils of debt based money.  More and more tea party types are vocalizing that actually a kleptocratc oligarchy is no way to run a country.

Your objections to traditional protest, at least as you have articulated them here, seem to be largely aesthetic, and actually I share your distaste, but I also understand that people don't really know what else to do.  Access to broadcast and print media is tightly gatekept, and internet media is so fractured that it is difficult to reach people there.  I hear your demand for "actual content" and I agree.  At the same time, a person should not have to be an artist or a gifted orator to have a voice in their governance.

My fear is that you are dismissing an entire population of possible, in fact increasingly likely, allies on aesthetic grounds alone.  Both sides have certainly been guilty of this sort of divisive disdain.  I think it would be very helpful to move beyond that and communicate about what we agree on.

Get my attention by haviong actual content please.

People that need to chant, shout and repeat are labled "fucking idiots" by me and I never listen what they have to say. If everyone does this, we'll get rid of them, soon come the day.

Hey, here in Thailand using a megaphone in the street is common every day, everywhere. I'm not saying for protest but for selling your wares, promoting your candidate or Thai boxing event or movie. They drive cars around with megaphones a blarin' and it drives me crazy but I don't have a right to complain as it's not my culture.

Of course it's freedom of speech. It's just annoying as hell.

Repetition and chanting has a purpose. It strives to get attention in the media. That's extremely important for any issue as otherwise it is lost in the flux of everyday life. People don't chant in protests to tell you something over and over, they do it to make you look and get your attention. And often for creating a feeling of solidarity amongst the protesters who are sometimes under attack for speaking out.

Honestly, does shouting in the street with a megaphone really is part of freedom of speech??

So we should state our grievance once and return to docility.

Alright then, at least we understand each other.

Seriously dude learn to read.

I said nothing about legality, I said nothing about righteousness I said something (half-jokingly) about annoyance. Also be sure to read my first post in this thread.

Oh, and this might come as a shock to you so please sit down, not all people in the world are US citizens.

Finally: why I think protests are insane. People are chanting something. After they said it once I either get it or wont and I will agree or wont. Shouting it out loud with a lot of people will not help me understand if I don't and it won't make me agree if I don't. Normal conversation and/or discussion can. In my view protests are a legalized form of blackmail.

uhhh, all that "annoying" noise making you are complaining about is what we call "peaceable assembly", try re reading the constitution please.

Further, there is a great deal of occupy type energy in the bitcoin community, some posters above are embarrassing themselves.

Besides this being said half jokingly, it does not exclude freedom of speech at all. In the statement I merely say that them being shut up is advantageous to me as what they are saying is annoying to me (all protests are, irrespective of whether I agree with you thesis). It does not say anything about this being advantageous to society as a whole.

I was just using this two aspects to prove a point. I agree it's a lot more complex.

And you are right, wachtwoord must not believe in anarcho capitalism.

But you are also right about not understanding anarcho capitalism because it's not about freedom of speech and not liking the oppressive state, it's about peace, no initiation of violence and respect for private property and yes freedom of speech and not liking an oppressive state falls under that but it's not the entire idea.

Quite sick to hear that.
What I understood from anarcho-capitalism is that it value freedom of speech and doesn't link oppressive state. I guess I'm mistaking, and it only applies to people who agree with it... Silly me
I guess the divide & conquer strategy of our elites still have a bright future.

Also in biology parlance you would call street protests "honest signalling", in the sense that if you can can get thousands, or in some cases hundreds of thousands, of people to show up in a public area and demonstrate you've convincingly shown, in a way that is difficult to fake, that your viewpoint has tremendous support behind it. In democracies this is obviously important, and even in non-democracies this is still important as no large government can operate without the will of at least a good fraction of their population.

The trend towards non-violent protest that has been going on for decades creates large crowds that say both "we're here and want change", but also very importantly "you don't have to be afraid of us, we (mostly) play by the rules of society". Making sure that your enemies believe have a way out is tremendously important, and showing that you respect individual rights to not have violence used against them is a big part of that. People in the activist communities understand this well enough now that when you do see violent protest usually the question to ask is what authority is instigating the violence and for what aim.

Ok, that's a valid point.

Making noise to attract attention is a relatively safe way to deal with divergence of opinion. Either you attract enough attention to change things or you don't and it fades away. It may be annoying when you disagree but's it's much better than the way they deal with divergence of opinion in many parts of the world today. I mean literally today where the Chinese are burning Japanese cars and factories, and the Muslims are killing US embassy workers. I think we should be grateful that here, for the most part, protest takes a noisy but subdued form.

Hippies are those that believe protest should be non-violent.

Well, indeed  you can have people on the right who have the same communication strategies (gathering and making some noise) than people on the left.

Having stupid ways to deal with divergence of opinions is not clearly politically defined.  I admit that.

I'm confused! Are you sure you are not ranting right wing supporters?

Protestors mainly piss me off because the vast majority of them are uneducated (mainly not their fault) and ignorant or simply too lazy to educate themselves(again, mainly not their fault) to actually ask the right questions and get to the root of the problems they protest. And to top it off they usually demand more of what caused all the problems in the first place.

I don't agree with beating them or anyone else for that matter unless they're destroying property but I have almost no sympathy with them and would never join them myself.

Yeah, that's the spirit.  

PS.   Well, maybe I should think more about why I find hippies so annoying that I can even enjoy watching them beaten up.   It's not clear, but it's probably related to the way they deal with divergence of opinion.  When hippies have an opinion about something, let's say "X is a bad thing", then they think the best strategy to defend this opinion is to gather in large numbers, walk in the street with signs, shout « X IS A BAD THING!! X IS A BAD THING!!»  as loud as possible, and do this continuously until "something" happens.

They kind of hope that people, just because they have been forced to hear the sentence "X is a bad thing", will eventually be convinced.  So they continue shouting for ever in hope for this event.  Of course most of the time, what actually happens is that people call the police in order to get rid of what is nothing but a nuisance.

Well, I must admit there is the benefit that it usually shuts them up for a while.