But he is almost certainly right (he would know) that he had not been interviewed about any marches. Fundamentally he is correct. Most protests are ignored by the media, even the gargantuan anti-war protests before the Iraq war were ignored and most of the hundreds of thousands of protesters at the various G8/20 events were peaceful (middle class) protesters who got no attention whatsoever.
Perhaps your definition of ignored is different from mine. I've seen plenty of protests covered on TV, especially the anti-war ones - most of which were peaceful. I've taken part in one here in Winnipeg and it was covered despite it not being violent. So I'm really not sure what the heck you're talking about.
Only a few rioters got all the attention.
Rioters steal the attention. What I find curious as that someone like you is spending so much effort justifying the rioters when all they do is rob you of your voice. The ones protesting should be the ones tolerating the rioters the least.
When it is only a few rioters the the news can point to a few trouble makers and ignore the hundreds of thousands of other people who weren't rioting. The political message is clear. Only rioters will be heard. If this message was fully applied then peaceful protests should end to be replaced by hundreds of thousands of rioters - an event which (as we see with thousands) is much harder to cover up.
Well, since you love analogies so much let me throw one your way. Let's say you're at an awesome wine and cheese party, everyone's having a good time but at the end of the night a huge fight breaks out. What's everyone gonna talk about the next day? Not the quality of the wine but instead how it may have led to the party's quick demise. You're basically telling me that people love to talk about other people's misbehavior. And in other news, the ocean is full of water....
Only in theory. In fact it is much like the US and Canada. There are things that you may speak freely which are either irrelevant to power or agree with power. Then there are all the things you may not say.If you say the things that you may not say then you will be threatened, arrested, harrassed, ridiculed (if ignoring you doesn't work).
Ya, but you can still say anything you want without being convicted or thrown in jail. You have the "freedom of speech", not the "freedom of speech without any consequences". Uttering threats to people is always a bad idea. But aside from that, no one says you can't go to your boss and tell him what you REALLY think of him, and no one will say he can't fire you. All freedom of speech means is that you can't be convicted for words you say and I never suggested it meant anything more than that. Still, it's still quite a significant thing I would say and I have no issue with forcing people to have to defend what they say. You wanna justify child sexual exploitation? Sure, but be prepared for one hell of a fight.
Illegal action is merely action that is against the law. It used to be illegal for women to vote and all of their protests were also illegal. The actions of Gandhi and his followers were all illegal. In China after the Opium wars it became illegal for the Chinese to block the sale of opium. The law is an ass and is written by asses.
Clearly I used the wrong word here. Laziness on my part and you pounced all over it. To be more specific, legalities aside, they intentionally hurt (and in a few cases murdered) people who may or may not be at all responsible for any of their problems. Cultural norms on things like narcotics or prostitution vary from nation to nation, but it's pretty universal that attacking people, and especially murder, are outright unacceptable. This is what was going on in London and this is what I was referring to. What do you have to say to that?
If nobody listens then it sucks for them when he finally goes ape shit thus dealing with them accordingly.
If that someone is part of a group measured in the millions of people, then yes. But a handful of individuals, as is seemingly the case here, are much easier to handle. Democracy after all - even theoretically - only ensures the majority rule. The point here is that those who protested were very few and if people chose to ignore them then, I see nothing wrong. If millions filled the streets of London and brought it to a crawl, I'd then say ignoring them is foolish. The idea that one can please everyone is ridiculous so you gotta draw the line somewhere. I see this as just pragmatic common sense.
Were the French wrong to riot in 1789?
Wrong? You know, I can't say I have any romantic thoughts about the French revolution. When I think of the French Revolution I think of a crazy blood bath and it was luck more then design that it ended with a result that some people think justified the means.
