
Riots are destructive, but can lead to social reforms - ralmidani
http://www.vox.com/2015/4/30/8518681/protests-riots-work
======
glogla
I feel the idea of riots is to say "Hey neofeudal overlords, this is over the
line. Get you dogs to behave, or the city you own will burn down."

Of course it will not make the moderates agree. But the moderates were okay
with people being tortured or murdered by police for fun.

------
benmmurphy
I don't understand why people are defending property destruction and looting.
The whole point of a democracy is disagreements are solved peacefully without
resorting to violence. Intellectually defending this behaviour is helping to
encourage it and the people defending this behaviour should be ashamed.

~~~
_pmf_
> The whole point of a democracy is disagreements are solved peacefully
> without resorting to violence.

Your little country would still be a British colony of peasants and slave
holders.

~~~
konstruktor
In India, peaceful, nonviolent resistance got rid of the British.

~~~
davidgerard
This is largely a myth. Gandhi would have been ineffective without an implicit
threat of violence behind him, and pissed off a lot of more activist people
for taking undue credit.

------
penprogg
While I hate that riots exist, it honestly makes me feel good that there is a
group of people in the US that get angry enough with the system to get up and
do something.

Every time I hear about protests and think about people standing outside the
whitehouse all I can think of is how futile it is. Especially after Occupy
Wallstreet where the media did it's hardest to discredit the entire movement.

~~~
hueving
The movement discredited itself by failing to organize any coherent goals.
"why aren't bankers in jail" isn't a message, especially since the majority of
the protesters couldn't come up with laws the bankers broke.

~~~
tel
I want to agree with this, and I do agree with it, but the concept also scares
me. It feels like rule-mongering, like winning on a technicality alone.

Occupy Wall Street failed to express any unified goals and demonstrated a lack
of understanding of specific reasons why they felt grievance was justified. In
many ways it was more of a mob and its message was lost.

But it's also difficult to claim that it does not represent a growing fear and
pain felt by a fairly large number of people. An emotional plea if not a
logical one. A representative government should have an ear to such things and
the fact that it appears not to is about as clear a statement of purpose for
OWS as I think history will ever have.

This is often the case with civil unrest of any kind. When a system for
representing the needs of citizens fails to do so---whatever the reason---then
by the notion that the powers of government are given by its citizenry it
becomes important to create a message to show the extent and damage of this
failure. There are a lot of ways to do this and people will find the ones that
they feel might work. They might fail and pick methods which do not work
(riots, e.g., which invite pollution of message, judgement, loss of support,
and legitimate reason to oppose) and they might be forced into methods which
are poor.

But I fear to live in a place where the government fails to hear these things
for too long. Not individuals in government, either, but government.

Voting is not the only tool of civil will. It's supposed to be designed well
enough to keep civil will from turning to less constructive tools, though.

~~~
hueving
But OWS wasn't representative of a very large portion of the population.
That's the issue with not having a message. Other than acting as a way for
people currently pissed off about something to get together, it provided no
message for the broader population (e.g. baby boomers with collapsed
retirement accounts, etc) to get behind. Every time I asked someone about OWS
that wasn't an early twenties reddit user, they would just mention that they
were the modern 'hippies protesting the system'.

Successful protests have leaders are not nearly as organic as they initially
appear. OWS participants failed to realize this and instead sat around
empathizing with each other.

~~~
tel
I'm not claiming OWS was at all successful. I'm claiming that ignoring people
complaining just because they fail to organize well is something of a warning
sign.

------
higherpurpose
Completely agree with this. I don't think anyone truly _wants_ this to happen.
The point is it may _have_ to happen, if people want to see serious change. If
criminals take over the government and its power, how else can you take down
down?

But some people don't even like protests because they "make them be late to
work" or whatever, when they block traffic. Well guess what, the point of
riots, protests and even strikes is to _inconvenience_ to the point where
change _has_ to be made and demands listened to.

Otherwise if you just go and protest on a mountain, like the Tibetans do,
nothing will ever change since you won't be inconveniencing anyone in the
slightest.

~~~
gambiting
Yeah, but for most people(me included), if the rioters make me late for work I
am angry at them,not at the government. Therefore I am more likely to support
any effort to get rid of them as a nuisance.

~~~
SwellJoe
_" if the rioters make me late for work I am angry at them,not at the
government"_

Then, you were never on their side, anyway, and it makes no difference who
you're angry at.

The protesters are making it very clear who they're angry at, and making it
clear they're willing to escalate in the interest of altering the status quo,
even if it costs them more than it costs those in power (and it always does).
That's what desperation looks like.

I'm personally uncomfortable with the status quo, if the status quo has large
segments of people who feel so unheard that they have to riot to get media, to
get the attention of those in power, to have any sort of voice at all. Whether
I agree with the tactics, or not, I recognize how much this means to so many
of my fellow Americans, and I recognize that means there's something really
wrong, even if I don't personally feel it in my daily life.

In short: I don't like people getting hurt. I don't like people going to jail.
I don't like random acts of destruction. But, even moreso, I don't like my
country stepping on the throats of ~13% of the population to maintain the
privilege of a few. So, I'm gonna go to the events in my city in solidarity
with the folks in Baltimore. Just like I went to the solidarity events for
Michael Brown and Eric Garner. And, I'll go to the events for Larry Jackson,
an unarmed black man who was gunned down by an Austin police officer, despite
having committed no crime (in a rare instance of sanity, the officer has been
indicted on a manslaughter charge). I'm a white, middle class, male. I don't
necessarily understand all of this...but, I know I can't tell an oppressed
person how to respond to their oppression.

~~~
vonklaus
> I know I can't tell an oppressed person how to respond to their oppression.

Actually, it sounds like you understand it quite well.

------
owen_griffiths
I'm left puzzled after reading this. So riots can be effective, but the
response to the last riots sowed the seeds that led to these riots. Doesn't
that imply rioting is indeed a bad way of making positive change?

~~~
kajecounterhack
> Doesn't that imply rioting is indeed a bad way of making positive change?

No. Nothing changed since the last riots systemically, so of course there are
more riots. We are now however raising public awareness of previously unheard
injustices, and by doing so (hopefully, if our system works correctly),
inducing positive change.

Riots are happening because people literally don't know what else to do. The
system has failed them. The system has decided it's OK for white cops to kill
and imprison and mistreat black men en masse. Very public trials aren't
yielding change, poor blacks continue to be terrorized, prejudiced tickets and
arrests further amplify vicious cycles of poverty. Riots are acts of
desperation that get a lot of attention (for better or for worse, depends on
the system, many variables are unknown).

When the system moves in response (to correct in injustice at hand) that is
when the riots will stop.

(Unfortunately that means either oppression will reign or true social change
will be effected.)

