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I was jailed for four years for a non-violent climate protest – this is my prison diary
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2025
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One of these will make the news and one wouldn't. If the goal of a protest is to spread awareness and draw attention, going to where politicians live will probably get you a restraining order and a cozy ride in the back of a police vehicle and the protest will likely go unnoticed.
Not saying these types of protests are not necessary or unhelpful! I'm just saying that, in order to draw the most attention to your cause, you inconvenience daily lives. Those are the things that make headlines and viral posts, not a secluded protest on private property.
What does attention in this case help other than more people saying "look at those idiots blocking the road"..in my opinion it may even detract from the cause..
On the other hand, if the CEOs of the companies who are polluting our world and the politicians they're successfully lobbying have to live in fear in their own homes, shit starts to change quick.
I mean, if you could find a way to make it impactful, sure. However, people with large amounts of power are not often going to live in fear because there are angry people outside. If shit were to really change quick because people protest outside of politicians houses, they would have changed quickly by now because people have done this for a long time.
As I said previously, I don't disregard these protests, in fact I still support them. But the reality is, politicians and CEOs often have security details, and protesters frequently disrupting the city's infrastructure (traffic issues, disruption of business, chaos in general) are equally as likely to attract the attention of politicians and policy makers.
As a side note, someone seeing people fight for a cause and their only thought being "great now I'm going to have to take a detour!!!" indicates that they probably weren't the type of person the protest is targeted towards, or who will care about a bigger cause than their commute to work.