What do you think it would take to make Americans get out and protest en masse?

[raccoon]

The way the citizens do in Mexico and other countries.

[LakeSamish706]

1. First of all you would need to wake them up... Probably many people out there...

do not surf the net and with no MSM to speak of, many may not know what we know on DU.

[simmonsj811]

81. 75% OFF EVERYTHING IN THE MALL

90% IF YOU DON'T VOTE. :evilgrin: :think:

[Deep13]

2. a draft

[BrklynLiberal]

10. That was my first thought..

[WillyT]

83. Bingo !!!

We have a winner!

:shrug:

[Captain Hilts]

3. We did in 2003. No one listened. nt

[winter999]

14. I'm sorry, what was that?

[Captain Hilts]

41. The anti-war protests here in DC with over 700K. nt

[JuniperLea]

33. I watched the whole thing... all day... and cried... and sent mental hugs to you all...

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://gammablog.com/%3Fp%3D795&h=740&w=700&sz=91&hl=en&start=6&tbnid=YkHRF_0IlO3bsM:&tbnh=141&tbnw=133&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dny%2Bwar%2Bprotest%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den

[sam sarrha]

4. they raise cable tv rates, or tax alcohol and tobacco

[PassingFair]

5. Take our teevee's away.

That'll get us up.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

47. They're stopping analog TV broadcasts in Jan. of 2009.

If you have an old fashioned analog TV set, you will have to buy a converter box.

Now I think that will get people out in the streets -- take away their TV signal.

Gil Scott-Heron said "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". I guess he was right.

[Virginia Dare]

6. Close down all the Starbucks..

cancel all the credit cards, shut down all the Blackberrys and ban all reality TV shows?

[rateyes]

7. Take away the internet. nt

[JuniperLea]

34. No kidding!

Too many people (including MANY here on DU) are living in cyber space, instead of IRL!!!

[tekisui]

87. As a Zen Tenet says:

Living process and words about it are not the same and should not be treated as equal in worth.


I haven't remembered that one for a while. I'm changing my sig line.

[flvegan]

8. Americans? Free BBQ.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

9. The draft

is all that I can come up with........

[T Wolf]

11. A draft coupled with great increase in deaths in the ME. Throw in massive

unemployment and a few ecological disasters...

Wait. We've already had number 4 (Katrina). The economy would have to really depress, with all the accompanying bonuses, to have any impact. And we are too comfortable to risk losing our cable tv. So, it comes down to the first two. The draft will not happen because they know it will not be accepted. And casulties will be kept down by simply sacrificing the few that are caught in the military web.

So, to answer. I do not see anything pushing the people of this country to protest.

[Selatius]

12. Make Americans suffer brutal, bone-crushing poverty like they do in Mexico and Venezuela.

Then, maybe Americans can appreciate the notion of collective action and left wing economic reforms. People have forgotten what it was like during the Great Depression. They have forgotten because the news media fails to report, and the schools skim over just how truly horrific it was.

What's the old cliché again about failing to remember history?

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

13. H-U-N-G-E-R

n/t

[Deja Q]

59. N-O W-A-Y

[stillcool]

15. Information and organization

and lots of young people who are not bogged down under financial and family obligations.

[Robbien]

16. They are getting out and protesting and protesting big. AND getting arrested.

But no one knows. The media just doesn't report it so it just disappears.

See this story
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0712/S00093.htm

on people getting arrested each and every week for participating in protest marches.

We are out there protesting and tree hugging. The fact that you and others keep setting up these threads saying "where is the outrage, where are the protestors" is so very heartbreaking.

[raccoon]

20. Thanks for the link. nt

[EFerrari]

24. That's a very good point.

But it goes back to the same cultural problem. When people take to the public square, we don't feel envigorated or interested, we feel slightly ashamed, imho. Those damn Puritans are still messing with us to comply.

So, demonstrators always have two jobs. To demonstrate their issue AND to teach the rest of us that it's a respectable activity.

[Robbien]

29. Which also goes back to what little media attention we do get

Articles on protests are deliberately demeaning to the protest and never discusses the issues.

Teaching the public at large is nearly impossible when the MSM stands between activists and the public at large.

[EFerrari]

32. So true! They call us all kinds of names to condition their audience.

Radicals, leftists, extremists, never neutral terms like dissenters.

[JuniperLea]

40. There should be a daily GD update on this!

I know I don't go into many other areas than GD and latest breaking unless something of interest pops up on the main page... and those come and go so quickly!

I'd love to hear more about this!

[ptvet]

45. What Robbien said....

More proof here.... http://ptmccleese.smugmug.com/gallery/3830582

We/they/and them have been busy, keep an eye on your local Indy Media sites as well...
Tad bit more proof for those with extra time on their hands. http://ptmccleese.smugmug.com/Events

[unpossibles]

17. cable outage?

actually being aware of how these issues really do affect them?

sadly, a few years of this bad-getting-worse may be the best thing for American democracy in the long run - a booster shot, as it were. I know people who have lived in authoritarian countries, and they are shocked at our lazy apathy because they know what a treasure democracy is.

Look at how Bush has already made more people politically active. Sadly, not enough, but... I can be optimistic.

[EFerrari]

18. We just don't do that. In Latin America, hitting the streets

and banging on pots is considered a good thing. Here, it just embarrasses people. We're wallflowers.

[warren pease]

19. Simultaneous unavailability of Bud Lite, Coors Lite and Miller Lite. Oh, and Doritos, too.

[gatorboy]

21. Cancel Amercian Idol.

And for good measure, Grey's Anatomy.

[bullwinkle428]

58. DAMMIT, I thought I'd be the first to chime in with the"American Idol" reference!

:rofl:

[gatorboy]

63. I'm, surprised the thread went that long without one.

I'll trade you an "American Idol" reference for a "Dancing With The Stars" (Stars...Hah!!!). :P

[balantz]

22. Manipulate the gas prices to over $6.00 a gallon,

which they won't do yet. They'll wait until late 2008 (my guess).

[balantz]

65. At this point, what with all the power they have taken from us,

and having set themselves up so well, they'd just as soon kill us if it came down to it. If we get too loud, they get real shitty! And I'm trying to stay positive here :eyes:

[BlueIris]

23. Bush would have to have a "Stillson" moment. And even I don't think that'd work on the whole 24%.

It would have to be a white, blonde baby, too. From a "good" "Christian" family. Wearing an "I Love Jesus" onesie.

[L. Coyote]

25. Right now, just one leader. Critical Mass has arrived.

How about a Million Americans Hunger Strike, or better yet, a Shopping Strike!

[SutaUvaca]

26. Martial law. n/t

[LSparkle]

27. Total economic meltdown / run on the banks

[dantyrant]

39. Oh you just wait.

Seen the headlines? It's getting bad out there. Really scary.

[readmoreoften]

54. Disaster Capitalism wants our economy to fail. When it does we will be more docile, not less.

This is the central thesis of Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" and she points out how corporations have created and exploited natural, terrorist, and economic disasters to push through right wing reforms in Peru, England, Russia, Indonesia, Iraq, and now New Orleans. They intentionally destroy economies and get rich off it. People don't protest in the streets. They hide under the bed and cry. And when they do protest in the streets they get shot.

[dantyrant]

75. I've read the book...

This isn't necessarily planned in the way that you think. Had Bush's plans in the Middle East gone more quickly and smoothly, America's place at the top of the global financial order would have been secured, albeit through a series of heinous war crimes. Bush's plan was to park our military on top of Iraq and Iran's oil fields and use that oil to back our currency, or a new currency even. Bush probably would have dumped the dollar to weaken China and moved to a new currency. Regardless, that dream has sailed...

Now, there is a sense in which SD does apply here - the starving of the Federal Govt of spending plays in with the Grover Norquist far-economic-Right and theres is a sense in which we need to beware those ideas that happen to be 'lying around' when problems need solving. But American corporate power has been hurt very badly by this whole ordeal - THAT was not planned, I assure you.

[readmoreoften]

78. Sure, I agree. But the problem with disaster capitalism is that it thrives on disaster.

We tend to think that some political apocalypse will bring revolution, but they are the ones with the game in place when disaster strikes. If the economy collapses, while we're out in the streets, they'll round us up, revoke our citizenship, sell our property--whatever! The point is, disaster will not cause people to 'wake up'. When it does, we will all be out of jobs and scrounging to survive.

[CT_Progressive]

28. A meaningful and lasting interruption of their daily life is all it takes.

Take away football, or beer, or cable.
Start a military draft.
Disrupt their life in some serious way.

Basically, you have to put them in a situation where they have nothing (or almost nothing) left to lose.

[Labors of Hercules]

30. This:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2456006&mesg_id=2456006

[bdamomma]

31. our bellies are too full, and until something affects us personally

that is when people will get out in the streets, for example a draft, or even more infringing on our civil rights/liberties, but apparently there are many out there who are not as well informed as us here on DU. Total ignorance and denial has alot to do with it too.

[Frogger]

35. Conditions like

those of Mexico and some other countries would prbably do it! LOL

[LeftyMom]

36. massive television outages nt

[LynzM]

38. No TV and no beer.

That's my bet.

[lonestarnot]

37. We have been!

[JDPriestly]

42. Americans will not get out and protest en masse because

it would not change anything if they did and they know it. It is not what Americans do. The effective thing is to talk to your neighbors and wait for the next election. That is what Americans do to change things. It is much easier to hold a protest march than to actually talk to your neighbors.

[Nikki Stone1]

43. Take away their cable TV

:(

[BB1]

44. Outlaw cars.

make them illegal. Penalize. Stab all tyres in one night. (that might actually be a nice plan for April Fools Day...)

[nightrider767]

46. When they lose their houses and bank accounts aren't worth shit

They'll watch the world burn till then.....

[Flarney]

48. the results of a new 911 investigation n/t

[SujiwanKenobee]

49. Perhaps the time for protests has come and gone

If there is an underlying fear amongst the rulership that those peaceful "pot banging" protests *could* turn into something huge and violent, that may be one reason why it is more "effective" abroad.
I think in the US we're pretty much defanged, especially since we have such an ingrained horror of revolution that we all immediately jump on and squelch the groups that get out of line.

[readmoreoften]

50. Peaceful protest isn't going to stop this war. A general strike would, but that's

not going to happen.

Protest and Response

Peaceful Protest: media ignores it; government ignores it, creates "free-speech zones"; the left becomes weighed down prosecuting thousands of ludacrist arrests that are only ever known by the left; the public at large smugly says to itself "look, we still have freedom of speech, we're still allowed to protest, so I guess there's no need to protest."

Violent Protest: media can't help but play the videotapes; government can't ignore it; the left becomes identified as the 'enemy of the state' and the full weight of the PATRIOT Act falls upon protestors; the violence becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and mainstream America actually confuses the violent response with the reason for the need for more security. Although there is *some* prospect of mainstream America saying we want an end to this strife and I think it would make the rest of the world take our anti-war movement more seriously. The neocons know this, and that's why they're rolling out the ol' Homegrown Terrorist Act. But it's more likely that it would just escalate the situation that already exists.

General Strike: not a one-day symbolic walk-out, but an organized, ongoing strike; the problem with this is that the War and the neoconservative moment has not effectively been tied to economics. Most people do not understand why walking out of their job at Ford or ITT could be connected to the war (although Ford and ITT have been part of neoconservative atrocities in the part.) Labor has been so week for almost 30 years now that most people in the workplace have a hard time striking for their own direct survival, let alone for a principle. Beyond folk's lack of ability to connect corporatism (and their own jobs) to the neoconservative movement, middle class and working class Americans are poorer than ever. It's the classic "prisoner's game" in game theory. Everyone expects that no one else will strike, so they won't strike because they won't risk losing everything for nothing.

Voting an Opposition Party into Power: while this would be the simplest way to stop our decline, and an opposition party would work best in a two party state like ours, we don't have an opposition party. We have only one firm opposition candidate in the Democratic party. I like some of the others (and one who has fashioned himself into an opposition candidate, which, heck, works just as well as long as his feet are held to the fire). Other candidates are being judged by how well they will include the ideas of the opposition, which I think is absurd. We should have learned by now that we cannot absorb the opposition without becoming our opposition. But beyond all the infighting and so-on and so-forth, the fact remains that one Democratic presidency does not a revolution make, just like we have learned that one Democratic congress loaded with DINOs and centrists does not a revolution make. We know our voting system is rigged. Yet we somehow think they can't rig it this time. Or that it would be "too obvious" because Bush is so unpopular. But regardless of whether we win or not, through an opposition candidate (unlikely) or a moderate candidate (likely) the corporatists still own the media and they are in bed with Big Religion. If a centrist Dem wins it in 2008, we have four years of better wages and MAYBE less war and corporate expansion and expansion of the 'defense/security/police state' (but maybe not.) However, the neoconservatives will not be out of power, because this country is really controlled by Halliburton, News Corp, Viacom, Blackwater, Exxon, IBM, and GE. It's good to remember that the neoconservatives have openly stated that they'd be happy to work with a Democratic president.

Possible solutions: (1) a progressive "Radio Free America" style news outlet streaming on the internet, well-done, with statesmen participating, and no corporate or think tank/foundation support (but with small, local business support). (2) Working from within to create a strong progressive democratic party that supports small business, global labor, a mixed economy, and is willing to be tough on right-wing extremism and stand firm against mixing church and state

We are not in a good position, mostly because we are not *in position*. When you fight the right from the center right, you can't get much of a running start to beat them back.

[raccoon]

86. Great post. nt

[Forkboy]

51. On the level needed? Nothing.

[blues90]

52. People need to lose their comfort zones

Whatever these may be , the things that allow them to ignore the reality .

[zorahopkins]

53. No MTV. No HBO. No VH-1.

Have the government deprive the people of the latest news on Britney, Tara, New York.

Have the government deprive the people of Judge Judy, Judge Joe Brown.

Have the government deprive the people of ....well, you get the idea.

Also, have the government deprive the people of beer.

[sentelle]

89. you forgot Jerry

With that list how can you forget Jerry Springer?

[piedmont]

55. Oprah telling them to. nt

[coalition_unwilling]

56. Close all shopping malls and shut down internet??? -n/t

[Lydia Leftcoast]

57. The electricity going out for weeks at a time so that there was no TV

and people would have to start talking to one another.

I've seen and heard hints over the years that a lot of people have misgivings about where the country is going but think that they're the only person who feels that way. Why not? The TV tells them not to worry their little heads; just buy the right stuff and follow the antics of celebrities, and all will be well.

[countryjake]

60. An illegal military occupation?

Port 2007 - Continued Resistance to Port Militarization, Olympia, Tacoma & Beyond
http://www.omjp.org/Port2007.html

The Alliance Endorses Olympia Port Militarization Resistance Effort
http://www.sounddemocracy.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=76&Itemid=1

Olympia Port Militarization Resistance Denounces Police Brutality In Current Campaign Against Iraq War
http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/1114-04.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlndgiBhNQQ

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dM2tNL_roBY

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Kf4Mpckw9hg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgi5ESpueX8

http://youtube.com/watch?v=x7-ljrcBRiQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOkn2Fg7R8w

[porphyrian]

61. It won't happen that way here again.

Look at what's happening now with people losing it, and imagine that exponentially multiplied, followed by swift and murderous police action and, possibly, another civil war.

Tell me I'm wrong.

[countryjake]

62. Standing up for immigrants rights, maybe?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WZ6tJCKr44

[BuelahWitch]

64. The takeover of a major TV network or station

Or the creation of another one. One that will show the protests, report the truth, and eschew fluff news. Like someone said upthread, lots of regular people are not on the internets. Just think about how many people got angry when they saw "Sicko"? Now those who didn't see it in the theater are buying the DVD or watching it on PPV. And they're angry again.

People can't respond to what they don't know about.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

66. Cancel television.

[timtom]

67. I'm afraid that

by the time America reaches that point of ultimate recognition, it will be too late.

[bdamomma]

88. yea, and this filthy administration will be giving each other

high fives for playing us all for fools and mission accomplished. Instill fear and the masses will do anything, but I thought we were better than that.

[slowry]

68. An education. n/t

[ShaneGR]

69. It's the economy stupid... nt

They don't care about a war 5000 miles away, they care about how much money they have, period.

[Aristus]

70. Starvation.

Nothing else will work. As long as we have cheap food and plenty of it, we Americans will continue to let our democratic way of life be eroded by totalitarian autocrats.

Our Founding Fathers had reason and judgement as a motivator, but we don't care about those things anymore. Not with Guitar Hero III on sale at Wal-Mart...

[hatrack]

71. $5.00 gasoline, higher cable TV bills, preemption of "Dancing With The Stars" By WWIII Coverage

Other than that, not much.

[Maine-ah]

72. Knowing that we could leave work for the day of protests and still have a job

[dpbrown]

73. Their cable TV went out

Seriously. That's what it would take to pry these lard-asses off their overstuffed couches.

[Fire Walk With Me]

74. A mass protest, ala' the French, etc? Only something very large that happens all at once.

They've been very canny to tighten the noose slowly, they have.

[Bluebear]

76. Cancel football season. nt

[Solly Mack]

77. Kidnap the remote controls

[Breeze54]

79. What would it take to get raccoon out there?

Pre-emptive strikes and invading Iraq got me out there....

[raccoon]

85. Same here. Went to DC in January 2003, and participated in rallies in my hometown. nt

[in_cog_ni_to]

80. Threaten to take away their guns, Bible. Then, insist on abortions and send a Gay person to live

in their home IF they don't hit the streets to save our country. That should do it. It must be something that affects them personally, or they don't give a crap. They're busy shopping.

[spanone]

82. take their suv's away

[Ganja Ninja]

84. Massive job losses.

An unemployment rate of 30% or more will get them off their asses.