Sarah ([info]alannalp) wrote,
@ 2009-06-19 00:57:00
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Current mood: contemplative
Current music:Lateralus- Tool

If you're going to call this post "Anti-American", don't even bother commenting, onegaishimasu
I haven't said anything about it because everyone else has but I am in complete support of the Iranian people.

Shame on you, America, for not doing the same thing when Bush stole the election twice. This kind of demonstration is what "freedom" looks like. And isn't it ironic that it's happening in one of the countries that's a member of the "axis of evil". Seriously, even though Bush is gone, I will never understand why we were so silent.

I hope everything is resolved peacefully in Iran and that whatever happens teaches the world that the people will always have more power than governments.


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[info]alannalp
2009-06-18 04:54 pm UTC (link)
I couldn't go to the protest in 2002 because I was still in high school and my parents were very strict AND Republican.

November 2004 was weird. I was in Oberlin and I thought for sure all the students were going to take to the street but no one did anything. I was waiting to hear about some kind of uprising and nothing happened. I went to all kinds of protests but nothing ever came out of it. People weren't passionate about the cause so nothing happened.

I actively protested the war in Iraq in DC and in Louisville and in Cincinnati. I was at that gigantic, first protest in DC just before we declared war. I thought for sure someone would listen but no one listened to us. I couldn't believe it.

I decided to leave the States in 2006 and when I came back, I attended a few more half-hearted protests and I just felt like the American resistance was just as commercial and vacant as the fucking zombie shit people watch on TV. There's strength in numbers and the numbers of people who really cared just weren't there.

Our country was born from a revolution and we seem to have forgotten how to have one. If I knew how to start a revolution I would but I don't. Honestly though, I don't think in the case of Bush a peaceful protest was what was in order and that's why nothing got done. It's sad but true.

You can say Obama was revolutionary but you know the qualms I had with him. I think the guy is doing a good job but we'll see.

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[info]crazy_go_nuts
2009-06-18 10:43 pm UTC (link)
It's just not so easy to overturn or even change a government through protest. Take 1968, for instance... the most passionate protests America saw in the 20th century. And yet we were in Vietnam for another 7 years after that, and kept making Vietnam-like decisions for decades to come.

If you look at 1968 in a global context, there were protests everywhere, but the only place they had any real impact was in places like France, where the workers joined with the students (in the US, the workers were generally pro-Government). Not to sound all Marxist, but I do think a revolution (or effective protest movement) needs support not just from those of us in academia but from the common guy on the street.

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[info]alannalp
2009-06-19 04:19 pm UTC (link)
The　workers joined the students in the Bush protests becasue Bush was anti union (my typing is gonna suck because I am on a Japanese keyboard. Like, I can`t find some puncuation because of it).

I agree that revolutions are not so easy and that there has to be a strong, national movement, but what I`m saying is that Americans are too comfortable to really challenge the way of life they know.

And honestly, I have a hard time in believingt that peaceful protests work. I think that the only way to have a revolution in some countries (not all) is by shedding blood. It`s sad but true. You`ll probably strongly disagree with me but that`s why I believe that Americans should always have the right to bear arms.

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