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[htpcl]

Greetings, all U home-fixated Americentrics curious citizens of the world! Now I'mma occupy you with a more general subject, if not as abstract as you might've imagined from a first sight. A recent post about the protests in Turkey/Brazil made me thinking. What if we asked people the question, "Show me one politician who has entered the Parliament

Comments

per your last paragraph

[rick_day]

Would a universal protest template work? Maybe, with some tweaks.

A template strategy would be more effective if both sides played fair.
Agents provocateur initiated counter-strategies by the opposing power makes a universal plan for protest difficult to duplicate. So does divergent allies with their own agendas.

The system would have to be weighed in correlation to the protested government's VQ. (initiating dialog for change in a village as opposed to China, for example). The higher the Violence Quotient, the more the strategy changes.

An activist network to coordinate protests? Maybe they can call it "Anonymous"?

[htpcl]

A universal template for protests would only work in a culturally homogeneous world. I don't expect it's very applicable to the real one.

As for a universal coordination body of all protests, wouldn't that defeat the purpose of decentralization? This "Anonymous" or whatever would sooner or later turn into an authority, which would be in turn despised by the very people it's designed to be serving.

[abomvubuso]

Here in Sofia, the protesters are actually detecting any potential provocateurs on their own, and reporting them to the police, so the cops could take them out of the crowd, and allow the event to remain peaceful.

That's a sign of well-established instincts of a matured democracy - on both sides. Contrary to the self-deprecating efforts you've been doing as a rule :)

[htpcl]

Reminds of the story I was told by a US guy who shortly visited Sofia some time ago. Just as he was walking by the Presidential offices downtown, he saw some drunken old guy yelling some nonsense right at the president's windows. Two cops came by, and they asked him to leave asap. But he kept on blabbering some more gibberish, and, instead of arresting him or dragging him away by force, they just threw their hands in the air, flipped the bird at him, told him to fuck off and left him there. He remained there for a while, still yelling his nonsense, then got bored and left. All the while, the president probably sitting two storeys up with his windows open. He must've had a good laugh, too

[abomvubuso]

Like I said, a much more matured democracy than you'd like to think. Sluggish, but still sounds pretty real. As much as a democracy is possible in the current party system where, whichever "alternative" you choose, it's still the same old oligarchic clique, but with a different name. Until the next swing of the pendulum.

[policraticus]

might mention the name of one Guy Fawkes - if not for anything, just because in 1605 he tried to blow the British Houses of Parliament to smithereens, along with their royal majesties, the God-anointed family, and all the MPs in it.

I always wonder how much the folks in those masks know about the real Guy Fawkes, about his motivation and politics. Fawkes was a Roman Catholic zealot, a believer in theocracy and Papal supremacy. He wanted to install 9 year old Princess Elizabeth in place of her father and raiser her up to be a Roman Catholic, marry a Catholic prince consort and rule Great Britain somewhat like a Roman Catholic version of the Taliban. They might as well be wearing Osama Bin Laden masks.

[moonchylde]

I think most people these days are more familiar with the V for Vendetta usage than the original source.

[telemann]

It's cultural adaptation in the works of a known icon (in this case, a historical person). It's pretty cool to see it happening.

[sophia_sadek]

It reminds me of how people associate the name "illuminati" with the same political element that the real illuminati opposed.

[moonchylde]

Saw this the other day, gives a new spin to the mask:

http://gizmodo.com/a-guy-fawkes-mask-for-every-skin-tone-gender-culture-740175233

[sophia_sadek]

Most excellent!

[sophia_sadek]

I am reminded of an incident that happened during my younger years. The maximalist leader of our nation was a real Dick. Students in the middle part of our land were outraged by the despot's escalation of violence in South East Asia. The local authorities called in the state militia who proceeded to gun down protesting students. A famous song was written to commemorate the event and immortalize the victims.

[peamasii]

Is that Mama Cass crying there? LOL

[policraticus]

You should use the un-retouched version.

[sophia_sadek]

Nice spike!