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Traffic Blockade Protests Were a Nuisance. Lawmakers Want to Make Them a Felony.
(www.motherjones.com)
this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2024
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Great example of false equivalence.
Those sit in demonstrations targeted segregated businesses and the sit in protests happened inside those segregated businesses. As a consequence, the owners of the segregated businesses lost out on revenue and their customers lost the opportunity to make use of their services during the protests, but the customers suffered no further harm, nor were passersby harmed in any way.
Now blocking traffic on the other targets everyone that is moving from one place to another, which can have such consequences as: loss of wages because the person stuck in traffic could not work their hours, people who did not make it to work in time are forced to take up their scarce vacation days, fines from the daycare because the parent was too late with pickin up the children, ... But it can also have life altering consequences, such as: a father missing the birth of his child, an ex prisoner failing his parole conditions, a surgeon not making it in time to the hospital, ...
It's really no surprise that blocking traffic is one of the most derided forms of protest, only being beat by rioting and vandalism, while sit in protests on the other hand received widescale support.
The consequences are so vastly different in the harm they cause, that I can't even begin to fathom how you can possibly believe that these 2 forms of protest are equivalent.
@RunawayFixer @BreakDecks
When Japanese railway workers strike they simply did their job, picked up the passengers, and collected no money in protest.
Yeah, those are the best kind of strikes, ones that only harm the money of the organization, without any harm to ordinary people. But it only works for strikes against a service organization that provides a service for an immediate payment, so basically only for things like public transport and toll roads. I can't think of anything else.
And they also don't work when striking against semi government organizations where the tax money will be used to make up shortfalls: sure, day passengers could ride for free, but it's their taxes that will be used to make up the shortfall anyhow.
It can really only work against very specific companies. I wish it was wider applicable, which is why I tried to think it through, but I only find more reasons as to why it would seldom work.