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Does anyone have any good protest stories?
I've never been one to get involved in protests or anything in the States.
Now that I'm living in Chile, I'm finding it hard to avoid them -- this past week has been filled with protests regarding either school systems or the recent vote to build a hydroelectric dam in Patagonia -- pretty much a travesty. Anyway, I got tear-gassed for the first time since I've lived here. It'll probably happen again.
I've heard some crazy stories since talking about it and blogging about it. Have you ever been involved in protests? Any good stories?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Sweeney on -
I went to school in DC so I've been to lots of protests. Nothing spectacularly interesting ever happened. They were mostly just fun days where we walked along Pennsylvania with signs and chanted things and sang songs. Sometimes drunk. I really enjoyed this old couple counter-protesting a war protest. They were sitting directly across the street from the Newseum whose Pennsylvania facade has the text of the first amendment in giant letters. Their counter-protest? An enormous sign that read "TREASON." It was too absurd for me to even be frustrated by it.
But this is a really cool thread topic and I'm sad it didn't get more responses. I'm going to read your post now.
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Permalink Reply by jaminicole on -
Ha, well thanks for your response! Yeah, I had to go to a couple of Tea Party rallies in the states when I was working in politics -- pretty tame ones compared to how crazy a lot of them get, but the scariest part of any protest, I think, is the opposition that inevitably shows up.
But all of those protests I've seen in the States don't hold a candle to how crazy these protests get. They've just restricted the use of tear gas after realizing that it has abortive effects (a funny bit of irony in the Catholic country where abortions are illegal), and now the protests are getting wild and somewhat violent.
Finding the balance seems to be pretty difficult here.
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Permalink Reply by R...RAWR on -
I've been involved in some pretty..well, "eventful" protests.
I was in a march for Abortion Rights, it started out as pretty tame with signs and loudspeakers with people yelling catchphrases and statistics. The opposition showed up and proceeded to get into a shouting match with people. My favourite was when someone from the Anti-Choice bunch yelled out, "Well, your mother should have aborted you; then". So much awesome.
What wasn't so awesome was people stopping you to show you foetuses and telling you that this was your sin, you must see what you do- murderers! The back section got foetuses thrown at them later on. That wasn't so awesome.
I was in India when this rather important verdict by the Supreme Court came down on water division of this river that flows through three states. The rioting after was not pretty. I was on a bus that they made everyone get off of and burnt. It was ridiculous and terrifying.
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Permalink Reply by jaminicole on
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Wow -- the burning bus bit is particularly frightening. The riotting here hasn't been too out of hand, and I'm able to avoid it by avoiding the main drag in Santiago. Protests did get really out of hand last night though. And the protests are still being planned.
God, abortion is such an insane issue. I really don't understand opponents and how they think: are throwing fetuses really going to convince people to stop standing up for it? I've had to work with some anti-choice people for work and out of all of the crazies I've met on the campaign trail, they are the weirdest and the absolute worst.
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Permalink Reply by Kim on -
There have been some pretty hardcore protests over her in the UK over raising University fees, especially seeing as the English are always stereotyped as being so reserved but i cant say i took part in any of them.
However i do have a bit of a funny story. My aunt who only recently moved to South Africa from France was walking out a shopping mall one day and there were loads of African women (in her words) 'singing and dancing, just generally having a good time with their drums and colorful signs', so my Aunty joint in. She was dancing away, and singing what she was picking up along the way until a news crew turned up and started filming. About half an hour later she got a call from my Uncle asking her what the hell she was doing protesting against working hours for black employees for that particular mall. After she realized what was going on, she stayed for a couple of hours after that because she was having such a good time, and the African women loved her for it.
You honestly cant make up a story like that, i laughed so hard when my Uncle told me!
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