If you’re aware of current events, you’ve likely heard about the wild protests occurring worldwide, which began in France and Italy. Millions of people are upset with increased costs of living and good-for-nothing governments, and they expressed their anger by protesting wildly in the streets. You could see videos on the internet of SWAT teams fighting protesters with tear gas, people vandalizing historic monuments, throwing stuff at cop cars, and even burning down buildings to make their voices heard.
There was destruction, anger, and violence, but voices were heard. I doubt the government will take any action, but that’s not the main issue. Then we have America during the No Kings protest on the same day. People flooded the streets of New York, standing there peacefully. No violence, no anger in their voices, no police brutality.
Now I understand why people think peaceful protests are better with no violence. I also don’t like when innocent people get hurt, but what’s the point of a protest when there’s no reason for a government to care?
The police force has a widespread racism problem; our government has an anti-minority deportation force that actively seeks out Hispanic people. Our government has been either doing nothing or doing horrible things for 10 years now, getting us into wars and covering up the biggest elite scandal in history with no punishment given out to the rich involved in those disgusting acts. They’re forcing AI onto us, consuming our power and water, making us pay more for it.
Yet despite all this, we don’t protest in any meaningful way. Yes, peaceful protests do exist, but compared to the rest of the world protesting for actual results, we just make a statement, a suggestion the government can ignore.
The U.S. is plagued by fearmongering; there’s the idea that cops and military officers are pigs who would happily open fire into a crowd if it was legal. I obviously can’t speak for everybody, but I’d hope that’s not the case. Maybe it’s because we’re a military superpower and people think they might be sick of a massive military raid on any violent protests.
We need to stick up for ourselves and make a real impact. People say they’re sick of all this stuff, but they’re too afraid to make a real impact; they don’t want to slight the U.S. government despite millions of people showing up to these protests. We need to compel the government to take meaningful action or make a serious statement, rather than allowing the president of the United States to post an AI-generated video of himself with a crown dropping poop on protesters from a fighter jet.
If we protested like France, the government would have to respond, but we don’t. American protests are weak.
Again, I don’t want people to get hurt, but the rest of the world has a much better grasp on how to actually strike fear in their governments to make change. We just sit there and let the U.S. government do whatever they want; these peaceful protests do nothing in my opinion.
