Political Protest Marches

[Sixcess]

A little while ago I heard some noise outside in the street - I live on a fairly main road - so I looked out and saw some marchers going by, looking a bit bedraggled (it's raining) and holding up some equally bedraggled banners about... I wasn't sure at first, but I saw the words CUTS and LOCAL SERVICES and a couple of trade union logos, so I assume it's about... well, cuts made by the government, local or national or both.

Anyway, I didn't give it much more thought and went back to what I was doing. The march continued to trail past my window with occassional chants and some drums. Then I heard a shift in the tone, with a call and response thing going on...

Tory! Tory! Tory!
SCUM! SCUM! SCUM!
Tory! Tory! Tory!
SCUM! SCUM! SCUM!

And variations on that. Another chant, basically FUCK THE TORIES, got picked up for a while as well.

This wasn't isolated individuals either. I had another look out and saw some other banners - local colleges and the Communist Party of Great Britain (how retro... didn't know they were still in business...)

Long story short, I wondered about the rather nasty, agressive tone of those sections of the march - and whatever your attitude to swearing fifty people shouting FUCK in unison, repeatedly, is agressive - and I wondered about the people I'd seen in front and behind this lot - the middle aged union members, the parents with their kids along, the pensioners - and I wondered what they thought of their foul mouthed 'fellow travellers'.

So what do you think, Escapists? Is this sort of confrontational stuff your idea of political protest, or does it do more harm to a cause than good in your eyes? Or am I just being an old fuddy duddy?

(Incidentally, I'm left-ish/liberal leaning, but don't get personally participate in party politics.)

[sub]Note for Americans and other foreigners: Tory/Tories is another word for the Conservative Party, the centre-right Party currently in government in the UK.[/sub]

 

[ScoopMeister]

Hey. Nothing wrong with aggressive useless protest. It's not like protests got out of hand across the country in August or anything...

 

[zxvcasdfqwerzxcv]

I think that form of political protest is childish and useless to be honest.
I'm not from the UK (I'm next door) and don't know huge amounts about the Tory party, and I haven't always agreed with their actions, but to call them scum is out of line.

I hate angry, agressive protest that suggests nothing. Come out and suggest alternatives to their public cuts or whatever policy they are invoking. Be constructive, not destructive! Shouting and generally being a nuisance expresses anger, but doesn't express the why of it. Plus how does it win people over to support you? I'd say a lot of people would be scared away from such groups!

 

[Esotera]

Yeah, that's leftards for you. Democratic elections elected a party they didn't want so DO IT AGAIN! I'd guess a lot of those involved were students. Students are short sighted dipshits who don't have a clue what they're talking about so they tend to believe very simplistic explanations, they basically get very worked up without thinking things over first.

Basically most of the people there were just angry and enjoying shouting rather than actually presenting a realistic point.

...Nice generalisation.

Most students are more angry at the liberal democrats, as they did a complete U-turn on their tuition fees policy. Which by the way, is a terrible policy for a recession, as it requires more initial funding from government. I don't see anything short-sighted about this.

OT: This protest does sound a bit pointless. I think generally no-one takes notice of a protest unless it's in the thousands, or upwards.

 

[Esotera]

Thanks, it took me a few years of living and working with students to formulate a good general theory. Of course you realise that any statement except one that is said Vulcan-style is a generalisation. Of course you'll also notice that pro-liberal generalisations on here get passed A-OK so I take it you're being fair and even handed?

As much as possible. I'm a liberal in philosophy, but try not to let this influence the facts.

The tuition fee debate is being approached from the students in a rather weird direction but one I ultimately understand; they think we as a nation need the hundreds of thousands of ill educated students we have. We can't afford to fund them, they're nigh on useless because there are so many that a degree is just the new A level and most of them are leaving university unable to write a CV. of all the things we can fund (and the lovely prolies seem to forget we don't have infinite credit any more) the students are absolutely the most useless possible choice. Everyone thinks cuts should be taken from somewhere else, everyone likes the idea of saving money but no one wants to make a sacrifice.

Are you aware how tuition fees work? A student is given government-backed loans to cover their costs; raising tuition fees means that the government has to lend more. I'm not too sure on the actual numbers here but would assume that the running cost of universities will remain roughly the same, along with the number of students. The government is effectively still giving the same amount of funding in the short-term; this won't help the cuts for at least a few years, and it'll take a long time to become profitable.

Now give it a few years and we have less students. Businesses can't afford to hold out for students so they start employing those that didn't go to uni. Make no mistake, the jobs that ask for a degree scarcely ever need one. Of course, students can't generally see this because they don't sit down and actually crunch the numbers. They just spring back to their ingrained prejudices, especially frustrating because the Tories are doing what the majority want them to do! but since students are so fucking special obviously the majority is wrong and we should keep changing policy and voting until we get exactly what they want since that's obviously the right answer.

Yes, this is a problem because universities are allowed to do terrible degree programs these days. Anything related to the arts or english is going to be useless in most lines of work; the jobs just aren't there. But will raising tuition fees actually make a difference on the percentage of the population with some form of higher education? Look at the US.

Instead the emphasis in schools should be less upon getting everyone into uni, and actually giving good career advice, because currently it's terribly biased. Also, your logic entirely fails to consider fields of study with good prospects, such as science and engineering. Good luck trying to become a cancer researcher without at least a degree.

 

[Esotera]

I said 'most' because most students will not become cancer researchers. Most students will become middle manager office jockeys with a job almost certainly unrelated to their degree, but will have been employed because they have a degree. I think there's something horrific about a job hiring someone because they have a degree in something or other, that's completely unnecessary.

Making it more expensive isn't going to work; the social pressure is that university is awesome and the right choice for everyone, which is completely untrue. I've stated this in previous posts; good alternatives need to be well advertised. Apprenticeships should be more widely extended, and sixth-form colleges should be helping A-Level students get into the world of work rather than university.

Incidentally my university is entirely science & engineering based, with a small politics/psychology department; I'd say this is the way most should be. Universities that give useless degrees need to be singled out, more importantly prospective students need to be made aware which subject fields have hopeless employment statistics. This information is currently too obscure.

The main problem with the fees is that the Lib Dems were running a gumdrop and rainbow manifesto with all kinds of promises on it that they never could have kept because they never expected to actually have to honour it, a whole lot of people voted for them without actually really thinking if the nice things they were promised were actually possible or reasonable and I'm afraid to say that a lot of that vote was the younger and more naive voters. Cutting the fees isn't just about reducing costs for the state, it also reduces costs for the individual because in a few years people will no longer need a degree to be competitive in the middle job market. It also encourages businesses to take on less trained people from the growing unemployment pool and gets those people back into paying taxes.

As for whether it makes a difference in the real world I just don't know yet, no one does. I'd say it's worth a try though because we simply don't need as many graduates as we have.

Is the government going to kill off all the recent graduates or something? The market will still be saturated with degrees for a long time, and that's if university entrance figures do fall consistently. It'll take a few years before either of us is proved right. The amount the individual pays remains unchanged at £9K a year; that's a lot of money for 5-year courses such as medicine. This reduces the incentive for bright but poor students to study this field, which will only perpetuate social inequity.

Being a first-time voter I expected that political parties would keep to at least some of their promises; obviously I won't make that mistake again.

As for the Libtard bit, don't you find it telling that if I'd have mocked the Right I'd not have been told it was a generalisation? Any statement you make about people is automatically a generalisation but people just seem to resent that one. As for student protests, I really don't have a high opinion of them because almost no students I've ever spoken to have had a realistic grasp of the situation. Why should I respect people that shout about something they don't understand? Almost everything they say is a sound bite rather than an actual reasoned stance, beyond shouting slogans students aren't much good for anything else because they lack experience and are profoundly selfish.

I don't know the last time I saw students protesting about something that didn't directly affect students. That's kind of sad actually now I think about it.

The generalisation was referring to students, not leftards, sorry that wasn't very clear. Unfortunately a lot of the points you make are true; a fair amount of students have little situational awareness beyond what directly affects them. Many do, however, which is why the generalisation is unfair.

When's the last time teachers protested for something other than their own selfish reasons? Nurses? This argument could apply to any group. Back to the OP, pretty much all protests could be categorised as selfish; an individual is not happy with their pay/government/something in society, so makes themselves heard. The only exception I can think of would be gay rights/gender equality marches. And very rarely does a protest make a difference.