[Rokenn]

Originally posted by Cloudbringer: Sorry, Rokenn, but in my opinion, you lose credibility and should lose the right to wander about freely in your 'protesting' if you harm other people (throw bottles or rebar as they did in SF), incite crowds to violence or deliberately damage other people's property (if the McDonald's incident happened here, I'd expect arrests no matter which side did the damage), or put them in danger (blocking major highways for example- this caused several car crashes out here yesterday). I realize these people want the media coverage, but endangering others, intentionally doing harm to others or their property or deliberately tying up traffic and causing widespread problems for a city is just beyond what I consider 'reasonable'. I've seen peaceful protests get media coverage without the bottle throwing or blocking traffic for hours. But to me, it just seems like these people are really saying either "all we give a damn about is being SEEN or doing damage for the hell of it" or "we don't care WHAT happens to anyone else as long as we make ourselves visible to the media and shout our slogans loudly for the 6pm newscast". IMO, it takes alot of the credibility from their arguments. Not because they aren't saying anything worthwhile (some or most of them, at any rate) but because I cannot get past the violence and and the 'in your face' attitude some have. No matter what the issue, I'm more likely to LISTEN if they aren't hurting someone while talking to me. Guess that's just me. [img]smile.gif[/img]

*sigh* Again you condemn an entire movement due to the violent actions of a few. Of course protesting the war is a moot point since Bush has stated that no matter how large the protests get he will still ignore them.