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Sep 1, 2008 11:28 pm US/Central
Good Question: What's The Point Of Protesting?
ST. PAUL (WCCO) ―
In St. Paul, Minn. Monday, there were thousands of protestors, with dozens of causes. People were against the war, in favor of welfare, against cracking down on illegal immigration, and then there were those who were just trying to have fun.
That doesn't include the people who were breaking windows at a St. Paul Macy's store and bank. If protests are about achieving change, does all of this really have a point?
"The point is to say these elections are not giving us an alternative to ending this war," said a spokesperson for the Revolutionary newspaper, a Communist publication.
"It's giving the people the opportunity to say they're tired of the direction the country is going in," said a mom from Bloomington.
"It gets attention to the issues," said University of Minnesota-Morris political science professor Paula O'Laughlin. "Sometimes the change doesn't happen immediately."
O'Laughlin said there can be a danger in having a rally without a singular focus, and whenever violence takes place, no matter how isolated, "It ruins the credibility of their message."
According to O'Laughlin, there's never been a successful protest in the United States that was coupled with violence. However, the history of protest pre-dates the existence of the United States.
"It's called the Boston Tea Party," she said.
The Boston Tea Party was almost totally non-violent on December 16, 1773. That protest led to the American Revolution.
Protests have also been credited for jump-starting the fight for Civil Rights, ending the Vietnam War, and most recently, focusing attention on immigration in 2006.
"There was a sense that other people had done it, a wave rolled across the country. If you weren't in the know [about the issue] it was amazing. It looked incredible and a lot of people were jumping on board," said O'Laughlin.
Those widespread protests framed immigration as a very important issue in the mid-term Congressional elections of 2006.
The audience of a protest like the March on the RNC is not the people going to the convention, according to O'Laughlin.
"I think they feel like if they can disrupt what's going on they may make an impact on the system, when in fact they're just wasting their time," said one delegate from Vermont.
The real audience is the American voters, a message that's transmitted by all of the media members attending the national convention.
"The numbers says how successful it is," she said.
A large crowd gives the impression that this is an important issue worth tracking. A small crowd gives the impression that the issue isn't that vital, she said.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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