Four guys carrying the dude out against his will? Reasonable.
Tasering? Not... not so much.
But I do kind of understand the desperation factor in protests, lately, in just being a criminal asshat because... I mean... the entire idea of late 60s/early 70s protests have been pretty strictly co-opted. Started before they're started.
Everyone knows what's going to happen instantly now, we're at a point where the tightly constructed counter-protest shows up hours before the actual protest. The Fox News trucks are on the scene already practicing their dimissive reporting before the signs are even painted.
You get your permit by agreeing to be fenced into a little jail a mile away from whatever you're protesting or else the police are there to break it up before it gets a chance to start.
No momentum whatsoever. The people who DO organize mass protests, numbers no one can ignore, are so obsessed with coming off as squeaky-clean that no real sense of urgency or power or threat to power can actually be mobilized... so that they can protect THEIR political careers and the reputations of whatever "Names" they get to attend.
Everything is vetted, now, if you want the people who can get you people and coverage to show up.
Not to mention that we're living in an age where 83% of mass rallies are cynically and tightly-constructed parodies of mass rallies... grassroots is just a buzz word, now, an illusion, now, a joke now. No one would believe a huge event was actually grassroots even if it actually was.
Any hint of an opposition or counter-culture is quickly infiltrated by people trying to make a buck off it or... use it as a vehicle toward their ultimately much more moderate goals or... is overrun with people just wanting to do walking art installations or break some windows.
The idea of collective effort was made a farce by popular culture... and I think on purpose. Honestly espousing the idea that you can make large changes to the American system without giving up most of your ideals to get INTO the system is treated with all the dignity of a guy saying he saw a UFO.
At best, a pity... mostly a laughing condescension... occasionally a more vicious direct question of sanity.
Not to mention that the more teevee stations there are, the more internet news sites, radio stations, newspapers there are... the more we are innoculated with the idea that NOTHING is true. NOTHING is believable. EVERYTHING is a lie or a scam or, at least, potentially so.
Solid-thinking men and women are paralyzed by the realization that there's a good chance that what they strongly believe in probably isn't true or, at least, the whole thing's so mindbendingly complex that maybe they should just go about their own lives.
But more than that?
More than any of that?
To have a legitimate protest culture, you need a large and functioning middle class... a large base of people both educated enough to want to change things in a positive manner but comfortable enough financially to take time off their lives to do it.
Car loans. No health care. Student loans. Endless troubles, a suffocation of obligations.
Most of the people who could be effectiving change strongly and reasonably are too busy keeping head above water to even UNDERSTAND what they could do, let alone CONSIDER doing it.
So you're left with odd collections of con artists, street performers and strict crazies.
This kid was a bit unhinged, it sounds like, so of course he's not going to act sanely.
That's the point.
The sane-but-informed are so locked up by doubt and obligation that they CAN'T make any moves.
The momentum of our culture demands it, basically.
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Topic: DON'T TASER ME, BRO! (Read 10641 times)