Activism

[SuburbanalCuts 0]

Is anyone on this board an activist? What do you do to try to help people? just want to have a discussion because I'm going to be one when I'm older (along with having another job), and activism is coolness. eh, eh?

[john_meikle 0]

What are you talking about, Activism ? Don't quite understand

So what is a Activst

O Yeah I got my forum working I don't meen to brag but http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ im not really advertising im just showing you my forum

[SuburbanalCuts 0]

What are you talking about, Activism ?    Don't quite understand 

 

So what is a Activst 

 

O Yeah I got my forum working  I  don't meen to brag but http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/  im not really advertising im just showing you my forum

65530[/snapback]

you don't know what activism is?

 

 

that means protesting/boycotting/marching/ etc....

 

gets it?

[choetry 0]

Ooo i haven't heard of such a word before but this is from dictionary.comac?tiv?ism Audio pronunciation of "activism" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kt-vzm)n. The use of direct, often confrontational action, such as a demonstration or strike, in opposition to or support of a cause.Just curious, why do you want to be an activist when you are older? Do you do it just for the sake of it? I've seen a lot in my university whenever the fee is raised and police will come on their horses to make sure that it doesn;t go out of control. It;s always well-controlled, because we're just students. But I would assume confronting against a new prime minister/president will not be very safe, especially when you're 'old'

[SuburbanalCuts 0]

Ooo i haven't heard of such a word before but this is from dictionary.com

 

acˇtivˇism Audio pronunciation of "activism" ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (kt-vzm)

n.

 

    The use of direct, often confrontational action, such as a demonstration or strike, in opposition to or support of a cause.

Just curious, why do you want to be an activist when you are older? Do you do it just for the sake of it? I've seen a lot in my university whenever the fee is raised and police will come on their horses to make sure that it doesn;t go out of control. It;s always well-controlled, because we're just students. But I would assume confronting against a new prime minister/president will not be very safe, especially when you're 'old'

67406[/snapback]

um, i'm 14. I mean when I'm like in my 20s. :-P

 

thats odd that you've never heard of that word.

[choetry 0]

um, i'm 14. I mean when I'm like in my 20s. :-P

 

thats odd that you've never heard of that word. 

68000[/snapback]

LOL, I thought you meant when you retired Normally I just call these people protester...

[SuburbanalCuts 0]

LOL, I thought you meant when you retired   Normally I just call these people protester...

68151[/snapback]

oh, yeah.

 

protesting is a form of activism, yeah. :-P

[brainless 0]

hey, 14's old enough to be on the streets - just keep away from the cops, hey're all evil :oanyway, here in Germany we've got a rather strong anti-fascist scene (well, that's because everyone except for a few thousand nazis call themselves anti-fascist), and therefore the anti-fascist demonstrations are always fun when there's a fascist demonstration at the same time in the same town.It's a pity I've been on the streets of my home town today instead of the streets of Erfurt because we just blocked the road for the nazis but in Erfurt the police decided to clear the way for them and used their water launchers against the people without any warning. It's erally a pity that they "accidentally" knocked down some convervative members of the city council who kept on telling the public/the punks who complained to them about police brutality that "there are laws which the police naturally obeys, therefore your complaints are probably not justified - and now take a shower"...Another nice thing to do: Have a sit-in in the entrance to one of your local McDumb-restaurants with your own food. Just be careful when the guys from McD's call the cops, sometimes it's great publicity, sometimes it's better to make a run for it (i.e. when the cops jump out of six-packs with shields and billy clubs at hand...)PS: I just noticed you're from the USA - Add another package of attention to whatever you do, I've heard your cops are even less friendly than ours (and if my memory doesn't trick me, it might be considered a terrorist act when you disturb the people's everyday life)

[SuburbanalCuts 0]

yeah 14 is old enough but my parents don't let me do anything close to protesting.

 

They won't even let my 20 year old brother who goes to college protest in New York City because they're afraid. If you're afraid all the time nothing's ever going to get better. Instead of really doing anything my parents just watch American Idol (a really crappy show in the US) and the news.

 

yeah from what I've read it's kind of a police state when people start protesting against the president and stuff over here. They arrest people who are doing nothing wrong whatsoever, like riding their bike or something as a protest.

 

a sit-in sounds cool yeah, Martin Luther King's autobiography gave me lots of ideas when I get older.

 

hey, 14's old enough to be on the streets - just keep away from the cops, hey're all evil

 

anyway, here in Germany we've got a rather strong anti-fascist scene (well, that's because everyone except for a few thousand nazis call themselves anti-fascist), and therefore the anti-fascist demonstrations are always fun when there's a fascist demonstration at the same time in the same town.

 

It's a pity I've been on the streets of my home town today instead of the streets of Erfurt because we just blocked the road for the nazis but in Erfurt the police decided to clear the way for them and used their water launchers against the people without any warning. It's erally a pity that they "accidentally" knocked down some convervative members of the city council who kept on telling the public/the punks who complained to them about police brutality that "there are laws which the police naturally obeys, therefore your complaints are probably not justified - and now take a shower"...

 

Another nice thing to do: Have a sit-in in the entrance to one of your local McDumb-restaurants with your own food. Just be careful when the guys from McD's call the cops, sometimes it's great publicity, sometimes it's better to make a run for it (i.e. when the cops jump out of six-packs with shields and billy clubs at hand...)

 

PS: I just noticed you're from the USA - Add another package of attention to whatever you do, I've heard your cops are even less friendly than ours (and if my memory doesn't trick me, it might be considered a terrorist act when you disturb the people's everyday life)

130218[/snapback]

[Wyllt 0]

No one should be an activist just for the sake of "coolness", one should get involved because they believe in a certain cause. You say you are going to be an activist, what is it the cause you believe in enough to actively support it? Just as no one should be an activist for the sake of coolness, everyone SHOULD be an activist for a cause they believe in.

[JaVe 0]

You don't just become an activist - people recognize you as an activist ONCE you start boycotting (or stuff like that) against something that displeases you. An animal rights activist is for example someone who stands up and rebels against the people who do animal testing - they don't like that believing that animals have a right against their treatment. But hey, i'm gonna become an anti-religion activist when im older!

[SuburbanalCuts 0]

No one should be an activist just for the sake of "coolness", one should get involved because they believe in a certain cause. You say you are going to be an activist, what is it the cause you believe in enough to actively support it? Just as no one should be an activist for the sake of coolness, everyone SHOULD be an activist for a cause they believe in.

132706[/snapback]

i agree. when did I say I was going start protesting/boycotting for the sake of coolness? What are you talking about?

 

I'm against sweatshops, corporative greed, discrimination, and animal cruelty.

[Wyllt 0]

i agree. when did I say I was going start protesting/boycotting for the sake of coolness? What are you talking about?

 

I'm against sweatshops, corporative greed, discrimination, and animal cruelty.

133133[/snapback]

When did you say you were going to start protesting for the sake of coolnes???

 

right here:

Is anyone on this board an activist? What do you do to try to help people? just want to have a discussion because I'm going to be one when I'm older (along with having another job)

, and activism is coolness.

 

That is the impression you gave, perhaps it isn't quite what you ment, but it is the impression that you gave. Your statement seemed to imply that you wanted to become an activist because it is cool. I was really hoping that that wasn't the case, because activism is NOT cool, it is not cool at all, in fact protests and such should be one of the LAST things you should try in attempting to change things. There are many other ways to get involved in issues, take an interest in politics and write your representative, if you are anti-sweat shops research companies that employ such methods and try to expose them, and yes boycott them by all means, that is passive activism, but actively protesting and such should not be undertaken lightly. I admire your youthful idealism, but just because your parents don't want you attending protests (rightfully so, they shouldn't allow you to go to those at your age) doesn't mean you can't get involved. Start taking an interest in politics, that is where you can make a real difference, even at your age.

[brainless 0]

They won't even let my 20 year old brother who goes to college protest in New York City because they're afraid.

And they're not completely wrong - small protests might be ok but once there's a protest with thousands of people (or just hundreds of militant activists), things easily get out of control. I'm not talking about anti-G8 or anti-WTO protests like in Seattle, 1999 (the police locked down most of the town and there are rumors/"eye-witness reports" about tear gas tanks dropped out of helicopters and reports from people living in this area about tear gas leaking through doors and not properly insulated windows until they had to leave their rooms and try their luck on the streets), or Genua, 2001, when an italian cop killed a protester with a headshot (the official story is that he was about to throw a fire extinguisher at a police car but there's no fire extinguisher on photographs from right after the shot...).

The largest demonstration I've been to so far was an anti-fascist one in the beginning of this year with about 8,500 people but I still had the opportunity to make some nice shots like this one (my favorite - the cops have learned from us ): http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ (half an hour later it was burning and a water launcher (-> http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/) was firing at some people near me so I decided that it might be better to leave without taking a pic...

... and even though this might sound as if it's always bad to have the cops near you on a demonstration: On the very same day, a friend of mine got hit by a stray stone while we were talking to some cops. Her luck that the cops reacted quickly and dragged us behind one of their tanks and began to clear the road while one of their paramedics had a look at her

I'm against sweatshops, corporative greed, discrimination, and animal cruelty.

aginst, against, against ... I wonder why people are always against something but never tell the world what they are acting for. Did you know that most CEOs say that they're against sweat shops, corporate greed, discrimination and animal cruelty as well?
Once there are protests against their companies having contracts with sweatshop owners, they usually close down that factory just to re-open it in another Free Trade/Export Production Zone. There are more than enough countries with free trade zones to keep on switching contractors to publicly announce that they've moved their production from, for example, India to Pakistan, China, Thailand, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Vietnam, South Korea, Indonesia, the Phillipines, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, etc etc - and when they come back to the country they started in, no one remembers that they've moved from there a few years ago and most people keep on buying their stuff because "they just closed a factory where they exploited young women" and most of the times don't even know that the factory did not even belong to that company...

Martin Luther King's autobiography gave me lots of ideas when I get older.

yeah, it's always good to have some knowledge about previous actions - but it's better to use your own creativity when you're planning an action. Try to find out how you can involve the people in your city into the action, maybe by explaining how whatever you're protesting against/for affects their lifes and it's always a good idea to involve a local restaurant or shop into an action against McD's or Thalia (a huge chain of bookstores in Germany and probably other countries as well - their new store in my hometown forced two independet bookstores, one of them my favorite bookstore, to close :/)

[...] your parents don't want you attending protests (rightfully so, they shouldn't allow you to go to those at your age) [...]

(I don't want to offend by the use of "you" in the following part - I'm using "you" with a general meaning instead of "you, Wyllt")

If you're judging who may participate in a protest at all, I believe you should rather judge by that person's knowledge about the issue rather than the age.
An example from a current issue in my state: The state's government is planning to re-structure the educational system because the PISA studies showed, that our pupils and students are quite --excuse my language-- dumb for the so-called western world.
Among the changes planned to enable us to score well in the next PISA study are:
* graduating from high school after 12 instead of 13 years
* have centralised graduation tests in the entire state (in the long term in entire Germany) instead of individual graduation tests handed in by the school and approved by the school's authorities; therefore:
* teaching all students in the entire state the same thing so they can all handle the graduation test, which has to be as unspecific as possible so even those students who did not spent all their years in high school learning from the curriculum can score well
* 2 instead of 3 lessons per week in most subjects
* replace subjects like Arts, Music, Religions and other subjects which can't be used in most jobs by Economics or a third lesson in another subject (see point above)

so whom would you allow to protest against these changes and for the current system of comparatively free education and who would be prohibited to protest against this?
The students from Lower Saxony's schools and their parents, teachers who don't think these changes are what we need or someone who would have to take a break from his job to participate in this protest and probably did not even take some time to think about the consequences of these changes?

(and no, I don't want to discuss these changes here. If one of you people thinks this should be discussed: PM me and I will open a thread on this topic)

No one should be an activist just for the sake of "coolness", [...]

After I attacked your position, I'd like to give you an example of where we share one position (though I don't mind people who didn't spend much time thinking about an issue participating in an demonstration just to increase the number of people who've been there )

[brainless 0]

sorry, I couldn't find an edit button :/

Instead of really doing anything my parents just watch American Idol (a really crappy show in the US)

I've heard about that, my sis brought me this very nice T-Shirt from her exchange to the US : http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ (that's what I look like right now ) - T-Shirts with a critical statement printed onto them belong to the small things which should not be forgotten when you're trying to do something. Just take care that you've also got some shirts without statement for occasions when you'd better not wear one of those and, even more important: Be prepared to talk about that issue. There's not much that could be worse than a conversation like this: "hey, why are you against sweatshops?" - "sorry, I don't know why, I'm just wearing this shirt. Move along, nothing to see here..."