[valachio]

[Here's a popular viewpoint from the left about protests](https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1334184644707758080?lang=en).

If protests were "comfortable", then there would be no pressure for the government to do anything. The point of a protest is to make enough noise (heh) so the government is forced to react.

Look at protests like Euromaiden, or the recent protests in Kazakhstan with 200+ dead. If the Ukrainian people didn't protest at the levels they did, and occupy Kiev for as long as they did, would the government have done anything? I don't think anyone in Kiev was sleeping when people were building barricades and engaging in deadly firefights with the Ukrainian police & army.

[tekstar]

I don't hold that exact viewpoint, so I don't feel the need to defend it.

There's varying levels of "uncomfortable", and a question of who is being made uncomfortable.

If a protest is permanently damaging the hearing of regular people who are not in positions of leadership for 21 days straight, and subjecting them to significant harassment, some of them a botched arson attempt, and a whole litany of other assaults as have been documented in Centertowne Ottawa, I would argue it is more akin to holding them hostage.

[valachio]

Fair enough. I can sympathize if you had to endure 3 weeks of loud noise. Frankly if I wasn't supportive of the Convoy, I would be pretty upset too.

One more thing I would say is that the fault for how long the "Occupation" went on for isn't entirely with the Convoy. With a large protest like this, it's up to the government to deal with, one way or another.

The authorities didn't take the right actions. They should either come out to negotiate with the protesters, or quickly utilise force to disperse them. Instead, they basically sat still for 3 weeks while Trudeau "fled" Ottawa to some undisclosed location.

So I would lay some blame on the government in its tardiness in addressing the Convoy, as part of the reason it went on for so long. You can't expect angry people who are determined to change government policy to just pack up and go home when the government told them to

[tekstar]

Yeah the municipal government and police force were first to completely drop the ball. They didn't do their job and let our downtown become a parliament hill autonomous zone. Heck, they gave the convoy participants access to a city parking lot which was then set up as a forward operating base for their supply lines for the next 3 weeks.

If the police had managed this situation properly after the first weekend this would never have become an international issue. As a police force they basically completely failed to maintain order in the city, and that's a big part of why we required an eventual federal response to clean up the occupation that had free reign to establish itself for weeks.

I'm not a Trudeau supporter but I'm not sure what he should have done differently in this situation - he apparently had covid on the first weekend, is that what you're referring to about him fleeing? Anyways, this should have been handled by the municipal police force with adequate support from the provincial police force within the first week. I hope that the eventual federal review that comes with enacting the EA will find the root cause why our police force failed so hard.

[michael1999]

When you organize a large, funded protest, internal organization, tactics, and policing are definitely your responsibility. Unleashing an incoherent mob is just vandalism.

[baremetal]

it is, indeed, unfortunate that it happened near your residence.

[armchairhacker]

ok, just want to say i’ve heard this before and this is what i really hate about protests.

You want politicians or big business to react but you’re pissing off small businesses and civilians. Even if I 100% agree with your protest, I don’t want you to blare loud music and block off roadways and generally be aggressive and obnoxious. In fact this kind of thing makes ordinary people go against you.

If you can’t target the politicians and big businesses directly, if you want to get the people’s support, bring attention to your issue. If it’s a serious issue people will take interest themselves. Once you some support, then you can go out and protest and lead a huge rally, but don’t blatantly piss off bystanders.