There are lots of ways to protest, and plenty of them don’t involve impeding others or trespassing on private property to make their point. We have parks and government centers and sidewalks they can do it in. Your right to protest does not supersede the rights of others.
And these are (were) employees and it’s quite likely Google already has established mechanisms for hearing employee grievances. Google’s not going to allow a small but vocal and disruptive group to override those existing mechanisms, nor would any serious business.
It doesn’t matter. The law is what it is. Breaking the law to get your way isn’t the right way to get things done. Otherwise we’d all be justified in doing it whenever we don’t like something and there would be no point in laws anymore.
In a democracy, you can participate in our system and vote to have it changed, though. And that’s the effective way to address these issues.
Breaking the law isn't a moral question, it's a legal one. You break the law, you go to jail, okay. But what is this "it isn't right" business? Some innocent bystanders are inconvenienced, so what? These people are protesting their employer's complicity in mass murder! And a corporation isn't a democracy, so they can't "vote to have it changed". Should they be bringing their concerns to HR, is that the right way to get things done?
The point is that the "right way"--the way that is sanctioned by the system--is deliberately hobbled by many people in positions of power, to be completely ineffective. So you may well have to push the bounds of the system to actually address these issues.
First of all, these are (probably now former) Google employees. I don’t work for Google, but I do know that most big companies have established channels for addressing employee grievances.
Second, Google isn’t a democracy, but we have a democratic system that allows us to influence our representatives to make reprehensible conduct illegal. If you want to change how a business operates, you can arrange a boycott as well. Companies take the threat of losing significant amounts of money very seriously.
If you honestly think that this type of action should be legal, then by all means, go convince our government to make it so. But I don’t think you are considering the long-term consequences such a change would have.
No, I don't think this type of action should be legal. I think they should do it anyway. Protest is more meaningful (and raises more awareness) when there are consequences.
(You're Lawful Good, which is an admirable quality in a fellow citizen, but Chaotic Good can be more effective when the system has been captured by a strong Lawful Evil element.)
"I don’t work for Google, but I do know that most big companies have established channels for addressing employee grievances"
If you read any of the articles coming out of this event you'll see that the protestors tried for months to get a dialog going with management in half a dozen different capacities, all of which were denied or swept under the rug immediately. Due to this behavior from management, many of the employees engaged in this cause had decided to quit, but if you were one of them why not try to protest one last time? This was basically the last option they had prior to leaving
No.. that's what a stupid and illegal protest looks like. You can peacefully protest in public as much as you want, it's your right under the first amendment. This does not extend into private property. If you don't have permission from the property owner, that's no longer a protest, that's trespassing. One could argue that the whole thing is a meta-protest (along with the arrest and the media coverage) which would be more or less correct, but that's not what you're arguing.
You certainly can occupy private property as a protest, if you get arrested afterwards is immaterial to the fact that you can indeed do the as a protest.
People throw pies at politicians faces as a protest and they're often arrested afterwards for assault, but it doesn't mean they can't do it.
Sit-ins are an old protest tactic. They were used during the civil rights movement, in private property. They were used during labour protest, in private property. They have repeatedly been successful at achieving the protestors ends. They have repeatedly, in hindsight, been viewed in a favorable light and broadly seen as permissible. They were frequently, at the time, viewed as illegitimate and impermissible. Of course, there were other sit-ins which failed and were very much unpopular and were unjustified.
Rosa Parks wasn’t trespassing or interfering with anyone else. And she wasn’t on private property; she was on a public conveyance. She had every right as a paying passenger to be on that bus.
Rosa Parks was both trespassing (she was subsequently arrested, the exchange shockingly resembles the one here) and interfering with folks that her race was legally proscribed from interfering with.
We should all be glad that the view of "she should have just founded her own capitalist, nonwhites-only bus company" did not prevail.
(Google's anti-Gazan defense-dealing is the bus company, in this example)
That's a pretty interesting use of the word "interesting". As I said, the exchange shockingly resembles the one here ('sorry, but if you dont leave, Im gonna have to have you arrested' or some equivalent), and she was interfering with folks that her race was legally proscribed from interfering with, as Palestinians are often legally proscribed from interfering with Israelis.
>“It took the police a couple of tries to settle on legal language describing her alleged offense.”
You say that as if we don't all already know that the actual offense was upsetting the order of the apartheid. What took a bunch of racists a couple of tries to eventually settle upon is irrelevant. Similarly, the police in this case may take a couple of tries to eventually settle upon legal language, but we nonetheless all know that the actual offense was upsetting the order of the apartheid. Just like Rosa Parks.
And these are (were) employees and it’s quite likely Google already has established mechanisms for hearing employee grievances. Google’s not going to allow a small but vocal and disruptive group to override those existing mechanisms, nor would any serious business.