[khalic]

I’m just going to say it: you are wrong, protests, public pressure and civil disobedience are why you have many of the right you have today. I get you don’t have the will/energy/possibility to do anything, but don’t go around telling lies about the usefulness of public intervention.

[extraisland]

There are a number of issues with this view:

- I've been to many protests in my time and often I believe them to be counter productive e.g. Critical Mass. I travelled to London twice to see what the protest was about. This was in the mid-2000s. I saw lots of annoyed commuters, lots of people getting drunk/high and it was more of a social gathering than a protest.

- Street movements are easily infiltrated by malign actors e.g. The CIA have a term called "initial instigator", this is where you turn a riot into a protest by inserting a person or people that will cause trouble. The CIA (and I would imagine British Intelligence) have handbooks on how to subvert/run a protest/riot. You can find these online.

- Many of the protesters you see maybe part of a rent-a-mob. You can literally go to company, and much like you would for film or TV hire a bunch of people to be in the background.

- I have plenty of will and energy to get involved. However often I find that many leaders make the mistake of being too inclusive. This means that often you will end up with people that will intentionally or unintentionally turn your movement into something else. If you listen to some of the account of people that were at Occupy Wallstreet, this is one of the reasons why the protests failed.

[khalic]

You’re analysing things in a vacuum, there are historical and contemporary examples of public protest, pressure campaigns and civil disobedience leading to policy change, and you’re arguing they’re what, all CIA plants or impossible? If not, please make your point clearer.

Have you any proof that these rent a mob thing exists? You used “maybe part”... Please find a specific service for renting a mob, not a single individual or small group. Or proof that this service exists, because this is an awfully convenient way to bend the narrative to your side “they were all faking it” is almost never a valid hypothesis

[extraisland]

> You’re analysing things in a vacuum, there are historical and contemporary examples of public protest, pressure campaigns and civil disobedience leading to policy change, and you’re arguing they’re what, all CIA plants or impossible? If not, please make your point clearer.

I am not analysing things in a vaccum. I gave you some reasons why I don't believe these things are productive today.

One of those is an example from my own personal experience of being at a protest that literally had 1000s of people there.

I don't believe that all of it was CIA plants and never said that.

I explained how street movements are infiltrated by malign actors and how some intelligence agencies have used these techniques.

> Have you any proof that these rent a mob thing exists? You used “maybe part”... Please find a specific service for renting a mob, not a single individual or small group. Or proof that this service exists, because this is an awfully convenient way to bend the narrative to your side “they were all faking it” is almost never a valid hypothesis.

It is well documented. Just not commonly known. TBH you could have looked this up yourself.

It isn't really any different than hiring extras for a TV/Movie production (as I previously stated).

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rent-a-crowd.asp

Companies and political parties have been doing it for quite a while.

e.g.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-aide-says-paid-actors-...

or some of the sites themselves give you examples of where they have done it.

https://www.rentacrowduk.co.uk/hire-a-crowd-case-studies/

Here are some companies that literally offer it as a service, I found these after doing a two minute google:

https://www.envisagepromotions.co.uk/services/crowd-services...

https://www.rentacrowduk.co.uk/

https://dreamsagency.co.uk/hire-a-crowd/

I am sure there are many others.

[khalic]

Oh yeah these services seem totally legitimate… you know what, keep believing what you want buddy, have a good day

[extraisland]

Right. Let me get this right:

1) You asked for evidence of a rent-a-crowd / rent-a-mob service. Something which you could have looked up yourself.

2) I gave you links to companies that offer these services. I understand that these websites aren't the best, I literally listed the first 4 that were spat out by when searching. I suspect they probably don't get most of their business through the website. They look like websites I was making for companies back in the late 2000s.

3) Then you make allusions to to me delusional.

I think you are looking for excuses to dismiss my point of view. Probably because you don't agree with it.

[khalic]

I find it insulting that you would send such clearly fake websites, that’s why I’m stopping the conversation. Have a good day

[GeoAtreides]

Spoken like a man who doesn't know what kettling is. Or expedited judicial process for (some) rioters, with prison time for being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

[doublerabbit]

> you are wrong, protests, public pressure and civil disobedience are why you have many of the right you have today.

Once upon a time, yes. But they don't work in the modern world we live in now.

Show me a successful protest that achieved change in the past ten years?

[khalic]

Wasn’t turkye’s failed coup less than 10 years ago? Direct result of public intervention

The French yellow vest

The Dutch farmer protests

I can go on if you want

[doublerabbit]

Those are European, cool. Any successful UK protests?

As that is the country we are talking about here.

[tekla]

Brexit

[extraisland]

Brexit wasn't a protest. It was a campaign.

[khalic]

Are you going to move the goalpost further if I give you one?

[doublerabbit]

I was specifically targeting protests in the UK. As we are talking about the UK.

[khalic]

And I was specifically talking about UKs lack of protest, see the issue here?

[skeezyboy]

how are the plebs meant to operate the state machinations? even Farage went to private school. We are a generation away from being able to make a difference beyond the riots