Cartoons and common sense

You misunderstood what my point was. I was responding to your statement suggesting that demonstrations are not advertised in advance.My question was where signs come from if demonstrations are unplanned gatherings with no advance notice. Every recent? That's not true. There has been violence at many, but that does not mean every and does not mean that any violence appropriately characterizes the majority of the protest. I look forward to the protest you organize, without any promotion, and with no groups showing up that you don't want (or rather your ability to remove them when they do).

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holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

Actually that isn't true. Read the timeline I linked to in my post titled "cartoons and common sense... for real". It turns out that the paper had turned down running similar cartoons about Xians earlier, specifically because it might upset Xians, and there are laws in Denmark against ridiculing religious dogma and disseminating insults to people based on their religion.They started by protesting peacefully and seeking legal redress. The PM blew off ambassadors trying to talk to him, the protestors were completely ignored, and the criminal investigation was dropped without an adequate explanation given the clear language of the law in Denmark.

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holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

I never said they weren't advertised in advance. My implication was that they aren't widely advertised in advance; usually, they're advertised specificaly to the people who wish to attend, and the people they wish to have cover the event.The event itself is the advertising of their message to the public at large. That's why they make the signs, etc. To advertise the message to the people who observe the protest. Take it up with CE. That's what I understood him to be claiming.

But usually they are widely advertised, especially the large ones. The point of promoting a demonstration is to get those involved you don't know specifically. Your example was an advertisement in a newspaper and that is the kind of place one can find announcements of upcoming demonstrations.Posters around a city are also very popular. Events begin with an intention that is specific and generally focused. Individuals are expected to make signs which support that general focus. Unfortunately that leaves a lot of room open to individual expression.The focus may be antiwar, but individuals make signs which are antibush. The focus may be against the publication of insulting cartoons, but individuals make signs which are antiWest or antiJewish.Have you been keeping up with the news that the more violent protests seem to have been engineered or infiltrated by extremist elements? Have you seen the denunciations by leaders of mideastern Islamic communities?

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holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

So, I'm standing on the street corner watching a protest, and I can easily read their signs, but in order to actually know what they're protesting, I have to ignore the signs and track down a flyer or something?Seems a little ridiculous, still. Yeah, but I guess I don't see the relevance. Starting a fire takes a match, sure, but it takes dry wood as well. The extremists don't have mind-control powers. They merely took advantage of a group that already was looking for an excuse to be violent. I;m not saying that's every Muslim, or even most, but it certainly applies to everyone who chose to participate in violence.

read the question again... I am attending the protest... I have seen the posters/flyers telling me there will be an 'anti war ' protest. I make my anti war placard, someone else in that crowd has a "kill bush" placard. does this mean I support the assination of the president? nope. Just that you should refrain from making a sweeping generalisation based upon what you can see (which I don't think would be the entire crowd)
yes ... that seems resonable to me. far more reasonable than spotting the hardlners and extrapolating their beliefs onto everyone else in the crowd. so.. you see a "kill bush" sign and a "stop war" sign... you immediately chose the hardline stance and assume everybody holds that opinion?
this is where we will not agree... I think this is wrong. is it not?... have you looked for it? agreed...'equally likely', but not a foregone conclusion as you seem to be suggesting. all the more reason to remain part of that protest to ensure that your sane, pacifist, non violent voice is heard. walking away from that protest would simply leave the hooligans to it, giveing your cause a bad reputation and taking from the message you were trying to convey. what was that you said about name calling?This message has been edited by Creavolution, 02-10-2006 01:52 PM

No, of course not.But that situation is irrelevant. We're not talking about what you believe, but what it's most reasonable for me to conclude you believe. If you're at a protest with a kill Bush message, then it's most reasonable for me to conclude that you support killing Bush. How is that different? You still haven't told me how I'm supposed to identify the hardliners who speak for themselves from the people who speak for everybody. That's the heart of the discussion that you don't yet seem willing to address. No, I conclude that neither position is particularly hardline to this group, since I have no reason to believe that one position is considered more hardline by the crowd than the other. Except that if you stay for the riot, you're no longer sane, pacifist, or non-violent. You've become a rioter, and your message has become one of violence.

Thank you.But you seem to suggest that: what? have you been reading my posts? you've answered exactly how this could be different above when you answered: I am trying to get across that it is wrong... just plain wrong... to indentify the the message of a mass protest by simply looking at the most hardline stance and attributing that opinion to EVERYBODY there.
I'm not trying to tell you how to identify hardliners... i am saying that you should look a little deeper, for instance... who called this rally?... why did they call it? what evidence do you have of their intentions? before you brand everyone there as a hardliner based on what could be simply a minority representation attempting to piggy back on the back of an otherwise peaceful, respectful protest. how about if you are staying to continue your peaceful protest as best you can, so the authorities realise that not everyone there is a hooligan. if you leave you are effectively handing over control of your otherwise peaceful protest to the hooligans.

The cartoon only serve to demonstrate the irrationality of the hordes demonstrating and the insanity of their belief system.My real worry is that in pursuit of worldominance they will technically figure out how to get the bird flu in a people to people form or any other super virus.The would have no problem getting a few hundred idiots to be infected for Allah, penetrate the U.S. in several places and set off a million person pandemic.Its a real possibility they are working on such a plan as we type.

CE it would be better if you quoted more of my messages. As it is I simply can't make heads or tails of your post, because I don't recall the context of the one or two words you're quoting at any given time. Sometimes protests take hardline stances. And what may not be a hardline stance to you may be hardline to someone else. So the idea that a "hardline stance" can't be the intended message of a protest doesn't seem reasonable to me. How would I find that out? And even if I did, how would I ask that person? And how would I know for sure they weren't lying to me?And what makes you think that finding out one single person's view of what the rally is about is the legitimate way of finding out what the rally is about? Sure, he may have organized it, but who is he to speak for so many? We've covered this over and over, CE. If you stay for the riot, then your protest is no longer peaceful. If you're part of a riot, you're part of a riot, even if you never threw a brick or burned a car. If you don't want to be a part of those things, it's up to you to leave.

Apologies if my quoting isn't clear... I'm working with limited time, sometimes I submit without properly reading first.
The general point of my last post was that you agreed that my being at the same protest as someone who encourages violence, does not mean that I encourage violence.
But it seems to me you thought it reasonable to assume that the crowd held and agreed with both points of view. I felt you were contradicting yourself with this point It need not necessarily be a hardline stance... It may be just a minority view point. (in our context it is the hardline stance of the 'death to europe, death to the USA types)
My point being that the minority viewpoint does not represent the majority simply because they are at the same rally/protestIt is wrong to take what could possibly be a minority viewpoint as representative of the majority without good evidence to support this.
Fair enough.. if you have a crowd of 2000 people attending a march, and the majority are shouting "death to..." well then, you can assume that that is the thrust and the message of that particular crowd.I suggested you should find out the reason for the march.
you said: that is a good question... I have suggested how, these things are organised, someone decided there would be a march, that person told the people about it somehow. (possibly using method Holmes and I listed before). I would say that if you cannot find that out to a degree of certainty, you should not jump to conclusions about what the message/reason for being of this group/march/rally is. I wouldn't suggest you take on single person's view and make a conclusion based on that. rather try to make a better informed opinion of the crowd, the motives behind the rally, the beliefs of the organisers.
this may be difficult to do... but unless you make some attempt at this you have no right to decide what the reason for the protest is.
(especislly not based upon what might be a minority of attendees) So if i stay at the protest while a few nutballs decide to kick off, but I, and others stay there peacefully protesting... am I 'part' of this riot? I am not rioting, I am not being Violent, I am continuing my peaceful protest.I feel this is at the point where it is going absolutely nowhere, you have your views, I have mine. neither will change.
we are wasting bandwith.
I feel I am repeating points over and over again (as I'm sure you do too) so unless there is a breakthrough point to be made I will unlikely post in this topic again.
thanks for the banter though(edit....Awwww crap.. I replied to my own message!)This message has been edited by Creavolution, 02-10-2006 06:31 PM

You don't think it's possible that a crowd could be both anti-war and want to kill Bush? That no such crowd could exist? If you have reason to believe that I'd like you to present it. And how am I supposed to assess that? Poll the crowd? Well, the majority of people don't have signs at all. Should I conclude they don't believe anything at all? Or isn't it the case that I can look at the signs, which only a minority hold, and conclude that just about everybody supports the message of those signs? So, I don't know anything about anything until the person in charge tells me. Gotcha. Based on, as you've told me, the beliefs of one or a few persons (the organizers.)Wouldn't you say that the organizers of a rally are a minority compared to everyone there?Didn't you just caution me against expanding the views of a minority onto a majority? A "few nutballs" isn't a riot. If you're at a riot, a real riot, yes, you're part of the riot if you don't leave. I don't know how many different ways I have to say that.

You're not reading what I'm putting in my posts, you are moving the issue from one of making a sweeping generalisation about the motives of a crowd based upon limited evidence. to something else entirely.I am not going to repeat myself any more as you don't seem to pay any attention anyway.time to let this one go.

If they ALL have the exact same signs, and are chanting the exact same thing, then I guess it would make sense to assume one knows the overall purpose. But if there are a mixture of signs, and chants, then one might ask a few demonstrators, or yes try and find a flyer. That would make sense before choosing to join in or state one has a good idea what a demonstration (as a whole) is about. Well that's what I said. Yes of course those who were ready or capable of violent action could be incited to it. The question I raised is how many demonstrations as a whole were violent, and more importantly how many demonstrators within any protest were actually violent. You did say you felt comfortable extrapolating from what you had seen of these demonstrations to feelings and beliefs of muslims in the MidEast, not just the violent muslims of the MidEast.This message has been edited by holmes, 02-11-2006 11:32 AM

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holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

Will that be modelled after the rich, white, Zionist-Xian conspiracy, which invented and spread HIV?

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holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)