Activism Disruption
Recently I have seen a number of protests get television coverage and it gave me cause to consider the activism techniques employed by people wishing to make a change.
Does it work?
While I do think that Anonymous For The Voiceless and their Cube of Truth does an excellent job at showing people the reality of what is happening, other groups seem to drive people away from animal rights or environmental movements. I’ve seen people blocking roads, yelling, and behaving in odd ways. I know why they do it. I know what they are hoping to achieve. However, personally I believe it alienates the general public from their cause and I think it’s exactly why Governments don’t mind letting disruptive protests happen. I doubt they truly care about your concerns, more likely they know it is going to annoy the general public and cause animosity towards the protesters or activists. They would know that the public will be upset at the blocked road, being late for work, or not being able to enjoy a show.
What Else Can They Do ?
Well, that’s the difficult part. You need to spread awareness and doing so often needs media coverage, but the coverage needs to be beneficial towards the activists. The little old lady sitting in her car caught up in an environmental protest traffic jam most likely isn’t going to make a change in your favour. But there are other options. Why not adapt similar tactics used by the officials to accomplish your objectives? After all, everything they did in my case was apparently completely legal. You’d be surprised how creative they get and how many people they call on to help them. They continue their harassment and I continue to document and show just how obsessive people are with killing birds in this country. It’s always the defenceless animals people enjoy killing and if you have read the Peta article I linked in my story you’ll know the type that does this. I use their obsessive behaviour and tactics to teach people what to expect, how far they go, and what resources they use. To harass me they have to come to me, all I do is document it and use it to show the reality of what types work behind the scenes. You always have the option of using the system that they use, just give it some thought.
There might not be a need to target large groups of the public with your message. The various departments and councils are the ones making the final decisions on our environment, so you know exactly who needs to hear your voices. If you’re thinking to yourself “they do what they want, can’t change that” I’d suggest you step back and look at who really has the advantage – it’s a numbers game, and we have the numbers. They cannot exist without our resources and co-operation. Consider the various agencies that relate to your cause and be as creative as they are (while still legal) so they hear your voice. Give thought to things like how their data collection impacts the decisions they make and how their own performance statistics can alter their direction. Something you perceive as minor can matter to them more than you realise and can help make a positive change.
“While I believe the system has been designed to benefit the wealthy and connected, it can still be used by the general public. Just in a different way than they might expect.”
How will using the system ever help protesters ?!?
Hold on, hear me out. Here are some examples that may explain it better. Instead of stomping down the streets with a megaphone you may just have better luck looking into the agency involved and lodging a complaint or some feedback with them on an issue you are concerned with. If you don’t think one complaint or feedback submission has an impact (and it most likely won’t) what if everyone who was going to go on your rally did this? They ghosted me fairly consistently as I was only one voice but could they ghost everyone? You can provide valuable feedback that should be taken into account when they make decisions, or if you have had direct dealings with an agency you can often give a performance rating through their websites. Their statistics would certainly show the peoples views and would be noticed by the higher levels of authority.
The government and councils use considerable resources on monitoring the general populations mood and estimating what will become important to us in the future. You could alter those same resources to help make a change through stealth and not have to use in-your-face protest methods. Technology giants use collected data from their search engines and apps, topics on social media, websites you visit, all to sell to businesses. But even the Governments are keen to get their hands on this information so that they can then successfully target the average consumer and have a fairly accurate assessment on the general mood of the people. Statistics can be manipulated as it’s (once again) just a numbers game. Getting everyone you know to visit wildlife related websites or posting about how great wildlife or environmental causes are alters the stats on the subject, which in-turn alters the perceived importance of the topic for the average person. I believe doing this for a sustained time frame would eventually have a better result than a road blocking protest.
As for the money side of things, well, that ones fairly easy in my opinion. If a town just culled hundreds of animals you could simply never spend a dime there, and tell everyone you know not to go there. For the businesses that support the culling of wildlife or work with departments tasked with destroying our animals you can opt to not support them financially too. It’s your money and you are free to choose. Based on my own personal experiences, I advise people to stay well away from certain places and holiday somewhere that respects nature over a dollar. I would also recommend businesses or towns that actually support our animals and environment over other places.
That’s my idea of a possible alternative to large or disruptive style protests. We live in a corrupted world and it wont change with you playing on your phone…or will it?
