Soooo … is a Civil War brewing in Minneapolis?

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gtyellowjacket said:
How has that worked? Do you think most of these ICE guys feel bad? Bad enough to stop what they're doing? You can go back to the old Upton Sinclair quote, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

The goal is to get the leadership to make a change. Acting like a-holes may feel pretty good if you're a protester and may make other protesters think you're the bee's knees, may even get you laid with that cute hippie chick, but it turns off voters.

I think the whistling and the honking is fine. I think the "leave our city" type chants are fine. When protesters start with the spittle flying invectives, they look deranged.
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Amazing how the use of the word "fucking" is so prominent among the resistance. I wish that it was not.
 
Willy said:
i think the public perception has changed and i think calling fascist scum, scum is incredibly cathartic and has mobilized your disenchanted youth that otherwise wouldn’t have cared as much.
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If it ACTUALLY is mobilizing and firing up some base or potential base, maybe it is worth the potential bad side-effects, but I think you can mobilize other voters with signs and chants aimed at the general problem rather than aiming at individual gestapo agents.
 
donbosco said:
Amazing how the use of the word "fucking" is so prominent among the resistance. I wish that it was not.
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I'm someone who uses that word, and other profanity, far more often than I'd like, both in my personal life (though pointedly never around my two young children) and here on this board. I know it's been said that use of profanity is a lack of imagination or creativity, or even intellect.

I think the reason that the F-word in particular is so popular in "the resistance" is because it is one of the easiest and most versatile ways to place excessive emphasis on a point. It raises eyebrows and gets attention.
 
CFordUNC said:
I'm someone who uses that word, and other profanity, far more often than I'd like, both in my personal life (though pointedly never around my two young children) and here on this board. I know it's been said that use of profanity is a lack of imagination or creativity, or even intellect.

I think the reason that the F-word in particular is so popular in "the resistance" is because it is one of the easiest and most versatile ways to place excessive emphasis on a point. It raises eyebrows and gets attention.
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Its overuse has probably diluted that considerably.
 
donbosco said:
Amazing how the use of the word "fucking" is so prominent among the resistance. I wish that it was not.
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I tend to agree. I mean sticks and stones and all that but I think sounding like normal Americans who are relatable to other voters is a much more effective protest strategy than sounding like low class idiots.

But that's me. I will acknowledge that my opinion may be strikingly different than the majority of other people and they may think that if you feel passionate about something, you add some color to your language. Some folks on here seem to feel that way and who's to say they are wrong and we are right.

I could honestly see it going either way. Some of the more successful civil rights protests were appealing to more mainstream Americans with well-dressed individuals peacefully marching but not all of them. I wasn't alive then but media accounts seem to indicate protests against the Vietnam war and protests for union rights seem to have been pretty rowdy to outright violent.

More recently, the police brutality protests ran the gamut from athletes peacefully kneeling to riots. My gut is that the peaceful protests were more effective but neither really seemed to lead to much lasting change.

And the J6 protests were plenty violent and then Trump ended up getting a second term so that would seem to indicate that it can be pretty effective or at the very least not detrimental.
 
The use of profanity is linked to pain relief whether that’s physical or emotional. Using the word is to emphasize emotion of a statement and a coping strategy.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
I tend to agree. I mean sticks and stones and all that but I think sounding like normal Americans who are relatable to other voters is a much more effective protest strategy than sounding like low class idiots.

But that's me. I will acknowledge that my opinion may be strikingly different than the majority of other people and they may think that if you feel passionate about something, you add some color to your language. Some folks on here seem to feel that way and who's to say they are wrong and we are right.

I could honestly see it going either way. Some of the more successful civil rights protests were appealing to more mainstream Americans with well-dressed individuals peacefully marching but not all of them. I wasn't alive then but media accounts seem to indicate protests against the Vietnam war and protests for union rights seem to have been pretty rowdy to outright violent.

More recently, the police brutality protests ran the gamut from athletes peacefully kneeling to riots. My gut is that the peaceful protests were more effective but neither really seemed to lead to much lasting change.

And the J6 protests were plenty violent and then Trump ended up getting a second term so that would seem to indicate that it can be pretty effective or at the very least not detrimental.
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Even as someone who routinely uses colorful language as a means of driving home a point of contention- not saying that I'm proud of it or anything, just that I recognize that I do it- I can definitely understand how and why there would be plenty of folks who recoil at such language. I tend to be someone for whom language and words don't offend me or get under my skin no matter what, but I come from a family and an upbringing where even the words 'damn' and 'ass' were like unforgivable sins, so I am certainly in a minority of people to whom I am related! I do think that something like "MELT THE I.C.E. SNOWFLAKES" instead of "Fuck the Facist I.C.E. Pigs" is probably more palatable and more effective in achieving the broad, overarching goal of being resonate with the largest number of people, which should be the goal of any protest IMO.
 
finesse said:
I'm ashamed to admit that I try to temper my speech and do it badly. Too much time on construction sites.
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I *should* try and temper my speech! I'm able to do it professionally and around my kids without fail, but get me on the group chats with my buddies or on this forum and I let it fly. Part of it for me, at least on this board, is that I am deeply passionate about politics and how they impact my life and that of everyone around me, so I get more fired-up and more expressive and effusive in my colorful language. Should probably try to work on it!
 
CFordUNC said:
probably more palatable and more effective in achieving the broad, overarching goal of being resonate with the largest number of people, which should be the goal of any protest IMO.
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I think this is an important point. I think if protesters are screaming and cursing at ice agents because it makes them feel tough or its cathartic or whatever, that's selfish. If they feel like it's helpful in advancing their cause, I don't agree but I can understand it more.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
I think this is an important point. I think if protesters are screaming and cursing at ice agents because it makes them feel tough or its cathartic or whatever, that's selfish. If they feel like it's helpful in advancing their cause, I don't agree but I can understand it more.
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Think that's totally fair. I would never tell someone they can't or shouldn't do that, but for me personally, even if I was attending a protest where the specific people whom I am protesting are present (i.e., ICE agents), I would not feel comfortable- even in a large crowd- of screaming and cursing at or near them, primarily because I tend to operate in public the same way I do on the highways as it pertains to handling other drivers in road rage incidents: I always assume that the other person is crazier than me, angrier than me, has less to lose than me, and/or is better armed than me (which is to say, I am never, ever armed in public).
 
pspsps said:
The use of profanity is linked to pain relief whether that’s physical or emotional. Using the word is to emphasize emotion of a statement and a coping strategy.
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Honestly I have no idea why people get worked up about "cursing." Words are words. There's nothing specially virtuous about saying freaking instead of fucking.

Personally I think people also say it for the cadence. That's certainly its main function in Tarantino films. "English, motherfucker, do you speak it?" You can't write that as "English, do you speak it" nor with a short word like "fool." It simply doesn't work. "English, dummy, do you speak it?" Nope. The line needs a beat, to let the viewer catch up with the logic. It could be any long word, rhythmically, but motherfucker has the advantage of semantic transparency -- i.e. it rarely changes the meaning of what is said. "Fucking ingrate" is semantically equivalent to ingrate, so fucking is a good modifier when you are seeking rhythm only.

It's also why those words end up in music a lot. You especially need the cadence. The song "Fucking Hostile" just doesn't work as "Hostile." Could it "pounding hostile"? Yes, but then people would wonder what the hell pounding is referring to. Just go with the meaningless cadence modifier.
 
superrific said:
Honestly I have no idea why people get worked up about "cursing." Words are words. There's nothing specially virtuous about saying freaking instead of fucking.

Personally I think people also say it for the cadence. That's certainly its main function in Tarantino films. "English, motherfucker, do you speak it?" You can't write that as "English, do you speak it" nor with a short word like "fool." It simply doesn't work. "English, dummy, do you speak it?" Nope. The line needs a beat, to let the viewer catch up with the logic. It could be any long word, rhythmically, but motherfucker has the advantage of semantic transparency -- i.e. it rarely changes the meaning of what is said. "Fucking ingrate" is semantically equivalent to ingrate, so fucking is a good modifier when you are seeking rhythm only.

It's also why those words end up in music a lot. You especially need the cadence. The song "Fucking Hostile" just doesn't work as "Hostile." Could it "pounding hostile"? Yes, but then people would wonder what the hell pounding is referring to. Just go with the meaningless cadence modifier.
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My main objection is that I like words too much. Falling back too easily on profanity to the point it's trite stunts figurative speech.
 
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