Reply #14: Thank you, Zodiac. [View All]

[Berry Cool]

I think protesters make themselves more powerful if they don't do something that makes it *easier* for the general public to dismiss them, to write them off as hooligans. If they do, that just makes the link easier in their minds: War protester = hooligan, lawbreaker.

However, if they see someone treated like a criminal for NOTHING other than expressing an opinion, that creates some cognitive dissonance where there might not have been any before in the minds of some people. "Wait...all this guy did was say he was against the war, and they ARRESTED him? Isn't this a free country? I mean, I may not agree with him, but isn't he free to say what he wants?"

Then the wheels start turning. People start realizing that the real reason some people get arrested is not so much because they broke the law as because they said something unpopular. And then, hopefully, they get mad.

Martin Luther King was no dummy. He knew how easy it was for whites, especially in the South, to dismiss out of hand any group of blacks raising a ruckus over anything (and dismissal was the KINDEST treatment they'd get). So, he raised a ruckus without trying to damage anything. When he got tossed in the pokey anyway, it opened some minds to what was going on. That he wasn't being jailed because he broke the law...no, that was beside the point.

And that made all the difference.