Cartoons and common sense

Speaking as a non U.S. citizen now living in the U.S. the perception can very easily be clouded by the vocal minority, Before I came here, I and most of the people I spoke to had a preconception of the people in this country being arrogant, imperialist, triumphalist, very right wing, and generally stupid. Rightly or wrongly this is the view that is projected.I am pleased to say that on closer inspection I now know this preconception to be false. the truth is, there is a larger proportion (but by no means a majority) of people here who have tendancies in this direction.Crowds may well be self assembling, but we all know that a peaceful protest can very easily be hijacked by a rowdy minority (look at the yearly standoff to do with orange marches in N. Ireland for intance) and unfortunately the media jumps on these images, projects them such that these are all an outsider has to make a judgment unless they have the wherewithal to dig deeper.There are many cases where 20 people have wanted a riot, 200 people have not... and the riot has happened. and the entire crowd are ttarred with that particular brush.

I've seen plenty of riots.. all it takes is a few idiots to throw stones at the police, the police retaliate blindly, get the wrong guy(s) then the 20 or so 'rowdies' get riled up get more violent then more innocents get hurt, people get angry, try to defend them selves from the approaching violent coppers (they still hit you when you're running away you know)and the situation spirals out of control.20 people.. turned an otherwise peaceful gathering into chaos. It happens every day.I've seen cases where ths police 'box' in a crowd.. so there's nowhere to run, they then continue to beat the people... the tv shows pictures of the ones that fight back, and people brand everyone with this portrayal.But even forgetting about riots... as was mentioned above... a few people have hateful placards insiting violence or whatever, how does that imply that everyone in the crowd is insiting violence?
that's the type of sweeping generalisation that leads to prejudice, rascism and xenophobia.If I go to an anti war protest, I have a 'stop war' placard and someone else has a 'Kill bush' placard, does this mean that I support the assassination of a president?
should I then go home because someone else in that crowd of 100,000 people has a differeing view on how to stop the war? thereby giving them even more visibility?

not my point and you know it,
If I go to an anti war protest you should assume I am anti war. not that I want to kill the president.If I go to a protest about caricatures of the prophet mohammed you should assume that I disagree with the satirizing of the prophet mohammed, not that I want to kill all westerners.how about you answer my questions instead of sidestepping??edited for spellingThis message has been edited by Creavolution, 02-08-2006 05:48 PM

Because maybe... just maybe.. you can see beyond the rating hunting tv footage and be aware that there are people at this protest who are are holding "no war" placards not "kill bush" ones,
and maybe... just maybe you can plug yourself in long enough to realise that because I stand next to someone does not mean I agree with everything they think or say.It seems however that you do not have this ability, it seems that you make a cursory glance at the situation remember the one detail that outrages you most and apply that to the everyone involved.So.. according to you... because I am an Irish nationalist I therefore support the terror campaign of the IRA... but as I have a protestant father I am also an orangeman and because I am an orangeman I wish to see an end to the catholic faith by whatever means possible, because... somwhere, sometime, someone at the same protest march that I was at held a sign that said "taigs out" or similar.indeed.things must happen at breakneck speed in your head, because it seems you spend no time evaluating any situation but rather join the dots hurriedly then take a step back and believe that what you've drawn is correct.

If a protest is called as an 'anti war' (for example) protest, then, yes I will go to that protest, because I agree with the 'anti war' stance.
However, if there are people there that take a more miltant stance and want to attack an embassy or whatever. this does not mean that I also harbour tese militant sentiments.you seem to think it does, why do you think this? what leads you to assume this? other than mere blind assertion due to your unwillingness to look beyond the 30 second news clip you see?
and your apparent ignorance of that fact that opinions do not spread by osmosis.

maybe each one of your beliefs printed on a different t-shirt worn by every member of the audience would have worked?a slow pan across the enthralled crowd as Doc Potato continues:
"Never wear socks in bed....only use organic toothpaste....purple weeds are pretty..."

Hmmm... well how about you accept the fact that people have differing views? how about you accept that because people have a common grievance does not infer that the agree on the solution?
can you not see that protests of all kinds will atract people of differing levels of pacifism/militantism(is that a word?)?I'll ask again, lets see if if you can manage an answer? what complete shit! "chances are"? "CHANCES ARE"? come on... you have to do much better than that if you're going to condemn an entire nation as evil terrorists.

many would say that by demanding that the west conform to your religious dictates, i.e.
banning portrayal of the prophet IS imposing one culture's view on another country. I don't think anyone would consider nuclear standoff with anyone as 'OK'
it was a terrible situation, and that is why it cannot be allowed to happen again.Do you think a government who publicly calls for another country to
'wiped off the face of the earth'
should be allowed to have a nuclear bomb at the ready?

I understand your point, but no other countries have made such violent threats to other nations (as far as I know)For what it's worth, I personally would like to see complete nuclear disarmament by ALL nations, thus, adding another nation to the list of those in possesion of nuclear weapons is a backward step in this regard If it would never be used because of this fear of retalliation, why have it in the first place? what kind of world would this be if everyone had nuclear weapons "just in case" or to "parade power"?
I don't want to live in a world where there is the contant imminent threat of all out nuclear destruction.
All it takes is one misplaced diplomatic word or one misunderstood opinion and BOOM!... it's all over.In the same way I would not walk into a bar where everyone has a side arm... in my view it's only amatter of time before a shot is fired, then everyone returns fire.I don't want to live in fear.

Oh come on... where did I mention anything about haveing 'nothing at all in common'??
Please don't misquote me... read what I have written and argue those points.with respect to your pictures:
If you are likely to make a judgement on a crowd of thousands of people based on one small photograph well... there's no room for rational argument there. Actually your point 3 kind of hits the mark "to one degree or another" I see you've softened this from a much more polar "nothing at all in common"
That is exactly what i have been trying to get across. people at a protest will have a commonly held belief (usually the subject of a protest) this DOES NOT, however, infer that they agree on every aspect of every area of their political/enviromental/philosophical beliefs.If I am at a protest march about saving the whales... and someone beside me is holding a sign or wearing a t-shirt espousing vegetarianism does this mean that I also hold this person's views on vegetarianism? No. can you not see this?
Someone else supports blowing up the japanese embassy... does this mean that I want to blow up the japanese embassy?... No. Can you not see this?How about concluding that they have a common belief in terms of the subject of the protest but perhaps have differeing opinions on how to achieve their aims? why is this so hard for you to grasp?One reasonable response would be:
"oh look there's a crowd of people at a protest, I wonder what they're protesting about. Maybe I'll look into it further and not make a rash assumption about everyone there, based upon who's standing closest to the camera" ..indeed!one more time... can you please answer these two questions?

perhaps by examining the facts of who called the rally and find out for what purpose they called it.it that a good enough answer?Your answer seems to be: "look at some of the signs people are holding up, and assume they are the views of everybody"PLEASE PLEASE answer me: can you not accept that a peaceful, well intentioned protest can be hijacked by a minority of militant hardliners?NOW PERHAPS YOU COULD DO ME THE COURTESY OF ANSWERING MY QUESTIONS??

By the way, whe you quoted me above, you missed an important part of what i was saying.. that is CENTRAL to my argument, and central to the questions you do NOT seem to want to answer.

I am simply asking for an answer to the questions I put to you. I answered the questions you put to me. please do similar.I wrote in CAPITALS in a attempt to make sure you saw what I was writing.Are you going to answer the questions I put to you or not?if not there is no point in continuing.Is there a moderator out there? opinions please? I am asking questions of crashfrog, and he is simply ignoreing them.
is this in the spirit of debate?

You could start by thinking beyond the 30 second news flash. When a rally or protest is called it is billed/advertised as an "anti war" rally or a "kill bush rally"
I feel it is safe to assume that the vast majority of the people attending that rally are there to support the spirit in which that rally has been called. Now we have progress indeed. so you admit that not everyone in a rally may share the hardline sentiments of a few? this is a very different stance to your earlier posts where you infer: as holmes states and you seem to agree: 'control the majority', maybe, but to fool the public vieing on the 6 O clock news it appears all you have to do is have a few misrepresentative signs. I believe the viewing public is at fault here not the genuine protesters. well then.. there is no point continuing. Every year WTO protests are ruined by a combination of a militant few, and heavy handed police. you seem happy to assume that everyone at these protests is therefore a hardline militant. we disagree.This message has been edited by Creavolution, 02-09-2006 05:44 PMThis message has been edited by Creavolution, 02-09-2006 06:01 PMThis message has been edited by Creavolution, 02-09-2006 06:09 PMThis message has been edited by Creavolution, 02-09-2006 06:12 PM

nope... you didn't... try again. where.. exactly have I been constantly calling you names?you may remind me of the forum rules as many times as you like. they will not change, and neither will my argument.edited quotation htmlThis message has been edited by Creavolution, 02-09-2006 05:58 PM