Fenn, always angry, tells his mother that he will neither demonstrate in the passages nor throw rocks. She agrees that he is:
"'...too intelligent for that.'" (p. 87)
(Because they live inside Luna, they have passages instead of streets.)
Slow down there, folks. Too intelligent to throw rocks? Good. Too intelligent to demonstrate? I know a lot of very intelligent people who demonstrate.
That juxtaposition of demonstrating and throwing rocks is unfortunate. In a Frederik Forsyth novel (title and and context forgotten), a young man's attendance at a demonstration is interpreted as a lapse in his intelligence. Fortunately, we do not have to agree with an author to enjoy his novels!
Read The Day Of The Jackal.
This is probably sign-off for this evening. Shortly, we will watch TV news to find out what is happening on Earth Real right now. How long before the nukes fly? Which future are we heading into? Further into the Chaos?
Good night.
Demostrations generally don't affect governments much -- unless they decide to slaughter the demonstrators, as the Iranian government did a few months ago.
ReplyDeleteIt gives the illusion of doing something, which is why it's popular.
For a contrary position see this:
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3.5%25_rule
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
ReplyDeleteExactly, which is why I'm disdainful about most demonstrations. For others, like the hideous demonstrations praising the atrocities of Hamas on 10/7/23, I have only the utmost scorn and loathing!
Ad astra! Sean
The world would be an even worse place than it it is there were not persistent protests against the genocide in Gaza.
ReplyDeleteThere is no 'genocide' in Gaza, just a war. War means fighting, fighting means killing, and in an inhabited area civilians get killed in large numbers.
Delete"Genocide", if it means anything at all (which nowadays it doesn't except as an epithet) means a serious attempt to exterminate a group.
I have seen both a school and an old people's home closed, then reopened, because protests continued after the closure. In the case of the school, we (pupils and volunteer teachers) occupied the building and kept it running as a school between official closing and reopening.
ReplyDeleteI can cite other examples of successful protests. Farage's party, Reform UK, has won a majority on Lancashire County Council but has backed down from some threatened closures after we had a massive march past County Hall including people who had voted for Reform but now opposed what it was doing.
Sean, your disdain is at best uninformed.
2nd last comment above:
ReplyDelete"...than it is if there were not..."
Let's have less negative language like "disdain" etc. There are many well-informed people who disagree with you about a lot of things. We can just consider each other's ideas instead of expressing contempt for them.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteIt's no use, some demonstrations deserve only disdain and contempt. I don't share your faith in "demonstrations" or for all the "causes" they support. Certainly not anti-Israel demonstrations vilifying that nation.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
ReplyDeleteIt's no use.
Some PEOPLE (not just demonstrators) deserve disapproval and opposition, not usually "disdain and contempt." I have explained my faith in some demonstrations. I do not have faith in all the "causes" that people demonstrate for.
Israel is a genocidal state.
Paul.
Read accounts of what the IDF regularly does in Gaza. Not just Fox News and National Review. I have sent you links. They have used children queueing for food as target practice. Israelis, interviewed, say, "Kill Palestinians," and mock Palestinian suffering.
ReplyDeletePaul: the Palestinians have, over the past 140 years, consistently rejected compromise, chosen war, and tried to kill every Jew they could. That means their fate is entirely on their own heads.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure about that. The circumstances of the setting up of Israel were violent. I don't think that all Palestinians are trying to kill all Jews or that the current populations deserve all that is being visited on them.
ReplyDeleteWhat is terrible is (i) what is happening; (ii) that all of us get drawn into arguing the rights and wrongs of it, especially at a time when humanity needs to unite to stop destroying the environment.
As I understand it, there is more than just a war. The IDF targets civilians and levels buildings, including hospitals. It is an attempt to make the area uninhabitable and uninhabited.
ReplyDelete