Opposition to can Aus $1.3bn school laptops program

@mmiied

Seems to me all those riots and protests changed quite a few things. 50s, 60s and 70s? IIRC these were the decades in which racial segregation finally died. These were the decades in which women finally and rightfully claimed their status as equals in virtually every important way. It was when the power of public outcry actually managed to overcome the stubbornness of government and force them to abandon a war they shouldn’t have gotten into in the first place.

(Seriously, when will people learn that you can’t win a war where your opponents have gotten /good/ at asymmetrical warfare? Nobody ever seems to learn anything from the continual failed attempts to learn Russia, and they certainly never apply those lessons to the invasion of other territories.)

The protests and riots and what have you of those decades also gave rise to unions, workers collectives (in which a collective of workers own the business) and many other alternate forms of production. (Some of which were more successful than others.) More than anything it gave the citizens of western world the feeling that they had real power over their governments: something that today you can only really find in France.

Maybe the populace didn’t achieve every goal they set out to, but they did achieve some very significant victories. Far more than the pathetically terrified, self-absorbed, mewling, huddled masses that infest the globe today. We have become a world populated by entire societies that simply accept that “that’s the way things are” and believe that enacting change is simply “someone else’s job.”

I have a lot of respect for my parent’s generation who were willing to stand up to “the man” and have a good protest or riot. They stood up for what they believed in, even if that meant being beaten, shot, jailed or worse. Today’s pathetic excuses for “free” people love to complain about the world, but wouldn’t get up and do something about it if it meant they had to miss the next “Survivor.” For my generation, as regards their ability to understand what has been sacrificed to earn them the freedom they so take for granted, I have nothing but contempt.

@results

I'm going to have to agree with mmiied here. As far as I can tell, young people here are so cynical in relation to our political system that I am beginning to hear more and more talk of a box on the bottom of ballot papers for a 'Vote of No Confidence' in relation to all supplied parties (or at least something similar).

Now, this will never go anywhere, as the two incumbent parties would have issues with even a small percentage of the population making it known that they disagree with all the parties that are apparently meant to 'represent' them. But that is exactly what caused the cynicism in the first place, the feeling that no matter what the people do, nothing will ever change. Protesting, facebook page-ing, doing nothing, it all seems to inevitably lead to the same outcome. That of 'no change'...

Beer, for obvious reasons.

Precisely Mr Watson!

This is indeed what government control freaks want - a bland populace that may protest in some innocuous way, but which doesn't actually achieve any real political change.