On Mon, 30 Jun 2014 11:00:07 Carl Turney wrote:
There are still protests going on because:
(a) The organisers are thinking tactically, not strategically.
(b) The organisers don't know when to give up. This horse is well and truly dead. They've got no hope of turning around something this far advanced. (Labor has even said it will honour any contracts signed by the Lib Government on this, if they win.)
If people gave up so easily then the correct strategy for the government would be to surprise people with unpopular projects that are already signed and do whatever they like. To keep on protesting raises the cost for the government when they do things that voters don't like and gives them an incentive to adopt policies that will win votes. It makes the system more democratic. Of course as Tony Abbott has shown, even when projects have all the contracts signed it's possible to just shut them down the way the Liberal party stopped NBN development. Tony Abbott has also led a new development in lying to the voters, he seems to have broken every election promise in an epic way. I think we should take political promises with a grain of salt. http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-pro... However it's been proven that protest is more effective than most people realise.
(c) The organisers may be attempting to maintain negative impacts on the Libs, thus ensuring the lead that Labor has in the upcoming election does not slide back. (Self-defeating, actually. This will pull the Greens and the micro parties out of influence, as Labor won't need their votes with an outright majority.)
Generally people don't turn up to protests for such reasons. It's all about issues.
Besides: Protests, particularly if they inconvenience people, are excellent at =backfiring= on the organisers. (Excellent at turning the "undecideds" against the protest.) That's why, in the vast majority of instances in contemporary Western countries, protests are the tool of the losing side.
e.g. The Vietnam War was called off in the USA in SPITE of the protests, NOT because of them. First-year introductory Public Relations case study material.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-pro... Wrong. Without the protests the Vietnam war would probably have involved the use of nuclear weapons, while that's grossly stupid with the involvement of the USSR the whole war was stupid enough that it wouldn't be inconceivable. Generally courses don't teach about their failings. I've never heard of a CS course teaching about how bad computer projects made things worse than the manual systems they replaced. I don't expect PR courses to teach about how you can't always manipulate people. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/