Anyone just see Rupert Murdoch just get attacked?!

[iPhoneKiller]

Here's my issue with protesters en masse: Basically you have two types of protester in any large scale demonstration.

You have the person who cares passionately about the issue, has done their research, has written to their MP, prints a newsletter, gathers signatures, petitions local parents, runs a website. Then you have the other 95% of the crowd who spend the whole time wearing jester hats, smoking weed and talking about how "the man" is keeping them down, even though "the man" is actually their dad and is paying for them to go to university.

Having done work with a councillor, petitins etc... they are not effective as a protest. A protest makes people notice, and it causes attention, but also, a lot of people who protest do what you mention anyway.

You dumb atheist, neither are exclusive, you can do both.

[iPhoneKiller]

Whilst your point is valid, the same thing can be said about the marching protests. The masses of protesters in London didn't acheive anything either apart from making the youth of England look like classless brats who didn't deserve cheaper Uni fees.

Though half those people in the protests wern't even students, just people there looking to cause some destruction for the sake of it but that's always going to happen with protests of that size.

Well, actually it caused huge media attention and made the MP's consider and postpone their decision. It had an effect.

Protests don't always work, and neither does petitioning and doing news letters or whatever. However at leastthey made a stand.

In fact mass protests does work at times.

Poll tax? Egypt?

[iPhoneKiller]

These practices are the very foundation of functional democracy. The idea of the parliamentary system is that you can contact your elected representative who can then bring your concerns to parliament.

If you can bring a large scale campaign of letters to bear against parliament then the people elected to enact the will of the people realize that the will of the people points in a certain direction. It's far more effective to influence directly the people who are elected to represent you than it is to gather in an essentially arbitrary place with a few thousand banners bearing the logo of your local organisation of professional malcontents*. It's also less expensive. Taxpayer money does not go towards policing petitions.

*Examples include the Socialist Worker Party in the UK (there's no such thing as a socialist worker!) or in Canada there's OCAP.

It sounds good on paper, but again in practice it is not. Many, many times MP's even ask the Prime Minister in PM questions, and if it is a small thing, the answers are usually 'We will see what can be done to help with the people in your area' in layman terms.

It's not effective because Councillors and MP's do not have that much power. They will send a letter saying they have read your concerns blah blah blah.

Again, both can be effective sometimes. However, there are people who do both also.

[BattleAxePurist]

Nice trophy wife she's got to be 30 years younger and i'm sure she loves him for his personality

[squealpiggy]

Having done work with a councillor, petitins etc... they are not effective as a protest. A protest makes people notice, and it causes attention, but also, a lot of people who protest do what you mention anyway.

Large scale protests contain 5% conscientious and involved members of society and 95% wacky middle class students out for a fun day out where they can wear a jester's hat and wave a placard.

You dumb atheist, neither are exclusive, you can do both.

Yes you can do both. But while 95% of the involved and connected people may protest, only 5% of the protesters can be bothered.

[Canelo Phresh]

Anybody tried to custard pie me, they'd get an absolute leathering.

i dont know