• PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    That last part is particularly noteworthy. If I’m in the UK, I can make it to London in 8 hours pretty much regardless of where I am. That’s less than a full work day of driving. Many Americans have done that to visit family.

    If I’m in France, I’m never more than 9 hours away from Paris. Again, many Americans have done a drive like that just to go on holiday.

    If I’m in Newport Oregon, it’ll take 43 hours of driving (and crossing two full mountain ranges) to reach Washington DC. That’s a full work week of driving, just to reach the capitol.

    So most Americans protest locally if they’re able. But that’s far less effective, because it splits the protests apart and makes them easier to ignore or break. Americans can’t go full “light Paris on fire for a full month because the retirement age is getting raised” because there aren’t enough protestors near the capitol to do that. The small protests that do start almost unanimously get broken up by cops as quickly as they started.

    • Hugh_Jeggs@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      Any excuse huh? You have roughly the equivalent of the entire population of France living within a four hour drive of Washington DC, but

      There aren’t enough protestors near the capitol to do that

      There aren’t enough people who would actually stand up for themselves, and in particular , others, is what you actually mean

      • silly goose meekah@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        There aren’t enough people who would actually stand up for themselves, and in particular , others, is what you actually mean

        So, protestors?