Do Protests Work?

Hello internet.

I went to my very first protest, rally, whatever on the 8th of May 2010. A week later I organised my first protest with the help of the charming Ieuan Ferrer, Jamie Fisher, and more. Since then at protests I have given speeches, written and performed songs and shouted til I was ill. I want to know whether any of it has achieved anything.

I am begnning to suspect that while protests individually are unlikely to work, there is something to be said for sustained campaigns of protest. This would require legions of committed individuals with support networks, organisers, clear goals and more. Lots of things which the student protesters didn't have, or didn't have enough of.

Maybe the strategy should have been first to organise, and then to try and change things. Now I am sure this was attempted but the result was ramshakle, and ineffective. Having just finished The Pinch and Jilted Generation (finally: I felt I ought to having ranted about intergenerational justice) I am admittedly slightly less annoyed about the whole fees thing than I used to be, but that is just because I found out about just how disadvantaged in various ways people under the age of 30 or something are in the UK. My rage has been intensified and its direction refined.

Thats why I want to set up an organisation to bring young people together to fight for their quality of life, their futures, and the people that will come after them.

But that can wait: now I'm playing Minecraft. (But seriously, the whole organisation thing is happening. Get in touch if you want to get involved)

Caleb