this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2026
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By "contributing to society" do you mean stuck at work all week, too busy, too exhausted and too tied up by your financial obligations to ever dare to rock the boat in any way? These students and retirees don't have too much time on their hands. They have ENOUGH time on their hands to get out there and make a difference, and I'm grateful for those that do. I would hate to live in a world where no person outside the ruling class is ever free enough to do such a thing, but that is the way things are going. I guess you'll be very happy to get there.
No I mean going to work, paying your taxes, using your earnt money to buy things from other people is contributing to society.
Perhaps you work at a mechanic, and you fix cars for the removalist, who moves a banker, who manages finances for a fabricator, who buys a coffee from the cafe.
This is contributing to society and is what makes the economy work, without a strong economy australia will be a husk with no influence. So yes going to work is contributing.
And yes there is a whole discussion on financial obligations and people not owning stuff and being in debt to the hilt, but I'm not sure this is the right page for it.
I'll try not to overlap too much with what shads has said, since they really gave a better explained and more complete answer than I would have.
What interests me here is the disparity between our points of view. In the spirit of finding understanding and common ground, as you have championed, I'd consider digging a little deeper into that. Of course I can only say how it looks from my perspective. It seems that your point of view is that we should all seek to be cogs in the machine, and any concerns we may have about the nature of the machine should be discussed quietly without ruffling anyone's feathers. The problem I have with that, is that the machine is clearly working to increase corruption and wealth disparity. We are heading for disaster.
So while there is great social value in work and building a strong economy, it is also extremely important to call out injustice and corruption, and fight for the rights and representation of the people. Otherwise those economic benefits will only expand the financial obesity of a few people, while 99% of us are gradually reduced to serfdom or worse.
And this, it seems to me, is where you have a blind spot. You're saying that protesting and wearing banned slogans on clothing is a bad thing. We're focusing on a particular act of protest which was clearly successful, as it brought publicity to the absurdity and overreach of this ban on speech, while also combating the chilling effect it was intended to have. But you will not acknowledge that it was successful. You say it only serves to polarize opinion against the protestor. I can only suppose that this reflects your personal reaction to it. You're applying a circular logic that says because you feel negatively about protest, then protest must be a bad thing because it only causes negative feelings.
But circular logic aside, why else would you feel negatively about this? Is this woman not fighting for your rights? Is she not fighting against corruption and injustice? It seems your principal argument is that you believe it to be ineffective, which rests on your own perception and the aforementioned circular logic.
I wonder where those self-reinforcing negative feelings come from. I would guess they are the product of conservative ideology, which even if you disagree with it on principle, seems to have left a tendency to view certain groups of people, such as students or protestors, in an overwhelmingly negative light. Is further education, or taking a stand against corruption, really such a bad thing? Where does the reinforcement of that mindset come from? Who does it serve?
EDIT : having seen your answer to shads it seems that's maybe not how you feel about protest and activism as a whole, so perhaps I've got the wrong impression of your position here. Well, maybe it is or maybe not, I'll just leave this up here anyway
Sorry had trouble posting hence the delay.
With these types of demonstrations, they are fruitless, they are calling for action with no clear action being called for.
Was this a protest against censorship? Or against the war? Or pro Palestine? Or was this a 'stick it to the man'? Who are you calling to action and what action are you calling for?
No one knows which is my point. Instead it costs the taxpayer money to manage, will not change the opinions of anyone and will not achieve any change. Now any of those causes are fine, but aimless protests are useless, and from my perspective frustrating cos we're paying for it (in a tight financial environment these days). Also lets not forget how much Sydney cost the taxpayer.
Now let's say censorship is the protest here, a broadcast that, discuss that, write to your member on that, wearing a taboo (rightfully or wrongly) shirt and getting arrested will not achieve this. We should instead aim for strong discussions which will naturally start a movement. It's more effective than getting arrested.
Also thanks for the respectful response, didn't think I'd have to hunt for that (shads too) 😁
They're not allowed to have a day off work?
See the problem I have with this take is that almost everyone I know understands that they have to work in order to maintain a standard of living. Some of them are also conciously aware that this contributes to an overarching societal progression.
The contribution our politicians should be making is to enact the will of the people they represent, this is where I see the breakdown occuring.
We have a federal government that is apparently far more beholden to lobbyists and corporate interests, we have state governments who are similar, we have local councils that seemingly represent their own interests.
Without people willing to put themselves on the line to highlight the failings of our governments and the supporting apparatus then when do we expect them to change? I'm sorry but no amount of contributing to the smooth operation of society is going to fix the problems we currently have, or the ones that are looming in front of us.
Once we regulate AI, tighten our tax code to make businesses and corporations pay their fair share, inhibit the influence of lobbyists, get serious on finding and punishing corruption then we can talk about if protesters should be doing something more "productive".
But if you think some older people marching against over reaching anti-public laws has more of a damaging effect on our society than all the problems we face I'm afraid you and I just exist in different worlds. A strong society should never fear its members protesting, we need to stop licking the boot and start standing up to the people wearing it.
Paras 1, 2 and 3 are as if I had written them myself. And on retrospect I could've been clearer in my original post that I see these protests as fruitless. You can protest against your local council in relation to a badly consulted project, or federal about the botched handling of let's say 'housing affordability', heck it doesn't even need to be government it could be your employer outsourcing work overseas. In each instance you are protesting/impacting the party who you disagree with.
Here we have a group protesting about the actions of a foreign nation, who undertook an action on the other side of the globe. And who are they impacting?, the cafe that had to close thier doors cos there's a protest out the front, or the dress maker that lost a days trading because ppl were avoiding the area.
At best you can stretch it to they are trying to impact the federal government, but this is my concern here, with what? The government says we support a two party solution, we support no warfare in the region. What's the tangible action you want from them? Cos I don't see that in any messaging.
And if it's 'this public outcry will ensure both sides lay down thier weapons' your shouting at a third party about something they cannot control, that would be like me protesting that the US shouldnt tariff other countries, or me shouting at the postman because he delivered me a rate hike on my home loan, fruitless.
And I was just suggesting that the retirees could go back to work and contribute to society again until they are 73 like the rest of us are gonna have to, cos they ruined the housing market in this country whilst they instead retire at 55 on thier defined benefits we need to work until we're 70 to pay for thier pensions
These particular protests at this time appear to be sparked by the ban on certain slogans. You can't directly change the policies of Israel by waving signs in Queensland. But if your state government is carrying water for Israel by selectively banning political speech, that is absolutely a local issue and one that needs to be addressed. It's not just an issue of free speech, but also of corrupt politicians serving zionist lobbies. By addressing that local issue, in Australia and elsewhere, we can weaken the grip that zionism has had on large swathes of the global political establishment. The benefits of doing so won't just be felt by Palestinians. The network of corruption, blackmail and bribery that underpins this worldwide system of control is making us all worse off.