protesting

this is one of those drafts that i've been sitting on for potentially actually years, but tonight i had the conversation that feels like it added enough to make it interesting, or perhaps just approaching some level of high-school-reading-comprehension-essay-style balance. i'm very left leaning and fairly politically active, but the way that protests have gone in australia have always prickled me. the vast, vast majority of protests i've been to in my city (read: all of them, bar one even more embarrassing example) have gone like so: gather out the front of a political building on a weekend when the building is empty. repeat some chants that everyone knows by heart. listen to between four and six speakers vocalise talking points that everyone in the area already agrees with. stand in a cordoned area with police keeping the protesters from blocking traffic or being a nuisance to anyone. get sore legs from standing stationary for an hour and a half and convince nor even educate any…