That's a very keen article. I don't know anything about the Flayrah post that sparked it, but you've got a pretty balanced view on the whole matter.
I think the reputation that a lot of lobbying groups have gotten for the extremism generally come from one or two rather bold statements they've made in the past. Unfortunately, special interest groups seem to want to make it more and more of a habit these days to make 'in-your-face' statements about whatever it is they're protesting.
The best example of this I can think of in recent memory is The Truth, which is an anti-smoking organization that sprouted up on the Web and has moved to TV and magazines. I'm not sure how many people saw it, but they had a *brilliant* PSA a few months ago. Basically, a bunch of Truth members rode up in vans to Phillip Morris headquarters (Kraft Foods, Marlboro cigarettes, etc. etc.) and dumped about 120,000 body bags right in front of their door. A guy with a megaphone shouted "This is how many people you kill each year with your cigarettes!" The aerial view was pretty sobering; the body bags covered the corner of the building on either side, for about half a block.
While this certainly borders on harassment (I'm not quite sure whether or not it was illegal), it certainly got the message across quite well. A lot of these groups feel it necessary to perform similar stunts to be heard, but hopefully the tide is turning for the better. McDonald's has already ordered massive overhauls in the way farmers raise their chicken and is looking into their beef production as well. I forget which group scored this, they managed to do it without any shock tactics at all. A good sign.
I think we're reaching a point where companies are just starting to listen to the more reasonable SIGs, and working with them instead of against them. This'll cause a lot of the extremist groups to either fade away or change their tactics so they'll have a better chance to be heard, which I presume is what they want in the first place.
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momijizukamori
Agreement Tangent.
Date: 2002-04-30 06:13 (UTC)That's a very keen article. I don't know anything about the Flayrah post that sparked it, but you've got a pretty balanced view on the whole matter.
I think the reputation that a lot of lobbying groups have gotten for the extremism generally come from one or two rather bold statements they've made in the past. Unfortunately, special interest groups seem to want to make it more and more of a habit these days to make 'in-your-face' statements about whatever it is they're protesting.
The best example of this I can think of in recent memory is The Truth, which is an anti-smoking organization that sprouted up on the Web and has moved to TV and magazines. I'm not sure how many people saw it, but they had a *brilliant* PSA a few months ago. Basically, a bunch of Truth members rode up in vans to Phillip Morris headquarters (Kraft Foods, Marlboro cigarettes, etc. etc.) and dumped about 120,000 body bags right in front of their door. A guy with a megaphone shouted "This is how many people you kill each year with your cigarettes!" The aerial view was pretty sobering; the body bags covered the corner of the building on either side, for about half a block.
While this certainly borders on harassment (I'm not quite sure whether or not it was illegal), it certainly got the message across quite well. A lot of these groups feel it necessary to perform similar stunts to be heard, but hopefully the tide is turning for the better. McDonald's has already ordered massive overhauls in the way farmers raise their chicken and is looking into their beef production as well. I forget which group scored this, they managed to do it without any shock tactics at all. A good sign.
I think we're reaching a point where companies are just starting to listen to the more reasonable SIGs, and working with them instead of against them. This'll cause a lot of the extremist groups to either fade away or change their tactics so they'll have a better chance to be heard, which I presume is what they want in the first place.