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Originally Posted by tesla69
They absolutely are. Nixon looked out of the White House at the million antiwar protestors and decided that maybe they shouldn't drop nukes on Vietnam as the generals were pitching. they want you to think it doesn't matter but it does. Why did Bloomberg go to such lengths to round up protestors and witnesses during the RNC and prevent antiwars marches? they don't want you talking to each toher. They don't want you networking outside of the Fox network (i.e. myspace) or the CIA (ie facebook). they don't want diverse people to understand their needs are similar and differences can be strengths. You had to see the cops riot when activist tried to flyer outside the Carlyse Group - pigs flipped out and arrested people just trying to get to work.
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Protesters in themselves don't worry governments, it's when ideas that the protesters trade in begin to resonate with the more mainstream centre of society that they become concened. When I was a student, there was no tangible atmosphere of political interest among my peers. Now I'm constantly seeing students carrying books by Chomsky, or freely discussing ideas of globalization, etc. A good majority of these will not have taken any actual role in the protests but they do have a broad sympathy with some of the issues surrounding them and were largely introduced to those issues by an awareness of the events in Seattle, etc. This vocal minority of people in their late teens and early twenties are going to be voting in the next election and that's what bothers any party seeking power.