It seems that by “good” protest spaces you mean “spaces where mobs can best annoy and disrupt the lives of others”. It appears that you are defending the idea that the protestors have a right to waste my time, impede my work. There is no such right and such an action serves no worthy purpose.
Well, force is force, whether you intimidate someone or shoot him dead.
Concerning the Tiananmen massacre I think that despite its ultimate failure and the thousands dead the demonstration was a success. China would be in a worse shape today if that demonstration didn’t happen. Unfortunately, due to massive government censorship, today’s many students in China don’t even know for example the ‘Tank Man’ picture.
Well, but your point was that mass demonstrations are more difficult to put down than individuals, and so leave it open to more success with them. But if the actuall putting down of a mass demonstration is still a success, then why can’t the putting down of an individual still be a success? Example is the shuttering of a prominant newspaper publisher who uses is PRIVATE newspaper to disseminate contrary ideas? In fact, it is these PRIVATE institutations that actually do the dissemination of even the most PUBLIC demonstrations.
It can happen if there is private property, yes. It’s just that currently (at least here in germany, I guess the situation in the USA is better) the ‘good’ places (i.e. major roads and places where many people cross) are already taken by the state. Sure you can start a campagin in your backyard, it’s just that it is much less cost-effective.
I would submit that you aren’t using your imagination, that in fact the private efforts are actually MORE cost effective. That is because the mechanism of dissemination (the media) is mosly private anyway. So why to you have to go to the effort of getting mass movement (which is costly, and dangerous) when you simply get the sympathetic ear of a private mass media type.
There’s nothing fundamental about public spaces for this purpose and no reason to wait until last…
Well, but your point was that mass demonstrations are more difficult to put down than individuals, and so leave it open to more success with them. But if the actuall putting down of a mass demonstration is still a success, then why can’t the putting down of an individual still be a success?
No, my point was that any demonstration of any size in public is more difficult to put down (with ‘put down’ I mean that you are removed before you can deliever your message) than for example writing a book or writing articles for a newspaper. The simple reason is that a demonstration needs less preparation (and costs less), you can deliever your message directly. Using a seperate medium allows the government to stop you more easily (e.g. a government censor at a newspaper that checks the contents before it gets printed).
But I am talking about non-free societies and I guess that is the main point here.
Would you be happy about a right to demonstrate on government streets in a country like North Korea? Yes, of course, because all other forms of expression are forbidden and there is no private property where you could demonstrate without getting put in a concentration camp.
Would you be happy about a crowd exercising their ‘right for demonstration’ by destroying cars and shop windows in a free society (like it’s currently at the G8 the case)? No, of course not, because there are other legal non-violent forms of expression.
Thus the question is where to ‘draw the line’.
There’s nothing fundamental about public spaces for this purpose and no reason to wait until last…
Except for the fact that they are ‘public’, i.e. a privatization effort of the state will not result in the same legal situation for the residents as newly build roads would because they are forced into a contract by the state.
Other than that - if the state does not heavily censor the media, forbid demonstrations on private property, heavily tax the population and/or own most of the property itself - I agree.