This article is full of lots of examples of protests working, even if the results weren't obvious at the time. The most important lesson seems to be that it's important just to make a start, even if it's small and feels feeble. As it says, "Protest raises the political price for governments making bad decisions".
Johann Hari: Protest works. Just look at the proof:
protest can have an invisible ripple-effect that lasts for generations. A small group of women from Iowa lost their sons early in the Vietnam war, and they decided to set up an organization of mothers opposing the assault on the country. They called a protest of all mothers of serving soldiers outside the White House - and six turned up in the snow. Even though later in the war they became nationally important voices, they always remembered that protest as an embarrassment and a humiliation.Until, that is, one day in the 1990s, one of them read the autobiography of Benjamin Spock, the much-loved and trusted celebrity doctor, who was the Oprah of his day. When he came out against the war in 1968, it was a major turning point in American public opinion. And he explained why he did it. One day, he had been called to a meeting at the White House to be told how well the war in Vietnam was going, and he saw six women standing in the snow with placards, alone, chanting. It troubled his conscience and his dreams for years. If these women were brave enough to protest, he asked himself, why aren't I? It was because of them that he could eventually find the courage to take his stand - and that in turn changed the minds of millions, and ended the war sooner. An event that they thought was a humiliation actually turned the course of history.
And to finish:
You don't know what the amazing ripple-effect of your protest will be - but wouldn't Britain be a better place if it replaced the ripple of impotent anger so many of us are feeling? Yes, you can sit back and let yourself be ripped off by the bankers and the corporations and their political lackeys if you want. But it's an indulgent fiction to believe that is all you can do. You can act in your own self-defence. As Margaret Mead, the great democratic campaigner, said: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
When you see the crap that's going on, call it. You never know who's listening.
Don't trust those 'back scatter' scanners that effectively show you naked? Might be hard to choose the pat-down option... From For the First Time, the TSA Meets Resistance:
everal TSA officers heard me choose the pat-down, and they reacted in a way meant to make the ordinary passenger feel very badly about his decision. One officer said to a colleague who was obviously going to be assigned to me, "Get new gloves, man, you're going to need them where you're going."...
the effectiveness of pat-downs does not matter very much, because the obvious goal of the TSA is to make the pat-down embarrassing enough for the average passenger that the vast majority of people will choose high-tech humiliation over the low-tech ball check.
Bah. Remember the days when flying was fun? These days it's an invasion of privacy, a huge hassle and eater-of-time *and* sexual harassment rolled into one.