Political protesting works!

http://www.hcn.org/articles/chaffetzs-public-lands-bill-defeated-by-power-of-the-people?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=58a3b9e204d3016b65a3752c&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

"While Rep. Chaffetz’s bill passed the Natural Resources Committee in 2014, it had never passed the House or reached the president’s desk. That likely would have changed during this Congress, where the House and Senate Republican majorities are ideologically opposed to the federal government. The only thing standing in the way of the sale of those 3.3 million acres of land that belong to you, me and every other American — and the only thing that stands in the way of the next similar bill becoming law — is the willingness of ordinary people to call their members of Congress and even leave their homes to attend a rally with one strong message: Kill this bill.

This is not to discount the power of less focused public dissent. The Women’s March against President Trump generated such overwhelming public support in Washington and around the world that the White House still busies itself telling everyone how unimportant it was. That kind of protest will continue to have force and meaning throughout the coming Trump years.
But protesting a specific bill in no uncertain terms can produce results. At a time of unified Republican government, that kind of protest — which has already succeeded in this new Congress — may be the most potent legislative tool the American people possess."

From one who knows, what to do in face of a horrible congressional bill.

Protesting Works!

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/technology/donald-trump-social-networks-protests.html

"Even for those who did not assemble on either weekend, the pictures carried special power. Amplified on social media and echoing across every TV network, they suggested something larger afoot, something democracy-defining. “Something’s happening out there,” Ana Navarro, the Republican never-Trumper and television pundit, declared on Twitter.

Something sure is. We’re witnessing the stirrings of a national popular movement aimed at defeating the policies of Mr. Trump. It is a movement without official leaders. In fact, to a noteworthy degree, the formal apparatus of the Democratic Party has been nearly absent from the uprisings. Unlike the Tea Party and the white-supremacist “alt-right,” the new movement has no name. Call it the alt-left, or, if you want to really drive Mr. Trump up the wall, the alt-majority.

Or call it nothing. Though nameless and decentralized, the movement isn’t chaotic. Because it was hatched on social networks and is dispatched by mobile phones, it appears to be organizationally sophisticated and ferociously savvy about conquering the media.

Over two weekends, the protests have accomplished something just about unprecedented in the nearly two years since Mr. Trump first declared his White House run: They have nudged him from the media spotlight he depends on. They are the only force we’ve seen that has been capable of untangling his singular hold on the media ecosystem."

I wrote about Anonymous in 2008 springing up apparently out of nowhere to take on Scientology.  Again we have "leaderless" protests growing from public concern and confronting a problem of obvious concern to many.  Organized online, without any hierarchy involved, unconcerned about established organization that isn't doing anything anyway, protesters by the hundreds of thousands move politics.  Expect more of this.