Nice TacticsFollow

Near-abouts by me, they're building a Planned Parenthood clinic. Not just any PP clinic, but one which will perform abortion services. The got it under the proverbial radar by building it through a subsidiary called Gemini Development and it was on the books as Gemini Medical Center until recently. However, it's all very legal and the land is zoned for a medical building and the city council admits that, even if they wanted to do something, they couldn't. The building is in an outlot of a grocery store/strip mall arrangement.

Planned Parenthood owns the land and the building. In other words, they can't be evicted or lose their lease or whatever. This is important to note because apparently the plan from the usual anti-abortion folks is...So their plan is to try to drive away business from the grocery store, Great Clips, Hollywood video and whatever other businesses you find in a strip mall? To what end? Just to make some guy with a Great Clips franchise broke? "Hey! How dare you get your haircut within 300 yards of a Planned Parenthood building!" The businesses can't force PP out -- it's Planned Parenthood's building.

So, essentially, they're just going to intentionally fuck with other people's businesses for the sake of making some noise which will accomplish nothing. Way to go

I'm not sure in what sense the anti-choice protesters can be classified as hippies, unless you're one of the slugs who believes that any political activist must be a dirty hippie.

At any rate, yes, it's a low tactic and essentially what we've come to expect. The next step will be shooting medical personnel and/or patients in the name of saving lives.

Which goes back to my original point -- Planned Parenthood owns the land, owns the building and is properly zoned and completely legal. There ain't a hell of a lot that Hollywood video can do about it even if they had the gumption.

I'm not even certain that they're misinformed. I think they just figure that, if they wave enough signs in people's faces, things will magically change. Or "miraculously change" to be more accurate.

Edited, Jul 27th 2007 1:04pm by Jophiel

I think the line between "bringing an issue into the open" and "shoving an issue in peoples' faces" gets crossed when the deliberate decision is made to shock and disgust random people in the vicinity.

In all fairness this is mostly due to the fact that women who shop at Fashion Bug don't get laid.

I'm going to guess that being someone who rarely posts to these boards that what sounds funny to me didn't parse as well as I thought it would.

I've always wondered where they find these people.

Don't these people have jobs?

Somehow I doubt that the guy with the megaphone makes more than a sign holder.

I think they need to repress more if they're jumping up and down and yelling at me

Presuming the laws there are similar to the ones in Cali, the protesters would have to picket at the sidewalk, and could not enter the common lot of the strip mall nor block the driveways while picketing. I doubt they will have much influence on the customers as they drive past to see the dentist, rent a movie, kill a baby, or whatever.

Well. At the risk of coming in at the tail end of the discussion...

Maybe because of the lines immediately following those you quoted:



I would assume that the point here is not to make the businesses suffer, but to raise the awareness of the "conservative and Republican" people who live in the neighborhood that Planned Parenthood just opened up a shop right in the middle of their neighborhood without so much as a "by your leave".

The tactic is fundamentally no different then the ones used by the folks sitting on the side of the road with a "shame on <companyname>! labor dispute" sign. People see them. They're ugly. They don't like it. They complain. And ultimately this gives those pushing their "cause" a bit more power to influence things. You can't infringe on the protesters right to free speach, so quite often the result is that those living in the area find some way to force the "source" of the issue out of their neighborhood, if for no reason other then to get rid of the protesters and the eyesore involved. Given that this is already a conservative/republican area, it's not a bad approach at all since many people would already be inclined against PP even without the protests going on.

You can't infringe on the protesters right to free speach

Assembly, moron, and yes, you can infringe on the protester's rights. Infringement on constitutional rights is upheld by courts nearly constantly.