Can we bring back random people giving soapbox speeches on the street?

Well, you know. Nothing's stopping you.

The religious ones were always prominent and you can't let it put you off.

See for example Joe Hill's 1911 song The Preacher and the Slave. It's a song that addresses the conflict between union soapboxers and religious ones.

Lyrics from Mudcat:

Long-haired preachers come out every night,
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right;
But when asked how 'bout something to eat
They will answer with voices so sweet:

Main Chorus:

You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and Pray, live on hay,
You'll get pie in the sky when you die.

And the starvation army they play,
And they sing and they clap and they pray.
Till they get all your coin on the drum,
Then they tell you when you are on the bum:

If you fight hard for children and wife
Try to get something good in this life
You're a sinner and bad man, they tell,
When you die you will sure go to hell.

Workingmen of all countries unite,
Side by side we for freedom will fight;
When the world and its wealth we have gained
To the grafters we'll sing this refrain:

Last Chorus:

You will eat, bye and bye,
When you've learned how to cook and to fry
Chop some wood, 'twill do you good
And you'll eat in the sweet bye and bye.

Utah Phillips has a good version from "We Have Fed You all For A Thousand Years" includes a bit of chit chat with historical context. (I can't get this to play on any invidious instance for some reason, only youtube.com but it's worth it if you've never heard it.) He's got some other recordings talking about the larger historical situations of "the free speech fights" in early 20th c califorrnia. It was about worker power and suppression of union organizing.

Here is a different live version also from Utah Phillips Live at the Rose Wagner Theater, Salt Lake City, Utah, February 2005 (currently working invidious)

And a recording of Harry McClintock singing it (working invidious) which is like reaching back to the early 20th century.

today's version of that demo are either posting here (and its right wing equivalents) or dead

when I was 9 my family visited London and we went to Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. most people were gathered around a guy standing on a box talking about how women are to blame for all sexual assaults

i think we're better off this way

Got to bring back soap boxes first

hell do you live, we still got those. they're trots though lol

okay adhd side note coming in

the history of soap box speeches comes from the early days of the industrial workers of the world who would stand on soap boxes and try to radicalize and unionize workers. in america some of the first anti-free speech laws were passed to try and repress these comrades.

soap box speeches in america have a rich history among anarchists, socialists, and communists.

I'm gonna be honest I have sometimes thought of soapboxing IRL, probably won't ever do it just cause it seems like a really easy way to get targeted by the Black Hundreds

You should be the change you want to see in the world. Or maybe I should

Holy shit I did not realize I need a Lenin hat

Where is there enough for traffic for people to listen in America? Outside of NYC it's just shopping districts which are usually private property or heavily policed enough to get you thrown out either way.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

Standing on a Costco bundle of soap and yelling about Kropotkin makes me feel pretty lame tbh.

yes I think we should

Need higher quality boxes.

They still exist. There was some weird christian preacher that just monologued at my college when students were walking between classes. Though he used a ladder instead of a soap box.