The police officers at federal buildings in the U.S. are specially trained on how to handle demonstrations. They are almost annoyingly polite, and they sometimes become quite friendly with regular demonstrators and get to know demonstrators by name. They draw a line people aren't supposed to cross, and then the people cross the line and are very gently taken into custody. As a result, getting arrested in a demonstration is no big deal, and so there's not much that's newsworthy in many demonstrations.

The "occupy" movement was quite successful in getting news coverage a few years ago, but it takes real creativity to put on a demonstration that will get good news coverage. We did pretty well with an immigration rights march where we had people walk the 276 miles from Sacramento to Bakersfield in California. The Catholic "Nuns on the Bus" social justice campaign has gone well for four summers. The U.S. Catholic bishops have had a "Fortnight for Freedom" campaign that was a colossal failure - they were trying to avoid paying for birth control benefits for employees. They (and later the Pope) were far more effective when they celebrated Mass at the Mexican border to promote immigrant rights.

The "Arab Spring" did well, didn't it?

-Joe-