Letters to the Editor
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FDL link
That Firedoglake link I left a few pages back was supposed to be a Kathy Griffin youtube that TRex posted. I see now that it takes you to the latest FDL post instead of the KG youtube. Sorry about that.
Really, though, it's funny as heck and I recommend watching it. Just go to Firedoglake and scroll down to find it if you're interested.
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Che
I believe you believe your point of view, and I'm fine with it on an individual level, but when you try to expand it to generalize about public protest, I think you're going way too far. Yours is in my opinion a pernicious point of view that ensures the security of the status quo. Perhaps that's your objective. I don't know.
Your reference to "angry mobs" indicates you are pretty darned clueless to what was going on in the sustained protests that led to the demise of so many repressive regimes not so very long ago.
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You also didn't like the organizing entities, the Dreaded Giant Puppets, the "lack of focus" in the events. Psst. Whom, exactly, do you think A.N.S.W.E.R. answers to? And what, dare I say it, do you think was their r e a l objective? Could it be they, like the apparent provocateurs in Seattle, had a job to do? Ya think? Ya think maybe they actually did their job? Just asking.
OK, Che, I was willing to take you seriously until this. My point of view is rendered "clueless" because I used two words you found objectionable - then you insinuate that I might be one of these mysterious provocateurs you seem to see everywhere, including in the ANSWER coalition itself. Forgive me if I don't put a whole lot of energy into rebutting you anymore.
It may shock you, but I am definitely in agreement with Lish, above. The bottom line for me, and my point from the start, is that protests and marches - particularly highly disruptive and theatrical ones - often do more harm than good to the movement animating the protest if a very key element is not present: a credible and organized threat to the establishment's economic, political, or physical well-being. This is the common feature of every successful grassroots movement, and if you have any doubts about its glaring absence from the current activism, just witness the Democratic Party's very telling lassitude.
Instead, what I see repeatedly in blog comments these days is just random, frustrated calls to "take it to the streets" or whatever. Yeah, that'll show 'em. This may be satisfying on a personal level, but without some degree of organization and a credible threat of economic or political disruption, it is a waste of effort and may in fact backfire. It also might be satisfying to one's sense of purity to condemn attempts at persuasion or more subtle institutional change, and insist instead on nothing other than immediate "action."
One of the most trying aspects of being an organizer for various causes, I found, was dealing with such self-righteous purity warriors. The ones who absolutely refused to understand any need for tactical focus or concrete organizational purpose, but instead joined the movement to satisfy a gaping emptiness of purpose in their hearts.
I don't come here to score points with any self-styled, purer-than-thou scold, and I have an absolutely unshakable sense of my role in restoring a modicum of this country's dignity and honor. Or maybe I'm a covert, morale-deflating agent from Karl Rove's shadowy army - after all, I dared to criticize the self-satisfied potpourri that passes for activism these days.
Happy Independence Day to you as well.
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@Che @DCLaw1 @Lish @sunny miller
Excellent comment, but Mario S. made that seminal statement on Dec 2 or 3, 1964...
continuing with:
Now, no more talking. We're going to march in singing "We Shall Overcome." Slowly; there are a lot of us. Up here to the left -- I didn't mean the pun.
There is nothing more powerful to bystanders and people watching the news than a couple of hundred thousand people singing We Shall Overcome
Could I mention something that was in my earlier post to Blue Meme and later to certifiedprepwn3d?
You need all parts of this, the idea that the protest people should argue with the plodding law people should argue with the blogkrieging the media people and everybody hate the dirty hippies is just insane.
DCLaw1 (and WT and others) are right, you need groundwork to pull off change, protests can't do it -- alone. Ché and Lish are right, you can't swear off protest, and you need civil disobedience. Sunny is right you need to inconvenience, you need to critical mass, you need to throw a wrench in the works. And you need the dirty hippies too, because without counterculture, Archimedes has no place to stand. If the blogosphere fits anywhere in the ancient picture, it is part of that counterculture. Always on the fringes looking in, attempting inclusion rather than divisiveness, always shelter from the storm, a ballast of creativity and improvisation -- sound familiar? Pick your change and it's there. Pick your change and protest is there. Why was it so important to the rebels who started this country to protect privacy and assembly? How do you get out of your machine and how do you tell people what you found there?
There should be no argument here. That there is means that the heads of the hydra have been separated from the body, the ballast, the underground. We recognize you old mole, who knows so well how to work underground... Killing the counterculture was done to serve corporate interests, to always be ahead of the next change so that they could be positioned to profit (the counterculture is more creative than industry), but it produced Britney Spears instead of Janis Joplin, and now it serves the forces of authoritarianism. Since with no counterculture, there is no way to get organized on the outside.
But on a bright note, it seems all agree that International A.N.S.W.E.R. isn't the best organization, and die-ins of 50 people can't substitute for the 2 million people in thousands of local communities that came out for October 15th. After one of those, any Cheney who starts a sentence with "I think the American people want..." is automatically a liar.
It was the protests in Philippines, and in Ukraine, it may have been something else somewhere else. The protests and their refusal to disperse in the face of overwhelming force finally convinced the soldiers they were on the wrong side, and they switched sides. It doesn't have to go that way, but sometimes it does.