A Critique of Protesting as a Political Strategy

http://www.nypress.com/17/36/news&columns/Taibbi2.cfm

 

Thanks for your diatribe...I respect your opinion. But you are absolutely ignorant to the facts concerning this new movement. You are wrong wrong wrong.
The momentum, the building energy is almost visible to the naked eye when you're on the streets. This movement for global justice is just that: global. You, or anyone else, cannot stop it.
The global elite has been shaking in their well-polished boots since Seattle...
I recommend to you a book called "We Are Everywhere: the irresistable rise of global anticapitalism" by Notes from Nowhere

 

I agree with Matt Taibbi... I compared the protests in Russia and N york ... i know wich one made me think more.

 

I agree. But you have to start sometime, somewhere.

 

I think the movement needs to focus more on supporting alternative Media Sources like "Democracy Now" and the IMC so that the public has other points of view in their face other than what the coorperate-owned media conglomeration nation allows.

 

what do u mean the movement has to focus more on alternative media? alternative media (ie. indymedia) is basically the foundation on which (at least via internet) the movement stands and expands upon. Indymedia is probably the most recognizable alternative media source in *all* progressive activist circles...worldwide.

Go into the site www.indymedia.org and look on the lefthand side and see all the local (international) IMC sites that exists. There are literally hundreds, and it all began--like most everything else--from one, starting in Seattle, and it, like "the Movement" itself, spread like wildfire and still is...which inevitably leads someone involved to ask the taboo, yet utterly necessary question: who are the REAL targets of the so-called "war on terror"?

tisk tisk...

 

I never said I agree with it. Did you see my name on the article? Hell, I was AT the damned protest.

R->C->P

Did you read the critique? The man implied that he agreed with the message just not the strategy of protesting because the cultural and political climate that made protesting so effective in the 60s no longer exists.

 

In response, I offer a quote(which i like so much, will soon be in my sig):

Frederick Douglas:
"Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will."

 

I thought the article was well written. It came with a militant tone, which is good in my opinion because the ppl of the movement really should appear as organized as they presently are becoming. It'd change the whole character and face of the movement overnight, if the ppl in it would just get their act together and start dressing for success as revolutionaries and activists.

It'd be overstating things somewhat, to suggest that any potential advances made by the movement all hinge on whether or not it acquires really hip and stylish clothing, but it makes sense too that things would at least start to feel like change is all around us. How can that be a bad thing?

Some would say that uniformity of dress is tantamount to the introduction of some kind of heirarchy or authority from within certain circles of the movement, but I don't think that that's necessarily the case this time. What I mean is, dressing alike can exist merely for the purpose of expressing a more focused example of organized and effective dissent or direct action.

If we paraded around all the time in our uniforms and saluted one another, then well maybe that'd be a bit over the top, lol.
For what it's worth though, I think the article Stilanas shared with us is right on when it comes to how much of a non-threat the movement is to the status quo, we're percieved as a joke and that really needs to change.

Trin

 

if we're really perceived as a joke, then why are the feds making house-visits to radical activists? Before the DNC and RNC, in several states, FBI agents have been appearing at activist's homes, places of employment, schools, etc.

SOMEONE is taking us seriously... I'm not saying major improvements can't be made, I'm just saying to give credit where it's due. We've come a longass way since the uprisings of Seattle.

BTW Trin, I'm sorry I never answered u...I was on the phone and by the time I got back I was kicked off

 

The FBI and other policing agencies are making 'no knock' arrests at ppls' homes because that's how the intimidation factor plays out. The very fact that, as a whole, that's all the state needs to do at this point should show us that we're percieved as a joke.

I'm not saying we haven't made some advances along the way, but the movement needs to make some leaps before it begins to be recognized as more than just a social anomaly. If we'd just get our act together, as revolutionaries and activists, we could maybe give us some real reasons to pat ourselves on the back.

Whoever this Matt person is who wrote the article, he brings up a some really good points that could be looked at carefully, and much can be learned from a discussion of his thesis. At any rate, I think he's onto something, and it's new and it seems a rather Subvertista way of looking at things and I like it.

The general tone of the article, with its snide title and all, is pretty harsh at times, and well that can be a turn-off for some ppl. It really is difficult sometimes not to feel defensive when someone is being critical of the movement, but in this case I think it's important enough a critique that it oughtta be addressed by the movement, so that we might grow strong.

Trin

 

It seems to me that people model their political actions on what happened in the 60's because people in general base their actions on role models of the past. There is nothing wrong with that. However, I would say that although the Hippies were influenced by the Beats, they didn't try to be just like them. Acually, if I remember some things I read then they did try to be Beats but couldn't. They needed a movement of their own and so do we.

 

PROTEST!!!!!! more of us have got to get out onthe streets and start protesting! there are just to many injustices! turn off the T.V . and get what you want from this free country! get our troops out of iraq...who wants another draft????????!!!!!

...hardly any one protests the terrible wars and things that this country lts slide....it doesnt matter how we protest..its that we make our voices be heard but the publics voice is being slowly tuned out...so PROTEST MORE then ORGANIZE fight for what you know is right!

 

Burn in hell. This thread died some 8 months ago. Leave what's finished finished. Seriously.

 

Never forget to look at any matter in terms of the big picture. You're lost if you don't see the big picture.


The big picture with respect to this thread is that any protest anytime is better than no protest at all. That's the important thing to remember.

Given that fact all the rest is details.

The bigger the protests, the more frequently they occur, the better planned and organized they are the more effective they will be.

Uniforms? This would provoke a dysproportionate negative reaction. They make it easy to get people scared. Protesters would be portrayed as a "subversive" or probably even "terrorist" organized force. (In days past they would have said "communists" or "foreign elements.") "We have a dangerous element in our midst...(identifiable by their uniforms).

The other side of this coin is that people who look outlandish or ridiculous probably are taken as such by the common person.

Maybe the most effective way to dress for a protest is straight. The average citizen en masse. Now that makes an impression on other average citizens. Not a bunch of "crazies" (their view not mine).

That said, it doesn't matter how you present at a protest as long as you and as many others are there and things are massive and unrelenting.

So the original post in this thread says virtually nothing.

It can take years for protest to work just like it took years in the 60s. That was really a decade long effort. Given the current reactionary status of this nation it might take considerably longer this time around. But it looks like fate (read:the incompetence of those who have taken us where we now are) will probably lend us a big hand.

Just don't lose sight of the big picture. Protest works. And the bigger and more sustained it is the better it works.

 

First I'll say a good uniform idea would be simple, and not a strict uniform. Simple plain clothes, no logos, or self decorated clothing (peace symbols, printed messages, etc). I'd like to see a whole mass of people wearing plain white clothes, that'd be cool.

That said, the guy did say something important in his article. People protest, and most go back and do nothing afterwards. Most are not very active besides voting and the occasional protest they attend. This is a problem. Getting out in numbers is good for visibility, it does send a message, but more of us need to get active, in some way.

 

Agreed. We need to PROTEST.