[cross posted]
HEADLINE: US weekend news featured two events: (1) a "Stop The War" protest involving millions worldwide, and (2) a "Feed Terry" protest by hundreds in Florida.
ANALYSIS: The critical issue to emerge from this weekend is not medical ethics, but the failure of the US anti-War movement to focus public attention on the fear, death and suffering caused by President Bush's foreign policy. There are two reasons for this failure: control of the media by political forces that support the Evangelical agenda, and refusal of the US progressive movement to move beyond the protest style of the 1960s anti-war movement. As a result, the new face of protest in America has shifted from anti-war to religious militancy.
Frameshop is open...
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Our thoughts go out to all Americans who have lost--or who fear losing--loved ones in the Iraq. Because the majority of Americans directly impacted by the war are minority or low-income families, President Bush and Republicans in Congress continue to ignore them. Our thoughts also extend to Americans with family members in long-term hospital care. ]
Anti-War Protest Bumped by Religious Militants
The big story of the weekend should have been the massive anti-war march that took place simultaneously in dozens of cities around the nation and the world, involving hundreds of thousands of people. That should have dominated the front pages of America's newspapers.
Instead, a few well organized and politically connected religious militants managed to elbow the anti-war movement out of America's kitchen table conversations. As of today, Americans continue to be assaulted by the ongoing debate over the long-term healthcare decisions of one woman in Florida. As of 9am Monday morning, it was as if the anti-war movement didn't even exist.
A private family struggle over the long-term care of one woman in Florida versus the anguish of hundreds of thousands of military families in every single state in America--anguish over the fate of their loved ones as a result of a Bush foreign policy with a flagrant disregard for the sanctity of human life : which issue should Americans be talking about?
The ability of American religious militants to bump the anti-war movement from the news was the result of several factors.
Terry Schiavo's case is a compelling human interest story that the broadcast media can't seem to resist. The struggle of the Schiavo family is a struggle between a husband and parents, between multiple forms of anguish and idealism. It's a compelling story. The human element in this story is one factor.
Then there is the Elian Gonzales factor. After two successive presidential elections, the GOP is still insecure about winning Florida's electoral votes, and this issue is clearly grabbed the attention of Karl Rove as a way to mobilize the evangelicals in the interest of electing the next president.
And then there's the Tom Delay factor. Delay is a third rate Texas politician who has burned through all of his political capital in Washington by committing multiple House Ethics violations. The White House is behind Delay officially , but unofficially they must hate his guts at this point (as does everyone else in America). Delays b-movie acting job expressing his emotions for Terry Schiavo are a cynical attempt to suck up to the Bush White House by abusing his power in Congress (something Delay actually does well) in order to give the White House the headlines.
Yet another factor is the George W. Bush Roman Emperor complex. We currently have a President who loves nothing more than to decide if people will live or die. Just like a Roman Emperor deciding if gladiators should live (thumb's up) or die (thumb's down), George Bush's claim to fame has always been his passion for giving death row inmates the "thumb's down" on their appeals. Terry Schiavo gives Bush a chance to try the other hand for once, but it brings into play the same old aspect of Bush's personality: his obsession with exercising the ultimate power over people's life and death.
There is also the Media Attention Deficit Disorder (MADD) factor. The US media has serious MADD problems. They can't focus for more than one second on any issue. It's been particularly amazing to watch people like Chris Matthews--a political analyst--conduct "serious" interviews on the "facts" of long-term care patients. What the hell does Chris Matthews know about long term care?
Finally, there is the religious symbolism factor. With Easter just on the horizon, the idea of a woman being brought back from the brink of death is just too symbolic for the public to ignore. We should all expect the white dove imagery to begin sometime mid-week.
So Much Concern for one Woman, So Much Scorn for Military Families
The real America should be obsessing over is not the anxiety of one family in Florida, but the anxiety of hundreds of thousands of families in every state--anxiety over the death or uncertainty of their loved ones in Iraq. Our hearts go out to these military families who spend night after sleepless night worrying about their family members, wondering when they will be returned, if they will ever come home.
With the exception of President Bush flying over to Iraq to pose next to a plastic turkey during the elections, he has been silent on the suffering of these military families. Why? Because he doesn't give a fig about these families. Neither President Bush nor the Congressional GOP care about America's military families and the daily anxiety and uncertainty they endure because of the Bush foreign policy. They don't care because America's military families tend to be poor, they tend to be ethnic minorities, and they tend to live in districts that--for the most part--already vote Republican.
But why does America tolerate a President that continuously spits on America's military families? Why does America not stand up in anger when George W. Bush "rushes" from his ranch in Washington to sign a bill that intervenes in the private life if a family in Florida, but keeps playing golf in the face of America's military families in anguish? Why?
Those are the questions we should be discussing as a nation: the questions about a President who claims to value the "sanctity of life," while at the same time demonstrating a disturbing passion for putting American prisoners to death and trapping Army Reserve soldiers in shifting service contracts.
Why doesn't America discuss that our president has raised the award that families get when their relatives die in battle, but has not raised benefits or salaries for soldiers?
The answer is that the religious militants in this country have effectively framed the debate on a variety of issues, and they have used protest politics very effectively. At the same time, the progressive anti-war movement has suffered a series of set backs. Now, when Americans see an anti-war protest on TV, they are more likely to watch a rerun of Friends than actually pay attention.
The Face of Protest
The dramatic success of the religious militants to seize the protest headlines brings to the surface a disturbing question: Are progressives no longer the face of protest in America?
It seems that they are not.
This weekend's news coverage was plastered with images of religious militants in Florida with red tape across their mouths, the word "LIFE" scrawled on it. These images, may of them of young women, are disturbing on many levels, offensive, annoying--they are many things, but they are also memorable.
What about the images from the anti-war protest? Anything memorable there?
Nope.
This weekend's anti-war protest was pretty much like all the others. Lots of people some famous, most anonymous. It doesn't seem that the protest movement was very organized at all. No real effort was made to dominate the news. No single image was promoted by a centralized PR wing of the protest. Just lots of people coming together in opposition to the war.
Now, to question the primacy of anti-war protests in the progressive movement in America is pretty much heresy. It's dangerous to suggest that anti-war protests should no longer play a central role in progressive politics--at least not as they exist now. But that is what needs to happen. Progressive politics are no longer served well by large anti-war protests. This is not to suggest in any way that the protests should end. But they should not be staged with the expectation that they will have any impact whatsoever on politics.
Anti-war protests have become consumer events in progressive politics. They are no longer the driving engine of protest politics as they once were in the 1960s and 1970s. The sooner progressives realize that the mantle of protest politics has been usurped by religious militants, the faster progressives will regain their initiative and reinvent an inspiring, progressive approach to political protest.
Protest Economics First, Then War
Not all progressive approaches to protest are out of date. Here is one example of an inspired approach to progressive politics that stormed the front pages during the RNC in New York City, last summer, held the headlines and left a lasting impression:
The so-called "Pink Slip Protest" was an inspired progressive protest organized by People for the American Way. The concept was to have thousands of people standing evenly spaced, holding pink unemployment slips up in the air, along the entire stretch of road that was travelled by RNC delegates from their hotels to the convention center. The protest lasted about minutes in New York and was also staged in other cities.
Walking along the streets during this protest was an amazing experience. Thousands of people stood silently holding up a piece of paper, evenly spaced at about 15 feet apart. There were no drums, no loud music, no shouting. It was a completely different protest aesthetic than I have ever seen before. And it was effective--both emotionally and politically. The protest garnered a great deal of political attention and momentum for issues important to the progressive movement.
Did the protest end unemployment in America? No.
Did the protest defeat George W. Bush in the election? No.
But it was still a very important change in protest politics for several reasons.
First, it was a progressive protest focused on economic issues rather than against a war. This is a very vital, very courageous shift on the part of PAW.
In progressive circles, anti-war protests are top dog. Protests on economic policy are a distant second.
But if progressives in this country want to be the face of protest again, then they better start following the example of PAW's pink slip demonstration. They better start protesting economic policy first, then foreign policy.
The second important change was the dramatic emphasis on design.
There was a time when packing hundreds of thousands of protesters onto the National Mall was the be-all-end-all of a political movement. Those days are over. In the age of 24-hour cable media, it is far more effective to think of a protest in terms of one person's picture reproduced a million times in the media, then to think of a protest in terms of a picture of one million people shown only once in the media.
That's exactly what the Pink Slip demonstration did so effectively: give the media a real human face, a person holding up a pink piece of paper. It was memorable, reproducible, and had a lasting impact.
Third big change to protest politics introduced by the Pink Slip Demostration was that it stood still in one place. It wasn't a march.
In New York City, there is a protest March for just about everything under the sun. Just about every time I turn around, there's a protest march somewhere. But what are they marching for? Where are they marching to? It's never clear.
If 20th-Century protests needed to march someplace to be effective, 21st-Century protests need to stand still to achieve their desired impact.
The genius of the Pink slip Demonstration was that it used the motion of regular car traffic as part of the staging of the protest. The impact of the protest was achieved when the cars drove by, and it could not be avoided. When there's a march that shuts down city streets, it's only those who choose to attend who get the picture, and that tends to be people who are in the protest.
The Need for A New Era of Progressive Protest
These three changes seem to be crucial to the new era of progressive politics:
- Protest Economics first, then foreign policy.
- Stage a protest that uses the motion of the viewer, rather than a march.
- Think in images of individuals, rather than photos of faceless crowds.
Of course, the religious militants in this country have not become good protesters by following these three changes. They have made the primacy of religious law over American law their top priority. That approach has been highly effective for American religious militants in recent years much the same way that it was highly effective for Iranian religious militants in the 1970s.
But the religious militants have been effective at supplying the media with memorable images of individual protesters, and they have been effective at using the motion of the viewer for strong effect.
So, the time has come for progressives to ask some hard questions and to think seriously about whether or not the old-school anti-war march is still the demonstration of choice.
Update [2005-3-21 17:2:16 by Jeffrey Feldman]:
An excellent point was raised by dKos user snout in the comment thread below:
"...The religious right tends to focus on specific cases featuring specific people. The get the nation whipped into a frenzy over a particular horror story and then right wing talk radio connects the story of the day to their larger world view. They do this in the positive and in the negative. Either they are crusading to save Terry Schiavo from the liberal 'culture of death' or Elian Gonzales from the 'Hate America crowd' - or they are going on endlessly about a school somewhere in California that took a Christmas song out of its winter pageant or a college professor in Colorado who said some things they didn't like. It is all about specifics..."