Not long ago, doing research for a novel set in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq, I came across this post by Markos: True Confessions: War Protestors Bug Me.
I do not attend war protests. I was asked to attend, and I declined the invitation. I also decline to encourage people to attend them on this site.
I didn't read the post when it was published. (I didn't even have the Internet then.) If I had, it would've pissed me off because I was spending a good amount of time going to antiwar rallies. Notice that he says war protesters, not merely war protests, bug him.
I don't care for many of the participants. You know, those eager to relive their 60's activism using the exact same tactics as they did in the 60s, or the younger generations trying to capture a bit of that old time religion. Call me cynical, call me an asshole, but the world is a bit more complex than "make love, not war". There is a time and place for war, and blanket outrage at the concept of war is simply naive.
In which he accepts and internalizes the right-wing caricature of the left and the sixties. Oh those naive smelly hippies. Sixties-style activism needs to be revamped and refreshed, of course, but there's nothing wrong with the basic tactics, or the underlying sentiment.
Markos makes one good point, citing the problematic fact that ANSWER sponsored the major protests, but ANSWER was filling a vacuum created by the abdication of more mainstream antiwar voices. Many of us would've loved to have gone to a huge protest sponsored by the AFL-CIO or the NAACP or Daily Kos, but none existed.
Kos simply doesn't recognize the importance of getting feets in the streets. He approvingly quotes Nathan Newman:
[R]allies are far less effective than people give them credit for. They make a nice media splash but given the work and time involved, a really poor use of resources. Think about it-- if 100,000 people (to take a conservative estimate) were down in DC this weekend, most of them taking the whole day to get there and get home, that is something like 1.2 million volunteer hours.
Well, it depends on how you define "rallies." The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Justice was "a rally." Rallies -- persistent protests, direct actions, civil disobedience -- have dislodged dictators and ended systems of racial supremacy. In terms of changing the world, absolutely nothing's been more effective than "rallies."
I'm dredging up an eight-year post only because Markos's attitude about protest politics is endemic. Very few times in recent years have I seen an influential progressive blogger or pundit encourage people to attend a protest, and many people here have criticized GetEqual's aggressive activism. No doubt the reasons for the opposition to protest vary. Some find it embarrassingly redolent of the sixties. Others believe it plays into the hands of corporate media eager to portray liberals as angry radicals. Still others find it uncivil. Whatever their reason, they've helped to create a culture in which protests are seen as anachronistic and futile.
To be sure, we don't need to wait for "leaders" to tell us to get in the streets -- to do so would run counter to the very ethos of people-powered activism -- but this is, at bottom, a numbers game, and it surely wouldn't hurt if Markos -- or, for that matter, Rachel Maddow -- publicized protests. But with or without them, protest politics is slowly becoming cool again. Events in Wisconsin have helped (Thanks, Scott!), as has the emergence of groups like US Uncut, which is staging (that's the word) anti-BOA protests. Here's video of a "flash mob" in San Francisco.
You see, protest can be fun! Not your cup of tea? Well, make your own cup.
I believe in supporting better Democrats. I believe in pushing for good legislation. But I also believe that the country will continue to decline unless Americans, millions of them, take to the streets in some form or another. At a recent anti-BOA rally I attended, Chris Hedges said:
There are no structures or institutions left that have not been contaminated or destroyed by corporations. And this means it is up to us. Civil disobedience, which will entail hardship and suffering, which will be long and difficult, which at its core means self-sacrifice, is the only mechanism left.
It is up to us. That doesn't mean that online activism isn't important. (Those self-hating blog posts that bemoan the meaningless of blog posts amuse and annoy me.) Say what you will about the netroots and social media, these venues are relatively free and democratic. I just wish they were used more often to encourage, organize, and publicize protests. Maybe the revolution won't be Tweeted, but it can be planned that way.
And it was. Egypt's April 6 Youth Movement -- which helped to organize the protests that forced our Mubarak -- was founded on Facebook to support striking workers. And it was via the Internet that Egyptians shared the ideas of Gene Sharp, an American peace activist and academic who's written extensively about non-violent political struggle.
The nonpartisan group International Center on Nonviolent Conflict had gone to Cairo a number of years ago and taught tactics from Sharp’s 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action. Now famous activist Dahlia Ziada attended the workshops, tailored flash scenarios to her imaginings, and communicated them widely through Facebook.
So to review: to bring down a 30-year-old, American-backed dictatorship in the largest country in the Middle East, young Egyptians activists applied the ideas of a "sixties-style" peace activist, which they learned about thanks to an American nonprofit and the Internet. There are no new ideas under the sun, only new energy and new applications.
Sharp's central message is that repressive regimes gain their power from the unwitting obedience of the populace, and that mindful disobedience will bring them down. I don't see why that wouldn't also apply to our Corporate-Imperial state.
UPDATE: In comments, Rimjob linked to much more recent Kos post in which wrote:
I finally determined that for a protest to be effective it needed to:
1. be novel and/or unexpected
2. have a sympathetic, singular, and media-friendly message
3. provide great visuals
4. tap into a hot-button and timely issue.
The usual leftist protests fail most of these, falling into the worst, cartoonish stereotypes. They feature a mishmash of causes and issues, with no unifying theme. Is the protest about the Iraq War? Or Palestine? Or American imperialism? Or freeing Mumia? Or legalizing marijuana? Or blah blah blah blah? Who the heck knows? Who the heck cares? This is a classic clip from the Daily Show after one such protest:
Stewart: On Saturday, a 100,000 strong peace march descended on Washington seeking to crystallize America's dissatisfaction with the war into one single idea.
Clip of young male speaker: Peace!
Stewart: Okay.
Clip of male speaker: Justice!
Stewart: (pause) Fine.
Clip of male speaker: Environmental protection!
Stewart: (pause, confused look on face)
Clip of male speaker: No racism!
Stewart: (dumb-founded, and then says in Valley Girl-like voice) Dude! I didn't hike from Oberlin for this.
There's nothing novel, new, or interesting about these protests, making them easy to ignore. We've seen them a million times, the visuals are easily mockable, with the dreads and the stupid puppets and whatnot. And not only are they patently ridiculous, but we saw just how ineffective they were during the Bush years. No one gave a damn about them, not the media, not powers-that-be (in either party), and certainly not the public.
But I'm not sure that really contradicts, or adds nuance, to what I wrote. Markos is probably right about what makes an effective protest, but I haven't seen him, or many other progressives with big microphones organize or even publicize protests, effective or otherwise -- that's the point. And any isolated, or isolated group of marches (even those without people who have dreadlocks!), aren't going to be very effective. They're effective if they become fundamental to a cause, and to our movement.
As for this:
we saw just how ineffective they were during the Bush years
Well, compared to what? Yeah, the protests didn't stop the invasion of Iraq...unlike his blog posts?
As for this:
We've seen them a million times, the visuals are easily mockable, with the dreads and the stupid puppets and whatnot
Markos should worry less about "visuals" and being mocked -- that is, less about what the corporate media and the establishment will say. Fact is, they will always mock liberal protests, even ones without stupid puppets. My sense it that conservatives activists worry much less about what the smart set will say.
Finally, yeah, I pegged this to a old Kos post and put him in the title (anything to make the rec list, eh?) but it's not really about him. He's just an example.
UPDATE 2: After reading the comments, I see that many people seem to believe my main goal in this post was to criticize Markos's criticism of antiwar protests. No. While I could certainly do without his sneering, he's free to find fault with "sixties style" protest. But where's his alternative? How is he attempting to create a fresh protest culture? Or at least publicize the emerging protest movement. (I could say same thing about most prominent progressives.)
My guiding belief is that protest isn't merely one tool in the toolkit, as some of you put it, but essential.