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Where Have All The Protests Gone?
NEW YORK - A brief survey of current events:
A member of the antiwar group Code Pink holds up a sign during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Iraq and Afghanistan yesterday. (By Win Mcnamee -- Getty Images) The stock market has gone nuts, and the federal government is treating Wall Street with experimental cures that will cost nearly $1 trillion. An unpopular foreign war, now in its sixth year, has resulted in more than 4,100 American deaths. For the first time in history, the presidential campaign includes an African American candidate for president and a Republican female candidate for vice president.
Taken together, these data points give this moment in American history a once-in-a-great-while feel of Something Large. But if this is truly a pivot in time, its most peculiar feature may be how un-peculiar it feels. For all the social and political upheaval, for all the 60-point headlines and for all the bipartisan calls for change, there is plenty of unease -- but a very notable lack of unrest.
It's as though the gods of turmoil threw a party and nobody came. When was the last time you saw a street protest? Or a burning effigy? Or a teach-in? Or a boycott? It's kind of odd: We have the sense that this is an emergency, but open the window and give a listen. There aren't any sirens.
How come?
Washington Square Park, near Greenwich Village, seemed like a good place to pose that question. Forty years ago, this was one of the city's counterculture epicenters, a frequent site of protests and rallies and as close to an open-air drug market as one could find downtown. If you had been near the south entrance at 8:30 p.m. on Dec. 4, 1968, you would have witnessed a spectacle: New York University students shouting obscenities at Ambassador Nguyen Huu Chi, South Vietnam's permanent observer to the United Nations, who had come to lecture at the nearby Loeb Center. A Nazi flag was tossed around his neck, and then someone poured a pitcher of water over his head.
Last Sunday, by contrast, the park looked serene. A jazz band played, a street juggler performed, and the only sign of politics was the "Bakin' for Barack" sale in the northeast corner. "Make a donation, take a treat," read the sign next to the slices of banana bread and chocolate chip cookies.
"My sense is that nobody feels they can make a difference in the same way that students did in 1968," said Sachin Makani, 29, a graduate student in neuroscience and one of a handful of people collecting money here. "A lot of us don't see the point in rallying in the streets."
As a historical reference point, 1968 is useful not just because it was an election year that unfolded in the midst of a grim and protracted foreign war. It was also the high-water mark for exactly the kind of radical activism that seems largely absent today, apart from the occasional horde that shows up whenever the World Bank and International Monetary Fund meet.
The differences go well beyond the occasional attack on visiting dignitaries. The culture back then was suffused in the atmospherics of insurrection. There were celebrity radicals, such as Abbie Hoffman and Timothy Leary. The Beatles, who only a few years earlier wanted to hold your hand, were singing "Revolution." There was a lot of talk about "the system" and how to avoid it, destroy it or drop out of it.
That's gone now.
"I've been to meetings for political clubs and they never seem to have any momentum," said Robert Hoyer, an NYU junior who was standing outside the library, wearing a pair of headphones. "I know people who really care about what's happening in the world and are trying to get something off the ground, but it's hard for me -- and a lot of students -- to see a way of making a contribution that means anything."
What happen to the street-fighting man? The answer has to start with the draft, or the lack of it.
Because it was personal and nearly unavoidable, the draft lent the same urgency to activism then as hunger and homelessness did during the Great Depression, when unemployed workers marched on the Ford Motor Co. and thousands of World War I vets camped in Washington demanding bonus pay. The draft felt as immediate and potentially deadly as racial discrimination did to those who suffered it and took to the streets to fight it. It was the thing that drove masses of angry kids to Chicago, where they made a shambles of the Democratic National Convention in 1968 -- a far cry from the relative handfuls of Iraq war protesters who were kept on the periphery of the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn., this summer.
But the draft didn't just terrify and galvanize students. It forced them to be curious about the world and serious in a way that isn't required today.
"Our friends were getting killed in Vietnam, and any day you could get a letter from the government saying 'Time to go,' " said author and anthropologist David Givens, who teaches at Gonzaga University. "So for survival, we read and we talked. And the people who got up to speak at demonstrations, they were highly literate, they were great orators, they were writers. They had to be articulate. Everyone did."
That's missing today, Givens said. "It's not that kids are stupider. They're just not as interested in the world. They don't read as widely. They don't have to. You'd be amazed at how many college students on their MySpace page say that X-Men comics are their favorite books."
Some students sound every bit as underwhelmed by the level of intellectual curiosity on campus. Rachael McMillan, a senior at Columbia University, worked for two years with the Columbia College Democrats and found the experience pretty unsatisfying. But at least she tried.
"Most college students just don't feel like they have a vested interest in what is happening today," she said. "I hate to say it, but a lot of my peers calculate the opportunity cost of coordinating with others -- or planning a sit-in or a walkout or just some protest -- against the urge to write a paper, get an A and go to Harvard Law School."
McMillan isn't exempting herself from this charge. She quit the CCD last year after spending five hours squabbling with the Socialist Club about what to put in a news release. It all seemed tragically disorganized to her. But she knows what's happening in the world beyond Columbia, which is more than she can say for a lot of her classmates.
"No one was really curious about Iran until the president of the country came to speak at our campus," she said. "Then it was like, 'Oh, yeah. Iran.' A lot of my friends get all their political news from 'The Daily Show,' or from Perez Hilton, who does more political commentary than you'd think. We spend more time padding our résumés than trying to stay informed."
The draft, McMillan believes, would transform Columbia. But to explain the relative calm of college life today by focusing solely on the draft would be a mistake. It runs deeper than that, said Todd Gitlin, a Columbia professor of journalism.
"There was a culture of confrontation back then," he said. "You were either on the side of the authorities -- not just the president, but the police and the suits -- or you were an outlaw. You took psychedelic drugs and you protested and you drew a line between yourself and the prevailing culture."
That line is getting harder to draw, Gitlin said, in part because the counterculture has been mainstreamed. Rebellion is no longer a clarion call; it's a marketing pitch.
"Where is the Frank Sinatra of today? Where is the Tony Bennett? Who represents easy-listening normality? Popular culture is now a rebel industry. There is no inside to it. It's all outside now."
Look at rap. Gangsta rappers such as Jay-Z and Rick Ross are self-professed outlaws all right, but they don't want to opt out. They want to buy in. Their aspirations are hard to distinguish from those of a hedge-fund cowboy -- luxury cars, Cristal, yachts. They are unabashed fans of success just as it is defined by the latest crop of MBAs.
"430 Lex with the convertible top," Big Tymers rap on "Still Fly," a song that also name-checks Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Prada and Gucci.
Luxury product placement in a song from the mid- or late '60s? No way. Music was ominous (Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower"), sometimes sardonic (Creedence Clearwater's "Fortunate Son") and occasionally satiric (the Beatles' "Piggies"). It reflected the gravity of the times or it looked forward to a utopian future that seemed distant but possible. There wasn't a lot of rhapsodizing about money.
If anything, the almighty dollar was scorned. So was Wall Street, at a time when it was rolling along without incident. Abbie Hoffman and 20 friends visited the New York Stock Exchange in August 1967 and gleefully tossed dollar bills from the gallery above the traders. The group was quickly tossed out of the building, but photos of the episode firmed Hoffman's reputation as the nation's greatest yippie prankster.
And now, after a $700 billion bailout? No street theater, no demonstrations. Wall Street has been bloodied and embarrassed, but on-site, public displays of rejection have yet to materialize.
"It might happen," said Steven Fraser, author of "Every Man a Speculator," a history of Wall Street's place in American culture, "because what we've seen is so bad and so serious, and its ramifications are so scary." But, he said, we're a long way from the kind of anti-Wall Street rhetoric that was particularly common after the Depression.
"It's partly a function of Americans becoming familiar with the market," Fraser said. "Half of all American families are, at least in a passive way, invested in the market. We've become accustomed to looking toward it to finance homes, vacations, college, whatever."
That wasn't true in 1968. But back then, long before the age of the mutual fund, life on the margins was surprisingly affordable. If you decided to move to a hippie hothouse such as Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, you could live decently on $100 a month. Today, without a law degree or an MBA, you can't afford the rent. And the whole firebrand lifestyle is tricky when you live in the suburbs with your mom and dad, as a record number of college graduates now do.
But what if we're just looking for dissent in the wrong places? What if there's just as much rage against the machine as ever, but it's vented in ways and in places that aren't as loud and unmissable as a street march. Web sites, for instance.
"I think the Internet has become a channel for all kinds of countercultural expression, including discontent and critique," said Miles Orvell, a professor of American studies at Temple University. "But it might have this paradoxical effect. It enlarges the conversation, but it can also produce a kind of passivity. It's like, 'I've said it and that's all I need to do.' A lot of young people seem to use the Internet as a surrogate community, and to that extent, it might diminish participation in the visible sphere."
But there are those who say that most political agitation today isn't on the Web or on campuses. The action now, according to Daniel May, who once worked for the Service Employees International Union, is all door to door. They're raising money, they're getting out the vote.
"The organizers of my generation were shaped by 1968," said May, who is working toward a master's degree from Harvard. "But one lesson is that 1968 marked the first year of 40 years of conservative rule. Why would we want to replicate that? There's a real limit to protest politics. It's politics as catharsis and that eventually leads to cynicism."
It would be a mistake, in May's estimation, to confuse the lack of effigies with a lack of passion. The kids who once marched are now trying a different approach, he said, using techniques that were dismissed by their parents as too establishment. May's mother, Elaine Tyler May, a historian at the University of Minnesota, says she used to think that the youth of today just couldn't be bothered. But she has changed her mind.
"My son tells me it's politics that's more interested in power than in protest, and on a good day, that's how I see it," she said. "I still have this impulse to go yelling in the street, but what I see my kids doing is far more effective. I think we're just old and we don't realize -- there's a groundswell of political engagement that we just don't see."
- Posted in
120 Comments so far
Show AllWhere's the fire? Ask an American Indian. We lost the hot battles years ago. We're a vanquished people.
Five incredibly courageous veterans unfoiled a banner on the balcony of the National Archives building in DC yesterday..... "Bush/Cheney War Criminals".....risking arrest. They sat there all night and as far as I know, came down and left this AM. I bow and salute these folks and ask the Gods that be to forgive the rest of us for our cowardice. Where was the media? Where were we?
It was on DemocracyNow headlines this morning www.democracynow.org Many people are busy surviving. What percentage of people were actually involved in the 1960s? It was never very big. To feel good, read Howard Zinn's "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train" 2003 edition, Boston:Beacon Press, has a super introduction;read it in the library or bookstore, if you can get to one. Or google Howard Zinn:lots of articles, videos. But "You Can't Be Neutral..." is my favorite book. His autobio.
Yeah..DN.org online. On her TV show she gave it 30 seconds. MANY more were involved in the 60's than now. I've read Zinn. What good is surviving if you are supporting a fascist state? AND, you said it exactly..."surviving". Where's the quality of life if you are working 3-4 jobs just to get by?
The Progressive March 2008 Issue
http://www.truthout.org/article/howard-zinn-election-madness
I'm not taking some ultra-left position that elections are totally insignificant, and that we should refuse to vote to preserve our moral purity. Yes, there are candidates who are somewhat better than others, and at certain times of national crisis (the Thirties, for instance, or right now) where even a slight difference between the two parties may be a matter of life and death.
I'm talking about a sense of proportion that gets lost in the election madness. Would I support one candidate against another? Yes, for two minutes-the amount of time it takes to pull the lever down in the voting booth.
But before and after those two minutes, our time, our energy, should be spent in educating, agitating, organizing our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the schools. Our objective should be to build, painstakingly, patiently but energetically, a movement that, when it reaches a certain critical mass, would shake whoever is in the White House, in Congress, into changing national policy on matters of war and social justice.
This time it might be different.
I've done my share of protesting, but recently I've gotten burnt out, feeling that it's a waste of time. No one else seemed to care -- not just the Bushies, but also my Democratic "representative" Nancy Pelosi and most of my fellow citizens.
As the article suggests, part of the difference with the 60s is the absense of the draft.
This time it might be different because the bailout hits close to home. It will affect everybody, most negatively. And it's not just left-wing nuts like me. I was impressed to hear some Republican Senators who usually make me sick saying some of the harsest things about this bailout. Right on, Senator Shelby!
This time, if we take to the streets, we might get some Republicans to join us. Maybe if we were joined by some "real people", the politicos might listen, finally.
Demonstration anyone?
“I was impressed to hear some Republican Senators who usually make me sick saying some of the harsest things about this bailout.”
Don’t you think that they are just monkeying public sentiment before proceeding to do what they are told, namely writing the blank cheque?
dfairley.
Those in power have the money and the guns; but the general population also has *their* power, and that power resides in their sheer numbers -- whether in the streets or at the ballot box.
And it's that power -- that *massive* power -- that those in power have always been afraid of. Throughout history! That is to say, that the masses will somehow get "out of control."
Even the so-called Founding Fathers feared what an aroused public might do to the political and economic status quo they so jealously protected.
But, once one gives up hope, once one become cynical and starts believing in T.I.N.A. -- that "There Is No Alternative" -- for example, that there is no alternative to the Democratic-Republican duopoly -- then one is doing exactly what those in power are hoping we will do. Give up. Conform. Accept the status quo.
That’s the ruling class' job -- to make you believe in T.I.N.A. -- to make you accept the lie that there is no alternative to the status quo and, therefore, nothing can or will be changed.
Except things are changing all the time! Look how quickly and dramatically the political consensus in the United States moved to the right. That didn't "just happen," did it?
The people in City Hall who are exploiting you love when you say: "You can’t fight City Hall." What could be more accommodating! What could be more enabling!
Those in power, in *any* oligarchic organization -- occupational, religious, governmental -- count on your cynicism, your negativity and your pessimism. ... They *count* on it! It’s their life-blood.
Because cynicism, negativity and pessimism lead to political apathy and political conformity; and masses of people who conform, masses of people who are cynical and apathetic, are easily controlled, easily manipulated and easily exploited.
As Ralph Nader puts it: "Pessimism is a function of inactivity." As such, the last thing those in power want are active, progressive-minded citizens challenging the status quo.
The ruling class in the United States, the economic elite, have been quite successful brainwashing people into believing in T.I.N.A., that "There Is No Alternative." (No doubt beyond their wildest dreams.) But don't think for a minute that the ruling class isn't scared to death of the millions of people that make up the "democratic-many." The democratic-many's *SHEER NUMBERS* dwarf the number of people who make up the economic elite.
Ironically, that the war against the poor and the middle class is being waged against *millions* of people ... by only a *handful* of oligarchs.
Is it therefore any wonder that the economic elite spend countless hours and billions of dollars trying to keep all those millions of people "under control"?
"Giving up" or wallowing in cynicism and negativity is not only unhealthy, personally as well as collectively, it's also playing into the hands of those few at the top. It's doing exactly what they hope and pray you'll do (religious as many of them are).
Americans, as a rule, are extremely cynical when it comes to political change. And there’s no reason for that. Lech Walesa and his comrades created a revolution in Poland -- peacefully, and with absolutely no democratic tools at their disposal. None. No free elections, no open courts, no access to media, no Bill of Rights, no history of free speech and freedom of assembly. Yet they brought the Soviet Union to its knees.
History is filled with similar examples. What democratic tools did Gandhi have at his disposal? India was a colony. What democratic mechanisms could he and his supporters utilize? ... Yet, they were victorious. ... Why? Because the people who were with Gandhi were cynical and pessimistic? Because they lamely said: "Hey, we suffered a setback, so now let's all go back home and give up." ... Of course not.
Ask the people in Venezuela who they would rather have in charge of their country, John McCain or Barack Obama, on the one hand, or, rather, Hugo Chavez.
Ask the people in Bolivia who they would rather have in charge of their country, John McCain or Barack Obama, on the one hand, or, rather, Evo Morales.
How likely is it that Chavez and Morales would have come to power if the people of those countries were pessimistic about installing a progressive leader?
Answer: not likely at all.
Yes, the political system in the United States has been corrupted. So what should we do, allow that to continue? Is that a done-deal? ... Of course not.
Cynicism and negativity give a great deal of comfort and satisfaction to the oligarchic-few. Cynicism and negativity are exactly what they hope for. THE CYNICISM AND NEGATIVITY OF THE GENERAL POPULATION ARE THE LIFEBLOOD OF THE OLIGARCHIC FEW -- THEY CANNOT SURVIVE WITHOUT IT!
Consciously aor unconsciously, those in power are *ecstatic* over the fact that Americans, for the most part, "give up" so easily. ... But there's nothing inevitable about that. ... All that's required is a change of attitude.
Look through this very thread and count the number of posters who have cynically "given up" -- who have nothing but negative things to say about the American public --who are convinced that all is lost -- who are profoundly pessimistic about the possibility of meaningful change.
Every time I hear a cynical remark or read a cynical post, I hear in the background those in power whispering, "Mission Accomplished!"
Opal
wsws, that was an excellent comment. cynicism and apathy guarantee that nothing will change.
It's been 40 plus years since the much ridiculed 1960's. This is the 40th anniversary of the disastrous election of Richard Deathhouse Nixon which began the suicidal slide of the United States out of the status of a nation with the possibility of greatness and into the reality not of a nation but of a Scam, a giant Flim Flam crawling on its belly toward the gutter. Young people have grown up in the cold, dark shadow of the avuncular well poisoner Reagan and have drunk deeply from that well, now owned by George Wanker Bush and Cheesedick Cheney. The water they drank apparently bleached the gall out of them. Plus, there's no draft. We grew up with Ike. You may not have liked Ike (or your parents didn't) at the time but can you name a current Repimplican (beside Ron Paul) who would leave office warning about the MIC?
On March 21, 2003, I joined 10,000 in the Chicago area who marched down Lake Shore Drive and Michigan Ave in protest of the Illegal Invasion of Iraq. Despite the peaceful nature of the demonstration, for my efforts I was unreachable by my family for more than 30 hours while I was detained by the Chicago Police without charge.
Having missed a day of work without notification, my supervisor threatened to fire me were it not for the fact that his adult son, whom I've never met, was also detained at the same event.
Our Class Action Lawsuit for unlawful detention goes before a judge in January 2009.
These consequences keep ordinary law-abiding folk from participating in peaceful protests. My wife insists that I not join any such event until out Constitutional Rights have been demonstrably reaffirmed . . . by someone else.
Don't feel alone, storky. I was thrown into jail for three days by the LAPD during the 2000 DNC, one of 73 arbitrarily arrested to clear the streets.
There were two undercover sheriffs among the protesters.
The police presence on that day was overwhelming. Probably about half the people on the streets were police, clad in black riot gear with truncheons, not unlike what was seen at the recent RNC in the Twin Cities.
Yes, it was a peaceful protest.
People should join protests, when they can, but you are right to point out that employers are rather harsh taskmasters. People are scrambling. They have family matters to attend. When they take the time to protest, they are treated like criminals by militarized law enforcement. Plus, the press never even bother to show up. Elected officials ignore you if you protest; they ignore you if you write or call them.
-TIA
I predicted to my friends about twenty years ago that it would be the children of that time and those born after who would transform this world after our generations nearly destroyed it.
The world as we've known it no longer exists, and for those of us who grew up without electricity or indoor plumbing; knew families who's only means of transportation was a wagon and team of horses; our entertainment a Saturday movie matinee and the family gathered around the radio after dinner each night to listen to The Green Hornet; The Shadow; and other shows; this new world we live in is hard to contemplate, and we long for that great leader who'll lead us back to sanity, while in our hearts we know that isn't going to happen.
A little child shall lead them.
PROTESTS ARE NOT OUTMODED!
It's NOT about protesting per se. Protests are meant to be shots across the bow of government. It's the people telling the government to take notice or face more serious consequences.
The problem is that the masses - when they can be bothered! - won't do anything more than protest, and then only occasionally, and hence they've made protesting irrelevant.
In other countries, protests are more frequent and more serious affairs, backed up with further action. In the U.S. and Britain, protests are backed up with nothing - politicians know this, and so ignore them.
Bush got voted back in 2004. Americans could have voted en masse and kicked him out - they didn't! Why should politicians take Americans seriously when Americans can't even take themselves seriously.
My God, do Americans have to stick their head in the sand yet again, refusing to look at other countries where protests do get taken seriously and can be effective.
AMERICANS AND THE BRITISH ARE BECOMING PATHETIC IN THE EXTREME!
I saw Michael Moore's new film "Slacker Uprising" online, free yesterday. It's free for 3 weeks, can download. It's about his 62 city/college tour in 2004 to get people to register and vote. I liked the movie. www.michaelmoore.com www.slackeruprising.com
Why would "the masses" rally behind people that think as poorly as them as you do?
I'm not saying you're wrong. In fact, I'd go further, I'd say they ARE "pathetic in the extreme" not just "becoming" that way.
But still, the point holds. At protests -and in other venues- we call on the People to challenge themselves, to hold abstract ideas like Rights and Justice as more important than their bodily comfort and security. We then expose and condemn the greedy and fascist actions of their Leaders, the same people that are constantly assuring them that every thing is o.k., that they need not be challenged, and that others will keep them safe and they can forget about anything else.
A certain kind of person would automatically side with us, face their fears, and fight the good fight.
Another kind of person would automatically side with the Leaders, hide from their fears, and return to slavery and sleep.
A third kind of person would only reluctantly go either way, as they are confused, not into inaction per se, but into delayed action.
I believe it is time that we -the Awake and Aware- face the fact that as it stands now the "American" People are -in vast majority- the second and third types of persons that I have listed.
If one wants to stay hopeful -as I do- then one can choose to believe that there are more -perhaps far more- of the third type in the U.S. than the second. But to fool oneself into thinking that there are more than a scattered handful of the first would be ridiculous and harmful to the Cause. Hell, right now I'd almost put MYSELF into category three.
Whatever aging boomers want to think, the "Social Revolution" of the '60s has been defeated, co-opted, repackaged, and sold by the great maw of the System.
The "Counter-Revolution" of that time has mutated under "hothouse-like" evolutionary adaptive pressure into a full-fledged Rightist, perhaps even Fascist or Authoritarian Revolution.
The Left are now the "Reactionaries". Want proof? Scan the headlines on this and many other websites every day. A catalogue of "what they are doing", analytical reflection on "what what they are doing means", laments that we can't seem to stop "what they are doing", and sad little rallying calls for actions like "protests" and "electing a Democrat" that only the most wildly optimistic person would believe can really change "what they are doing".
Face it Oldtimers. Buck up Young Ones.
That tributary Stream that we took 40 years ago has led us astray, now we must either cut over land or paddle against the current to find our way back to the River.
Unless the wind is with us (and our sails are up) it will be hard work indeed.
Have Fun,
-matti.
BINGO!!!!...................lizard
Yep. The protest in the 1960s were just about LSD and the draft.
Now, lets roll back the 18 year old vote, teh Voting Rights Act, re-instate the draft, etc.
Do you think that you might notice a change??
That all occurred during the 60s. Too bad we still cant get then to pass the ERA.
I've seen lots of protests. It depends where you look: the corporate media doesn't cover it very much, but it is there. I haven't liked the local protests where I live as they are poorly run, that's all.
There are two kinds of media, separated by publisher-driven content and listener-reader-driven content. Almost all the publisher-driven venues have been bought by arch-conservative friends of tyrants and political crooks.
Our local near-monopoly newspaper deliberately censors left-leaning letters. Once I mailed a letter in August before a November election. They waited until 2 weeks after the November election, then changed the language of my letter from "I would" to "I would have", past tense, to refer to the election. I got the message. Protests aren't covered, and letters to the editor don't count if the editor doesn't think the same way.
Our local college station is listener-driven. They play Green Day and System of a Down because listeners call up. However, these alt-rock groups don't have the latest news in their songs, and the station's news department is usually rip-and-read from the Associated Press.
You ask why people don't protest. It's because protests don't get past the conservative media clampdown.
Why don't people protest? Maybe it's a pointless endeavor.
1) Our "representatives" don't listen to us, they listen to their corporate campaign financiers.
2) The police state has successfully intimidated people into not protesting, through preemptive arrests (Denver), photographing them and compiling dossiers on them, and no-fly lists.
3) There is no real choice in politics. One can vote for evil figurehead #1 or evil figurehead #2. So what's the point in protesting on behalf of one officially sanctioned party or the other?
Dave
http://daveeriqat.wordpress.com/
The preemptive arrests were in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Denver just saw the brutalization of protesters.
q
Correct you are: Minneapolis.
Dave
http://daveeriqat.wordpress.com/
This may be true for armchair activists but when people get angry their protest is not a pointless endeavour, it is a destructive act of revenge..The ownwers will not change for you, they will change only if they think they or their money are in danger. After they have put a large part of the population in prison and still feel unsafe, they will give in. Not before that...lizard
The final nail in the protesting coffin was hammered down in 2003, when the 2 largest worldwide protests in history failed to have any effect whatsoever. If ten million-plus in the streets is meaningless, then what's the point?
Then there's the "conspiracy to riot," the militarized robo-police, the infiltrators from the FBI, CIA, Military Intel, the continued illegal phone-tapping and e-mail reading by the NSA and other agencies, and - most importantly - a government which has already killed and maimed millions of innocents in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Pakistan without blinking (not to mention 5000 American troops dead and tens of thousands wounded both physically and mentally,) that brags about torturing humans, and proudly declares it's unchecked power to lock up whomever they want without charge indefinitely.
This ain't the 60s, baby, and it ain't about the draft - it's about fear of the most ruthless government in our history.
"This ain't the 60s, baby, and it ain't about the draft - it's about fear of the most ruthless government in our history."
Really? Then why did the people allow Bush to be re-elected in 2004? Why are the people still supporting a two-party system? It's not about fear of the government - it's about selfishness and a lack of seriousness!
The people allowed Bush to steal another election in 2004 because this ain't the 60s, baby. Your government is far more dangerous than it was in the 60s, which was plenty, but it was all potential, largely unrealized and largely under wraps. Of course, it's also about selfishness and lack of seriousness, but fear is running this show, and you better believe it. We may have been crazy reckless in the 60s - and many of us were - but because the fascist cat wasn't yet out of the bag. I watched the Chicago 10 film recently and was struck that that's what the youth revolution accomplished, first and foremost: it revealed and exposed the fascist underbelly of our republic. Despite everything we were told, it was finally about dominance, not about equality and cultural integrity. Many people are struggling very legitimately with how to be effective in this context. Our survival is on the line. If there were simple answers, we'd be there. Street theater is great, but seems not just limited, but almost trivial in these times. We're scared, fragmented and overwhelmed. We need to start finding our common humanity and developing the skills to survive and help others. Most importantly, we need to connect with each other and engage in creating an alternative reality to survive the disintegration of the prevailing one.
CORPORATIONS HAVE WON!
Take this site. CommonDreams hid the comment section because thousands of readers, apparently, complained that our comments were an embarrassment. There's no unity anymore, no one is serious, people just want to be entertained or to be successful or to be happy without regard to other people's happiness - CommonDreams is merely entertainment to many.
IT'S OVER! THE CORPORATIONS HAVE WON!
Take care of yourself now, because things will only get worse, and no one will do anything about it.
The American and British people are worthless.
If there is all this hidden anger, as the article suggests at the end, everyone would be voting in a third party out of frustration, not still supporting a two-party system.
CD does have a corporate feel to it, doesn't it? I noticed this months ago and moved it from my "alternative" category to my "mainstream" category. It would be interesting to see where CD's funding really comes from.
Dave
http://daveeriqat.wordpress.com/
There are many reasons that protesting is at an all time low when it should be at an all time high.
1) The Average American does not know the truth about the corruption and deceit that plagues our Government.
2) Americans are so busy with making ends meet.
3) Protests have proven to be useless at achieving change.
4) Unconstitutional tactics of our Police State.
The Government has successfully created enough fear of not only the "EVIL" outside of our country, but also of the actions taken against those who do choose to stand up.
‘Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until they have rebelled they cannot become conscious’
--George Orwell
You left out the fact that the so-called and self-appointed leaders of movements like the 'anti-war movement' are making exactly the same mistake they made in 2004.
Instead of mounting big protests, they are making themselves a part of the Obama campaign. Apparently ignoring the fact that Obama is just as pro-war as McCain. Maybe worse.
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"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
I'm going to have to shout my agreement:
YOU ARE EXACTLY RIGHT!
Sorry about that.
To flesh out the mistake the "anti-war" non-movement is making yet again:
It is not just that they are a part of the Obama campaign, which would be bad enough, it is also that they joined him all the way back in the primaries! A few hung onto Kucinich for a while but Hillary was enough to send them running for Obama's warm comforting embrace.
These "movement leaders" haven't even ATTEMPTED to steer Obama toward their positions! Just total, out front capitulation. The only excuse that many of the common People can seem to come up for this craven behavior is the tired "elect first, then push him our way" line. A concept that I don't think anyone needs to be told -but I'll tell you anyway- is not just pie-in-the-sky silly and unrealistic, but is actually full-on Anti-Democratic!
BTW I understand the many more "strategic" motivations for voting Obama. I myself wouldn't mind the presumed strong Dem Majorities in the Congress getting backed up by a Dem President -if only so the "its the Republicans fault" excuse can finally end after at least 15 years of use.
So please, no angry at me O.K.? But stop it with the "elect first" crap, its bizarre, its scary, and its annoying. The way to get a politician on your side is to say "you won't have my vote unless" not "you have my vote no matter what, but please, please do what I want".
Have Fun,
-matti.
"The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim—for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives—is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal...For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High...Of the three groups, only the Low are never even temporarily successful in achieving their aims."
--George Orwell
The protest is here. On Commondreams, and a thousand other sites, and on individual blogs. I wrote an article on this subject a year ago titled "Blogs are dangerous for Democracy"
http://bananatreehotel.com/ramsay/blogs-are-dangerous-for-democracy/
It probably should be called "Fighting the revolution in your pajamas." Enjoy.
I agree with much of what you say in your blog post, but I think it's incorrect to criticize blogs as "dangerous for democracy." I think they perform an invaluable service as messengers and disseminators of information and insight. Unfortunately, that's all we have to work with today. Physical protests are ineffectual and dangerous to one's person and finances. In any case, blogs certainly seem more constructive than fleeing to another country, which I have contemplated doing myself.
Dave
http://daveeriqat.wordpress.com/
Physical protests are ineffectual (bullshit) and dangerous to one's person and finances...................see? That's why we aren't the ones who will create change. That will be left to the people with NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE!!!!lizard
Can you cite an example of a recent protest that produced any positive results?
Dave
http://daveeriqat.wordpress.com/
I haven't seen any violent protests recently. There are some american orchestrated ones that produced the Ukranian and Georgian governments but they were not violent.The violence has been by governments, not protestors, as in the anti-georgian government protests.........lizard
Oh great! A protest where people talk to other people who think their way. Peachy! That's really going to make a difference! Nothing could make the owners happier than to read your post. It won't be you and it won't be me, but somebody is going to break windows and set things on fire before anything changes.
Unfortunately, revolutionary changes come easiest from the anger of people with nothing left to lose. You and I are not those people, but we will benefit from their actions....................lizard
Yeah, I think there's a story to that.
As with most things, there's a balance to be found. Blogs are great for the info wars, but I think that's part of the reason MoveOn is pretty ineffective, and at worst does more harm than good: e-mail petitions make people think they're doing SOMETHING, viral videos make people think they're doing SOMETHING, and the culture of solidarity is lost. The culture of showing up is lost. The computer paper petition with 40,000 e-mail address signatures is just thrown out.
I think that's part of what internet is BAD for- you see it on CommonDreams all the time- people with very very similar viewpoints lose track of points of solidarity and end up disagreeing over very small points. God knows I've been guilty of that. But at least I try to find points of agreement, many posters just project some preconceived notion onto others and attack straw-men.
Another thing that's bad about blogging culture is that people lose track of real world results. There's a whole lot of laptop revolutionaries who don't get that the lives of actual human beings are effected by who is in power. As Chomsky said, "despite the limited differences [between Bush and Kerry, but he could have been talking about McCain and Obama] both domestically and internationally, there are differences. In a system of immense power, small differences can translate into large outcomes."
Too late for a tax revolt.
Why?
Anti-War Protests are SO 60's thats why....
"The protest is here. On Commondreams, and a thousand other sites..."
actually my friend, you may be onto something there...perhaps if they had internet in the 60's it would have been like today
WRONG! The 60's was about young people being drafted and not wanting to go to war. Nothing concentrates the mind better than knowing you will be executed in a fortnight............The people don't care unless it affects them DIRECTLY......lizard
storky, best wishes to you and the others who are fighting everyday to keep a semblance of democracy. Your efforts are not in vain!
Its about waking people up out of the MSM stupor! lets sound the siren, people!
Its because the right-wingers got the upper hand again. Remember in 1999-2000, the beginning of 2001? protests in prague, in genova, in Quebec city. Then the terrorist attacks of 2001. Thats when protests died. Because they turned the population against these kinds of protests, reducing their effectiveness. Police planting provocateurs in protests so that the media can have pictures of people throwing rocks at each big protests. That kind of black op thing.
Take pakistan now, whos got a major terrorist attack in a big city just after the pakistani military were starting to open fire on americans trying to cross the border. Isnt that a practical coincidence. I think im starting to see a pattern here.
Im guilty myself of staying more at home and waiting for it to get so bad that people will wake up, by then maybe its going to be too late. I think i hear someone knocking at my door.
The right wingers got the upper hand because the people are right wing. Live with that...............................the problem is the people...........They need to suffer more before they will begin to use their minds and pitchforks..............lizard
The Left is completely divided among itself. We have lost the concept of "solidarity" which does not mean "only with people who you deem 100% agreeable".
The 2 largest anti-war groups in the country are the A.N.S.W.E.R. "Coalition" and "United" for Peace and Justice. They won't even sit down to have a meeting with one another because of petty disagreements.
When I voted for Nader in 1996 and 2000, I did so because he explained again and again and again why he was running: to build a 3rd party, namely the Green Party. This election, Nader is running AGAINST the Green Party, splitting the radical vote and insuring that neither he nor the Greens will make a dent. Why did he leave the Greens? "Infighting" in that party, ironically enough.
Then you come to sites like CommonDreams, and the most virulent, angry attacks are reserved for fellow progressives. Half the posters seem like they just scroll around looking for someone who dares point out that Obama is better than McCain, so they can call them a fascist and prove their "more radical than thou" cred. It's not productive.
Even in the articles, critiques against Democrats are much, much more bitter and angry and frequent than the critiques of the Republicans. I'm as frustrated and angry with the spineless and complicit Democrats as anyone, but the fact is that half of the voting population simply does not take it for granted (as we do) that the Republicans are worse, and more activist energy should be leveled at the Republicans.
OK, you replace Republicans with Democrats that are just as bad. BTW, I notice that you do the same thing most Democrats do, which is that you blindly assert that Obama is better than McCain, and you imply the Democrats are better than the Republicans. But I am struck at how the Democrats never back that up with any details.
So, is the candidate that Wall St has bribed with $20 million better than the candidate they've bribed with $18 million? Do you really expect anything different if you elect the guy with $20 million of Wall St money in his accounts?
Here is why its so important to concentrate on the Democrats. We know the Republicans are going to represent the rich and corporations. In any democratic system, there is always a party that represents the rich and big business. In America, that's the Republicans.
The Democrats used to offer an alternative. The Democrats used to represent farmers and labor and consumers and people who didn't want every natural resource raped and pillaged from the earth for profit. Once upon a time, the Democrats represented these people and thus provided a counter-balance and an opposition to the Republicans. Even when the Republicans had the upper hand, there were limits on what they could do because there was an opposition.
But that changed sometime around the late 80's or the early 90's. The Democrats saw all the money the Republicans had, and decided they wanted it to. So, the Democrats changed the way they campaign away from the sorts of grassroots campaigns based on volunteers to the same big fundraising - negative TV ads type of campaigns the Republicans were running.
Of course, to get the big money to flow to the Democrats, the Democrats had to promise to do what the people with big money wanted.
You are wrong when you call the Democrats 'spineless'. They are not. There is this constant myth that they 'fold', 'collapse', 'retreat' in the face of the Republicans. They do not. Instead, they are on the same side backed by the same big money and serving the same interests of the people with big money. Any token opposition they appear to provide is just political theater to pretend to be an opposition. That's because they still have to con their base into voting for them, even while just in the last week they are pushing big oil's plans to drill anywhere they want. And in the process overturning the restrictions on drilling that activists and the old Democrats had put into place.
We can't fix the Republicans. We can't change the Republicans. But, we do need an opposition. There's only two alternatives there. Either change the Democratic party, or start a new one. People have been trying to change the Democrats form within since 96 when Clinton disgusted everyone by running on his right-wing agenda. (NAFTA, WTO, Welfare Reform, Telecom reform, etc).
How's that working so far?
To me, if anything everything has continued to go backwards. Which to me says its time to get serious about doing something different. That means leaving the Democrats and building our own party. But you simply can't do that by voting for right-wing, pro-war, pro-corporate Democrats in election after election.
Right now, the Democrats are the problem. We need an opposition party, and the Democrats are not doing the job. If we continue to support Democrats, we are just all screwed because we end up with a government composed of Republicans and Democrats who are really Republicans. We end up with a government where there is no opposition.
Quick, name for me 10 items where this Democratic Congress has stood up to the Republicans and stopped them?
War in Iraq? No
Impeachment for criminal activities? No
Convictions of lower officials for criminal actiivities? No
Reversing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy? No
Maintain the restrictions on offshore drilling that we fought hard to win? No
Repeal of the Patriot Act? No
Stopping expansions of government spying on Americans? No
Making telecom corporations liable for their illegal actions in spying on Americans? No
And that's the short list I typed up without any research. There's got to be a much longer list.
The Democrats are the key. We must have an opposition party. And voting Democrat is obviously not the answer. Especially when we are told to do so just on the vague and unsupported notion that somehow the Democrats are 'better'.
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"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
Sampson-
I see you're from Denver; I'm from Boulder.
I'm not a Democrat. I'm not saying that the Democrats are great. And I see your point about building an opposition party. I'd draw a distinction between pressuring the Democrats and educating fellow citizens about Leftist perspectives.
The fact is that in your post you show that you do in fact understand that the Dems are "not as bad". However you want me to say it so that you get that I am "radical enough" ... I'll call them "slightly less evil" or "minutely less deserving of the death penalty" --- And you also show understanding that my use of "spineless" is correct- (you ignored my use of the word "complicit" and argued a point as if I'd not used it). You've asked when they "stood up to the Republicans and stopped them" ... yeah, that's pretty much exactly what I mean by "spineless."
That's EXACTLY what I'm talking about. Anybody who does not call Obama the AntiChrist will see everything they say turned into a straw-man. I'm quite comfortable with my Lefty credentials. I've earned the right to offer constructive criticism to the Left. My suggestion is to attack the Republicans harder.
But I will say again- activist work is about EDUCATING FELLOW CITIZENS, and half of the voting population does not take it for granted that Republicans are bad, and does not take it for granted that the Republicans are the party that works for the wealthy. In fact, "grassroots" working class Republicans think the exact opposite- that the Republicans are the populists. The Left absolutely ignores these people or just insults them. And we end up doing the bidding of the Republican party.
The point I'm making is very simple- most Americans do not understand the perspective of the Left. Leftist arguments should always, always, always include critiques of Republicans, otherwise the broader message is lost.
Do people here really, honestly not know of any issues where the Democrats are better than the Republicans? Abortion? Some of us who've spent time working at non-profits KNOW there is a difference. The youth shelter that I worked at for 5 years after graduating had its funding yanked by the Republican governorship in Denver. Instead, they used the money to open up a jail for kids. That's a difference, that's the kind of thing that activists outside of coffee-shops notice.
DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A KOOL-AID-DRINKING OBAMAMANIAC, I JUST THINK MCCAIN WOULD BE A DISASTER AND THAT OBAMA CAN BE INFLUENCED BY PUBLIC PRESSURE.
CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS: Obama plans to reinstate Habeas Corpus. He was a cosponsor of an amendment to reinstate it. He supports trial rights for "enemy combatants" in Guantanamo Bay .
John McCain does not plan to reinstate Habeas Corpus, and voted against that amendment. He called the Supreme court ruling granting trial rights to "enemy combatants "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country" .
Obama voted against the Military Commissions Act, which John McCain not only voted for, but almost singlehandedly spearheaded. This piece of legislation also relates to the torture issue.
DIPLOMACY: Obama has repeatedly stated his willingness to negotiate with "official enemies" and was attacked by both Democrats and Republicans.
John McCain frequently attacks Obama on this issue, and retains the Bush doctrine: Once they've already done what we want, then we'll negotiate.
MILITARIZATION OF SPACE: Obama wants to cut missile defense and "weaponization of space" program budgets.
McCain wants to increase missile defense and "weaponization of space" program budgets.
TAXATION: According to Harper's Index, Obama would let Bush's cuts expire, and then raise the tax rate on the highest income earners by 9%. McCain keep Bush's cuts and would decrease that tax rate by another 21%