A few weeks ago we were with a group of friends. We somehow got into singing songs from our different countries and backgrounds for each other. Most songs were not political. I sang the song "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Round", which nobody else had ever heard. My favorite line from that song was always: "Ain't gonna let no City Commissioner turn me round." Everybody laughed at the irony of the line - where the determination of the Civil Rights movement meets the bureaucrat.
Naomi Wolf is right. We have been outFoxed. Now all of our protests are neutered by being confined, boxed in, separated. You could be one block away in New York and never see a large protest. Then the news fails to report it and Voila! it never happened.
We should put mass peaceful civil disobedience back on the menu for consideration when we plan to protest.
Joe
Posted by raydelcamino
Mar 4 2009 - 12:47pm
Obama is working for the corporations that gave him millions of dollars, not the millions of citizens that each gave him chump change.
You will not see any real change from Obama until all of those citizens who showed up for the inauguration return to DC and set up unpermitted camps in front of the US Capitol Building and White House and refuse to leave until change is evident.
Posted by hdune
Mar 3 2009 - 3:12pm
She's right. I remember going on pre-invasion protests in 2003 and the entire route of the march was on a closed road. It felt more like a parade.
Posted by ThomasJefferson...
Mar 4 2009 - 5:55am
Mrs Wolf is right.
I marched in 2003 and they only gave us a permit to march on the weekend when congress was out of town and the approved route was far from congressional offices.
Clearly a violation of the first amendment "shall make no law."
SHALL MAKE NO LAW
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
This Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land.
This abridging peaceable assembly chit on Monday through Friday is an direct violation of the Supreme Law of the land.
Therefore, I submit that:
No law that is passed is valid if it undermines the Supreme Law of the Land. We should ignore this law, join hands with the gun nuts and red stated hillbillies (who are pissed right now about permits up the azz and being fingerprinted for owning a gun: loss of the second amendment.) and descend on Washington in mass choking access to all roads for about a month.
We will leave when the federal government is neutered and the bill of rights is put back in it's place where it belongs.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Posted by zmann
Mar 4 2009 - 12:38pm
Was it a federal law then, passed by Congress, or a DC municipal law? And if any of you are lawyers, it would be good to challenge this.
Posted by conscience
Mar 3 2009 - 3:27pm
Naomi Wolf is more than right.
This would be the time to overturn many of these rulings.
I think we also need some different ideas about protests --
how and where. Marches on Washington continue to exceed prior
numbers and I was there when a half million women moved thru
that city like a silk scarf. So many that even by 7 o'clock in
the evening, not all the marchers had yet passed the White House.
Yes, the march was tremendous downplayed by the Reich news.
However, not a legislator nor a Supreme Court Justice was at their
desk nor in their offices. No city dweller doing their every day
activities came in contact with the marchers. IMO, we have to take
the protests to the corporations, to Reich news -- and into the
pathways of other citizens.
We are still fighting fascism in the form of patriarchy and
organized patriarchal religion and their economic scheme of
capitalism/corporatism. While, at the same time, trying to
deal with Global Warming and pollution those systems have
inflicted upon us.
Corporations can't force us, however, to use their services nor
buy their products. Nor do we have to watch the Reich press or
read their newspapers.
Good luck to all of us --- we have a planet to save!
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
Posted by PJD
Mar 4 2009 - 1:09am
Agreed - the permitted, and worse, weekend marches in DC are useless. I likewise was in in the big ANSWER and UFPJ events - then I went to the Cindy Sheehan/Rev. Yeargwood Impeachment march to Conyers Office - all 300 of us. It had to be on a weekday so the congresspersons were in their offices, but the presence of all the federal workers gave this small march much ore visibility than the huge ones that go past empty office windows.
The problem is, in the uniquely oppressive work environment in the US that gets called an "ethic", far too many people seem to be cowed about even taking a day off from work for such activity, or don't get paid leave and can't afford to take off from work for such activities (heck-they are afraid to even take off from work when they are sick with the flu)
---USAn---
Posted by gregsdiary
Mar 3 2009 - 3:49pm
"...peaceful civil disobedience to disrupt business as usual."
That nails it.
Healthy democracy is disruptive--people should not only bring it back but welcome it.
Posted by fusion
Mar 3 2009 - 3:55pm
Conscince...
Points well made...
Still,
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
Yes; but the male has an essential role, no?
[smile]
The main point is, it needs all of us
Fusion
Posted by disarm
Mar 3 2009 - 4:08pm
I agree with Naomi Wolf. Marching in permitted marches, holding signs in "free speech areas" is part of the false opposition...part of the opposition that the govenment needs to hold up the claim that they allow opposition.
For real opposition to this domination system, we need to do some sort of imaginative action that risks arrest. We need to not be afraid of disrupting business as usual --whether we're at the Pentagon, the White House, the arms manufacturers or on the streets.
Posted by Egalitare
Mar 3 2009 - 7:41pm
Yeah, it's not like "business as usual" is really working for the vast majority of us.
Most of our very passive fellow citizens have been operating under the false assumption that the "money changers" really do have our best interests at heart. Serious change has never been made with the blessings of the monied and powerful.
Posted by dvoconnor
Mar 3 2009 - 4:08pm
I disagree. I might agree with marchers' sentiment, but I'm pissed if they cause a traffic jam that keeps me on the highway all night on my way home from my crappy job. The most effective protest against the billionaires that own and control everything is for everybody all at once to a) turn off their TVs, radios, and Internet for a full month, and b) only spend money in locally owned businesses.
Posted by Red Rick
Mar 3 2009 - 6:03pm
Might I urge you to listen to the entire transcript of Ms. Wolf's eloquent words...I believe you missed something of great import.
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
Posted by fusion
Mar 3 2009 - 4:08pm
Would like to see discussion of selective boycott and focused general strikes as pressure...
Posted by webwalk
Mar 3 2009 - 5:09pm
dvoconnor wrote:
"The most effective protest against the billionaires that own and control everything is for everybody all at once to a) turn off their TVs, radios, and Internet for a full month, and b) only spend money in locally owned businesses."
dvoconnor is talking about an ideal - Naomi Wolf is talking about her research into WHAT WORKS to turn a country away from dictatorship - mass street protest.
Is there an example of this "most effective protest"? Most of us will NOT turn off the TV or stop buying from corporate retailers. How do we get to where people do what you are talking about?
You, and plenty of other drivers, don't want to be inconvenienced going home from a crappy job, or from a good job - but all these people will suddenly agree to massively upturn their daily habits and boycott corporate media and stores?
And if we DO all stop buying crap at the same time, this will disrupt lots of lives and jobs. Will they be upset at the "inconvenience"?
i don't watch television. i spend time at Common Dreams and on e-mail. i try to buy nothing i don't need, and support local businesses. Personal action is important. But how do we organize a boycott, general strike, or street protest?
i don't have any grand answer, and i think boycotts and general strikes are good mass actions to try to organize, but i'm not going to agree that street actions are bad because they inconvenience people. i support all creative nonviolent organizing to disrupt business as usual.
Posted by raydelcamino
Mar 3 2009 - 9:27pm
Start by boycotting digital TV.
When analog TV disappears in June my TV will go blank.
I will not buy a box or subscribe to cable or satellite.
Posted by wantrealdemocracy
Mar 3 2009 - 5:10pm
Yes!! We have to stop business as usual. I'm tired of taking my cardboard sign on a nice walk on a Saturday or Sunday on a route permitted by the police. Staging a real protest march might get dvoconner "pissed' but maybe when he gets canned from that 'crappy job' he might wise up to the shit we are all in.
It's about democracy folks, shall our government act in the interests of all the people? Well, got news for you---it don't. You got a friend who wants to go over the current $25,000.00 we are all in debt for to pay for the wars and the bankster's gamboling bills? Do you know anyone but a bought and paid for Congress Rep or an executive of a pharmaceudical company or an insurance company who is not in favor of Single Payer Health Care (one plan for ALL OF US)?
If we had a real democracy the non approved protest marches would not be needed. But such marches of masses of the people of this nation are needed and pretty damn quick. We are coming up to the anniversary of 'Shock and Awe'. Want the endless wars to end? Want our tax funds to be used for our domestic programs? Ready to say, "THE HELL WITH THE EMPIRE! WE GOTTA TAKE CARE OF OURSELVES!"?
Posted by zorex
Mar 3 2009 - 5:34pm
No more permitted "marchturbating" for me.
To effectively protest without permits has its perils. But remember, it was the brave souls once meeting this challenge who ended up founding our country, and came to be known as "our troops."
Posted by Red Rick
Mar 3 2009 - 6:06pm
The emasculation of the protest movement has taken many forms. I thank Ms. Wolf for so eloquently enumerating this one. I would certainly love to see an in depth discussion of this very important issue.
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
Posted by chuk-it-levi-strauss
Mar 3 2009 - 7:43pm
Wolf argues laws make it illegal to protest, but she also implies illegal protest is what makes change.And, so ultimately, what I think Wolf is saying is that nothing happens unless you seize power, and by design, a protest where you shut down traffic is seizing power by arresting other individual citizen's Constitutional Right to Travel. That happened in the "1st Gulf War" in the early 1990s. Protests spilled into the streets and highway, shutting down traffic. I don't remember that happening this time around. Well, there was the recent attempt at a blockade of MIL ships using city ports to transport troops.
By the way, “Free Speech Zones” were around during the 60s and 70s. Many of the same definitions of laws used today were around in the 60s and 70s. Laws used as a way to isolate protest may just be used more prolifically and are more effectively implemented today.
And, today, you have professional community organizers preparing protests for people to come together for a picnic and sing along and then you donate money to organization x,y, and g –creating a market. It is like a bureaucracy that reinforces a status quo message; unwittingly reinforces a larger WASP/Ivy League/Puritanical/Northern European elite opinion of protest. Ice cream socials ta’boot. And then it's a system for politicians to exploit as they show up to pander their re-election or election or secure funds and mobs to rally around their name….
What else is different from 60s and 70s than today? Is there a comfort level among the protestor? Do people flock to assigned national voices and action groups to get their prompts? I mean, did you see how quickly the Tom Hayden types tried to convince “society” (aka antiwar, anti-empire “protestors”) to throw down their fabricated protest signs, and jump onboard with Barack Obama? They quickly allocated power for the rhetoric of a political campaign because, what, it reinforced certain social ideals? You protest because you want action. Ideals illuminated in a beautiful oratory are not action.
There was a willful decision to gloss over Obama’s contradictions in his rhetoric. Willful, I mean to say, the use of critical thought in regard to Obama was used to defend his rhetoric and reinforce the ideals he pandered to certain soft brained antiwar leaders. And Dennis Kucinich, spun around and empathically supported Obama. Perhaps this time people approved because they told themselve he was better than Kerry –or at least the booing wasn’t as loud.
Such softened focus on Obama was partly an overt effort to push Clinton out of the way (Dynasty anyone?), but also because people are willing to rapidly concede power for an ideal even if it turns out to be dynastic or monarchist in design. Actually, the Tom Hayden types threatened to re-ignite the “protest” if the DNC Convention “kept” Obama (and fallaciously believed, “the people”) from winning the nomination –that was amazing example of Hayden’s declaration of power! All for very little short-term gains of believing we have a voice in the White House. Such fools as these pave no path to a new frontier.
The protestation of the left effectively materialized in Obama’s ascent upon the hill. But you see, everyone was hustled for being too quick to cash in their chips on the big dream, the big promise, and the big idea that there was some ear for the people in the Oval Office. You see, the primary reason Obama’s political career shows such quick ascension is because he effectively dismantled the image of protest. If he is anything, he is post-protest and everybody is encouraged to participate in your new form of government.Time to sign up., Peace Corps, Americorps, Voice Corps, and Army Corps and Marine Corps now that we've put our country's newly minted protest to action! (snark)
"Come on people now.... Everybody get together try to love one another right now.“ what..ever.
Posted by chuk-it-levi-strauss
Mar 3 2009 - 8:15pm
"Well, there was the recent attempt at a blockade of MIL ships using city ports to transport troops...."
That was just regular citizen activism (more toward college students), but you know, last year some 10k ILWU stopped work and protested the Iraq War on May 1 2008. 10,000 participated. If a MIL ship docked at a West Coast city port, and if the crane operators from the ILWU refused to help, how much hassle would that kind of protest cause? How quickly -politically speaking-- would the DOD (aka the President) -- override a union protest? Would that reverberate through society? What would happen?
You see, there are examples of recent use of political power outside of the more acceptable, standardized, milquetoast, antiwar champagne brunches
Posted by Thoughts_Into_Action
Mar 4 2009 - 1:10am
I'm in agreement on Tom Hayden's role, and Kucinich's capitulation (twice now, as he did the same for Kerry).
The Democratic Party has certain members whose sole function seems to be to co-opt the progressive left and channel them into position as Democratic Party voters.
It's an indication that the Democratic Party is anything but left, nor is it progressive in the slightest. So why do people vote for its candidates?
-TIA
Posted by Tom Larsen
Mar 3 2009 - 7:57pm
So now you know what to say back when people say that marching is ineffective. You say: "No, marching IN the streets is effective, marching on the sidewalk is not."
Posted by wswalcott
Mar 3 2009 - 9:10pm
www.PDAOhio.org
In 2009, you can't get people off the couch and off their butts to protest. We have stages many anti-war rallies with like-minded organizations in Akron, Ohio and the best we could do is maybe 60-80 people. Now, that a Democrat (a moderate one to boot) is in the White House, this is the ideal time to get people into the streets. Progressive activists of all stripes paved the way for change and the election of Barack Obama while inside the Beltway Democrats did nothing and will continue to do nothing. Now is the time to put elevate our voices and pressure on the Adminisration to get out of Afghanistan, push for single-payer health care (HR676), and try Bush and company for war crimes. Or, we can expect change incrementaly one baby step at a time.
Posted by zorex
Mar 3 2009 - 9:36pm
Did you not hear a word Naomi said?
People aren't marching anymore, nor should they, because the "permitted" protests are ineffective.
And by the way, Bush's war crimes are now Obama's.
Posted by glenn ford
Mar 4 2009 - 12:22pm
Zorex 7:36 She said March in the street.
Posted by gvdebs
Mar 3 2009 - 9:13pm
Seems to me that the fragging in Vietnam tended to concentrate the mind.
Posted by abiyot
Mar 3 2009 - 10:01pm
This is great. It's all part of the illusion that we live in a democracy. Hey, we can protest and say anything we want, right? Right, as long as we do it in one of the approved places, etc. Ultimately, yes, as long as it won't make any difference.
And we can elect an African-American president, right? Right, as long as he's not going to change anything important.
So because we live in a Democracy and apparently have the right to protest anything and elect anybody, it must be Our Fault if things don't change.
Wolf's interview reminds me that the harmless peace marches are just as much a part of the illusion as the election charade is.
Posted by RockyRacoon
Mar 4 2009 - 12:03am
This is where a general strike comes into play. On the day that Blagovich was arrested he was threating not to do business with BoA because they were refusing to give workers who took part in a sit-down strike to get their legal entitlement to severance and vacation pay-no one got the significance of that victory for the rank and file at Republican Windows and Doors who closed down and moved to another state with lower taxes or something because the capitalist press never give airplay to working class victories, here or any other country in the world, and are indeed a part of the capitalist state apparatus. The ruling class fear of collectivized labour, the only strata that actually has the power to bring the state to it's knees is a historical reality. People have marched by the millions world wide to protest various government actions from the Battle in Seattle, The Days of Action that ultimately was sold out by the labour bureaucracy, Millions world wide protested, Iraq 1&2. and the G8 protests. And none of this stopped the governments to listen at least not here in the USA and Canada. Many listened in Europe and look how France was treated in the press when they refused to take part in Iraq!
( If the unions, even at the historic lows that their membership represents held a general strike on a particular issue, bail out for hedge funds, derivative speculators for example) refused to work and refused to let the companies hire scab labour and break the strike well then you would see the real substance of the state: a special repressive force for the suppression of one class by another. The main feature of the state is its bodies of armed men (police, military, etc.) and the prisons, courts and other institutions of repression.
This is what has been demonstrated historically, the working class has been culled into compliance and obesience as a result of the overwhelming use of force used against them, their leaders for the for the past few centuries. Now time will tell how transformative the President really is when a pre-revolutionary situation arises, and surely, those days are fast approaching, and just how wedded he is to the private enterprise system or if he is willing to be practical and do what works or has never really been tried in an advanced capitalist country, its supercession by socialism. These bailouts for example are a very poor indication that he will usher in a transformation-if money goes to the mark to market hedge fund derivative speculators and bank stockholders, he is nothing more than a dupe who falsely believes you can put a human face on capitalism. So far he has only socialized the debt these free enterprize gamblers have created playing in the stock market with either no skin in the game ( virtual money or worse still other peoples money retirement funds pensions etc.) Unless he is willing to change course when the time comes and side with what is good for the people you can forget about long term systemic change. If he doesn't (I think the Fed already has lent out two trillion to these guys and as a private institution which should be abolished) doesn't have to disclose who got the dough ray me.
We need a vanguard working class party to properly orientate people as to the reality that they are facing which is very difficult given the ideological and physical hedgemony the ruling class holds and how to overcome the barriers presented by the capitalist state in actually making this transformation Obama talks about a reality.
Posted by glenn ford
Mar 4 2009 - 12:21pm
Rocky 10:03 Excellent Post
Posted by nosurrender
Mar 3 2009 - 10:35pm
Apparently 12,000 people showed up in Washington DC yesterday to protest the coal plant that provides heat to the Capital, and to protest coal in general and to advocate for clean energy. As I understood it, 2,500 of those people were going to commit civil disobedience by invading the coal plant. Yet today I could not find a single mention of whether this happened or not in the LA Times, Washington Post, or other media that I checked.
If in fact 2,500 people did commit civil disobedience, it seems that the news of this did not make it out to the public, thereby making this action as ineffective as "permitted" protests.
Was anyone there who could give us a first hand account of what really happened? I watched the event streaming live for awhile yesterday through Common Dreams, but I saw nothing of the expected civil disobedience.
Posted by Thoughts_Into_Action
Mar 4 2009 - 12:58am
Here is an account of what happened from Indymedia Washington, D.C.
(For some reason, a link to Indymedia doesn't work on Common Dreams, so you'll have to copy and paste the URL.)
The mainstream corporate media doesn't cover the people's demos, for the most part. That's the reason that the Indymedia network was started in the first place.
-TIA
Posted by nosurrender
Mar 3 2009 - 10:44pm
Finally found a link with some real information about the protest yesterday: http://www.capitolclimateaction.org/
But the fact that it got virtually no press at all is very disheartening.
Posted by blackfeather777
Mar 3 2009 - 11:01pm
"I don't mean violence." Naomi said this twice to cover her butt.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." I believe JFK said this."
The reptiles understand this well, thus they are rushing H.R.45 through so they have a couple of years to disarm the sheeple before they get hungry and mad.
Nothing exists.
Posted by Poet
Mar 4 2009 - 12:25am
Thank you blackfeather777 for citing the Kennedy quote because those words rang through my own mind when I heard that same part of Naomi's video.
The essence of effective protest is to make sure that "business as usual" cannot continue for the duration of the protest. The purpose of all these laws governing "protest" is to make sure that "business as usual" can continue without interuption.
There is only one effective way to invalidate these laws and that is to ignore them and take the consequences (violent confrontation, arrest, and--if necessary--jail time). That's how everyone from the labor union and civil rights activists to the antiwar disidents did it.
That's also why real and effective civil disobediance and protest is not for sissies or wusses--it's for people convinced that they have absolutely nothing to lose and are willing to risk all for their cause. For now, no such mases of people exist in the US because they have been bought off by the distractions of media stoked spectacle.
That's also why the economic depression caused by the calloused, piggish, self-absorbed elites will finally be the undoing of the calloused, piggish, self-absorbed, elites. As the raging masses march on the gated communities of privilige with kerosened torches lit by the spark of their rage, there won't be enough cops, sheriff's deputies, Northcom storm troopers, FBI gestapo, or federal marshals, to keep them from exacting their vengence.
Poet
Posted by Ephraim
Mar 4 2009 - 5:24pm
If nothing exists then neither does revolution, the reptiles, HR 45 or the sheeple.
Posted by dwg
Mar 3 2009 - 11:55pm
non-violent civil disobedience - of the sort that makes a difference - is not just a form of protest. It is very carefully TARGETED action. Read MLK and Gandhi on this.
It is carefully analyzing what LAWS are unjust and intentionally violating the UNJUST laws to demonstrate that they are unjust.
Jim Crow laws of segregation are a good example. Civil disobedience - non-violent civil disobedience - involved BREAKING those laws and sitting at lunch counters, in waiting rooms and in other places African Americans were not allowed to sit in.
British laws regarding the sort of work Indians could do is another example. Gandhi broke the British laws and demonstrated to Indian citizens that they could make their own rules about how they could make a living.
Civil disobedience is not just randomly marching somewhere.
It also requires training. Participants must also be mentally and "spiritually" prepared to non-violently resist the "unjust" law enforcers.
Start at the beginning. What are the unjust laws that need to be changed?
Posted by glenn ford
Mar 4 2009 - 12:15pm
dwg :955 Good Post
Posted by Thoughts_Into_Action
Mar 4 2009 - 1:29am
Yes, it's true that protesters are herded down planned routes, with grinning fat police officers looking on, collecting unconscionable overtime pay for doing nothing but putting on displays of intimidation.
The ostensible reason for the police presence is public safety. It's the American way of law. Nullify Constitutionally guaranteed rights of speech and assembly by layering on lesser laws, until the exercise of those Constitutional rights becomes meaningless.
In addition, city officials and the police have made a farce out it all by creating free speech cages, or constructing make-shift holding cells in abandoned warehouses.
It should also be noted that despite civil disobedience plans, the police are quite revved up to make arrests. Since most protests are rather calm affairs, they enlist agent provocateurs in plain clothes to stir up trouble.
These sorts of strategies are repeated in city after city. And the worst of it is that taxpayers pay to have their speech rights diminished by the police and city officials.
Those organizers who still bother to go through the paperwork to enable a permitted mass demonstration are hit with fees. Why should exercising our inalienable rights need a permit or cost money?
By the way, I've been on several anti-war marches that passed before the doors of major news organization, such as the Los Angeles Times and CNN. The next day, there was zero coverage from those outlets, even with tens of thousands showing up to protest.
-TIA
Posted by thegreatrockyhill
Mar 4 2009 - 2:50am
I know that I'm tired of just blogging and being a baby activist. PJD-I got an email from the POG about some dance in Bloomfield, but you guessed it, I couldn't go because of work. We get 2 hours of personal time the whole year. I get done at 8pm, but by the time I got cleaned up and over there (no car), it would have been over. My email is worker2674@yahoo.com if you or anyone else would like to network in this regard. I'll go to something if I can make it. If I lose my job right now, my whole household is in peril. This is something I need to do and would like to work with people who have some experience in this. The iron is hot right now I believe.
Posted by mahakala
Mar 4 2009 - 2:56am
the greatest fear of every ruling master throughout history, be they pope or priest, king, queen, princess, prince, czar, emperor, or president, is the fear of the unruly mob. it sits silent in the unconscious but motivates nearly all the suppressive actions of power. "this is for your own good and for the good of the people", or for "the good of your soul", so the people are at times led to believe.
but the wall of the ruling elites will be torn down by an angry mob one day, someday, not today, but it will come down and maybe for awhile there will be no walls, till someone with just a little more than the rest decides to put up a little fence, just to protect his stuff. and eventually a moat surrounds an impenetrable castle, build on the fear of the unruly mob.
Posted by racom40
Mar 4 2009 - 4:15am
I'm reminded of the film 'sicko' where the Frenchman is being interviewed. His words ring true, 'In France, the government is afraid of the people'. The protests in France literally take over the city, everything stops as the entire city is filled with protestors. In this country the people are afraid of the government, our protest are weak, anemic and fearful. Few attend as most stay away because they don't want trouble. Simply put, we are no longer willing to fight for freedom.
Posted by xzorloc
Mar 4 2009 - 5:58am
the only folks willing to get teargassed and tasered for our rights are a bunch of crusty throwaway anarchist punkers, the rest of you ARE wusses.
The other thing is the exact location of mass actions should not be released untill FIVE MINUTES before said mass action.
The only real instrument we have LEFT is chaos. Thats why they call us LEFTIES.
Posted by thegreatrockyhill
Mar 4 2009 - 11:34am
xzorloc-Not everyone can afford to throw their lives away like that. Few people are that brave, reckless, and dumb.
What should I do? Set myself on fire? Set my place of employment on fire? Start takin' on cops in hand-to-hand combat? How about bombs?
Hell, I'd slip LSD into Dubbya's coffee in the spirit of Grace Slick if I could get away with it. But who could?
How many people can afford to get arrested? If that happens to me, I lose my job, and if I lose my job, I'll be in deep, deep shit. That's one reason why you don't usually see a lot of mass protest. People are too busy trying to keep from drowning themselves.
I won't be a martyr. No one should want to be one. We're all better off alive and free to walk the streets than dead or in jail.
If people are going to fight for workers and the poor, they also need to understand what it's like to be a worker and be poor.
Michael Moore's or Amy Goodman's careers are only helped by the stunts they pull, righteous stunts they are no doubt, but we all know that unless they kill or seriously injure someone, they're not doing hard time.
If a black, red, or brown guy, or even a white guy or gal, takes a swing at a cop, they're getting their teeth knocked out and will get sent away. Even Jeff Monson, the famous martial artist, is facing up to 10 years in prison just for spray painting some symbols on the Capitol.
People can suggest that "they can't arrest all of us," but that's only true if you get an army of people together. How do we do it? Can revolution come without carnage and chaos? If anything, the problem with the world is that its too chaotic. The peace and justice movement to me is partly about rectifying that in our own way. The elites want chaos. It makes them stronger and gives them justification for their dominion.
Courage is contagious though.
Posted by SpiritWarrior
Mar 4 2009 - 1:25pm
There's room in The Movement for EVERYONE wanting to change an unjust and exploitive system. No one who acts from their conscience is "throwing their life away", and it's insulting (and self-defeating) to say that about ANYONE who sincerely wants to make a difference. We need people willing to physically sabotage the means of oppression. We need people marching in the streets. (Just not on the sidewalks.) We need people like the Black Bloc throwing trashcans through the windows of the symbols of oppression, like Starbucks.
And we need people willing to do a Georg Elser(Who? Read your history.) on the people who make the decisions to oppress us (and not just slip a little acid in their coffee).
(You can slip some in mine, though.)
Posted by Red Rick
Mar 4 2009 - 8:28pm
If not you then who? There is no guarantee that the litany of depressing events you foretell will actually happen to you if you get off your couch and march with others.
Of course, if Ms. Wolf is correct there will be no such demonstrations for you to test your conscience and your love of country against.
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
Posted by tom paine
Mar 4 2009 - 10:58am
March 5 is the anniversary of the Boston Massacre. Vigorous protest at the site, in the face of government oppression is the birth right of Americans. The first Amendment does not require "legal permitted protest" only that the assembly be peaceable. What the framers meant by "peaceable" must be viewed against the backdrop of the types of protest Americans used in the run up to the Revolution--it was with these memories in mind that the authors of the Constitution wrote the First Amendment. They knew the people would not ratify the Constitution unless the sacred rights many had recently died for were enshrined in the Supreme law. Those unwilling to stand with their revolutionary ancestors forfeit any claim to be an American.
Posted by Funguymon
Mar 4 2009 - 12:19pm
Is there a way to sign up for activist organizations that are similar to say the Peace Corps where you do your work, and in return you get food and housing. I wouldn't do it or call it a job, but if you wanted to go spend a year more or less just volunteering to make a difference in the world. I would love to travel and inter act with other cultures while making a difference.
What do you folks know?
Posted by SteveC
Mar 4 2009 - 2:26pm
Is there still AmeriCorps? There is WorkCamps Intl in the Scandanavian countries (you travel all over the continent). They pay room, board and airfare (you buy a railway pass). I did it for 6 mos. It was great and changed my life.
Posted by Funguymon
Mar 4 2009 - 9:48pm
Thanks for replying to that. I think I am in need of change of my life. Before I start college like my parents and everyone else thinks they or I need to do, I think I want to see the world first and get a real education. I'll look into it more. I noticed with the Peace Corps I have to have at least two years of college, and right now that isn't flying with me.
53 Comments so far
Show AllA few weeks ago we were with a group of friends. We somehow got into singing songs from our different countries and backgrounds for each other. Most songs were not political. I sang the song "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Round", which nobody else had ever heard. My favorite line from that song was always: "Ain't gonna let no City Commissioner turn me round." Everybody laughed at the irony of the line - where the determination of the Civil Rights movement meets the bureaucrat.
Naomi Wolf is right. We have been outFoxed. Now all of our protests are neutered by being confined, boxed in, separated. You could be one block away in New York and never see a large protest. Then the news fails to report it and Voila! it never happened.
We should put mass peaceful civil disobedience back on the menu for consideration when we plan to protest.
Joe
Obama is working for the corporations that gave him millions of dollars, not the millions of citizens that each gave him chump change.
You will not see any real change from Obama until all of those citizens who showed up for the inauguration return to DC and set up unpermitted camps in front of the US Capitol Building and White House and refuse to leave until change is evident.
She's right. I remember going on pre-invasion protests in 2003 and the entire route of the march was on a closed road. It felt more like a parade.
Mrs Wolf is right.
I marched in 2003 and they only gave us a permit to march on the weekend when congress was out of town and the approved route was far from congressional offices.
Clearly a violation of the first amendment "shall make no law."
SHALL MAKE NO LAW
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
This Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land.
This abridging peaceable assembly chit on Monday through Friday is an direct violation of the Supreme Law of the land.
Therefore, I submit that:
No law that is passed is valid if it undermines the Supreme Law of the Land. We should ignore this law, join hands with the gun nuts and red stated hillbillies (who are pissed right now about permits up the azz and being fingerprinted for owning a gun: loss of the second amendment.) and descend on Washington in mass choking access to all roads for about a month.
We will leave when the federal government is neutered and the bill of rights is put back in it's place where it belongs.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Was it a federal law then, passed by Congress, or a DC municipal law? And if any of you are lawyers, it would be good to challenge this.
Naomi Wolf is more than right.
This would be the time to overturn many of these rulings.
I think we also need some different ideas about protests --
how and where. Marches on Washington continue to exceed prior
numbers and I was there when a half million women moved thru
that city like a silk scarf. So many that even by 7 o'clock in
the evening, not all the marchers had yet passed the White House.
Yes, the march was tremendous downplayed by the Reich news.
However, not a legislator nor a Supreme Court Justice was at their
desk nor in their offices. No city dweller doing their every day
activities came in contact with the marchers. IMO, we have to take
the protests to the corporations, to Reich news -- and into the
pathways of other citizens.
We are still fighting fascism in the form of patriarchy and
organized patriarchal religion and their economic scheme of
capitalism/corporatism. While, at the same time, trying to
deal with Global Warming and pollution those systems have
inflicted upon us.
Corporations can't force us, however, to use their services nor
buy their products. Nor do we have to watch the Reich press or
read their newspapers.
Good luck to all of us --- we have a planet to save!
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
Agreed - the permitted, and worse, weekend marches in DC are useless. I likewise was in in the big ANSWER and UFPJ events - then I went to the Cindy Sheehan/Rev. Yeargwood Impeachment march to Conyers Office - all 300 of us. It had to be on a weekday so the congresspersons were in their offices, but the presence of all the federal workers gave this small march much ore visibility than the huge ones that go past empty office windows.
The problem is, in the uniquely oppressive work environment in the US that gets called an "ethic", far too many people seem to be cowed about even taking a day off from work for such activity, or don't get paid leave and can't afford to take off from work for such activities (heck-they are afraid to even take off from work when they are sick with the flu)
---USAn---
"...peaceful civil disobedience to disrupt business as usual."
That nails it.
Healthy democracy is disruptive--people should not only bring it back but welcome it.
Conscince...
Points well made...
Still,
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
Yes; but the male has an essential role, no?
[smile]
The main point is, it needs all of us
Fusion
I agree with Naomi Wolf. Marching in permitted marches, holding signs in "free speech areas" is part of the false opposition...part of the opposition that the govenment needs to hold up the claim that they allow opposition.
For real opposition to this domination system, we need to do some sort of imaginative action that risks arrest. We need to not be afraid of disrupting business as usual --whether we're at the Pentagon, the White House, the arms manufacturers or on the streets.
Yeah, it's not like "business as usual" is really working for the vast majority of us.
Most of our very passive fellow citizens have been operating under the false assumption that the "money changers" really do have our best interests at heart. Serious change has never been made with the blessings of the monied and powerful.
I disagree. I might agree with marchers' sentiment, but I'm pissed if they cause a traffic jam that keeps me on the highway all night on my way home from my crappy job. The most effective protest against the billionaires that own and control everything is for everybody all at once to a) turn off their TVs, radios, and Internet for a full month, and b) only spend money in locally owned businesses.
Might I urge you to listen to the entire transcript of Ms. Wolf's eloquent words...I believe you missed something of great import.
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
Would like to see discussion of selective boycott and focused general strikes as pressure...
dvoconnor wrote:
"The most effective protest against the billionaires that own and control everything is for everybody all at once to a) turn off their TVs, radios, and Internet for a full month, and b) only spend money in locally owned businesses."
dvoconnor is talking about an ideal - Naomi Wolf is talking about her research into WHAT WORKS to turn a country away from dictatorship - mass street protest.
Is there an example of this "most effective protest"? Most of us will NOT turn off the TV or stop buying from corporate retailers. How do we get to where people do what you are talking about?
You, and plenty of other drivers, don't want to be inconvenienced going home from a crappy job, or from a good job - but all these people will suddenly agree to massively upturn their daily habits and boycott corporate media and stores?
And if we DO all stop buying crap at the same time, this will disrupt lots of lives and jobs. Will they be upset at the "inconvenience"?
i don't watch television. i spend time at Common Dreams and on e-mail. i try to buy nothing i don't need, and support local businesses. Personal action is important. But how do we organize a boycott, general strike, or street protest?
i don't have any grand answer, and i think boycotts and general strikes are good mass actions to try to organize, but i'm not going to agree that street actions are bad because they inconvenience people. i support all creative nonviolent organizing to disrupt business as usual.
Start by boycotting digital TV.
When analog TV disappears in June my TV will go blank.
I will not buy a box or subscribe to cable or satellite.
Yes!! We have to stop business as usual. I'm tired of taking my cardboard sign on a nice walk on a Saturday or Sunday on a route permitted by the police. Staging a real protest march might get dvoconner "pissed' but maybe when he gets canned from that 'crappy job' he might wise up to the shit we are all in.
It's about democracy folks, shall our government act in the interests of all the people? Well, got news for you---it don't. You got a friend who wants to go over the current $25,000.00 we are all in debt for to pay for the wars and the bankster's gamboling bills? Do you know anyone but a bought and paid for Congress Rep or an executive of a pharmaceudical company or an insurance company who is not in favor of Single Payer Health Care (one plan for ALL OF US)?
If we had a real democracy the non approved protest marches would not be needed. But such marches of masses of the people of this nation are needed and pretty damn quick. We are coming up to the anniversary of 'Shock and Awe'. Want the endless wars to end? Want our tax funds to be used for our domestic programs? Ready to say, "THE HELL WITH THE EMPIRE! WE GOTTA TAKE CARE OF OURSELVES!"?
No more permitted "marchturbating" for me.
To effectively protest without permits has its perils. But remember, it was the brave souls once meeting this challenge who ended up founding our country, and came to be known as "our troops."
The emasculation of the protest movement has taken many forms. I thank Ms. Wolf for so eloquently enumerating this one. I would certainly love to see an in depth discussion of this very important issue.
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
Wolf argues laws make it illegal to protest, but she also implies illegal protest is what makes change.And, so ultimately, what I think Wolf is saying is that nothing happens unless you seize power, and by design, a protest where you shut down traffic is seizing power by arresting other individual citizen's Constitutional Right to Travel. That happened in the "1st Gulf War" in the early 1990s. Protests spilled into the streets and highway, shutting down traffic. I don't remember that happening this time around. Well, there was the recent attempt at a blockade of MIL ships using city ports to transport troops.
By the way, “Free Speech Zones” were around during the 60s and 70s. Many of the same definitions of laws used today were around in the 60s and 70s. Laws used as a way to isolate protest may just be used more prolifically and are more effectively implemented today.
And, today, you have professional community organizers preparing protests for people to come together for a picnic and sing along and then you donate money to organization x,y, and g –creating a market. It is like a bureaucracy that reinforces a status quo message; unwittingly reinforces a larger WASP/Ivy League/Puritanical/Northern European elite opinion of protest. Ice cream socials ta’boot. And then it's a system for politicians to exploit as they show up to pander their re-election or election or secure funds and mobs to rally around their name….
What else is different from 60s and 70s than today? Is there a comfort level among the protestor? Do people flock to assigned national voices and action groups to get their prompts? I mean, did you see how quickly the Tom Hayden types tried to convince “society” (aka antiwar, anti-empire “protestors”) to throw down their fabricated protest signs, and jump onboard with Barack Obama? They quickly allocated power for the rhetoric of a political campaign because, what, it reinforced certain social ideals? You protest because you want action. Ideals illuminated in a beautiful oratory are not action.
There was a willful decision to gloss over Obama’s contradictions in his rhetoric. Willful, I mean to say, the use of critical thought in regard to Obama was used to defend his rhetoric and reinforce the ideals he pandered to certain soft brained antiwar leaders. And Dennis Kucinich, spun around and empathically supported Obama. Perhaps this time people approved because they told themselve he was better than Kerry –or at least the booing wasn’t as loud.
Such softened focus on Obama was partly an overt effort to push Clinton out of the way (Dynasty anyone?), but also because people are willing to rapidly concede power for an ideal even if it turns out to be dynastic or monarchist in design. Actually, the Tom Hayden types threatened to re-ignite the “protest” if the DNC Convention “kept” Obama (and fallaciously believed, “the people”) from winning the nomination –that was amazing example of Hayden’s declaration of power! All for very little short-term gains of believing we have a voice in the White House. Such fools as these pave no path to a new frontier.
The protestation of the left effectively materialized in Obama’s ascent upon the hill. But you see, everyone was hustled for being too quick to cash in their chips on the big dream, the big promise, and the big idea that there was some ear for the people in the Oval Office. You see, the primary reason Obama’s political career shows such quick ascension is because he effectively dismantled the image of protest. If he is anything, he is post-protest and everybody is encouraged to participate in your new form of government.Time to sign up., Peace Corps, Americorps, Voice Corps, and Army Corps and Marine Corps now that we've put our country's newly minted protest to action! (snark)
"Come on people now.... Everybody get together try to love one another right now.“ what..ever.
"Well, there was the recent attempt at a blockade of MIL ships using city ports to transport troops...."
That was just regular citizen activism (more toward college students), but you know, last year some 10k ILWU stopped work and protested the Iraq War on May 1 2008. 10,000 participated. If a MIL ship docked at a West Coast city port, and if the crane operators from the ILWU refused to help, how much hassle would that kind of protest cause? How quickly -politically speaking-- would the DOD (aka the President) -- override a union protest? Would that reverberate through society? What would happen?
You see, there are examples of recent use of political power outside of the more acceptable, standardized, milquetoast, antiwar champagne brunches
I'm in agreement on Tom Hayden's role, and Kucinich's capitulation (twice now, as he did the same for Kerry).
The Democratic Party has certain members whose sole function seems to be to co-opt the progressive left and channel them into position as Democratic Party voters.
It's an indication that the Democratic Party is anything but left, nor is it progressive in the slightest. So why do people vote for its candidates?
-TIA
So now you know what to say back when people say that marching is ineffective. You say: "No, marching IN the streets is effective, marching on the sidewalk is not."
www.PDAOhio.org
In 2009, you can't get people off the couch and off their butts to protest. We have stages many anti-war rallies with like-minded organizations in Akron, Ohio and the best we could do is maybe 60-80 people. Now, that a Democrat (a moderate one to boot) is in the White House, this is the ideal time to get people into the streets. Progressive activists of all stripes paved the way for change and the election of Barack Obama while inside the Beltway Democrats did nothing and will continue to do nothing. Now is the time to put elevate our voices and pressure on the Adminisration to get out of Afghanistan, push for single-payer health care (HR676), and try Bush and company for war crimes. Or, we can expect change incrementaly one baby step at a time.
Did you not hear a word Naomi said?
People aren't marching anymore, nor should they, because the "permitted" protests are ineffective.
And by the way, Bush's war crimes are now Obama's.
Zorex 7:36 She said March in the street.
Seems to me that the fragging in Vietnam tended to concentrate the mind.
This is great. It's all part of the illusion that we live in a democracy. Hey, we can protest and say anything we want, right? Right, as long as we do it in one of the approved places, etc. Ultimately, yes, as long as it won't make any difference.
And we can elect an African-American president, right? Right, as long as he's not going to change anything important.
So because we live in a Democracy and apparently have the right to protest anything and elect anybody, it must be Our Fault if things don't change.
Wolf's interview reminds me that the harmless peace marches are just as much a part of the illusion as the election charade is.
This is where a general strike comes into play. On the day that Blagovich was arrested he was threating not to do business with BoA because they were refusing to give workers who took part in a sit-down strike to get their legal entitlement to severance and vacation pay-no one got the significance of that victory for the rank and file at Republican Windows and Doors who closed down and moved to another state with lower taxes or something because the capitalist press never give airplay to working class victories, here or any other country in the world, and are indeed a part of the capitalist state apparatus. The ruling class fear of collectivized labour, the only strata that actually has the power to bring the state to it's knees is a historical reality. People have marched by the millions world wide to protest various government actions from the Battle in Seattle, The Days of Action that ultimately was sold out by the labour bureaucracy, Millions world wide protested, Iraq 1&2. and the G8 protests. And none of this stopped the governments to listen at least not here in the USA and Canada. Many listened in Europe and look how France was treated in the press when they refused to take part in Iraq!
( If the unions, even at the historic lows that their membership represents held a general strike on a particular issue, bail out for hedge funds, derivative speculators for example) refused to work and refused to let the companies hire scab labour and break the strike well then you would see the real substance of the state: a special repressive force for the suppression of one class by another. The main feature of the state is its bodies of armed men (police, military, etc.) and the prisons, courts and other institutions of repression.
This is what has been demonstrated historically, the working class has been culled into compliance and obesience as a result of the overwhelming use of force used against them, their leaders for the for the past few centuries. Now time will tell how transformative the President really is when a pre-revolutionary situation arises, and surely, those days are fast approaching, and just how wedded he is to the private enterprise system or if he is willing to be practical and do what works or has never really been tried in an advanced capitalist country, its supercession by socialism. These bailouts for example are a very poor indication that he will usher in a transformation-if money goes to the mark to market hedge fund derivative speculators and bank stockholders, he is nothing more than a dupe who falsely believes you can put a human face on capitalism. So far he has only socialized the debt these free enterprize gamblers have created playing in the stock market with either no skin in the game ( virtual money or worse still other peoples money retirement funds pensions etc.) Unless he is willing to change course when the time comes and side with what is good for the people you can forget about long term systemic change. If he doesn't (I think the Fed already has lent out two trillion to these guys and as a private institution which should be abolished) doesn't have to disclose who got the dough ray me.
We need a vanguard working class party to properly orientate people as to the reality that they are facing which is very difficult given the ideological and physical hedgemony the ruling class holds and how to overcome the barriers presented by the capitalist state in actually making this transformation Obama talks about a reality.
Rocky 10:03 Excellent Post
Apparently 12,000 people showed up in Washington DC yesterday to protest the coal plant that provides heat to the Capital, and to protest coal in general and to advocate for clean energy. As I understood it, 2,500 of those people were going to commit civil disobedience by invading the coal plant. Yet today I could not find a single mention of whether this happened or not in the LA Times, Washington Post, or other media that I checked.
If in fact 2,500 people did commit civil disobedience, it seems that the news of this did not make it out to the public, thereby making this action as ineffective as "permitted" protests.
Was anyone there who could give us a first hand account of what really happened? I watched the event streaming live for awhile yesterday through Common Dreams, but I saw nothing of the expected civil disobedience.
Here is an account of what happened from Indymedia Washington, D.C.
http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/145629/index.php
(For some reason, a link to Indymedia doesn't work on Common Dreams, so you'll have to copy and paste the URL.)
The mainstream corporate media doesn't cover the people's demos, for the most part. That's the reason that the Indymedia network was started in the first place.
-TIA
Finally found a link with some real information about the protest yesterday: http://www.capitolclimateaction.org/
But the fact that it got virtually no press at all is very disheartening.
"I don't mean violence." Naomi said this twice to cover her butt.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." I believe JFK said this."
The reptiles understand this well, thus they are rushing H.R.45 through so they have a couple of years to disarm the sheeple before they get hungry and mad.
Nothing exists.
Thank you blackfeather777 for citing the Kennedy quote because those words rang through my own mind when I heard that same part of Naomi's video.
The essence of effective protest is to make sure that "business as usual" cannot continue for the duration of the protest. The purpose of all these laws governing "protest" is to make sure that "business as usual" can continue without interuption.
There is only one effective way to invalidate these laws and that is to ignore them and take the consequences (violent confrontation, arrest, and--if necessary--jail time). That's how everyone from the labor union and civil rights activists to the antiwar disidents did it.
That's also why real and effective civil disobediance and protest is not for sissies or wusses--it's for people convinced that they have absolutely nothing to lose and are willing to risk all for their cause. For now, no such mases of people exist in the US because they have been bought off by the distractions of media stoked spectacle.
That's also why the economic depression caused by the calloused, piggish, self-absorbed elites will finally be the undoing of the calloused, piggish, self-absorbed, elites. As the raging masses march on the gated communities of privilige with kerosened torches lit by the spark of their rage, there won't be enough cops, sheriff's deputies, Northcom storm troopers, FBI gestapo, or federal marshals, to keep them from exacting their vengence.
Poet
If nothing exists then neither does revolution, the reptiles, HR 45 or the sheeple.
non-violent civil disobedience - of the sort that makes a difference - is not just a form of protest. It is very carefully TARGETED action. Read MLK and Gandhi on this.
It is carefully analyzing what LAWS are unjust and intentionally violating the UNJUST laws to demonstrate that they are unjust.
Jim Crow laws of segregation are a good example. Civil disobedience - non-violent civil disobedience - involved BREAKING those laws and sitting at lunch counters, in waiting rooms and in other places African Americans were not allowed to sit in.
British laws regarding the sort of work Indians could do is another example. Gandhi broke the British laws and demonstrated to Indian citizens that they could make their own rules about how they could make a living.
Civil disobedience is not just randomly marching somewhere.
It also requires training. Participants must also be mentally and "spiritually" prepared to non-violently resist the "unjust" law enforcers.
Start at the beginning. What are the unjust laws that need to be changed?
dwg :955 Good Post
Yes, it's true that protesters are herded down planned routes, with grinning fat police officers looking on, collecting unconscionable overtime pay for doing nothing but putting on displays of intimidation.
The ostensible reason for the police presence is public safety. It's the American way of law. Nullify Constitutionally guaranteed rights of speech and assembly by layering on lesser laws, until the exercise of those Constitutional rights becomes meaningless.
In addition, city officials and the police have made a farce out it all by creating free speech cages, or constructing make-shift holding cells in abandoned warehouses.
It should also be noted that despite civil disobedience plans, the police are quite revved up to make arrests. Since most protests are rather calm affairs, they enlist agent provocateurs in plain clothes to stir up trouble.
These sorts of strategies are repeated in city after city. And the worst of it is that taxpayers pay to have their speech rights diminished by the police and city officials.
Those organizers who still bother to go through the paperwork to enable a permitted mass demonstration are hit with fees. Why should exercising our inalienable rights need a permit or cost money?
By the way, I've been on several anti-war marches that passed before the doors of major news organization, such as the Los Angeles Times and CNN. The next day, there was zero coverage from those outlets, even with tens of thousands showing up to protest.
-TIA
I know that I'm tired of just blogging and being a baby activist. PJD-I got an email from the POG about some dance in Bloomfield, but you guessed it, I couldn't go because of work. We get 2 hours of personal time the whole year. I get done at 8pm, but by the time I got cleaned up and over there (no car), it would have been over. My email is worker2674@yahoo.com if you or anyone else would like to network in this regard. I'll go to something if I can make it. If I lose my job right now, my whole household is in peril. This is something I need to do and would like to work with people who have some experience in this. The iron is hot right now I believe.
the greatest fear of every ruling master throughout history, be they pope or priest, king, queen, princess, prince, czar, emperor, or president, is the fear of the unruly mob. it sits silent in the unconscious but motivates nearly all the suppressive actions of power. "this is for your own good and for the good of the people", or for "the good of your soul", so the people are at times led to believe.
but the wall of the ruling elites will be torn down by an angry mob one day, someday, not today, but it will come down and maybe for awhile there will be no walls, till someone with just a little more than the rest decides to put up a little fence, just to protect his stuff. and eventually a moat surrounds an impenetrable castle, build on the fear of the unruly mob.
I'm reminded of the film 'sicko' where the Frenchman is being interviewed. His words ring true, 'In France, the government is afraid of the people'. The protests in France literally take over the city, everything stops as the entire city is filled with protestors. In this country the people are afraid of the government, our protest are weak, anemic and fearful. Few attend as most stay away because they don't want trouble. Simply put, we are no longer willing to fight for freedom.
the only folks willing to get teargassed and tasered for our rights are a bunch of crusty throwaway anarchist punkers, the rest of you ARE wusses.
BUILDING SEVEN.
Forget protest,
Sabotage, Sabotage Sabotage,
Cameras, Microwave dishes, Vehicles, Computer systems. Media property. elevators, streetlights. Traffic signals.
The other thing is the exact location of mass actions should not be released untill FIVE MINUTES before said mass action.
The only real instrument we have LEFT is chaos. Thats why they call us LEFTIES.
xzorloc-Not everyone can afford to throw their lives away like that. Few people are that brave, reckless, and dumb.
What should I do? Set myself on fire? Set my place of employment on fire? Start takin' on cops in hand-to-hand combat? How about bombs?
Hell, I'd slip LSD into Dubbya's coffee in the spirit of Grace Slick if I could get away with it. But who could?
How many people can afford to get arrested? If that happens to me, I lose my job, and if I lose my job, I'll be in deep, deep shit. That's one reason why you don't usually see a lot of mass protest. People are too busy trying to keep from drowning themselves.
I won't be a martyr. No one should want to be one. We're all better off alive and free to walk the streets than dead or in jail.
If people are going to fight for workers and the poor, they also need to understand what it's like to be a worker and be poor.
Michael Moore's or Amy Goodman's careers are only helped by the stunts they pull, righteous stunts they are no doubt, but we all know that unless they kill or seriously injure someone, they're not doing hard time.
If a black, red, or brown guy, or even a white guy or gal, takes a swing at a cop, they're getting their teeth knocked out and will get sent away. Even Jeff Monson, the famous martial artist, is facing up to 10 years in prison just for spray painting some symbols on the Capitol.
People can suggest that "they can't arrest all of us," but that's only true if you get an army of people together. How do we do it? Can revolution come without carnage and chaos? If anything, the problem with the world is that its too chaotic. The peace and justice movement to me is partly about rectifying that in our own way. The elites want chaos. It makes them stronger and gives them justification for their dominion.
Courage is contagious though.
There's room in The Movement for EVERYONE wanting to change an unjust and exploitive system. No one who acts from their conscience is "throwing their life away", and it's insulting (and self-defeating) to say that about ANYONE who sincerely wants to make a difference. We need people willing to physically sabotage the means of oppression. We need people marching in the streets. (Just not on the sidewalks.) We need people like the Black Bloc throwing trashcans through the windows of the symbols of oppression, like Starbucks.
And we need people willing to do a Georg Elser(Who? Read your history.) on the people who make the decisions to oppress us (and not just slip a little acid in their coffee).
(You can slip some in mine, though.)
If not you then who? There is no guarantee that the litany of depressing events you foretell will actually happen to you if you get off your couch and march with others.
Of course, if Ms. Wolf is correct there will be no such demonstrations for you to test your conscience and your love of country against.
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
March 5 is the anniversary of the Boston Massacre. Vigorous protest at the site, in the face of government oppression is the birth right of Americans. The first Amendment does not require "legal permitted protest" only that the assembly be peaceable. What the framers meant by "peaceable" must be viewed against the backdrop of the types of protest Americans used in the run up to the Revolution--it was with these memories in mind that the authors of the Constitution wrote the First Amendment. They knew the people would not ratify the Constitution unless the sacred rights many had recently died for were enshrined in the Supreme law. Those unwilling to stand with their revolutionary ancestors forfeit any claim to be an American.
Is there a way to sign up for activist organizations that are similar to say the Peace Corps where you do your work, and in return you get food and housing. I wouldn't do it or call it a job, but if you wanted to go spend a year more or less just volunteering to make a difference in the world. I would love to travel and inter act with other cultures while making a difference.
What do you folks know?
Is there still AmeriCorps? There is WorkCamps Intl in the Scandanavian countries (you travel all over the continent). They pay room, board and airfare (you buy a railway pass). I did it for 6 mos. It was great and changed my life.
Thanks for replying to that. I think I am in need of change of my life. Before I start college like my parents and everyone else thinks they or I need to do, I think I want to see the world first and get a real education. I'll look into it more. I noticed with the Peace Corps I have to have at least two years of college, and right now that isn't flying with me.