Why we must take to the streets in protest

[Bjorn Against]

Today I read a column accusing those of us on the left who take to the streets to protest of being rabid ideologues who only serve to turn people off to our cause. I have been in the streets many times over the past seven years or so, in fact just in the past week alone I have been involved in three protests and I have a couple more coming up over the course of the next week. The pundits in our media can sit and make their claims that people like me are turning off the community at large with our protests, but when I go to these protests I never see these pundits show up and actually observe the reaction we get from the community before they write about that reaction.

The truth is that at every protest that I attend the public shows us a great deal of support, whether it is a small protest or a very large protest we get dozens if not hundreds of honks of support from those who drive past us. Of course once in a while we will get some middle fingers or dirty stares as well, but these represent a very small minority and the majority of people who express themselves to us are very supportive of what we are doing whether they agree with all of the messages on our signs or not.

The media has long tried to undermine the message of protesters because they know full well that protest has been very successful in challenging powerful forces in the past. Before the women's suffrage movement took to the streets it appeared as if women would never have the right to vote, but once people saw the bravery of the women who stood up for equal rights against all odds many people realized that they should be given the same rights to participate in our democracy as men. Before Martin Luther King and his followers took to the streets many people believed that there was no chance of our nation ever seeing civil rights laws put into place, but after seeing communities of people march through the streets braving the fire hoses and dogs to stand up for their rights we saw a major shift in American's attitudes towards civil rights and before long the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. When the Vietnam started public opinion was nearly anonymous in support of the war, but there were a few people who dared to march in the streets against it. Those few people made an impression, and as they made that impression more people joined them in their efforts and soon the anti-war movement grew to a critical mass and public opinion was turned against the war. Once public opinion was against the war the politicians could no longer justify their slaughter and they were forced to withdraw. Outside of the United States political protest has had an even bigger impact in places like India, a nation which was under the control of the British Empire until a scrawny man in a loin cloth led a movement that took down a powerful military force without firing a single shot.

Our government is well aware that history has shown us that empires can be taken down by a movement like the one Gandhi led, they know that a black minister from the segregated south succeeded in starting a movement that brought the powerful forces of the segregationists to their knees, they know that the people they dismissed as dirty hippies had a big impact on public opinion which turned our nation against militarism in Vietnam, and they know that protest is one of the most effective tools that the people have to use against those in power. This is why there is such a coordinated effort to discredit those of us who protest, because the people in power know that we can make an impact. And so before every big protest we are subject to numerous articles in our newspapers about the threat of broken windows, we are warned about the “violent anarchists” and the threat of molotov cocktails, and we are told that we need police in full riot gear to protect our cities from these protestors. What they don't tell you however is that in reality violence at protests is rare, and when it does occur it is quite often initiated not by protesters but rather by the police whether those police are in riot gear or in the crowd as agent provocateurs.

The people in power want us to believe that if we want to make change the only appropriate way to do so is through the ballot box. The rich and powerful know that they have millions of dollars to run ads and fund the candidates of their choice and therefore have a good deal of control over our elections, while they may not get everything they want on election day they do have the money to at least sway things in their direction. When it comes to protests however the powerful have very little say in the message that is conveyed at those protests, which makes protests far more frightening to the moneyed interests than elections are. If people would start viewing voting as only one of their civic duties and started to view protest as another civic duty then change would come to this country far more rapidly.

We need to stop the war in Iraq, we need to stop giving earmarks for war to the military industrial complex, we need to stop the foreclosures on people's homes, we need to stop the assault on civil liberties, and we need to take to the streets and stand up for what we believe in. Don't let them tell you that protest doesn't work or that all protesters are crazies who break windows and scream at people who think differently than they do. If you don't believe me that protest is effective then try going to a protest, or make your own protest. It is not hard to do, all you need is a few friends to make signs and stand out on a busy intersection with you. Not every protest has to be large, we hold a small protest near the Lockheed Martin offices in my community every Thursday evening and we get a great response from the people who drop by. We can all make a difference through standing up for what we believe in, and it is time that we start ignoring the detractors in the media and take to the streets to stand up for what we believe in.

[Xithras]

1. The problem with modern American protesting is that it's toothless.

Whether you're talking about the marches of King, or the sit-in's inspired by Ghandi, or even the recent protests across France, one mark of EFFECTIVE protesting is a shutdown of activity. You impact society and force them to pay attention.

Americans tend to view protesting as a weekend sport, something to be done behind barricades and after working hours. Permits are taken out ahead of time, traffic is routed around the protest area, and society grinds on as usual, with the majority blissfully ignoring the fact that a protest has taken place at all.

I would argue that there hasn't been a REAL protest in the United States since Seattle in 1999. Those protests were headline news in every news source across the nation. The lack of coverage of protests since isn't a media conspiracy, it's simply a reflection of the fact that those protests are largely irrelevant and didn't really impact anything.

You want to have an anti-war protest that matters? Coordinate a simultaneous un-permitted protest/shutdown of the 405 in LA, the Oakland Bay Bridge, I5 in Seattle, a few bridges around Manhattan, and/or the Roosevelt Bridge in DC DURING RUSH HOUR, and keep them down as long as possible.

Until American protesters are willing to stage protests that actually impact people, they'll continue to be ignored. Weekend protests hold as much relevance to most people as weekend Renaissance fairs...it's just a place for odd people to gather and engage in a pastime while the rest of America mows their lawns and watches the game on TV.

In your own post, you mention that people honk and give thumbs up as they drive by. While those people may agreewith you, most probably forget about you a few minutes after driving past. You were an interesting bit of variety to an otherwise boring drive. Other than a few honks, you accomplished nothing.

Next time, step off the curb, shut the road down, and give them something to remember.

[rcrush]

2. Agree

Except when you mention the lack of coverage of protests in the media. The RNC protests last year didnt get any coverage really. People were being pepper sprayed and beaten every day and no one cared to air any of it. Cell phone video got out on some blogs but no one on TV hardly mentioned it.

It seemed like a concentrated effort on the MSM to not cover people getting beaten by cops during a whole week.

[Xithras]

4. Because, again, they didn't really impact many people.

The MSM doesn't exist to deliver news, it exists to deliver ratings. The stories that get aired are those that get the most viewers. Like it or not, people getting beaten by cops isn't exactly news...that sort of thing happens every day in this country. People clashing with cops in a designated protest and marching zone isolated from "things that matter" simply isn't news to most people. The protests didn't really impact aside from the police and the protesters themselves, so society carried on as if nothing had happened. The MSM followed dutifully behind.

Now, if the American left had protested the RNC by shutting down city cores all across the country, the press would have taken notice...along with the rest of America.

For protesting to be effective, it MUST impact society at large.

[Bjorn Against]

6. You obviously weren't at the RNC, I was there and the city core was shut down.

I would like to have seen you try to get to downtown St. Paul on the final night of the convention, the entire city was shut down to keep the protesters out. We took over a bridge and a street and we had a non-violent stand off with police for three hours straight. Four hundred people were arrested that night, and I came very close to being one of them. You are claiming we didn't impact, but you seem to be basing that claim on a fact is quite simply untrue. We did stop business as usual in St. Paul, and just because the media did not cover it does not change that fact.

[Xithras]

10. But you didn't.

St. Paul knew the protests were coming, and the city & downtown businesses were prepared for it and shut down in anticipation of the protests. You can argue that there was a disruption of business, but the reality is that it was all planned, negotiated, and prepared for ahead of time. Fences were up long before the first protesters arrived, and the negotiations between protest organizers and city leaders was in the news for an entire week leading up to the protests. Nothing unexpected happened. The protest itself just went off as planned.

A distruption that is negotiated in advance isn't a disruption at all.

You claim that you did have an impact, so let me ask you this. How did you materially disrupt the live of average St. Paul residents in a way that they weren't expecting and couldn't accomodate for? Note the emphasis.

[Bjorn Against]

12. Again it is clear that you are not aware of what happened in St. Paul.

The politicians who brought the RNC to St. Paul insisted would bring lots of revenue to the city, they insisted the bars and restaurants in the city would be overflowing with business. It didn't happen, in fact the businesses were empty because the police became so afraid of the protesters that they kept moving their barricades to keep the protesters out and in turn stopped all the increased business that the politicians had insisted would come to the city along with the RNC. You obviously don't know anything about what happened at the RNC protests, I was there and I saw what happened.

[Xithras]

16. But you still haven't answered my main question.

How did you materially disrupt the lives of average St. Paul citizens, in a way that was not planned for?

I don't care if a few business owners didn't make the profits they were expecting from food sales. That's a disappointment, not a disruption.

How many St. Paul citizens discovered that they couldn't get to work because protesters had blocked access to their office buildings? Did any of the blocked traffic arteries NOT have detours on them for local residents? You said you shut down A bridge leading to downtown. That was great, but what about the other three bridges that Google Maps shows spanning the river within a couple thousand feet? Was traffic flowing on them?

You're right in that I may have underestimated what you guys did in St. Paul, but I still doubt the claim that the city was "shut down". The shutdown of the downtown business district ahead of the protests was well publicized. Those business towers all along the skyline were mostly empty long before the protests started. The city was expecting the protests, and businesses had adjusted for them ahead of time, so the actual impact on Joe Accountant working in Anonymous Business Tower #3 really wasn't all that great.

But you're right. I wasn't there. And St. Paul is just one example, so we shouldn't be getting so fixated on it anyway.

[Bjorn Against]

17. Every single one of the bridges going to downtown were blocked to keep us out.

All of the restaurants and bars ordered LOTS of extra food and drinks for the convention, and they got no business. We were hearing for months that the RNC was going to bring tons of revenue to these places, and they did not and the business owners were furious with the city. Believe me having the entire downtown area of St. Paul did disrupt people's lives in a way many of them did not expect, if you weren't there and you don't know what happened then I would suggest you don't spout off that we did not accomplish anything when you know nothing about it.

Yes St. Paul is one example, but it is an example that you were shooting down as ineffective when in fact you have demonstrated that you were not even aware of what happened. If you were not aware of the effectiveness of the RNC protests then I think it is safe to say that you are probably unaware of the effectiveness of all the other protests as well.

[newtothegame]

44. Why were the businesses furious with the city? n/t

[Bjorn Against]

8. One more point that I want to make is that lack of coverage has nothing to do with ratings

The ratings for the corporate media have been declining for a few years now in large part because the media has done a terrible job of covering stories that are important to people. Stories that exposed the Bush Administration got a lot of attention and ratings, but there were really very few of those stories that received significant airplay despite the fact that Americans were interested in them. The ultimate goal of the media is not ratings, it is profit. Our media is run by massive conglomerates, and their news divisions are a very small part of the company as a whole. They make their profits mainly off their entertainment divisions, and they use their news divisions to put out the stories they want people to hear. They want to influence the political agenda, because politics has an impact on their bottom line. If the wealthy people who advertise on their networks come out well then they get more advertising dollars from them. Simply saying that ratings are the most important thing is a false statement, profit is the most important thing to them and while ratings can impact profit certainly they are not the same thing as profit.

[Bjorn Against]

5. There was a concentrated effort not to cover it, and that is why we need a concentrated effort.

If we just say "well the media won't cover us so no one will notice" then we have lost the battle before it has even began. We need to keep protesting, and if the media doesn't cover our protests we can't allow that to discourage us. They don't want to cover us, and they will continue to deny us coverage. The problem for them however is that as more people see us in the streets people start to ask questions as to why the media is not covering these protests, as those questions are asked the media loses credibility and we gain credibility. That is why we need to keep fighting, because we can win if we don't get discouraged by the lack of positive attention from the media.

[jberryhill]

22. The Pro-Lifers Have A Big One In DC Every Year On The Anniversary of Roe v. Wade

Do you really give a crap how many people they turn out?

I don't.

[Bjorn Against]

28. I give a crap...

If they turn out that many people then we need to make sure we turn out even more in opposition to them.

[jberryhill]

38. Well we don't

They get a huge crowd every year.

Hey, the Pope just got a million in one pop in Africa.

[Bjorn Against]

39. Just a few years ago the pro-choice March for Women's lives got more than one million

I don't believe the right-wing has ever gotten anywhere near that many people for their anti Roe marches, so we have shown that we can get double the people that they do.

Edited to add link: http://march.now.org/

[Bjorn Against]

3. I was in a few very large and significant protests...

I attended one in Washington DC over Martin Luther King weekend in 2003 that had hundreds of thousands of people, the media claimed it was only 30,000 which is a complete lie and we shut down a good chunk of the city. I attended another protest during the RNC in New York in 2004, there were half million people who filled the streets of Manhattan and made it very difficult to go anywhere without seeing protesters. I was also in the 2008 RNC protests in the Twin Cities in which hundreds of riot police closed off the entire downtown St. Paul area just to keep us from protesting, we sat on a bridge leading to downtown and shut down traffic for hours on the final night of the convention.

You may be right that some of the people giving us thumbs up may not remember us at the end of the evening, but that is not the point I was trying to make. The point is that the public supports us being out there, and when the claims that we are looked down on by the public they are basing it on nothing. I don't pretend that any single protest of mine is going to change things, but I do believe that as more people get out and participate change will happen. History has proven protest to be effective, and it can be effective today as well as long as we don't have people like you trying to discourage people from getting out and speaking their mind. And yes, by insisting we accomplish nothing you are discouraging people and that makes you part of the problem.

[Xithras]

7. If the truth is a problem, you need to reexamine your own position.

My position is merely that a protest that accomplishes nothing has, by definition, accomplished nothing.

I do not discourage protesting. Far from it. What I discourage is pointless protesting. Protesting can be extremely effective if the protesters are actually willing to do what it takes to get societies attention.

In 1990 I was in a protest against the first Gulf War. We marched out, shut a major freeway down for 30 minutes, and then negotiated with the police...we'd leave the freeway quietly in exchange for them not arresting or harassing anyone. We made it clear that, if they refused, we were prepared to dig in and force them to drag us off, shutting down the freeway for at least another hour. At 4:00 in the afternoon on a weekday, that wasn't something the police were even willing to contemplate.

The CHP complied. We had the freeway shut down for 30 minutes, forced the attention of THOUSANDS of drivers on one of the busiest highways in America, and were headline news across the west coast. Nobody was hurt, nobody went to jail, and nothing was damaged, but our point was made and people were forced to pay attention to it.

Why don't people protest like that anymore?

[Bjorn Against]

9. I just gave you an example in which the entire downtown area of St. Paul was shut down.

You claimed in another post that the RNC protests accomplished nothing, but we disrupted business as usual every bit as much as you did.

And I resent your implication that there are "pointless protests". Simply getting into the streets and getting your message out helps, maybe not everyone who honks at us is going to do something themselves but maybe we will influence some of them to have a discussion with the person sitting next to them in the car. Maybe after that discussion someone may decide that they should do something to protest the war or work on another issue of importance, if we can even impact people's conversations we have done something. Protests that shut down our roads and cities certainly make the biggest impact, but small protests that don't shut down anything can make an impact as well. You are discouraging people from getting involved by insisting that people getting out and speaking their mind accomplishes nothing, when in fact you have nothing to base that assertion on. You don't listen to the conversations of the people who see our protests, you don't know in what ways they are being influenced, you don't know that none of them aren't going to get into the streets as well. If I can just impact one person, then maybe that person can impact another person, and maybe the next person can influence someone as well, and on and on and on. You should never tell anyone that they can't make a difference by standing up in small ways.

[stillcool]

11. Just because a protest is not..

covered on the tv doesn't mean that protest was for nothing. Local protests get local attention, and local people talking. Far more productive than anything said on the tv.

[Xithras]

13. Actually, I consider TV coverage to be irrelevant to the "success" of a protest.

The measure of a protests success is the number of people it touches. The measure of success is the real impact it has on people OTHER than the protesters.

Shutting down a freeway with thousands of people on it? Effective. Blockading the doors of a popular business during business hours? Effective. Sit'in's in government buildings to prevent them from doing what they need to do? Effective. These things materially disrupt life in ways that force people to hear your message.

Waving a sign while you walk down the sidewalk? Mass marches in closed downtowns or fenced protest zones? Protests planned for weekends so they won't disrupt the workweek or weekday traffic? Not so much.

[Bjorn Against]

14. There may be different levels of success, but even touching one person is a success.

You seem to be of the mind that unless you can make massive waves with every single one of your protests then protesting to be useless, I find that to be false. Yes, the larger and more disruptive protests do get more attention and they may influence more people but that does not mean that the smaller ones that don't cause much disruption are useless.

[Xithras]

19. Different philosophies I guess.

My experience doesn't back up the assertion that small protests cause discussion in the community. People waving signs along the roadside aren't something that most people pay attention to.

By staging an assertive protest, you aren't just getting peoples attention, you are actively involving them. You are making YOUR protest an active part of THEIR lives. By touching their lives, you get their attention, and by doing THAT you can make a difference.

Truthfully, you don't even have to break the law or put together a large group to do it. I once saw a very impressive protest that was staged by five guys in a roundabout. They picked up their signs and marched around it, crossing only in the crosswalks. Their crossing disrupted the smooth flow of traffic that roundabouts are designed to facilitate, slowing everyone down and forcing them to pay attention to what was going on. Five guys with signs, at rush hour, never breaking a single law, disrupted life enough to make a difference. Would they have made the same difference if they had just stood on a street corner and waved their signs? I doubt it. Their actions forced people out of their obliviousness, even if just for a moment.

Protests don't have to be large or illegal to be effective, but they do need to be active and force peoples attention. Creativity is often the key to a well-executed and effective protest.

[Bjorn Against]

20. Fair enough, I will not deny that some protests are more effective than others.

I also think however that each one of us can make a difference in both large and small ways. Just getting one person to change their topic of conversation from American Idol to the war after seeing us protest is a victory, and if that conversation leads someone to go out and protest on their own that is an enormous victory. Not every protest needs to be disruptive, what every protest needs to do is raise awareness of our concerns. The ultimate goal of protests is not to be disruptive, it is to make people think about the issues. If being disruptive accomplishes that great, but it is not the disruption itself that accomplishes anything it the conversations that disruption provokes that brings about change. Sometimes you don't need disruption to provoke that conversation, and we should not dismiss the effectiveness of a protest simply because it is not as disruptive as you would like.

[Xithras]

31. Yes, and we also have to remember that we're on the same side here.

This thread probably sounded a bit more combative than I originally intended.

My goal is not, and was NEVER, to discourage people from protesting. My intention was simply to encourage people to think about HOW they're protesting, and to suggest that they do so in ways to maximize their protests impact on the people around them. I DO think that protests have to be disruptive to be effective, but I'll admit that my biases are heavily covered by my own past experiences.

For perspective, I also once chained myself to a tree, so I've never exactly been a "traditional protester".

I think we have the same goal, just very different ideas about how that goal can be achieved. Fair enough.

[stillcool]

15. In my little town, you would not approve..

of any of our protests. We had one every week-end for years, sometimes just a few people against the war. You'd be surprised how many people were reminded there was a war going on.

[Bjorn Against]

18. Thank you for getting out there, I have no doubt you made an impact.

[newtothegame]

43. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that though...

Shutting down everybody's traffic because YOU have an opinion isn't exactly fair. And if you have to shut down people's lives cause you have an opinion, maybe your opinion just isn't selling.

ed for sp

[coalition_unwilling]

45. I vigiled twice- and thrice-weekly over the past 8 years, so my

observations come from my reflections on my personal experience.

I see it as analagous to someone standing at the edge of a pond and throwing a rock in. When the rock hits the surface of the pond, it sends out ripples toward's the pond's edge. The rock-thrower (vigiler) has no idea exactly where those ripples will end up.

I do share your reservations about strategy and tactics. Early on, starting in November 2001, I participated in many of ANSWER's mass demonstrations in downtown Los Angeles on weekends. Once I realized that our demos were not being covered by media and that we were marching through basically empty urban caverns, I realized that those mass demos served a different type of purpose, i.e., allowing protesters to realize they were not alone in their moral outrage at the depredations of the Corporo-Fascists.

The value of such shots-in-the-arm to protesters should not be minimized. But I realized that I no longer required that validation to know that I was performing my civic duty.

From that point forward (from approximately 2004-2008), I confined myself to local vigils in Mar Vista, Westwood and Venice. Since Los Angeles is a predominantly automotive city, these vigils were far more effective in getting in the faces of LA motorists than the mass weekend demos. These vigils occurred on weekdays, not weekends, during evening rush hours. I know for a fact that many motorists saw us. How they reacted subsequently is an epistemological conundrum that I have never been able to answer fully.

While we were not disrupting traffic in the way(s) you advocate, I am pretty sure my vigils did have an impact. How do I know? Because, from 2003-05, I received many death threats and even one physical assault. My car was repeatedly vandalized. If my vigils were having so little impact, than why the violent counter-response(s)? After 2005, I saw the tide turn decisively against the Repukes in Los Angeles, as measured by the ratio of support to disapproval at each vigil (not scientifically calibrated, mind you, but definitely there).

Having discussed the marginal value of mass weekend demos, I should also point out that there were many times when I was seriously displeased by the behavior of my fellow vigilers. They would stand around chatting with one another and making little effort to maximize their visibility to motorists. This occurred to an extent that there were times when I thought about suggesting that we gather instead at a local coffee house for a coffee klatch. I subordinated these misgivings by telling myself that the principal value of my fellow vigilers was to give me relative 'safety in numbers' (My wife forbade me from vigiling alone after I was physically assaulted by a corporo-fascist troglodyte.) Even with numbers varying from 10-20 there were still plenty of scary moments, as when this big land yacht Escalade drove up on the curb in an effort to hit us or at least scare us into thinking we would be hit.

[ddeclue]

21. Save protests in the streets for when you are not being listened to by those in power.

Bush/Cheney + Republican Congress = YES protest them.

Obama/Biden + Democratic Congrees = HELL NO - talk to them and learn how to take "yes" for an answer already...

:argh:

[Bjorn Against]

25. I never even mentioned Obama's name

You assume that if I am protesting I must protesting against Obama, I am not I am protesting against certain policies some of which may be supported by Obama and others which are not supported by Obama.

The suggestion that we should not protest when a Democratic Administration is in office is absurd. You take "yes" for an answer, the problem is that I have not heard a "yes" on any issues I am protesting yet. We had a thousand troops sent to Iraq from Minnesota last month, after Obama was already in office. We protested that deployment of troops, and we needed to protest because no matter how much you say we should take yes for an answer we never got that yes, we got a no and we are going to protest when we feel the government is doing wrong. It doesn't matter if it is a Republican Administration or a Democratic Administration, we don't base our protests on partisanship we base them on issues.

[ddeclue]

29. oh bite me.... it's obvious that you are protesting Obama...

and the Democratic Congress.

Perhaps you failed to notice that this is DEMOCRATIC underground?

:eyes:

[Bjorn Against]

30. I was protesting well before either Obama or the Democratic Congress was in power.

Perhaps you failed to notice that this is Democratic UNDERGROUND not Democratic Status Quo.

[Two Americas]

32. by that logic...

Abolitionists should have stopped agitating when Whigs or Republicans were in office.

Labor union organizers should have packed up and gone home when FDR was elected.

We should not have marched for Civil Rights or against the war when JFK or LBJ were in office.

You are promoting an absurd doctrine here.

[chimpymustgo]

36. Excellent post. n/t

[barbtries]

23. you are correct

nothing's going to change until the PEOPLE demand it. thank you for all you do. i wanted to be with you in DC this past saturday so much, but money would not allow it. but i will be there very soon.

[Bjorn Against]

26. dupe

[Bjorn Against]

27. I wasn't in DC this past Saturday, but I was in St. Paul...

Here is a picture of our march...



And if you follow the link below you can see a video of me standing in for Bush and allowing people to throw their shoes at me. The video on the left shows the action, the video on the right shows the shoes that were made for the action. I am the person with the gray sweatshirt holding the "Arrest Bush" sign in the center. The woman standing next to me who does most of the talking in the video is Coleen Rowley who is the former FBI whistleblower who was Time Magazine's Person of the Year in 2002 and is now out protesting with us every single week.

http://throwyourshoesattheoccupation.com/

[barbtries]

40. hi bjorn

thanks for sharing and for all that you do.

[TBF]

24. K&R n/t

[blues90]

33. The last time I saw protests make a big difference was the 60's

But then we were protesting a war with a draft whcih this alone was cause for more alarm in a personal way and there were the civil rights during the same time.

Today it's an entire mass of issues and groups and a hell of a lot more people and the fact that we have had many rights taken away. Plus there is this shared fear in the economy and losing jobs and of the loss of certain rights.

Plus in the 60's we went out in peaceful protests but the police saw it differently so with the beatings and such then hell yea the media can be counted on to be there and cover that.

The over all climate is so much different today and so much more spread out and complicated. People need to focus on issues most important now one at a time to build unity and strength then move on to the next set of issues. There is too much at once now. This is the problem I see.

I do feel protests have an affect but not when they are not focused with too many issues to focus on at once it gets lost in the confusion.

People said lets get Obama in and then hold his feet to the fire. People will never learn this does not work.

We have a sham of a media today and the internet it great but it also has the issue of making it possible to be a desk chair protestor without any real action needed plus there is as much truth as lies on the internet.

I stood at corners with other people in 2003 and got the horn blowing support but never additional protest joiners and there were not that many of us , it was quite a different feel than the 60's . and the people I was with were more in their late 30's and up , the youth in massess must get involved and they have a lot more to distract them these days and less of a personal stake in this. They have to make it their own and own it. I don't mean just voting either, that's the easy part to do as are going to conventions and support rallys.

[Bjorn Against]

34. I really think individual protests are just as effective today as they were in the sixties...

The reason they have not made as big of an overall impact as they did in the sixties however is that not enough people get out to participate. I don't believe that there was any change in the culture that took place which caused protest to be any less effective, but because there are not as many people in the streets as there were in the sixties we have not seen the massive shift in public opinion that the protests from earlier eras brought us. If we had more people I have no doubt that we could accomplish every bit as much as the protesters in the sixties did.

As far as the age of the protesters goes, I am 31 and I first started protesting shortly after becoming a leftist at 23. I have marched with many people in my age group and younger at the large protests, but the smaller protests tend to be an older group of people. For some reason it is hard to get young people to go to protests that do not involve marches, but when there is a march the young people are out in full force. I don't know why that is, but it seems to be the case because at the smaller events I am often the youngest person there but at the big events young people make up a huge percentage of the crowd.

[blues90]

35. I do know there is a change in culture which I would term climate

In this country between now and the 60's. Culture is really a term I don't feel defines this setting or country.

As I said there are many more issues to deal with today and the focus is too far spread out amoung these many issues.

So you end up with people who tend to make a choice od what it most important to them. This is why I feel protests break down into small groups and the focus is in many directions.

The 60's as I said we had the Vietnam war and civil rights and then poverty was brought into the mix but more so in 68 when the war was at it's peak and at it's worst.

Not that I wanted one but say if there was a draft I do feel the threat of that lone would have been a driving factor in many more lives. It is an isolated group now who focus on this one of the many issues. A very costly and horrific issue.

Back then healthcare was not a prominent issue nor was people watching their jobs out sourced or closed or cut back. I could go on but I think you are aware of the many issues we have now which have all reached their peak at about the same time by design. WE did not have guns in schools or people losing their homes and savings which people had , the CEO's were not making 100 times or more than the worker , unions were strong. We did not have this credit card flood actually it was just the start of cards if I recall in the mid 60's .

There is so much more , you see my point. Yes there are more people now but the focus is not applied where you have now to pick the most vital issues , work them out, make progress and then move to the next set of issues and so on. You have a battle field here and all it took to lite this off was the fear we did not have called 9/11 or we were not told we had to give up certain rights as we have now.

They have systematically invoked fear and removed rights to gain control. While doing this the scam in the economy was alive running in the background known as distraction , if this were not the case then perhaps they would have never been able to pull this off. it's not quite the same as the S&L scandle of the 80's but it's close but without the need for distration known as fear yet we should have been wary and people were not that this may happen again , add fear to the mix and you have a different game.

The protest effectively now you must dicide and focus on each issue and this will gain the numbers you need. It's too big to approach in smaller spread out groups , some focus on the war machine , some on healthcare , economics , job loss , unions , global warming ,it's frigging endless. Some on more than one of two issues but over all people can't do more than one and have time for it or the energy.

[H2O Man]

37. Protest rallies/marches are important.

We know this, because Amendment 1 provides protection for them. If they were not important, than it would not be something that citizens need protections from their government for.

The manner in which protest rallies/marches are conducted, however, needs constant evaluation, re-evaluation, and creativity. At this point in time, I think people would do well to study the tactics of Gandhi and King. And I do mean a serious study, including King's thoughts in '67 and '68 on how to focus on relatively simple, easily expressed goals.

King's ideas for a "tent city" in Washington, DC, would seem an ideal goal for today. Not a short, one-day event. But a long-term showing of what poverty in this country really is.

[coalition_unwilling]

41. Great thread and part of why I so enjoy DU. Bookmarking

for later and recommending.

[C......N......C]

42. A nothing to lose leader with charisma is out there someplace.