A friend of mine just pointed me at this article from AlterNet, talking about the large-scale protests which have gone on in the United States for the past few years. Mark Taibbi takes what seems to be a dim view of the current crop of protestors; he argues that they march more for their own sakes than their causes' in a case of "irreverent chest-puffing," but more importantly that they simply Don't Get It:
We are raising a group of people whose only ideas about protest and opposition come from televised images of 40 years ago, when large public demonstrations could shake the foundations of society. There has been no organized effort of any kind to recognize that we now live in a completely different era, operating according to a completely different political dynamic. What worked then not only doesn't work now, it doesn't even make superficial sense now.
While the 60's-style mass protests composed of a variety of kooks and oddballs, each stranger than the rest, had a tremendous impact on the far less individualistic culture of the time, Things Have Changed. The problem is, they've changed faster than popular responses to them have. While Taibbi paints a bleak picture of the protest scene today, he points out that it doesn't have to remain this way, saying that people opposing some of the actions of the current government need to become a Force in Concert, rather than just a group of individuals who happen to be in the same place.
So folks still have to organize; they just have to do it well for a change.
I find myself agreeing with pretty much everything the article has to say. Anything I put here will just be summarizing for the time being. Suffice to say, it's worth reading, and worth thinking about, especially if you're the type who actually gets out to Oppose now and then.
Posted by zibblsnrt at September 11, 2004 11:17 PM
Having taken part in some of those 60's demonstrations, my first (knee-jerk) reaction was to disagree. But then I read the entire article.
"But 300,000 people in slacks and white button-down shirts, marching mute and angry in the direction of Your Town, would have instantly necessitated a new cabinet-level domestic security agency."
That's right. And it's why the part of the protest with the most impact were all those flag-draped coffins.
In the initial protests you mentioned, how many of the people involved do/did you think REally Got It about the issues of the day?
One of the impressions I get with the current crop is that a lot of them are along for the ride without really understanding things past the simplest terms (ie "Bush bad!" or "globalization bad!"). It seems that way in my neck of the woods, with incredibly glaring bits of ignorance at time, and I wonder how much that goes towards discrediting the whole thing.
I'm just curious as to whether that's a common theme or not. Granted, it's probably a bit much to expect people to come along who can effectively get things through to the whole shebang, but while we're talking about things that would help the protests...
Posted by: zibblsnrt at September 14, 2004 05:54 PMThat's certainly how it looks. Get a few tens of thousands of people together, and far from all of them are going to be experts on the subject. Anyone who wants to discredit the group points to the most ignorant as representative. Add to that the fact that most signs are less in-depth than your average bumper sticker for practical reasons, and it's easy to cast the whole group as ignorant. Add to that all the side groups flogging their own issues and all the other weirdos, and it doesn't look good, even if there is a well-meaning, well-informed core.
Just look how the anti-Bush movement, with a list of grievances a mile long and encyclopedias worth of facts and figures, has been successfully boiled down to: "they don't oppose Bush for any reason, they just hate him".