Tag Archives: Protest

The Power of Unstructured Protest (Part II)

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Policeman pepper sprays protesters at UC Davis.

On Sept 28, when I first wrote about the Occupy Wall Street movement, I said I believed that the movement is:

  1. Better organized than people think;
  2. As much about being evocative as it is about being provocative; and
  3. That its central message (that the process is the message) will carry high resonance and should not be underestimated.

In my second post on November 15th (after the protestors at Zuccotti were evicted by the current administration) I wrote that I believed the protests were likely to escalate, and that stakeholders (elected leaders, police, institutional leaders, even the general public) would have to start choosing sides in ways that they hadn’t been forced to before.

Well, it’s been quite a week.  There have been plenty of pretty raucous protests around New York City (with over 250 arrests), significant Occupy actions taking place in cities around the US, and now a viral video of students being casually pepper sprayed at UC Davis.  Things have gotten uglier, and unfortunately I don’t think they are going to get better anytime soon.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss (but different)

Now here’s the thing.  I remember an old friend of mine who’s an active union organizer telling me a few years ago with a weary sigh:  You know, protests just aren’t what they used to be.  We have an understanding with the police.  We avoid confrontation.  We have planned routes, planned times, permits, speakers.  Our rallies are carefully staged events.  Real protest the way I experienced it in the 60′s is long gone.

Well, guess what’s back in fashion?  Good old unscripted, spontaneous, angry, intelligent and chaotic protest.  But there’s a catch:  as a society, we’ve forgotten how to deal with it.  Or, perhaps more accurately, we’re now seeing that we never really did know how to deal with it in the first place, and what we never learned is now coming back to haunt us.  Turns out, you can’t just casually pepper spray seated protestors practicing civil disobedience and expect a crowd of about 200 folks armed with digital cameras to go along with the program.  The viral video showing protesters telling police that the protesters are granting them permission to leave shows just how powerful the collective voice behind this action has become.  The people’s mic has entered our collective consciousness, and we know how to use it.

Occupy Movement Poll: Do You Agree w/ the Goals and Methods?

And there’s another catch:  I think the Occupy movement represents a significant advancement in social protest:  highly connected, carefully documented, remarkably resilient, and yet as flexible as a hot copperhead.  The escalation that we’re seeing in efforts to repress/displace/control the Occupy movement, on the other hand, have not advanced.  There are some new toys on the scene (did you catch the new pepper spray gun the cop wields in the video?), but the attitude looks awfully familiar and, oddly, old fashioned.  Kind of fuddy duddy, if it were’t so damn vicious.

Magic 8 Ball Says:  Concentrate and Ask Again

Time for prediction number 3:  We are far from done with the Occupy movement, and nobody really knows where it’s going to lead.  That’s the beauty of it, and it looks an awful lot to me like that’s scaring the crap out of the above-mentioned stakeholders.  I don’t think our elected/corporate/institutional leaders really know how to deal with our friends the Occupiers.  They all look so darn mad, don’t they?  Like a really pissed off parent.  With riot gear.  And right behind that anger they look really embarrassed, as if the rest of the world were saying: “Can’t you keep your kids under control?  They are very misbehaved.  You must be a terrible parent.”

We’ve already seen our leaders react by taking a swing.  Just a little smack to get those unruly beggars back in line.  And it really is coming off to the Occupy movement as paternalistic, short-sighted, controlling, and dismissive.  The Occupy movement certainly is not going to be dismissed, and that kind of leadership will only continue to stoke the fires of the resistance.

So, to our dear leaders: you won’t have the luxury of sitting across the table from an adversary in a suit as nice as yours, who understands the inner workings of the machinery you run, and who negotiates terms through a series of finely wrought horse-trades.  Nope.  If you want to come to terms with the Occupy movement, you’re going to have to get down and dirty.  Big, messy meetings.  Too many voices, too many opinions, too many impossible requests.  There won’t be a clean outcome.

What you need to build, or rebuild, is trust.  And that can only happen when people feel like equals.  Building trust and equality is about process as much as anything else.  And as process goes, it’s going to be mighty humbling.  Still, if you ask me, it’s the only thing that stands a chance of creating a sense of unity of purpose, and of engaging the collective voice of frustration the Occupy movement represents.

Occupy Wall St – The Eviction

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“NYC authorities clearly feel #OWS eviction is just and reasonable. That’s why they are doing it at 2am and barring all press.” @gzornick

Forced Eviction of Protestes from Zuccotti Park - NY Ti

I suppose it was only a matter of time before police moved in to forcibly remove protesters from Zuccotti Park.  I just finished listening to the Mayor’s comments and I’m deeply disappointed in both his statements and the actions of his administration.  I’ve visited Zuccotti Park on a number of occasions since the Occupy Wall Street protests began, most recently about a week ago with an old friend in from out of town.  We actually toured through the Park, chatting with protestors and other visitors who all seemed engaged and enlivened in their conversations.  In this visit, as in prior tours through the park, protesters, visitors and tourists were convivial, peaceful and generous – happily holding multiple conversations on the nature of the country’s current economic crisis and possible solutions.  There seemed to be plenty of room for all.

The Mayor’s comments this morning were designed to give the impression that the removal of protesters and the destruction of the protest infrastructure were accomplished with deliberate care, and that personal and property rights of all were respected in the process.  My wife and I were horrified after seeing the following raw video posted on the NY Times City Room Blog, taken during the forced removal.  I can’t saw we were surprised, but we were horrified.  It was a violent, physical confrontation that went far beyond the calm rhetoric on display at the presser.  More importantly, to many the claims that public health and safety were paramount, and that public access to the park was limited by the presence of the protest movement will simply ring false.  In my personal experiences, the public were attracted to the protests and to the remarkable sight of a tent city that functioned through collective action and a tremendous conviction in the process of participatory democracy.  The responses that I saw were overwhelmingly sympathetic and positive.

A number of bloggers and commentators have already begun reporting that the administration’s action earlier today may have been the very shot in the arm the protest needed.  Attention from media had been flagging, and the movement itself appeared to be fraying around the edges – growing diffuse.

No doubt the eviction will greatly increase the likelihood of further protest, and I believe it’s highly likely the backlash will be escalated given the nature of the administration’s apparently oppressive action.  I’m not sure whom the Mayor felt he was responding to in taking this action (i.e., what segment of the “public” he felt these actions represented), but it looks an awful lot like he is siding against the protestors.  Given his background, he’s going to make a very convenient target for the venting of greater resentment and outrage.

Hold on to your hats folks, people are now going to have to choose sides in a way that they didn’t have to before.

(Pre) Occupy Wall St – The Power of Unstructured Protest

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Occupy Wall Street Marchers, Sept 2011

I was able to take some time and walk by the “Occupy Wall Street” rally and Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan yesterday, and I have to admit that I liked what I saw.  There’s been a lot of criticism (check out what CNN had to say earlier today) of the marchers for not developing or adhering to a platform, script, issue, or chant.  Even Susan Sarandon, a veteran liberal issue activist, couldn’t resist telling the protesters that their efforts would carry more power if they were focused on a single issue.

I certainly understand the frustration with how the protesters are (or aren’t) expressing their frustration.  After all, there are so many great issues to choose from:  unpopular wars overseas, a housing crisis, high unemployment, enormous executive salaries, dramatic cuts to social services, unions under attack, and plenty of political hyperbole in the current Republican presidential race (HPV vaccine, anyone?).  Can’t they just, you know, pick one?

We want them to.  Why?  Because I think the majority of Americans are troubled and angry, and we know we’re still a long way from the positive bend in the bell curve these days.  There’s a terrible lack of faith in both the country’s political and corporate leadership, particularly in the long, long wake of the current economic crisis.

Occupy Wall Street Protester

Inchoate Rage

But when we look at the protesters, there’s such a strong feeling of “what good will this do?”  I think it’s so very easy to project onto them our own feelings of powerlessness, helplessness, rage and scorn.  And yet, there’s something about the protest, about it’s apparent shapeless and howling resentment, that’s done a remarkable job of capturing our imagination.  Don’t be fooled.

I can tell you from direct observation that the core of the protest is being led by a committed and well organized team of young activists.  I happened to be there when a planning meeting of sorts was in process.  It was a remarkable call-and-response conversation where every voice was equal, and where everyone who wanted to speak was welcomed.  The park was crowded with activists, but even more so with audience.  While there were bicycles and tents and mattresses and some of the detritus of a lengthening sit-in by folks with precious little money, there was also a real feeling of order, engagement, excitement, energy, direction and power.

Occupy Wall St Poster

I think that’s the point.  The enormity of the current crisis has shaped a protest that is evocative, not just provocative.  It’s not about being “on message.”  On the contrary, it’s about not having a message at all – or rather having the message be that any message is the central principal, literally.  It’s about having a voice, being active, engagement by inspiration and by accident.  It’s about hoping that people will respond – not necessarily by joining the protest itself in force (although I’m sure the organizers would love that) – but by adding our own voices of frustration and expectation to any of the thousand stalled conversations hovering over our collective heads, waiting.

Protest has a history in our country, in case you didn’t notice.  It’s wrong to say that this protest is a throw-back to the 60′s, with topless peaceniks and tie-dyes and lots of people talking about love being the answer.  It’s a helluva a lot angrier and sharper than that.  While it’s clearly informed by those early protests (at least in aesthetics), it’s also informed by Act Up!, the Tea Party, and the many modern iterations of protest as party, protest as performance, and protest as parody.

I don’t think people will look back on this protest in 20 years and recall how it shifted the political landscape, but neither do I think we should underestimate it’s immediate impact.  It’s not a movement, and I don’t think it will reach that scale, but it is powerfully effective at speaking to something that’s in the air all around us, something that desperately needs expression:  our own mired desperation itself.