A brief look back to the Vietnam War era eerily parallels todays world. Regardless of what you feel is the scope of resemblance, one thing is clear: the enemy has evolved, so we must evolve.
In the smoke filled haze of the revolution a generation ago, we knew who the enemy was. Nixon. The U.S. government. Krushchev. Communism. Then the smoke cleared, but something sobering took place. In todays increasingly alarming world of Gestapo tactics by the U.S. Government, they are still the enemy, but their tactics have changed. Bush replaced Nixon. The Patriot Act replaced Communism. Crowd control turned into crowd management.
Protest images from the civil rights era up through kent state remain burned into our collective memory. We must forget them. Images of tear gas, police attack dogs, fires, car bombs, fire hoses all constrain our creative and effective forms of protest. Recent history (Seattle, Miami, NYC, D.C.) shows that massive public protests serve little more than annoyances to big business. Police and government tactics have evolved to the point where mass gatherings fizzle into nothing more than parades and rallies rather than energized, unstoppable, and significant change. In NYC, they ended before they even began where even organizers failed to secure permits from the mayor. A permit to protest! They have learned how to deal with terror tactics and crowd control. Unfortunately, we have not evolved. We think the way we are supposed to protest is to gather college kids in birks and hemp from liberal arts colleges in the northeast and stage large gatherings with shabbily made posters covered with clich shocking scribble a facsimile of the images we remember from protests decades ago. Those days are over. There is no fire hose or police dog ready to be trained on you. That was childsplay compared to what we are dealing with now. We are fighting against an enemy who used to be, not who is now.
The protest in the 60s brought together all sorts of different groups of oppressed people. This was effective only because the 40s and 50s were the age of conformity (i.e. the growth of suburban housing development), and being different was feared. In todays age, where diversity and uniqueness is embraced and celebrated where everybody is different - the gathering of diverse groups of oppressed people inspire or instill fear in nobody. The lesbian marching next to the anarchist arm in arm with the college freshman is tired and ordinary and will hardly elicit a raised eyebrow from middle america flipping through the local news channels. Each has their own agenda. And each will peacefully be arrested and spend a night in jail. Next.
Imagine large groups formed in solidarity. Solidarity in uniformity, but not uniformity in the restrictive and closed sense.
Media access today makes nearly everything available for public record, for those willing to look for it. The Patriot Act allows the government to act freely without checks or balances. The only way to be effective is to join together and go after where it will make them notice: in commerce, in business. Bombings are physcal violence are immediate gratification, but hardly effective. Truly effective means require more thought, something that will really disrupt the machinery and make them take notice.
"I just bought real estate in your mind."
-de la vega
that is more precious than anything else.
In the smoke filled haze of the revolution a generation ago, we knew who the enemy was. Nixon. The U.S. government. Krushchev. Communism. Then the smoke cleared, but something sobering took place. In todays increasingly alarming world of Gestapo tactics by the U.S. Government, they are still the enemy, but their tactics have changed. Bush replaced Nixon. The Patriot Act replaced Communism. Crowd control turned into crowd management.
Protest images from the civil rights era up through kent state remain burned into our collective memory. We must forget them. Images of tear gas, police attack dogs, fires, car bombs, fire hoses all constrain our creative and effective forms of protest. Recent history (Seattle, Miami, NYC, D.C.) shows that massive public protests serve little more than annoyances to big business. Police and government tactics have evolved to the point where mass gatherings fizzle into nothing more than parades and rallies rather than energized, unstoppable, and significant change. In NYC, they ended before they even began where even organizers failed to secure permits from the mayor. A permit to protest! They have learned how to deal with terror tactics and crowd control. Unfortunately, we have not evolved. We think the way we are supposed to protest is to gather college kids in birks and hemp from liberal arts colleges in the northeast and stage large gatherings with shabbily made posters covered with clich shocking scribble a facsimile of the images we remember from protests decades ago. Those days are over. There is no fire hose or police dog ready to be trained on you. That was childsplay compared to what we are dealing with now. We are fighting against an enemy who used to be, not who is now.
The protest in the 60s brought together all sorts of different groups of oppressed people. This was effective only because the 40s and 50s were the age of conformity (i.e. the growth of suburban housing development), and being different was feared. In todays age, where diversity and uniqueness is embraced and celebrated where everybody is different - the gathering of diverse groups of oppressed people inspire or instill fear in nobody. The lesbian marching next to the anarchist arm in arm with the college freshman is tired and ordinary and will hardly elicit a raised eyebrow from middle america flipping through the local news channels. Each has their own agenda. And each will peacefully be arrested and spend a night in jail. Next.
Imagine large groups formed in solidarity. Solidarity in uniformity, but not uniformity in the restrictive and closed sense.
Media access today makes nearly everything available for public record, for those willing to look for it. The Patriot Act allows the government to act freely without checks or balances. The only way to be effective is to join together and go after where it will make them notice: in commerce, in business. Bombings are physcal violence are immediate gratification, but hardly effective. Truly effective means require more thought, something that will really disrupt the machinery and make them take notice.
"I just bought real estate in your mind."
-de la vega
that is more precious than anything else.
on top of that - some might argue that what made things happen in the 60s, especially for the civil rights movement, was the "credible threat of violence." where's that now?
i don't know that we SHOULD have violence now ... i'm just SAYING...