Activism and Protests

Tom Cronin sent this to me.
This blog kind of stirs up some feelings I have from attending protests in the last three years.
There is one thing I remember from some commercial that goes like this, "Stay in the lines, the lines are your friends". I don't remember what commercial, just this.
And many protests I have been to, resembled this. Some organizer would speak into a bullhorn, and ask everyone to stay in the lines.
When taxi drivers protested "drive by ticketing" by the PPA, they shut down Market Street around 31st street, the PPA headquarters. There wasn't a lot of press. Then they drove to 9th and Filbert, site of the PPA hearing rooms for parking tickets, and they shut down the whole area. Taxi Drivers parked 2 lanes deep on 9th street, and blocked Filbert Street. Thats where I was, and can only imagine what it was like on Market and Arch streets.
Civil Affairs officers were telling the cab drivers to move or they would be arrested and towed. They refused.
A civil affairs officer asked who was in charge, so I told one that I was with TWA. He repeated to me that they had to move or else. I told him that my wife and kids gave me permission to be arrested. Then, he says, " there is a better way you guys could do this". "No", I replied, "they will not listen to us".
Immediately, he ordered the officers to let the cabs stay. They opened up Filbert Street and let the cabs park in the middle.
Shortly afterwards, Ron Blount arrived with some other organizers, and a captain of the police asked Ron what time it will be over.
Since then, complaints from taxi drivers on ticketing have virtually disapeared. In fact, I have personnally witnessed, more than once taxi drivers talking like friends with the PPA's ticket writers. They have even cleaned up some of our cab stands which were frequently used by limos, busses, and cars.

When we had the prayer meeting at 31st and Market, the PPA headquarters, recently, for the taxi drivers who were conned into showing up at the PPA for a refund and were arrested by ICE, the media showed up. They thought that we were going to be there in force. It was just a prayer meeting/protest.

The point is, and the only point, is that, "stay in the lines, the lines are your friends" is not true.

EMAIL SENT FROM TOM CRONIN:

To: "yahoogroup nwgreens"
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 2:52:45 PM
Subject: [nwgreens] Some constructive criticism from the protest

I wrote this and posted it to several blogs, including OpEdNews:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Nonviolence-does-not-equal-by-Ross-Levi...

Originally posted at PoliZeros.

I went to a protest in Philadelphia this past Saturday, and it was more disheartening than anything else. It was against the wars and various other injustices, with a special focus on the recent FBI raids of peace activists and Pennsylvania Homeland Security spying on innocent civilians and activists.

By the end of it, I kind of just felt like going up to the megaphone and asking, "How much moral outrage can one person muster? There are more people handing out fliers here than not, and with this country committing so many disgusting, outrageous acts, I don't blame you." I won't lie, I handed a few out myself. Yet the contrast between the righteous causes featured in the speeches and on the signs and on the fliers and the, as a fellow protester said to me, "complete lack of solidarity" was striking.

However, I don't believe that we should stop protesting or that we need to find another way to be activists (although protesting is by no means the only way to be an activist). Old fashioned protests have always worked and they will continue to work. But what I went to Saturday and it is similar to many other antiwar protests I've been to, and I'm sure it's similar to many other demonstrations by progressives, socialists, and the like was too lethargic, too focused on recruiting for outside groups (like the ANSWER Coalition, as Bob has focused on before), and too passive to do anything other than serve as a large meeting for peace supporters.

The only thing we shut down was part of a bike lane and half a road in the business district of Philadelphia. No one really cared, although we got some positive honks from drivers and some of them were probably annoyed. Maybe that could be the antiwar movement's new slogan: "We'll slightly inconvenience you until the wars, the empire, the torture, the spying, the ecological destruction, and the general disrespect toward life is over!"

When I got home, I saw this video on the blog Docudharma, which just compounded my feelings:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckwzV8ddwdA&feature=player_embedded

In France, the nation is being shut down. Why? Because the retirement age could be raised by two years. Even then, it would still be three years younger than what it is in America! Not to mention, similar protests are happening all over Europe.

In the comments at Docudharma, I said something similar to what I'm saying here, and I got a good reply, from user Activist Guy. You can read the whole thing here, but basically he said screw the permit or march at night and bang on pots and pans or go through neighborhoods where this affects people instead of the business district. And he's right. The protests in Europe are, for the most part, nonviolent. Yet they are incredibly effective because of their numbers and their tactics.

For now, the antiwar movement doesn't have numbers. Neither do most movements, because we've become a very passive nation. So we must utilize the numbers we do have, whether through coordinated civil disobedience (not just getting arrested for show, but actually affecting others' lives, by doing things like blocking off streets without permission) or well-organized protests that emulate groups such as the militant Wobblies, who utilized their small numbers incredibly effectively. In any case, we've got to get the energy back. That is what will bring people into the movements, and show them that the alternative to the failure of Washington is not copping out and becoming even more passive, but taking politics into their own hands.