Wanted: More and Better Protesters : Miami IMC

Whatever the thing is that’s being protested, see, you say it’s Got to Go.

This event was the insipidly-named “Rally to Save the American Dream” that went on yesterday in various cities across the USA. The intention was to give the thumbs-up to the Wisconsin protesters, encourage them to keep up the battle for collective bargaining rights. Also, presumably, to dig the trenches for the last-ditch fight to save the American working class, in spite of tea-party defectors who have already put out the sign saying “Welcome Corporate Overlords!”

But there’s got to be a better way than this. At the San Francisco rally, there was a cheap microphone that didn’t work, people yelling “we can’t hear you” at the back, old lefty warhorses trotted out to say the same things they’ve been saying for forty years in the same reedy tones, and mildly diverting signs done with marker on poster-board:

“Scott Walker is a Koch-Whore”

“Think Outside the Fox”

“Hitler Banned Unions”

“We Are All Cheeseheads Now”

“Gov. Walker Isn’t a Badger, He’s a Weasel”

“Tax the Rich (They’ll Be Okay)”

The worst of rallies is, nobody knows what to do once they show up. So they fall back on the toothlessly traditional. For example, the call-and-response routine that was old when Pete Seeger was young:

“What do we want?”

“Justice!”

“When do we want it?”

“Now!”

Seriously, that was one of the things chanted yesterday. Also wanted: jobs, fair taxes, and, if I remember right, collective bargaining rights, which played hell with the chant rhythm. Nobody had rhythm at the San Francisco rally.

* Read the article at
http://exiledonline.com/wanted-more-and-better-protesters/

Interesting article. The problem isn't style though, but how do we build a movement that can actually challenge the crimes of the system, rather than just make a statement about them? We're not there yet, clearly.

People are getting bored with making symbolic statements that dissipate into nothing, that make no difference -- and that's a good sign. People are searching for ways to be effective. It's difficult to find appropriate points of contact with the system though -- they're diffused, hidden, and well-defended. Our side is unorganized, weak, small, and still mainly trapped within the reformist ideological framework offered by the system itself.

One goal of our activities -- whatever they are -- should be to grow organizationally. Even boring protests can be worthwhile if we use them as locations to meet people who want to build the kinds of organizations that could one day challenge the system as a whole. And in that case, style may
make a difference -- a more exciting protest might attract people more interested in that.

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