> I sympathsize with Chuck, who in an earlier comment in this thread said
> the Taibbi article was claptrap. But I think there's no question that
> there has been a diminishing return on sixties' style mass
> demonstrations -- that these demonstrations no longer have the shock
> value they used to have, that they have hardened into shtick, and that
> they are easily neutralized by the media and cops. The establishment
> was genuinely fearful of mass protests in the Vietnam era. No more.
The problem is that there is little to zero return on these types of mass demonstrations and that has been the case for many decades. I wouldn't call these marches and rallies "sixties style" because they have been used by the left for many years prior and after the 1960s. One of the problems with them is the 1960s mythology that has led too many people to think that mass marches stopped the Vietnam War. Of course, as most people know by now, mass marches and rallies didn't stop the war--they may have prolonged the war by not sufficiently "bringing the war home" through more radical tactics.
I have been critical of the "peaceful rally and march" tactic for many years. The Seattle and subsequent anti-globalization protests were so successful because the movements stopped relying on this disempowering, ineffective tactic. The Seattle police were caught by surprise because, like most American police forces, they had lost all respect for dissenters. Why bother training your officers on riot control when the dissenters will consistently apply for an official permit to exercise their first amendment rights in marches and rallies that don't cross the line. Another problem with this tactic is that people were seeing it as a form of civil disobedience, when it wasn't. Finally, one of the other chief problems with the "peaceful rally and march" tactic is that it is an easy way for sectarian parties to organize something that is safe and gives people the impression that they are doing something. Witness the number of people used as spectacle marshalls during the UFPJ march--their sole job was to keep the streets clear in front of the UFPJ banner so that photographers could take pictures of the official "leaders" of the march (who were curiously Hollywood celebrities who had probably done nothing to organize the march).
Nathan Newman wrote:
> The other problem with the August 29 march was it was too small, smaller
> than the big antiwar march last Spring down Broadway.
The march was plenty big from what I witnessed. What would have another 100,000 accomplished? Nothing. There would have been no extra media attention because the media doesn't cover (for the most part) "peaceful" permitted marches and rallies.
>The problem was the
> organizers delayed too long in establishing a parage route and left enough
> confusion out there that many folks did not participate out of fear of
> arrests.
Well, if people had listened to me and others, they could have avoided this problem.
The solution is very simple.
UFPJ should have announced their march and should have refused to get permits. Of course, the leaders of UFPJ aren't that bright, so they opted for a confrontational approach with the city which sowed doubts and fears about the cops. UFPJ played straight into the hands of the cops, which I've warned about numerous times in the past. When you play the permit game, you not only disempower people from exercising their constitutional rights, but you fuel the "police vs. protester" media spin. UFPJ should have just organized their march without permits. The police would have let the march happen simply because the numbers of people would have overwhelmed them. The NYPD allowed the unpermitted KWRU march to happen.
> I know from direct discussion that members of a lot of immigrant
> groups in the city stayed away out of fear and I know of family members,
> who marched last year, who stayed away. It turned out not to be a problem
> but things were too uncertain.
Chalk that up to UFPJ making the stupid, foolish decision to get trapped into the "police vs. protester" trap. There are lots of people upset with UFPJ right now for many reasons, including the ones you mention here.
> If a date and route had been established two months earlier-- and the final
> route could have been-- then I think we could have had over a million
> people on the streets. That scale of protest would have registered a far
> larger message than just one more impressive but not unprecedented
> multi-hundred thousand person march.
Maybe. Probably not. What kind of message was registered? That people are upset with Bush? Everybody already know that one. People know that the country is polarized for and against Bush. A million people on the streets with anti-Bush messages isn't going to sway many people.
> Numbers matter and the organizers screwed up in negotiating too long.
> They should have sued far earlier for access to Central Park and if they
> were turned down, they could have gotten the word out for alternatives.
> They didn't and the numbers suffered.
Suing earlier, or a different way, or over different plans, would not have mattered. Once you grant the police permits legitimacy through the courts, you play right into the "police vs. protester" storyline. As son as that happens, you've killed off the effectivenes of the protests and have marginalized the voices of thousands who really don't need some permit to exercise their free speech rights.
I guess these things matter if you want to get Bush out of office, which is not something on my to-do list. I thought that overall the RNC protests and events were a much-needed shot-in-the-arm for various movements. I think that bringing together so many dissidents for a week showed them that they aren't alone. The organizing that went into the RNC protests will have long-lasting effects on other dissent for years to come.
We don't need no stinkin' permits!
Chuck0