NRC protest thoughts
At first look, and you can look, the protest movement against the Republican National convention looks like a load of nonsense, a non-movement created to give young wannabes a chance to make fools of themselves:
http://protestrnc2008.org/
WELL, okay, trying to take it seriously, and there's a shitload of things worthy of protesting, and bigtime political events are a good chance for the protesters to get some exposure, I try to imagine a purpose, so what IS their purpose? Is there ONE common purpose, or is this just a collection of six dozen possibly contradictory protests all working together? Is the purpose to gain exposure to each of them? Or perhaps is the purpose just to get a group of somewhat like-minded rejects together to party and pretend they're making a difference?
For me a protest must ultimately reduce itself to an individual response, so the protest itself is an announcement that there is a response, and that YOU TOO could be a part of this, assuming you're not stuck "in the belly of the beast" with your mortgage, your car payments, your credit card payments, your 401(k) invested in oil and war stocks and all that moral ambiguity that comes with getting in line for your share in the pie.
What would be interesting to me is to see what the lifestyles of the protesters are, or specifically for instance, the war in Iraq is largely, whatever anyone says or doesn't say, about oil - the flow of oil. It's about who controls the "lifeblood" of modern civilization. So my personal response is to minimize my need for oil-related products - so MY MONEY doesn't add to the wealth of those who control the oil, or the economy of oil. It's a small response, and easier for me as an individual than if I had a family. My response is also to divest participation in the "debt economy", so I have a mortgage, but I'm paying it down as fast as I can, so when I'm done, I'm in a more powerful place to control my need for money. It's a trade off because in the mean time I need to earn a lot of money, and its an extravance of my income that allows the possibility. It also holds liabilities of limiting my mobility, and the stability increases my ability to store lots of stuff, to buy lots of stuff (if I was so inclined).
I can imagine young people, perhaps with a passion for something, without a college education, perhaps would value their "lightness" to travel, to live even simpler than me, by sharing space in an apartment for instance, or perhaps further south where it's warmer, straight out "squatting", living in abandoned buildings and structures that provide the most basic of shelter. Such people in their 20's might gain the confidence and stability of someone else in their 40's or 50's following the traditional approach - borrowing for college, borrowing for a home, borrowing for a car, borrowing to raise a family, etc. People who "have little to lose" are perhaps better able to see things more honestly, what supports them, and what they want out of life.
Now all of this has nothing to do with the protests themselves, but suggests one approach to a lifestyle that allows devotion to protest movements, whether a minority follow this or a majority.
On the opposite extreme perhaps, a less impressive approach to protesting is people who benefit by power, privledge, and opportunity of modern society, and take full advantage to the system, but simply want "political change". They are actually much less likely to even bother protesting themselves, and simply want to believe the failure of politicals is the "wrong people in power" rather than the failure of the systems themselves.
I can have my sympathy here, and I'll "dabble" in politics, in candidates, in voting, and even direct lobbying/advocacy. I can only dabble because largely it seems too hard to really commit myself to fighting the system.
I can look to the "simplest of truths" - like the no-brainer - the can be NO MORAL highground that supports the creation, or stockpiling of ANY nuclear weapons what so ever. It's fully hypocritical to live in a country that tries to limit other countries from having weapons that WE POSSESS in the greatest quantity of any other nation. I simply can't imagine any situation that a rational person would launch any sort of nuclear attack on another group given this weapon primarily harms civilians. I can imagine the logic of a temporary "cold war" between two large nations using mutually assurred destruction as their incentive to not attack, but I can't imagine any situation that warrants this to continue one second longer than necessary. And now we've gone 18 years after the break up of the USSR. We've helped deactiviate the Russian missiles, converted their radioactive portions into nuclear reactor fuel, BUT we still have tens of thousands of ICBMs! Insane, and worthy of world hatred and condemnation.
The counter argument I always get is a strange bizare and foolish TRUST that OUR government is GOOD, and OUR government can be TRUSTED, both to only use these weapons under the most pressed situations, and trusted to keep SAFE from the hands of madmen. BUT even if I accepted the argument, who is to say that these weapons will stay out of the hand of LESS GOODLY people? Who's to say that our government will continue to be capable of protecting these weapons? It's all madness to trust so much. It's ONLY acceptable because nothing really bad has happened yet. That is the defense. It's one thing to TRUST civilian nuclear power, with a definite benefit to humanity is worth the risk, and another level to trust military nuclear power, with no benefit except as a bizarre detourant will remain "forever safe". Of course both require great security, but at least nuclear power plants largely only hurt the local environment, while nuclear missiles risk people far away who can do nothing to improve the security risks.
Anyway, that's ONE LITTLE RATIONAL argument that seems beyond refute. I mean I've just offered the counter-argument, but disarmed it as well in my mind. It's one position that is so outrageous to me that I might consider surrendering my own well-being and comfort, if I could help change it. WELL, like being a protester at the RNC or any other political gathering.
OF COURSE, its not so easy to give up my comfort and well-being for a mere theoretical risk that hasn't happened yet. AND for all my internal bluster at this clear-cut moral position, it fails COMPLETELY and UTTERLY to face the deeper issues of power of military madness, fails utterly to face the global arms trade, and the U.S. industrial participation, surely in many conflicts profitting from arming BOTH sides of conflicts.
And then I could perhaps build up my moral argument against conventional weapon sales. But the ground gets more slippery here. Where do we draw the line? What level of weapontry is acceptable? And how do I stop people without political power from wanting to use military power to gain political power? AND would I be justified in this? AND here I am, sitting all safe and sound in my home and community, largely free of danger from fatal weapons being used in my presence.
And it all gets fuzzed out for me in the shadows of power. The U.S. spends massive amounts in our military efforts, but our empire ("our" if you are like me, benefiting from the spoils of our empire), our empire is run through greater power of greed, intimidation, and deception to influence other countries to our benefit.
For me it largely all comes down to excess energy of fossil fuels. Our economic and military power comes from our great organization and insight and gamesmanship into how to get what we want, but its all powered by resources of the earth.
Looking out at all that, I can see FEAR will make me submit to accepting the necessity of physical power as the last resort to keeping order and security. I can see this fear is justified, even to the point, that I can see protestors as ultimately on the same level as terrorists, or at one level lower, the first level merely being whether protestors have acted outside the law, and the second level being actions that either encourage or cause risk to persons or property. I think protesting is a valid activity. I think law-breaking is a valid activity. BUT I think those enforcing the law have the right to overpower law-breaking protesters using escalating levels of force as necessary.
I've thought about the issue of property damage, whether it deserves being put at a lower level of harm than violence against persons. Is it just for a police offer to fire a gun at someone who is about to break a window? For me the answer depends on the circumstances, and if the circumstances is social chaos, I'd potentially support nonfatal violence against the protestor even BEFORE acting in a way that damaged property, even less than before he acts to harm a person.
I do have to step back and imagine the nature of these roles being played, since we can largely assume the person threatening the property damage as a young male, and the police officer hopefully as a somewhat older male. There's more responsibility with the police officer. A young man acting violently needs to be restrained, and if he is a part of a group of young men all acting violently, their power is magnified, and the response must also be. Violence is an open-ended word, and could apply to something as small as intentionally stepping on an ant on the sidewalk. But where is the line that a containment is needed? What level of action is worthy restraint?
Stepping back once more, like Critical Mass, where a group of bicyclists purposely take over the downtown roads in the time of greatest traffic. I've heard the great victim speeches by the poor unjustly retrained youth, who were knocked of their bikes to the ground to stop their progress, and general rough treatment.
I can't have much sympathy for these protestors, especially against their abstract goals against our autocentric world. It's all nonsense of course. At one level we have "majority rule", at another level we have "minority rights", and if there's some moral high ground of biking, they should want to "convert" the drivers, not piss them off. So their strategy is a failed one from the start.
So I think of that also in relation to possible efforts to blockade the RNC, to use a human wall to stop the convention. At one level I think its sort of cool that people might try, but what's the message? What's the purpose? What's the result? Can there be ANY useful communication in this conflict?
For me I'm willing to imagine political solutions exist, at least in terms of money. WELL, like with critical mass, if we lived in a city that BANNED bicycle travel, then Critical Mass is a good way to oppose an unfair restriction of a minority form of travel. So it's a form of communication that says "We want our share" for which the majority can agree or disagree.
If we imagine the republicans hold some great control over us (I guess there'll be protests at the Democratic convention too), then a direct action like a human blockage ought to be united behind a singular political demand. Perhaps that demand is "Get us out of Iraq now", or "Give poor youth equal access to financial help for college as provide by military service." or perhaps there's a full dozen demands that collectively represent the unmet needs of the community that have failed to be addressed through political participation. Or perhaps in general, take existing political positions and raise awareness through direct action.
Ultimately I guess I imagine protestors must recognize that their ENEMY is not police power or elected representatives, but PUBLIC OPINION itself. That means their direct action must be well-coordinated, well-articulated goals, and consistently applied over dozens or hundreds of protests over many years. I accept that the "majority" position need not be changed by the protestors, and that you only need a critical mass minority to force the issue to rise politically.
Lastly I'm most annoyed by the reality that many political demands, while seemingly fair and good in and of themselves, fail to be properly weighed in regards to all the other issues and demands. In sort, most "nice things" don't matter in the short term when there's bigger issues afoot, so its sad. That means protestors need to work together, not only with other protestors, but representatives themselves to identify and push the political change that is ready to be changed, and inch the agenda forward to things that have a chance to become reality in the future.
In short it ultimately seems very strategic in nature. There can be "no fun" in protesting for its own sake. There's too much wasted energy pushing boulders up hill that can never reach the top. There's too much energy needed for the practical changes that are within reach.
So I see a great divide. Politics is about "the art of the possible", and protesting is about the "art of the impossible", maybe? There's ennumerable things that are impossible now, but still need to be remembered. I think there's good people working on the impossible, and I think there must be different tools. Most of all, I see those working on the impossible have to be extraordinary people who are so fed up with the way things are that they can step beyond their self-interest, self-serving agenda, and work in creative ways to live their lives "beneath" the system, basically coming out for me as "voluntary simplicity" most of all because we're all responsible for the problems when we're dependent upon them.
And I'm most interested in the underground lifestyle movement that steps away from the easy choices of education/career/family and looks at what we all really need to live. I don't know how much hope I have for that lifestyle, and I certainly find myself frightened by it, frightened by people who need much less than I do, who will take a riskier life, without guarantees of modern health insurance for instance. I appreciate the idea of collective self-sufficiency, of cooperative efforts to stregthen a whole. It's very "unamerican" in the sense that sharing demands a greater sense of common purpose than we know. It almost seems that only religion can succeed here, but environmentalism itself is a sort of religion. It's a belief that we can never live long fighting against nature, that strength comes from doing more with less, and taking what we need. Such a movement I think will never prosper in the greater sense within a world of abundance, but it seems a necessity in a world where poverty and individual opportunity is diminished.
I can see one of the backlashes against protestors is basically its either the young who have not yet invested their time and love into a system that sustains them, and the less young who have had enough opportunity and privledge to succeed within the system sufficiently to have energy to give to protesting.
We're all terribly fortunate to have all the opportunity we've had in the lass century of expansive material wealth and affluence. The breadth of our exploring and passion is astounding, and its sad to imagine a future where we may have to return to having less than our parents, less that we desire, less than we hope for. It's a tricky place, ideally those lucky enough to have enough owe something to those who don't. And as long as cheap energy lasts, there'll be people hanging onto the shrinking pie. Those who can take baby steps away are the explorers into the new frontier that humanity must cross.
I don't know how much protesting really can make a difference, but perhaps at least its good practice for cooperative effort. It's like a football game. The game itself isn't import as much as what is learned through it, both protestors and police. I don't welcome conflict, but I know it needs expression. I hope the "nonviolence" protestors can do their teaching well, show people what power looks like, and what it doesn't look like.
Happy work!
http://protestrnc2008.org/
WELL, okay, trying to take it seriously, and there's a shitload of things worthy of protesting, and bigtime political events are a good chance for the protesters to get some exposure, I try to imagine a purpose, so what IS their purpose? Is there ONE common purpose, or is this just a collection of six dozen possibly contradictory protests all working together? Is the purpose to gain exposure to each of them? Or perhaps is the purpose just to get a group of somewhat like-minded rejects together to party and pretend they're making a difference?
For me a protest must ultimately reduce itself to an individual response, so the protest itself is an announcement that there is a response, and that YOU TOO could be a part of this, assuming you're not stuck "in the belly of the beast" with your mortgage, your car payments, your credit card payments, your 401(k) invested in oil and war stocks and all that moral ambiguity that comes with getting in line for your share in the pie.
What would be interesting to me is to see what the lifestyles of the protesters are, or specifically for instance, the war in Iraq is largely, whatever anyone says or doesn't say, about oil - the flow of oil. It's about who controls the "lifeblood" of modern civilization. So my personal response is to minimize my need for oil-related products - so MY MONEY doesn't add to the wealth of those who control the oil, or the economy of oil. It's a small response, and easier for me as an individual than if I had a family. My response is also to divest participation in the "debt economy", so I have a mortgage, but I'm paying it down as fast as I can, so when I'm done, I'm in a more powerful place to control my need for money. It's a trade off because in the mean time I need to earn a lot of money, and its an extravance of my income that allows the possibility. It also holds liabilities of limiting my mobility, and the stability increases my ability to store lots of stuff, to buy lots of stuff (if I was so inclined).
I can imagine young people, perhaps with a passion for something, without a college education, perhaps would value their "lightness" to travel, to live even simpler than me, by sharing space in an apartment for instance, or perhaps further south where it's warmer, straight out "squatting", living in abandoned buildings and structures that provide the most basic of shelter. Such people in their 20's might gain the confidence and stability of someone else in their 40's or 50's following the traditional approach - borrowing for college, borrowing for a home, borrowing for a car, borrowing to raise a family, etc. People who "have little to lose" are perhaps better able to see things more honestly, what supports them, and what they want out of life.
Now all of this has nothing to do with the protests themselves, but suggests one approach to a lifestyle that allows devotion to protest movements, whether a minority follow this or a majority.
On the opposite extreme perhaps, a less impressive approach to protesting is people who benefit by power, privledge, and opportunity of modern society, and take full advantage to the system, but simply want "political change". They are actually much less likely to even bother protesting themselves, and simply want to believe the failure of politicals is the "wrong people in power" rather than the failure of the systems themselves.
I can have my sympathy here, and I'll "dabble" in politics, in candidates, in voting, and even direct lobbying/advocacy. I can only dabble because largely it seems too hard to really commit myself to fighting the system.
I can look to the "simplest of truths" - like the no-brainer - the can be NO MORAL highground that supports the creation, or stockpiling of ANY nuclear weapons what so ever. It's fully hypocritical to live in a country that tries to limit other countries from having weapons that WE POSSESS in the greatest quantity of any other nation. I simply can't imagine any situation that a rational person would launch any sort of nuclear attack on another group given this weapon primarily harms civilians. I can imagine the logic of a temporary "cold war" between two large nations using mutually assurred destruction as their incentive to not attack, but I can't imagine any situation that warrants this to continue one second longer than necessary. And now we've gone 18 years after the break up of the USSR. We've helped deactiviate the Russian missiles, converted their radioactive portions into nuclear reactor fuel, BUT we still have tens of thousands of ICBMs! Insane, and worthy of world hatred and condemnation.
The counter argument I always get is a strange bizare and foolish TRUST that OUR government is GOOD, and OUR government can be TRUSTED, both to only use these weapons under the most pressed situations, and trusted to keep SAFE from the hands of madmen. BUT even if I accepted the argument, who is to say that these weapons will stay out of the hand of LESS GOODLY people? Who's to say that our government will continue to be capable of protecting these weapons? It's all madness to trust so much. It's ONLY acceptable because nothing really bad has happened yet. That is the defense. It's one thing to TRUST civilian nuclear power, with a definite benefit to humanity is worth the risk, and another level to trust military nuclear power, with no benefit except as a bizarre detourant will remain "forever safe". Of course both require great security, but at least nuclear power plants largely only hurt the local environment, while nuclear missiles risk people far away who can do nothing to improve the security risks.
Anyway, that's ONE LITTLE RATIONAL argument that seems beyond refute. I mean I've just offered the counter-argument, but disarmed it as well in my mind. It's one position that is so outrageous to me that I might consider surrendering my own well-being and comfort, if I could help change it. WELL, like being a protester at the RNC or any other political gathering.
OF COURSE, its not so easy to give up my comfort and well-being for a mere theoretical risk that hasn't happened yet. AND for all my internal bluster at this clear-cut moral position, it fails COMPLETELY and UTTERLY to face the deeper issues of power of military madness, fails utterly to face the global arms trade, and the U.S. industrial participation, surely in many conflicts profitting from arming BOTH sides of conflicts.
And then I could perhaps build up my moral argument against conventional weapon sales. But the ground gets more slippery here. Where do we draw the line? What level of weapontry is acceptable? And how do I stop people without political power from wanting to use military power to gain political power? AND would I be justified in this? AND here I am, sitting all safe and sound in my home and community, largely free of danger from fatal weapons being used in my presence.
And it all gets fuzzed out for me in the shadows of power. The U.S. spends massive amounts in our military efforts, but our empire ("our" if you are like me, benefiting from the spoils of our empire), our empire is run through greater power of greed, intimidation, and deception to influence other countries to our benefit.
For me it largely all comes down to excess energy of fossil fuels. Our economic and military power comes from our great organization and insight and gamesmanship into how to get what we want, but its all powered by resources of the earth.
Looking out at all that, I can see FEAR will make me submit to accepting the necessity of physical power as the last resort to keeping order and security. I can see this fear is justified, even to the point, that I can see protestors as ultimately on the same level as terrorists, or at one level lower, the first level merely being whether protestors have acted outside the law, and the second level being actions that either encourage or cause risk to persons or property. I think protesting is a valid activity. I think law-breaking is a valid activity. BUT I think those enforcing the law have the right to overpower law-breaking protesters using escalating levels of force as necessary.
I've thought about the issue of property damage, whether it deserves being put at a lower level of harm than violence against persons. Is it just for a police offer to fire a gun at someone who is about to break a window? For me the answer depends on the circumstances, and if the circumstances is social chaos, I'd potentially support nonfatal violence against the protestor even BEFORE acting in a way that damaged property, even less than before he acts to harm a person.
I do have to step back and imagine the nature of these roles being played, since we can largely assume the person threatening the property damage as a young male, and the police officer hopefully as a somewhat older male. There's more responsibility with the police officer. A young man acting violently needs to be restrained, and if he is a part of a group of young men all acting violently, their power is magnified, and the response must also be. Violence is an open-ended word, and could apply to something as small as intentionally stepping on an ant on the sidewalk. But where is the line that a containment is needed? What level of action is worthy restraint?
Stepping back once more, like Critical Mass, where a group of bicyclists purposely take over the downtown roads in the time of greatest traffic. I've heard the great victim speeches by the poor unjustly retrained youth, who were knocked of their bikes to the ground to stop their progress, and general rough treatment.
I can't have much sympathy for these protestors, especially against their abstract goals against our autocentric world. It's all nonsense of course. At one level we have "majority rule", at another level we have "minority rights", and if there's some moral high ground of biking, they should want to "convert" the drivers, not piss them off. So their strategy is a failed one from the start.
So I think of that also in relation to possible efforts to blockade the RNC, to use a human wall to stop the convention. At one level I think its sort of cool that people might try, but what's the message? What's the purpose? What's the result? Can there be ANY useful communication in this conflict?
For me I'm willing to imagine political solutions exist, at least in terms of money. WELL, like with critical mass, if we lived in a city that BANNED bicycle travel, then Critical Mass is a good way to oppose an unfair restriction of a minority form of travel. So it's a form of communication that says "We want our share" for which the majority can agree or disagree.
If we imagine the republicans hold some great control over us (I guess there'll be protests at the Democratic convention too), then a direct action like a human blockage ought to be united behind a singular political demand. Perhaps that demand is "Get us out of Iraq now", or "Give poor youth equal access to financial help for college as provide by military service." or perhaps there's a full dozen demands that collectively represent the unmet needs of the community that have failed to be addressed through political participation. Or perhaps in general, take existing political positions and raise awareness through direct action.
Ultimately I guess I imagine protestors must recognize that their ENEMY is not police power or elected representatives, but PUBLIC OPINION itself. That means their direct action must be well-coordinated, well-articulated goals, and consistently applied over dozens or hundreds of protests over many years. I accept that the "majority" position need not be changed by the protestors, and that you only need a critical mass minority to force the issue to rise politically.
Lastly I'm most annoyed by the reality that many political demands, while seemingly fair and good in and of themselves, fail to be properly weighed in regards to all the other issues and demands. In sort, most "nice things" don't matter in the short term when there's bigger issues afoot, so its sad. That means protestors need to work together, not only with other protestors, but representatives themselves to identify and push the political change that is ready to be changed, and inch the agenda forward to things that have a chance to become reality in the future.
In short it ultimately seems very strategic in nature. There can be "no fun" in protesting for its own sake. There's too much wasted energy pushing boulders up hill that can never reach the top. There's too much energy needed for the practical changes that are within reach.
So I see a great divide. Politics is about "the art of the possible", and protesting is about the "art of the impossible", maybe? There's ennumerable things that are impossible now, but still need to be remembered. I think there's good people working on the impossible, and I think there must be different tools. Most of all, I see those working on the impossible have to be extraordinary people who are so fed up with the way things are that they can step beyond their self-interest, self-serving agenda, and work in creative ways to live their lives "beneath" the system, basically coming out for me as "voluntary simplicity" most of all because we're all responsible for the problems when we're dependent upon them.
And I'm most interested in the underground lifestyle movement that steps away from the easy choices of education/career/family and looks at what we all really need to live. I don't know how much hope I have for that lifestyle, and I certainly find myself frightened by it, frightened by people who need much less than I do, who will take a riskier life, without guarantees of modern health insurance for instance. I appreciate the idea of collective self-sufficiency, of cooperative efforts to stregthen a whole. It's very "unamerican" in the sense that sharing demands a greater sense of common purpose than we know. It almost seems that only religion can succeed here, but environmentalism itself is a sort of religion. It's a belief that we can never live long fighting against nature, that strength comes from doing more with less, and taking what we need. Such a movement I think will never prosper in the greater sense within a world of abundance, but it seems a necessity in a world where poverty and individual opportunity is diminished.
I can see one of the backlashes against protestors is basically its either the young who have not yet invested their time and love into a system that sustains them, and the less young who have had enough opportunity and privledge to succeed within the system sufficiently to have energy to give to protesting.
We're all terribly fortunate to have all the opportunity we've had in the lass century of expansive material wealth and affluence. The breadth of our exploring and passion is astounding, and its sad to imagine a future where we may have to return to having less than our parents, less that we desire, less than we hope for. It's a tricky place, ideally those lucky enough to have enough owe something to those who don't. And as long as cheap energy lasts, there'll be people hanging onto the shrinking pie. Those who can take baby steps away are the explorers into the new frontier that humanity must cross.
I don't know how much protesting really can make a difference, but perhaps at least its good practice for cooperative effort. It's like a football game. The game itself isn't import as much as what is learned through it, both protestors and police. I don't welcome conflict, but I know it needs expression. I hope the "nonviolence" protestors can do their teaching well, show people what power looks like, and what it doesn't look like.
Happy work!
posted by Ares Olympus at 4:36 PM
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