I’m too tired to respond to the article, but I thought the link was worth posting for discussion. The author, Leonard Shumard, argues that protesters and activists are “tearing apart the very fabric which binds our society.”
He gives more credit to demonstrating than I. I’ve attended far more marches/demos than I could hope to recount, and I tend to think they suffer from a sort of inflationary effect of diminishing returns. I’ve argued in the past that demonstration should be organized only as part of a comprehensive political strategy, with clear goals in mind, but to many activists the demonstration is the end. If it happens, it’s effective just because it is.
But the TS op ed piece suggests that activism is bad precisely because it is effective. There is an ultra-libertarian argument that all altruistic behavior is bad for the economy because it undermines the beneficial greed which sets the parameters for an effective supply and demand system of economics. Everyone acts in his/her material interests and we all float to the top under a Newtonian market force utopia. When you act contrary to your material interests you upset the oh so delicate ecology of the free market. And certainly if you frustrate those forces with any kind of intervention or “do gooderism” you set everything out of whack and tumbling towards social chaos where life is “nasty, brutish, and short.”
Life is simple.
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April 29, 2011 at 6:23 am
robash141
No, But you could make a good case for belligerent right wing cranks destroying America.
April 29, 2011 at 7:33 am
highboldtage
You are correct Eric there are a lot of libertarians who believe in this kind of utopian thinking. Although many of these people believe that individual “selfishness” is what creates the “free market” there is little scientific evidence for this theory. On the contrary, most of human history and culture since the emergence of homo erectus a couple million years BCE indicates that human progress has been a cooperative group effort.
Objectivism is a utopian religious cult. Ayn Rand’s visions in no way described reality. Just because we can imagine something does not make it desirable or attainable.
There are lots of libertarians who buy into this fantasy. Somehow they believe that when all the regulations are removed that they will be one of the very few people who end up with a house on the hill. The closest parallel I can find in history is in Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire. A feudal system was quickly established in the vacuum. There were houses on hills, with fewer than 1 in 1000 people living in them. If this ever comes to pass here there will be lots of disappointed libertarians.
have a peaceful day,
Bill
April 29, 2011 at 7:35 am
Mitch
Hmmmph. I clicked on the link, expecting to find something ripe for ridicule. To my surprise, I find myself largely in agreement with Mr. Shumard.
The problem is that too many of us act at though it is sufficient to devote time to stopping things, rather than actively working towards that which we believe would be best. It’s an easy trap to fall into when there is so much movement in the wrong direction. But change requires alternatives, not just “no”s. And it’s easier to destroy than to build.
April 29, 2011 at 8:00 am
tra
The article contains little insight and a whole lot of nonsense, including claims that:
* Do-gooders are preventing the thinning of forests, leading to catastrophic forest fires. (In reality, decades of fire-supression and timber industry practices like clear-cutting and then dense replanting have caused the “heavy fuel loads.”)
* Do-gooders won’t let us produce any oil in the U.S. (In reality, domestic oil production is at its highest level in a decade.)
* “DG war protests embolden the terrorists and tyrants and strengthen their resolve.” (And then backs up his point with an alleged quote from a North Vietnamese General — because there’s no way that the General would be lying, right?)
And my personal favorite:
* “Farmers can’t plow their fields because they might run over a mouse.”
This Shumard guy is just spewing the usual ridiculous right-wing nonsense.
April 29, 2011 at 8:05 am
tra
…I find myself largely in agreement with Mr. Shumard.
The problem is that too many of us act at though it is sufficient to devote time to stopping things, rather than actively working towards that which we believe would be best. It’s an easy trap to fall into when there is so much movement in the wrong direction. But change requires alternatives, not just “no”s. And it’s easier to destroy than to build.
Well I agree with you Mitch, except for the part about being “largely in agreement with Mr. Shumard.” The only place in his article where he comes close to making that point is his very last paragraph. Most of his article is the usual nonfactual right-wing screed.
April 29, 2011 at 8:10 am
Joe Blow
Leonard Shumard’s thinking is a classic example of the last vestiges of the archaic dying religion that promoted, sustained and defends tyranny and its colonial despots. These kinds of outbursts are just last-gasp, pleadings that energize the young to work harder. Time is short and far too many people are dying because of these kinds of people and their corrupt beliefs.
April 29, 2011 at 8:26 am
Mitch
tra,
Well, yes. I was kind of supporting the point I’d hoped he was making at the end. I think his choice of examples was less than ideal.
I do feel that much of today’s left thinks protests are ends in themselves, and that protesting is the best way to accomplish change. Protests are excellent for the egos of the more exhibitionist protesters; as far as their ability to bring about positive change, I think it was small and has shrunk rapidly.
I think the people who file lawsuits to stop movement in the wrong direction are doing heroic jobs at necessary work. But I don’t think it’s sufficient, and I’d go so far as asserting that I think the lawsuits are easy compared to the needed work of building alternatives.
Partly because “building alternatives” requires a group to come to cooperative agreement, it’s very, very hard. But absolutely necessary if the left is ever to be taken seriously by a larger group.
April 29, 2011 at 8:27 am
Not A Native
Think your Newtonian reference is awry, Eric. Kinda like one of those mixed metaphor Three Stooges or Bowery Boys things that give a comedic impression that the writer is pretentious or unintelligent. Locally, Lytle, Mangels, and Marks are the most reliable practicioners.
Newton is renowned for inventing concepts of gravity and momentum(and the associated math). You seem here to be alluding to buoyancy(cream goes to the top), so perhaps Archimedes would be the correct reference(lesser knowns like Bernoulli would also be accurate, but more obscure). If you intended to evoke the ‘invisible hand’, then of course Adam Smith is the proper invokee.
April 29, 2011 at 8:41 am
Anonymous
Mitch,
I agree with you that many protests (particularly the use of the protest tactic in the absence of an overall strategy that incorporates other tactics as well) are often rather pointless and ineffective. But I’m not sure I’d agree that “much of today’s left thinks protests are ends in themselves.” I guess that depends on where you draw the line as to who counts as “left.”
I think that most folks who would describe themselves as “liberals” or “progressives” are well aware that protesting is just a tactic. Witness what’s happening in Wisconsin, where mass protests were a crucial tactic, but the overall strategy also involves legal, legislative, and electoral tactics.
April 29, 2011 at 8:53 am
Eric Kirk
NAN – The Newtonian concept I was going for was the self-perpetuating model of gravitational relationships between bodies of mass in systems such as the solar system where an equilibrium maintains cycles of activity – the planets and other objects neither falling into the sun nor flying away out of the system. Granted, I’m slighting Kepler somewhat because he generated the first laws about it, but when we talk about a “Newtonian model” that’s what we mean – a gravitational relationship between bodies of mass in equilibrium. I’m not the first one to apply the example to illustrate Smithsonian economic principle. In fact, I have some visceral recollection that the illustration was employed back in Smith’s time, although probably not by Smith himself who contrary to popular understanding actually did believe in social programs to mitigate inequities in the free market system.
On the contrary, most of human history and culture since the emergence of homo erectus a couple million years BCE indicates that human progress has been a cooperative group effort.
Well, I’ve argued that the first free market ideologists were the bigger of two prehistoric clan members fighting over a kill until the larger group intervened. I’m sure he thought that the interference would upset proper balances, and reduce incentive.
And the real point is that capitalism itself actually requires cooperation. Cooperation obtained through incentive, sanction, and force, but cooperation nevertheless. That is the crucial species adaptation enhanced by our large cerebral cortex and opposable thumb. We aren’t very strong nor quick compared to other species. That’s our schtick.
April 29, 2011 at 9:46 am
Noble
Avoiding the free market minefield, I’d like to make a couple of comments about this post and article..
1. It’s a good observation that protest-as-an-end is where many would-be do gooders get stuck. Protest by itself accomplishes very little, though it is a good awareness-raising tool in the toolbox. I think this is the very reason why we have an encouraged protest culture in developed democracies. It becomes the accepted (perhaps only) way to fight back against the system.
2. This article violates my biggest pet peeve when covering two sides of a many-sided issue. He lumps everybody who protests anything into one hypothetical, dysfunctional person instead of recognizing that different groups can have different viewpoints, different agendas, and protest different issues.
April 29, 2011 at 10:10 am
Mitch
8:41,
Yes, you’re right. What’s happening in Wisconsin is great.
But I suspect Wisconsin shows what happens when people who aren’t normally all that involved finally realize that someone is directly threatening their personal rights and/or pockets. Those are the people, I think, who are both protesting AND taking other action.
And what got them involved wasn’t the 50th puppet show, or the 5000th picket sign. It was a prick too far.
April 29, 2011 at 10:25 am
Eric Kirk
I think that most folks who would describe themselves as “liberals” or “progressives” are well aware that protesting is just a tactic. Witness what’s happening in Wisconsin, where mass protests were a crucial tactic, but the overall strategy also involves legal, legislative, and electoral tactics.
The point is, in my experience very little thought is put into the tactical or strategic (I’ve never really understood the difference) point of the demo. The idea is to bring out as many people as possible to march somewhere, and line up speakers to preach to the choir, some entertainment maybe, and some literature. And if the participants feel warm and fuzzy at the end of the day and the media doesn’t low ball the numbers attending too much, it’s considered “successful.” No effort is made to find out how the demonstration played outside the choir, or whether it even reached them. It is evaluated strictly on the turnout and the feeling. I’ve been involved in enough of them to know.
Personally I think every demo should be planned out with certain considerations in mind.
1. Who is the target crowd? – are we trying to pressure certain pols, alter public opinion, broaden the constituency of the cause, or reinvigorate/boost the morale of the movement participants themselves (the latter is a legitimate goal, but the demo will of necessity be planned and organized differently than if you are trying to reach beyond the usual suspects).
2. What are we trying to accomplish specifically? Related to the first issue of course, but it helps to really think this one out. Are we trying for a specific policy result in the short term, or broadening awareness of an issue for the long term? It need not necessarily be either/or, but again, the goals will dictate certain strategies in terms of who is speaking, what they are speaking about, etc.
3. What is the message? The problem is that we are often coming across like the tower of Babel denizens, and we don’t ask the speakers to focus on the topics of the broadest unity. It helps to have the various groups involved agree on a leaflet which outlines the point of the demo, and if certain points would alienate some of the constituent groups, the rest of the group really should think about whether those points are essential to the message they want to convey. This is problematic in urban areas with lots of sectarian groups, such as the Socialist Workers Party (when I was a member) demanding that El Salvador and “anti-imperialist” points be included on the official leaflet for the June 12, 1982 coalition for a nuclear freeze timed specifically for the US/Soviet talks in Geneva. Not all of the constituent groups agreed with the SWP position on El Salvador, and many felt that adding it to the list would dilute and confuse the message (of course we in the SWP stacked meetings to push our agenda – it was the final reason I quit the group).
More recently, during the Iraq War protest in Eureka – the last big one, I attended, and there were people up on the state at the beginning of the March pushing the truther issue and any casual attendee not familiar with protest organization dynamics would have assumed that this was part of the message of the demonstration and would not want to be a part of it. I almost left myself.
In the 1960s and 70s the demos lost the broad constituents who showed up to hear groups like the RCP or Weathermen talking about “war at home” or support for North Vietnam. They opposed our war in Vietnam, but they didn’t want to be associated with the Maoer than Thou messages being picked up by the media, who were always drawn to the wackiest looking/acting characters in the crowd to define the demo. Likewise, when I had planned to participate in civil disobedience at Diablo in the early 1980s, and some idiot got himself in front of the television camera in an Elephant suit and said, “Elephants never forget, and I won’t let PG&E blow up the state of California!” which didn’t even make sense let alone convey any truth. Organizers were right there, and ought to have stepped in and said, “well, let us just be clear….” Everybody has a voice, because every voice is equal. But every voice isn’t equal. Some of them are stupid and alienating to the normal people you may want to reach. Sorry.
Or, if the whole point of the demo is rejuvenation and catharsis, then let the guy in the elephant suit and the cat in the hat hats with stilts do their thing – and preferably set it out in the woods somewhere where they can’t be seen by too many normal people.
Of course, if you do try to control the message, you will be accused of censorship, fascism, etc.
On the other hand, if it is all about bringing out the various constituencies, such as the Bay Area Spring Mobilizations of the 1980s, then you aren’t as
April 29, 2011 at 10:55 am
Mitch
In ancient history, I was briefly a community organizer. We had one protest during my stay; it consisted of busing the people who lived near a polluting factory out to picket the home of the factory’s owner.
The goals were clear:
First, we wanted to be clear that we would embarrass the owner in front of his neighbors. We didn’t expect the neighbors to support us, necessarily, but we wanted them to know that there were people who didn’t like their neighbor, and that they were liable to make noise in their leafy suburb if their neighbor didn’t clean up his mess.
Second:
We wanted the people who lived by the factory to see for themselves what the other side lived like. It was a wake-up call.
There were two very clear goals. We weren’t interested in getting on the TV news, though that wouldn’t have hurt. We weren’t interested in raising awareness, except among the demonstrators ourselves. We wanted to show residents of a wealthy neighborhood that we thought their neighbor was slime and, more importantly, that his behavior was now going to become THEIR problem, if THEY didn’t do something about it.
I left the community organization because it was emotionally more than I could handle, but I continue to believe in its goals.
April 29, 2011 at 11:40 am
Jane
First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
April 29, 2011 at 3:51 pm
Sinclair Lewis
I wonder, should we consider those in Tunisia and Egypt (less the rapists), or others currently demonstrating and dying in other mid-eastern countries, should we consider those demonstrators to be DG’s? Aren’t they kinda ‘tearing at the fabric of their society’? And, can’t that be a good thing when, intentional or not, those running that society are relentless in promoting ever greater inequality amongst its citizens and ever greater degradation of the earth?
More on point, you kinda have to ask yourself, what kind of world do you want to live in? I agree it would be just dandy to live in a world of unlimited and recuperative natural resources so we could just take all we wanted, do whatever we wanted without anybody bugging us, or degrade our world however we wished, all with no significant effect, e.g., our earth up until about WWII.
But, for those who hadn’t realized it, that world is gone. I dunno, I think maybe its time to leave the buffalo hunter mentality behind, it no longer seems to be serving us very well, if it ever really did. DG’s bug me sometimes too, but I can’t even imagine where we’d be without them.
April 29, 2011 at 3:55 pm
Not A Native
Eric, You get the Lytle/Mangels/Stooge/Bowrey award. Your rationale is simply wrong. You’ve just flipped off and ignore the actual words which you wrote:
..we all float to the top under a Newton market force….
‘floating to the top’ is a way of expressing the phenomenom of buoyancy. Its associated with a constant gravity and was explained by Archimedes 1900 years before Newton lived.
Buoyancy has absolutely nothing has nothing to do with the gravitational dynamics you use as a explanation. Gravitational dynamics is due to the variation of gravity with distance. Its associated with ‘the harmony of the spheres,’ of Kepler(and modelled by Newton), as you cited.
There’s simply no “top” to “float to” in orbital dynamics. If you don’t know, or make a mistake, why not just say so rather than digging yourself deeper? Or is it you just really don’t have the capacity to understand the concepts and have floated to a level where your inability goes unnoticed?
April 29, 2011 at 4:10 pm
Eric Kirk
No, I wasn’t talking about buoyancy. I was talking about perpetual motion. That’s what is meant when you use “Newtonian” outside of a literal context. Really, anybody with a basic education knows that.
April 29, 2011 at 5:21 pm
tra
That was me at 8:41. Not sure why it posted as “Anonymous.”
Anyway, I agree that many of the folks who were protesting (and are now conducting the recall campaigns) were directly affected, or knew someone who was directly affected. But a majority of the people who eventually joined the protests probably fit neither category, but were outraged by the “pricks” (Walker and the Republican legislators) who went “too far.”
And the protests/rallies/demonstrations gathered momentum over the course of a few weeks, suggesting that the protests themselves probably did play an important role in inspriring those who weren’t directly affected to join with those who were. And the momentum from those protests has been very wisely channeled into a political venue — the recall elections — where the people can actually make a real difference in the outcome.
Protests, rallies, demonstrations and so on are vital tools in the toolbox of participatory democracy. But as Eric and you (and others) have noted, they only help when they are part of an overall movement, not as an end in and of themselves.
April 29, 2011 at 6:27 pm
tra
tactical or strategic (I’ve never really understood the difference)
In the world of grassroots organizing and politics, a strategy generally refers to the overall plan for how to achieve a goal, whereas a tactic is a concrete action that serves that strategy.
For example, it looks like the goal of the current movement in Wisconsin is to stop or reverse the anti-collective-bargaining law, one strategy has been to push for a political/legislative victory, and the tactics associated with that strategy have included mass rallies, public hearings, citizen lobbying, the Democratic lawmakers’ walkout to prevent a quorum, and the recall campaign. You can see how each of these tactics forms part of an overall political/legislative strategy, and you can see how such a strategy, if successful, could accomplish the goal.
A different strategy (one that I’m about 99.9999% sure would not work) might be to try to convince Walker and his allies that they should change their minds based on the merits of the issue. Associated tactics might include gathering research that supports the pro-collective-bargaining position, meeting with Walker and his allies, encouraging experts on labor relations to lobby Walker and his allies, etc.
The point is that different strategies call for different tactics, and it will often require a variety of tactics to make a given strategy work so that you’ll have a chance of reaching your goal (or at least a chance of moving in that direction).
The problem is, most people go straight to tactics, without considering the overall strategy, and sometimes without really being clear on the overall goal. Often people will want to choose a tactic that they find personally rewarding (protesting, direct action, etc.) even if that tactic isn’t going to be very useful — or might even be counterproductive — in an overall strategic sense. Other people may lean toward a “safe” tactic, something they are “comfortable with,” let’s say gathering petitions or putting up a billboard, even though, again, that tactic may be more or less useless, depending on the strategic considerations.
April 29, 2011 at 6:29 pm
tra
There are a number of organizations that help teach these sorts of things to community leaders, activists, and organizers. Midwest Academy, based in Chicago, is one of the best (in my humble opinion):
http://www.midwestacademy.com/
So if you’re sick of watching talented, well-meaning people spin their wheels with tactics that seem disengaged from any kind of overall strategy, well, you could offer to help them get hooked up with a group like Midwest Academy, where they can benefit from the collective wisdom of decades of smart organizers, rather than just mimicking the colorful-but-often-unsuccessful tactics that they’ve seen on the TV news.
April 29, 2011 at 6:41 pm
Bolithio
timber industry practices like clear-cutting and then dense replanting have caused the “heavy fuel loads.”
Easy tex. Is that thing loaded?
Do-gooders are preventing forests from being thinned. The BS is the part about that leading to catastrophic fires. Those don’t happen very often, and when they do, the cause is way more complex than simply thinning or not.
April 29, 2011 at 7:02 pm
Dave Kirby
Back in 69 Spiro Agnew….the vice president who was busted for tax evasion .. said it didn’t matter how many people demonstrated it would not change administration policy. Think about that and talk about democracy.
April 29, 2011 at 7:25 pm
JK
That’s insane! If everything was truly based only on self-interest, then there is no need for society, or money, or language. After all, those things are based only on interaction with other humans. Unless you’re saying that those are necessary for self-interest, which would make society the most important aspect of self-interest.
So I guess Libertarians are all actually secret Socialists, & just don’t know it yet?
April 29, 2011 at 9:09 pm
WTF
You know, you should post these thoughts on the Times Standards on-line comments after and below the mans article where they belong. Not here where you have hanged, drawn and quartered him. Or just put “LOL” after your comment, that makes everything OK, right………
April 29, 2011 at 9:26 pm
Anonymous
Thank you for the advice WTF. He submitted his comments to a newspaper. He is free to state his opinions publicly and we are just as free to respond however and wherever we want.
April 29, 2011 at 10:57 pm
Eric Kirk
Well, I don’t see any indication that Mr. Shumard is participating on that forum either. Nor do I see that he has really been treated with any disrespect here.
Would it be inappropriate to discuss it at home, or in a park, or in a box with a fox?
April 30, 2011 at 10:31 am
WTF
Soooooooooooooooooo, I guess newspapers are fair game, not blog master comments? Who said anything about “disrespect”, said the blind man.
And don’t use or bring up the word “park” Eric! You know, that bad taste you get in your mouth.
And Anonymous 9:26 pm – Kind of like shooting someone in the back?
April 30, 2011 at 5:21 pm
Eric Kirk
Soooooooooooooooooo, I guess newspapers are fair game, not blog master comments?
Huh?
And don’t use or bring up the word “park” Eric! You know, that bad taste you get in your mouth.
The only bad taste I get in my mouth is when I allow certain obsessed people to defame people trying to build something for the community. You can personally attack me anytime, and I pretty much let everything through. But others have taken so much crap, they’re off limits on this blog.
May 1, 2011 at 6:18 am
WTF
Yes, the rights of people, by the people and for the park board. You need to lay off the Kool-Aid, man. Maybe you could start a new thread, talk about all the neat stuff the park board has done and is “trying” to do for the community. Then you could list all the benefits the community has been given from the park board. But please factor in the cost of that benefit.
BTW, how did that meeting go with the Kimtu folks?
May 1, 2011 at 8:50 am
Anonymous
e,these people that are “trying to build something for the community”.
WTF kind of BS line load of crap is that?
I do not remember the community asking the corporate park board to build us a large and loud concert tourism venue. Nor do I remember the community asking for housing at the park. If this corporate park board wants “to build something for the community”, let us ELECT the board members.
Otherwise, it’s just “YOU” self-selected clones doing what ” YOU “want, and listening ONLY to the people who are echoing what “YOU” want.
May 1, 2011 at 12:34 pm
Eric Kirk
And the obsession resumes, as the vultures pounce on every small inch in order to slam good people.
I do not remember the community asking the corporate park board to build us a large and loud concert tourism venue. Nor do I remember the community asking for housing at the park.
I do.
May 1, 2011 at 4:08 pm
Anonymous
Yeah, when you were on the board of the mateel
May 1, 2011 at 4:38 pm
Eric Kirk
When I was on the Mateel Board what I knew about the park proposal was pretty much what Stephen had told me in a tour prior to purchase. At that time he had ideas of commercial businesses, as well as the relocation of the hospital and high school, and the community reaction was quite favorable. The vision has been scaled back considerably.
May 1, 2011 at 5:36 pm
Not A Native
I see parallels between the SHCP board’s good people trying to build something for the community with Rob Arkley, local philanthopist(good person), trying to build something(Marina Center) for the community. And perhaps Carol Bruno and Tom Dimmick(local good people) trying to build something(expanded ROTR) for the community. And Rich Ghilarducci(homegrown biz wizard) trying to build something(bigger Humboldt Creamery) for the community. It may not be their intention, but it regularly happens that ‘good people’ do ‘bad things’.
Lots of folks hereabouts come up with ‘big plans’ that are envisioned to bring comforts and put a chicken in every pot(and make themselves some money). Almost all those plans never last further the ashes in the bowl. So,few object to those plans when they hear them because they don’t want to be negative’ or ‘bring somebody down’ or ‘stifle someone’s dream’. So they smile and politely say “that would be cool”. But that’s a far cry from actually wanting ‘the dream’ to happen.
May 1, 2011 at 5:51 pm
Eric Kirk
I see parallels between the SHCP board’s good people trying to build something for the community with Rob Arkley, local philanthopist(good person), trying to build something(Marina Center) for the community. And perhaps Carol Bruno and Tom Dimmick(local good people) trying to build something(expanded ROTR) for the community. And Rich Ghilarducci(homegrown biz wizard) trying to build something(bigger Humboldt Creamery) for the community. It may not be their intention, but it regularly happens that ‘good people’ do ‘bad things’.
In my Big Bird voice:
Three of these things are kind of like the other
Three of these things are kind of the same
But one of these things just doesn’t belong here….
Hint: Three of these things are for-profit operations. One of these things is made up of volunteers and underpaid employees, giving much of themselves. So while what the other three may or may not be proposing good things for the community, the key difference here is that there is, despite the conspiracy theories, nobody profiting materially.
May 1, 2011 at 7:35 pm
Anonymous
Three of those things didn’t go around collecting money from the community is the only difference.
May 2, 2011 at 11:48 am
Not A Native
Yeah Eric, I do know that ROTR is different than the others. Its largely run by volunteers/lowpaid workers and its only goal is to fund non-profits that provide local social and safety services.
My point in citing ROTR was only that ‘good people’ with ‘good intentions’ discovered they had a hammer(popular boogie venue) and figured that meant the world was their nail(unlimited numbers of concertgoers). And they did a ‘bad thing’.