I hope that summer in DC is less humid than I remember it being…

be well!

=(

I’ll hold my horses… I guess I’m excited at putting thoughts and getting push back on it. I apologize if any overzealous comment was disrespectful,

and I appreciate what you wrote…. I’m a fan of CISPES & Ruckus

thanks for the help!

At the conclusion of her post, Christy asked a really good question:

When you think about the enormity of the myriad problems we face, why aren’t more people in the streets?

So near as I can tell, each of us is responding to that excellent question.

(Fortunately for the Lake, our severs, and our mods, each is far more concise than I have been…)

Just in case…

are your posts responses to mine? If so, then I should feel honored to have my first experience with someone talking sh** online…. and I like it! Sadly, I cant spend as much time on this as I did on the original comment, but here’s some thoughts….

Did I at any point say you should be in the streets? Are you offended or taken what I say personally?

Note that I wasnt taking aim at anyone or any real sphere, I was just putting some experiences and thoughts down. I could have easily started writing a piece on non-profits and the NPIC, staffers, liberals, “progressives”, democrats, or any other labeled group of people.

I chose to not do that….those arent the problem….trust me I have some beef and I’m pissed off as fuck… but I chose how and when I talk to people strategically as I am trying to move a plan. If I meant to take someone down, I would do so clearly and with proof. If what I wrote bothers you… well good, deal with it, figure out why. Let me know what you come up with.

the problem is rigid minds that believe that there is nothing possible except what they have come to learn/believe. The problem is that we don’t look at the outside world through eyes but ours, and don’t leave room for other possibilities.

Sound vague? sure does to me… and that’s because the problem is different in all of us. I would be a pretty self-righteous and egotistical person if I actually did believe I knew the set answers to the questions I posed. (granted, I’ve definitely got an ego…. but hey…. I’m working on it.)
________
WORDSMITH – Not in the streets…..so, we’re lazy? We’re too complacent, comfortable with ‘luxury’, uncomfortable with being uncomfortable (like getting sweaty or being too hot) , etc.

IN RESPONSE TO YOUR QUESTION… I dont know, are you? Any reason you are expecting me to answer that one for you? What am I, an “Ask Column”?

If I answered yes, while it could apply to some people who sure as hell are lazy, complacent, and living in luxury, I would offend and make a hell of an assumption as it is not true for many others.

If I answer no, well I cant answer this as a no, because there are people like that… it sucks but its true, what you gonna do? Me… I’ll get to know them and figure out what moves them.

________
Klynn – I was merely commenting on the reality of living in DC and everyday seeing people struggling to get by. Wondering at night when I’m going home how they’ll make it in the rain. I’m no saint, and don’t know, but I was merely noting that there are folks that have gotten the really bad side of the deal and asking if these would be folks that would agree with the issue based on their experience, but is irrelevant due to current situation which takes precedent over whatever others think is important.

and you know what,

c/s

sorry, mods.

someone I will do better.

Food for thought

I’m so glad Christy raised this question, and I’ll enjoy returning to it in the months to come.

I saw the CISPES protests of the late 70’s/early 80’s from afar, but really only got active in the mid 90’s.

Over that time, I’ve seen single issue direct action (forest protection, which is where I started), economic policy protests (WTO in 1999; IMF/WB in DC in 2000), political convention protests (DNC in LA in 2000, RNC in 2004), and human rights protests (SF’s torch protests for Tibet this year).

I’ve observed as part of the infrastructure/logistics (”medic” services) and as part of the organizers for the IMF/WB and DNC protests).

From the massive Headwaters protests of 1996/1997 right through the incredibly successful Torch protests this spring in SF, the organizers use the “if you build it, they will come” model. That seems to work pretty well.

Over time, I’ve also seen orgnaizers (many of whom started in the very white, fairly privileged forest protection movement) examine the limits of coming in from “outside” and re-engineer their work to be more community based. [Here I’m thinking very specifically of the Ruckus Society, but I’ve seen the same in EarthFirst! and their Mountain Justice Campaign to end mountain-top removal mining].

I’ve also seen the infrastructure/support network for mass protests grow in experience and sophistication: we are everywhere.

Some of the same folks who organized the WTO protests headed to New Orleans even before Katrina arrived, knowing what was to come. That group included the people who had core roles in organizing the Common Ground clinic there.

Jennifer Whitney — one of the authors of We Are Everywhere — is in NOLA now, working with some of the most dispossessed folks there: spanish-speaking migrants, largely undocumented. She’s created a program, and is in the process getting it for funded so someone else can sustain it when she moves on to serve the community in other ways.

The folks who started the first Indymedia collective in Seattle for the WTO are like that: most (I’m told) have moved onto other areas of activism, leaving new and useful resources behind for the whole world to take up and use as they wish.

Ruckus — who now focus on serving indigenous communities, communities of color, and youth carrying on the global justice struggle — is another such example. In response to invitations, they come and in and empower local community activists and those who sign up for their camps with a range of skills: from banner making to climbing to messaging required fo successful mass action.

Then Ruckus goes on, leaving new skilled people to empower their own communities from within.

As discussed above in many eloquent comments, people increasingly are in the streets in a myriad of small, decentralized protests. Reading the discussion here, I’m also stuck by how poorly I’ve shared what I know here at FDL. Even though FDL is antithetical to MSM, I think I internalized the idea that “media” including FDL won’t be interested in “protest stuff”

Which, of course, is absurd: when the Olmympic lighter on steroids torch came to SF, FDL made space for me to wrtie about the issue, the protests, and even what the protests felt like for a participant (moi).

All I had to do was ask.

I’ve been ambivalent about the Denver protests (I don’t want to see them misused against progressives, and I sure don’t want to see the 1968 electoral outcome “recreated”), and I still don’t know if I’ll go. But reading this thread has made me think there may be for a role for me there as a participant/blogger about the mass actions, rather than tjhe convention.

I know I’ll be in Minneapolis for the RNC protests, and I look forward to writing from there about the direct action and the organization for it. All I have to do is ask. If I can find the resources required to be in Denver, I’m inclined to do the same thing there.

I think the world of Naomi Klein and Tom Hayden, but in the global justice protests of the last decade, they are rock stars, not concert organizers.

Tom Hayden was at our convergence space in LA for the DNC protests, and we were glad. I didn’t see him during the interminable meetings we had to organize the convergence space itself (which went a lot better when we finally ceased to allow the “Socialist Worker” folks – who show up, with no visible means of support, across the county and gum up organizing with endless “Marxist” crap. Our tax dollars at work).

I didn’t expect to see Tom Hayden or Naomi Klein at those meetings, and I would have thought it a waste of their time if they’d shown up. The nuts and bolts of organizing huge protests isn’t where they’ve been putting their time and energy over the last years.

The WTO protest, the IMF/WB protests, the Headwaters forest protests and campaign: they all happened because “someone” didn’t wait for anyone else to do something. Instead, “someone” sat down and said “This sucks. Let’s do something about” — and they started organizing the protests.

If we organize it, “they” — we — will come. Along with a million or so of our new friends.

FDL (and other progressive blogs) have the communication/outreach power required to publicize mass demos in DC (or anywhere else).

All we have to do is ask.

Of course — as in Seattle — the “ask” sits atop months of planning and meetings and prep work. As the IMF/WB protests repeated over time, the organizers did better and better at working with local DC folks from the beginning, with the goal of including local concerns in the protests’ goals and messaging.

Did they (we) completely succeed? Nope. Did they (we) get the media coverage we wanted on our issues? Nope. Did we exercise our rights free of repression and illegal arrest? Nope.

Same with the WTO protests, the Headwaters campaign targeting Maxxam, and the RNC/DNC protests.

Did the protests succeed well enough? Yep. The WTO has never recovered from Seattle: we stopped their agenda and their attempt to supplant national rule with corporate policies via further “trade” agreements. The IMF/WB never recovered: staffers were demoralized, and among the IMF/WB “customers” what were once “fringe” criticisms are now accepted wisdom re the deadly effects of the Washington consensus. Both instituions are declining economically and in political power. At the conventions, the true goal isn’t to “shut down” the meeting: Seattle was a one-off. We won’t catch the Empire sleeping again. At the conventions, the huge public protests/demos forced alternative views into the MSM: letting all the folks who felt isolated know they really weren’t alone in their views. Letting them know the resistance to corporate Empire and the state power it releis upon is alive and active.

When “someone” steps up to organize mass protests around the White House, they won’t get the organizing perfect. Mass protests around national issues will never fully reflect community concerns. The DC police will still throw people in jail for no reason. The MSM will still belittle and minimize the protest, subsituting the “freak show” story re activist culture for substantiative coverage. The infiltrators like “John Glass“, the provocateurs like the now-infamous “Anna“, and the no-means-of-support Socialist Workers will try and disrupt us “someone”. The insufferable ANSWER with their Marxist tactics and tired, angry speakers willstill try and jump to take of control of whatever “someone” organizes. [Word to the wise for “someone”: get your demo permits - or start negotiating for them - for DC for the dates you plan before you even start talking about organizing meetings. Makes it much harder for ANSWER to grab the permits first.]

Though all the hassle and harassment above is real (all too real for Anna’s victim Eric McDavid), “someone” will have a lot of help. Awesome attorneys like Carl Messineo and Mara Verheyden-Hilliard and the rest of the Parternship For Civil Justice in DC will successfully defend “someone’s” right to roganize the protest and a million of someone’s friends’ right to assemble. The National Lawyers’ Guild will be there to help defend that right — and provide counsel for the accused and arrested. Who knows? If we get enough arrestees, we may have the chance to use the “jail jamming” technique Katya Komisaruk deployed so brilliantly in Seattle. W00t!

Seeds of Peace and Food Not Bombs will show up to feed “someone” and “someone’s” million friends.

Medics building on the Black Cross Medic Collective’s great work (including trials of pepper spray remedies on willing punk volunteers), empricism, and empowering trainings will come out to look after “someone” and “someone’s” million friends, and train the million in basic street medic skills.

The churches and places of worship and trade unionists and Rainbow Nation who came forth to support the IMF/WB protests will come out to support and find shelter for “someone” and “someone’s” million friends.

And the progressive blogosphere and Indymedia will carry “someone’s” invitation to the million friends.

If “someone” starts it, they will come.

“Someone” will have to figure out the time frame. Before Minneapolis/RNC, or after? After would be ideal, but October in DC can start getting cold. Before the RNC would be warmer, but a lot of logistical talent will be getting ready for the RNC.

We can let “someone” figure that one out.

“Someone” will want to form a small organizing committee ASAP, and bring in PCJ at the start. While “no one” will come out for one person’s call, the organizing committee (and their catchy acronym) will be the face and hands that set everything in motion.

That committee will have DC locals and others to do the core organizing — much of which consists of refereeing among those who come forward with a vision of “what to say” and “how to say it” so that all the speakers are heard, but none dominate. While the messaging folks fight about discuss the wording and the speakers, the logistics folks will set up the infrastructure.

We ARE everywhere.

Save for knowing it will be non-violent (and hopefully free of the hectoring, loud, disempowering, angry speakers ANSWER inflicts on demos), the organizing committee will start out with a date and an idea: “surround the White House”.

The people who step forth to plan will create their version of that vision.

And then “someone’s” million friends will show up and they and the affinity groups they make will show up and decide what they want to do.

And then Tom Hayden and Naomi Klein — and the rest of the world — can see all those “people in the streets”.

All because someone said “This sucks. Let’s do something about it”.

So. Who wants to be “someone” today?

~~~ModNote: Would like to see comments this long broken up into smaller segments in the future. Thanks.~~~

Can FDL add a “print this” function to the site?

It helps to walk “hard copy” to help people understand. Or, to leave hard copy behind in different locations. Or to attach to critter letters.