I would love to see Winter Soldier testimonies and others like it pushed more into the public eye, and will keep that in mind the next time I meet with other organizers.

The Anonymous protests don’t seem all that different from various other protests, in agenda or aesthetic; slightly different enemy, same signs & masks.

The Hispanic protests of 2006 are awe-inspiring, and I wish that Americans would turn out in droves like that. But that’s your whole point, I suppose–that Americans AREN’T turning out. The occupation of Oaxaca, Mexico by the APPO (Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca) which began with the teachers union strike in May 2006 had me & many of my friends begging the question, “Why can’t this happen in the U.S.? Why can’t WE take over radio & television stations?”

The obvious answer is that we don’t have the massive showing of solidarity that fueled the APPO. I don’t know when we will. I don’t have the answers…but until I do (hah), I doubt I’ll stop marching in the street.

(Unless the government decides to roll out its “better weapon”, the Active Denial System on protesters in the U.S. Bringing it up makes me feel paranoid, but seriously, they have a ray gun that’s technically non-lethal…how long before the cops decide to stop using tear gas canisters that bandana-clad youths can lob right back at them, and opt instead for a machine that can “inflict enough pain to make you instantly stop whatever it is you’re doing” from over a mile away? Maybe the next protester fashion trend will be mirrored suits!)

Nadya: A very well-put and valid point about media (though PCU did at least have George Clinton to redeem it a bit). But I’m not sure where the chicken-or-egg comes in this situation. Did the media backlash come first, or did the increasing insularity of protest culture make such a backlash/stereotyping far easier?

From my own experiences both participating in protests and covering them from the media side, I can say that while there’s certainly some smug bias against the protesters, a lot of protest groups can try the patience of even the most sympathetic reporters or correspondents.

All the same, the onus is now on would-be rebels and rabble-rousers to find a way around being marginalized and break old impressions. The media, by its very nature, has a shark-like quality — at some point a tactic innovating or gripping enough will get their attention — and new technology is reducing the stranglehold of traditional media and allowing more voices in.

Erin, cappy: The lack of a draft is certainly a factor. But there are a lot of people out there affected by Iraq directly, through their friends or family. To use one example, the northeastern part of NC, where I grew up, has as its representative one of the most ignorant, theocratic, conservative politicians I have ever met.

But the same guy was also one of the first Republicans to switch over against the Iraq war, because his constituents were getting very, very angry that a parent had been away longer than they were supposed to or that a child never came back. A less insular, better organized protest culture could gain some serious ground.

Jerem: Hive-mind it is! Now that would surprise the hell out of the various forces of the status quo.

All together now, in creepy unison… We are Coilhouse…

Ahna: I’m staunchly pro-revelry and obviously I want people to go into the streets, but I’d like for said culture to get it together/adapt enough to actually make a significant impact on the issues its targeting. I think its clear that’s not happening. As for the “better weapon” I think the three recent examples of more successful/innovative protest tactics given offer some damn good starting points.

Tequila: The piece is targeted at the modern, Western variety of protest culture. I’m glad you made that distinction, as the cultures of Burmese, Tibetan and Latin protest are quite different. Chavez is an excellent example of effective protest.

And yes, little miracles shouldn’t be forgotten. I tend to believe, cliche as it may sound, that ultimately there’s no such thing as unbeatable odds.

Margaret: I simply disagree. The anti-nuclear protests barely made a dent in public support for nuclear power. Three Mile Island, however, made a huge impact as people feared for their own safety, while economic changes (especially around oil), led the nuclear power industry to scale back. As James pointed out, nuclear research has continued on and the nuclear power industry is now setting up for a comeback.

I think any declaration of victory over neoliberalism is very premature, as the IMF and World Bank are still functioning and carrying out much the same agenda as before. The latter took more of a real hit from Wolfowitz’s incompetence than it ever did from angry activists. If anything, the reaction of neoliberalism’s architects to the anti-globalization movement (meet in secluded areas) has sharply shown the limits of relying on protest.

While plenty of individuals within the protest culture may do good in their own right — something I did point out above — the fact remains that any movement that sees declining numbers and clout while more and more people come to agree with some of its basic goals has a serious organizing problem.

As for getting rid of compromise, it’s worth remembering that whatever flaws the effective movements in the past (there were plenty of failed ones) may have had, they still won their basic goals. Utopia didn’t break out, but the British left India, women got the vote and centuries of racist laws came tumbling down. Importantly, all those movements very specifically refused to compromise on some core points. They also realized that a movement that eschews all compromise is going to become an isolated band of purists who never get close to achieving their aims.

Richard: Your last paragraph in particular is perfectly, completely right.

I’m fairly sure that describes every group, gang, mob, club, subculture, band, religion and state there has ever been – except the last sentence, which I think is on the wrong track.

I’ve been to virtually every major anti-war demonstration in London since the first ones back before it started – when you had 1 in 60 people in the entire country turning out on a weekday, from all classes and ethnic groups – to the more recent ones, which felt rather less …uh, all-inclusive. The thing is – everyone marching there knew what they were marching for. In an age of interminable wristband campaigns, manufactured rock and revolution-as-advertising-slogan its very easy to be cynical about the motivations of people on these things… whether they saw themselves as individual actors in a movement or allowed themselves to be carried along in a group isn’t really relevant – I’m sure most people (including myself) assume the first and act according to the second, and thats just human mentality.

That aside aside, I can’t disagree with anything in the main article – mainly because i’ve felt the same way for a very long time, and its a vaguely dispiriting feeling… as to why I keep going on these things – well, I always assumed it was a morale thing. Remind people the problem still exists, that people want to solve it, remind yourself the same thing by being part of the group. If it makes people more confident, serves to empower individuals through the group – well, cool. So much the better. …But, like you said, its just one tool, and not the best, only, or even primary means of change.

In that link to the Scientology-protest pictures the person posting them talks about how calm and polite the London police are at most demonstrations – I’ve noticed that to, but something else as well – in their apparent concern for the safety of all involved and ‘respect for the right to protest’ they’ve always ensured a gap between the protest/parade/whatever and the people watching from the street. PCU and films like that are the same thing at a larger level – division of a protesting group from the people they’re trying to reach.

I’ve tended to believe in the idea of cultural hegemony – the rule of ‘common sense’ as defined by a majority that in turn serves to lay down the boundaries and controversies within society, I suppose. A positive movement for change would change those boundaries of ‘common sense’ towards a better society, in the same way that the Suffragettes broke down the ‘common sense’ idea that Women were incapable of making political decisions. The current protest movement isn’t achieving that with vapid slogans and closed-off marches. It seems to me that the really successful protest movements (in whichever direction) in the era of mass culture won through by actively promoting an alternative to the system they saw as flawed – new means of social interaction (look at all those working mens clubs that were originally founded by the Trade Union Movement…), new forms of culture, literature, art, new lifestyles and means of supporting them…

That’s a bit unfair. In The States protest culture has not evolved as readily as it could have. It seems stuck in the 60′s by and large with even a refusal to change hackneyed chants. In an age where the police and those being protested against can dictate when, how, and where protesters can be…it’s doomed to fail before the paint is dry on the day glow Che Guevara banner.

Look at last summers protests in Burma, the current ones in Tibet, and those in LA not long ago.

Protesting can still be effective in getting needed attention and dangerous as all hell. When the LAPD beat down Latino protesters they did so knowing those involved were not the same high profile and more mixed crowds of weeks earlier. After all violent confrontation usually occurs when the aggressors have the advantage…

That changed in the 70′s.

It’s what made that decade the last real era of protest in the US as an effective strategy. Caesar Chavez used that to great effect as other groups became more well armed and capable or taking on aggressors like the police. This escalation in firepower brought in the FBI to sabotage groups like the Black Panthers for example and set a precedence of undermining ANY organizations that would follow in their wake.

The organization needed to make protests effective require the kind of people that make everyone from local police to homeland security uneasy. Too many things legally and socially are stacked against those who want to be the core of any movement…as the 60′s showed us there is always a contingent ready to bomb, assassinate, and undermine the real threats to the status quo. It’s why MLK and Bobby Kennedy got a bullet while Teddy and Jesse Jackson continue to do…what they do.

Of course it didn’t help that many organizations for social change in the 70′s would later be corrupted from the inside out by their own ambitious and at times wildly out of sync members. The roots of some of the most violent gangs today go back to this era as does modern domestic terrorism.

“…We -are- a movement, and a worldwide one, of anarchists and other rabble-rousers who are willing to confront global capital and governance wherever it peeks its head…”

That’s what keeps many heavily armed. History has shown repeatedly that self styled “anarchists” do more harm than good. Having seen the first hand results of born-again communists, hard nosed socialists, and political extremists in various Latin American countries…one sees how the freedom fighters of one week become the neo-fascists of the next. Not labeling you or your movement as such mind you …but too many times one gets excited about a social movement only to see change so drastically when they take the reigns of power.

“Imagine instead that thousands of people gathered in Seattle not dressed in gas masks and Operation Ivy t-shirts, but dressed like the most conservative collection of young Republicans out there.”

Then they’d be a GAP ad circa 1998 or so…one can’t leave out social class in these scenarios. Those in power and those with wealth are a small circle…they won’t be fooled let alone pleased to embrace the lower classes no matter how they look. They need and want to stay on top…they control the majority of the wealth in this country, and sadly…they know it and band together to maintain that. Can’t protest away the influence of billions upon billions of dollars…even during a weak economy.

But little miracles still occur. Lets not forget the banding together that got Diz out of Dubai. May not have taken to the streets but the protesting spirit was alive and well if online and backed by people willing to put up cold hard cash.

Protesting should always be just one of tools used for social and political change not the be all end all punch some see it as.

Imagine what we could do, we COILHOUSErs, if we could manage an as-needed Borg-like hive mind.

In an early comment, Margaret states:
First of all, to claim that people are not involved in behind-the-scenes grunt organizing is simply ignorant. For every protest-as-event that happens, we are the same people who staff rape-crisis lines, escort people through the throngs of hate-mongers outside of abortion clinics, write and distribute information about the causes we support, organize call-ins, and provide food-not-bombs to untold thousands of people in untold thousands of places.

The we in this statement should be amended to a ‘some’. And that ‘some’ is not who is being criticized in his article. Some people do all these things mentioned above and more unmentioned without being part of the great international ‘anarchist’ movement. It is equally ignorant to claim that this movement has killed exploitative international Capitalism. Sure seems alive and well to me.

The “global capital and governance” that Margaret’s movement is hell bent on smashing(for good reason) isn’t peeking it’s head anywhere. It runs the show, brazenly and openly, more so in America. I think the gist of David’s article is plain. If we are to combat the challenges facing global society today assuming that a protest movement that is based on an ultraradical approach ie. anarchism, the tearing down of global and regional government and capital structures, is doomed to fail. In part, because it plays to a niche group instead of realizing that war and governmental malfeasance is a foe to more than just your group of government hating friends. Wouldn’t it be fun to go show everyone just how much we hate it? Or could protest, in all it’s various forms, incorporate everyday people who might agree with part of what you think, instead of everything you think? Opposition to these challenges isn’t only the purview of the ‘movement.’ And I think that’s the fucking point. (Fucking added for emphasis)

Yes, most people, the Middle Americans, the silent majority may agree with you. But they see the facepaint and the thrown rocks and the gas masks and the scores and scores of 20 year olds shouting and they simply want nothing to do with you. And so headway is never gained because alienating people becomes a goal in and of itself.

Modern protests fail to ignite the mass imagination because the protest itself looks chaotic, childish, and self-aggrandizing. Look at the most successful protests of the 20th century. It wasn’t a bunch of teenagers waving placards and shouting, it was orderly, calm, sometimes painfully boring affairs. People showed up in their Sunday best, marched, and endured indignities quietly. You may not like that, but it worked. It worked because it painted the police and the government not as undertrained Joes just trying to calm a near riot, it portrayed them as brutal thugs on a power trip.

Most people I’ve spoken to have no idea what the Seattle WTO protests were about. None. All they know is that a bunch of dirty punk rock kids and some trust fund hippies got tear-gassed for breaking windows. And you know why they think that? It was easy for the media to portray that. The media always takes the route of least resistance.

Imagine instead that thousands of people gathered in Seattle not dressed in gas masks and Operation Ivy t-shirts, but dressed like the most conservative collection of young Republicans out there. And moreso, imagine that they march as a unit, without the chaos or rock throwing idiots that flock to Protests for a feeling of infantile power. How much harder will it be to dismiss them in the public eye?

Given, it wouldn’t be ‘fun’, or ‘a time of self-expression’, but it would be more effective at gaining the trust of Middle America and rattling the cages of power.

Nothing threatens authority more than the notion that nobody needs them. And by showing organization, calm, and reason, you tell authority just how obsolete it is.