Protest as a Medium
27/10/11 17:31![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
allhatnocattle.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
talkpoliticsMarshall McLuhan would have celebrated his 100th birthday this year. He is thought quite highly of in Canada intelligentsia circles for proposing that media themselves, not the content they carry, should be the focus of study. It is popularly quoted as "the medium is the message".
When trying to figure out the arguments of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
badlydrawnjeff regarding the Occupy Movement, I found myself absolutely perplexed. Similar ideas are floated around by others in this community and even among wider professional opinions in print, talk-radio and I assume tv. They try to explain quite stubbornly that the Occupy Movement is a waste of energy for a number of reasons (I'll get into those reasons in a bit).
The "Freakonomics" of anything (everything) boils down to incentive. What's the motive? Generally the answer is money. So follow the money.
The problem here is I don't see that everyone who is ridiculing the Occupy Movement (and want it stopped) have anything invested in (or has anything to gain by) the outcome. Maybe they do, but I personally don't see it.
So another way to look at it, assuming Marshall McLuhan is right, is an examination of the medium being argued over. And here it doesn't matter what side of the political spectrum you sit on. The Tea Party protests have their critics too. Heck, so does the protest to restore sanity. And quite often, those critical of Occupy Wall Street are now declaring themselves critical of Tea Party too. (and sometimes critical of every other protest in history)
That the Occupy Movement is still protesting tells us everything we need to know. The specifics of what they're shouting isn't important. It doesn't matter how effective these protests are. What matters is the protests. What matters is that people are still angry.
The "who, why, where, and when" are simply details. WHAT has all the really important information.
Is it a protest? Or is it a riot?
If the protest turns into a riot, as they sometimes do, all the other questions follow.
Who are the protesters? Who are the rioters? Who started it? Why? Where? When?
Even if the protest is uneventful, all those other questions may follow. But the "What" always precedes them. So a protest is the message, the thing that ought to be looked at.
There have been many posts here in T-P about the Occupy movement, more then we have ever had about the Tea Party. Although there is some agreement that both are angry about some/many of the same things.
Nobody seems to argue that these protesters don't have a right to be angry. Although many of the comments have been that these protesters would be better off doing different things with that anger, er, quantify that anger by voting better, hiring their own lobbyists, running for elected positions, raising money to feed the poor, etc.
What they are saying between the lines is "these people shouldn't be protesting". They shouldn't be camping outside. They shouldn't be marching. They shouldn't be shouting. And they certainly shouldn't be littering or especially defecating on American cop cars and flags. They should be doing something more constructive then simply wasteful and stupid protesting.
The medium of protesting is at stake here! Everyone agrees they have the (God-given) right to protest. Only they shouldn't be protesting. Because shitting in public is rude. Because it obstructs traffic. Because it ties up too many public resources. Because it's dangerous and a nuisance.
They shouldn't be protesting because it's stupid. Protesting solves nothing. Because it's time well-wasted. Because there are better ways to effect change.
Because protesters don't obey all the rules. They havn't obtained all the permits and permissions. Because they block public access and public traffic. Because they break noise by-laws. Because they break curfews in parks. Because we have laws in place meant to hinder public protests.
And I will argue that protests change history.
-A piece of paper nailed to a church door in 1517 sparked the Protestant Revolution.
-Parisians moved more boldly, beheading the Bastille's governor to spark the French Revolution in 1789.
-The Boston Tea Party in 1773 helped pave the way for the American Revolution.
-60,000 were arrested during Gandhi's Salt March to protest British taxation in 1930, but it swayed world opinion toward Indian independence.
-MLK's March on Washington in 1963 spurred civil rights laws.
-Tiananmen Square held a million peaceful demonstrators in 1989 when Chinese tanks rolled in.
The origin of most protests are most often not in complete congruence in their demands, or their solutions. We know of the variety of solutions that supporters/detractors of Palestine have proposed, and the many ways they have protested in order to announce them. We saw the Arab Spring this year and what a mishmash of different peoples demanded, and they were not all on the exact same page. There was Malcolm X and MLK and Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam, all very different in means and vision during the civil rights movement.
Right now, globally, the issue is a financial one. Blame the government. Blame the banks. Blame capitalism or socialism. I don't care which side you're on. Left or right. Black or white. The medium is the message here. Don't shut down the protests just because you don't see them as a means to the end.
Question; Why do you suppose there is this attack on the medium of protest. Do they really want to stifle free speech?
When trying to figure out the arguments of
badlydrawnjeff regarding the Occupy Movement, I found myself absolutely perplexed. Similar ideas are floated around by others in this community and even among wider professional opinions in print, talk-radio and I assume tv. They try to explain quite stubbornly that the Occupy Movement is a waste of energy for a number of reasons (I'll get into those reasons in a bit).The "Freakonomics" of anything (everything) boils down to incentive. What's the motive? Generally the answer is money. So follow the money.
The problem here is I don't see that everyone who is ridiculing the Occupy Movement (and want it stopped) have anything invested in (or has anything to gain by) the outcome. Maybe they do, but I personally don't see it.
So another way to look at it, assuming Marshall McLuhan is right, is an examination of the medium being argued over. And here it doesn't matter what side of the political spectrum you sit on. The Tea Party protests have their critics too. Heck, so does the protest to restore sanity. And quite often, those critical of Occupy Wall Street are now declaring themselves critical of Tea Party too. (and sometimes critical of every other protest in history)
That the Occupy Movement is still protesting tells us everything we need to know. The specifics of what they're shouting isn't important. It doesn't matter how effective these protests are. What matters is the protests. What matters is that people are still angry.
The "who, why, where, and when" are simply details. WHAT has all the really important information.
Is it a protest? Or is it a riot?
If the protest turns into a riot, as they sometimes do, all the other questions follow.
Who are the protesters? Who are the rioters? Who started it? Why? Where? When?
Even if the protest is uneventful, all those other questions may follow. But the "What" always precedes them. So a protest is the message, the thing that ought to be looked at.
There have been many posts here in T-P about the Occupy movement, more then we have ever had about the Tea Party. Although there is some agreement that both are angry about some/many of the same things.
Nobody seems to argue that these protesters don't have a right to be angry. Although many of the comments have been that these protesters would be better off doing different things with that anger, er, quantify that anger by voting better, hiring their own lobbyists, running for elected positions, raising money to feed the poor, etc.
What they are saying between the lines is "these people shouldn't be protesting". They shouldn't be camping outside. They shouldn't be marching. They shouldn't be shouting. And they certainly shouldn't be littering or especially defecating on American cop cars and flags. They should be doing something more constructive then simply wasteful and stupid protesting.
The medium of protesting is at stake here! Everyone agrees they have the (God-given) right to protest. Only they shouldn't be protesting. Because shitting in public is rude. Because it obstructs traffic. Because it ties up too many public resources. Because it's dangerous and a nuisance.
They shouldn't be protesting because it's stupid. Protesting solves nothing. Because it's time well-wasted. Because there are better ways to effect change.
Because protesters don't obey all the rules. They havn't obtained all the permits and permissions. Because they block public access and public traffic. Because they break noise by-laws. Because they break curfews in parks. Because we have laws in place meant to hinder public protests.
And I will argue that protests change history.
-A piece of paper nailed to a church door in 1517 sparked the Protestant Revolution.
-Parisians moved more boldly, beheading the Bastille's governor to spark the French Revolution in 1789.
-The Boston Tea Party in 1773 helped pave the way for the American Revolution.
-60,000 were arrested during Gandhi's Salt March to protest British taxation in 1930, but it swayed world opinion toward Indian independence.
-MLK's March on Washington in 1963 spurred civil rights laws.
-Tiananmen Square held a million peaceful demonstrators in 1989 when Chinese tanks rolled in.
The origin of most protests are most often not in complete congruence in their demands, or their solutions. We know of the variety of solutions that supporters/detractors of Palestine have proposed, and the many ways they have protested in order to announce them. We saw the Arab Spring this year and what a mishmash of different peoples demanded, and they were not all on the exact same page. There was Malcolm X and MLK and Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam, all very different in means and vision during the civil rights movement.
Right now, globally, the issue is a financial one. Blame the government. Blame the banks. Blame capitalism or socialism. I don't care which side you're on. Left or right. Black or white. The medium is the message here. Don't shut down the protests just because you don't see them as a means to the end.
Question; Why do you suppose there is this attack on the medium of protest. Do they really want to stifle free speech?
(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 00:08 (UTC)Because people on the right and left both have a nasty tendency to support free speech only when they agree with the message. Many on the left, for example, would ban abortion clinic protests if they could, while many on the right think anti-war protests are tantamount to treason.
(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 00:32 (UTC)Bullseye
Date: 28/10/11 00:32 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 14:50 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 15:43 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 00:32 (UTC)1) The 95 theses were an invitation to a debate, not a protest. The Protestant protest was post-Diet of Worms and reflected the inherent inability of the old German culture to unite on anything whatsoever.
2) The protest that started the Revolution of 1789 was not the storming of the Bastille but the one before it where the Third Estate formed the precursor of continental parliamentarism.
3) Only in the narrow sense that it preceded it. What helped trigger the American Revolution was the decision to confiscate gunpowder in Boston, and the shift from treason in the narrow, limited sense to balls to the wall secessionist ideas took 365 days to happen.
4) And then Churchill starved 3 million Indians deliberately in WWII and *really* paved the way for Indian independence, as did General Yamashita in the Malaya-Singapore campaign.
5) The best example here.
6) Those protests were about democraticizing China. China today is well, anything but a democracy whatever else one calls it.
If one wants the best examples of a protest that altered the course of history, Lithuania in 1991 and the protests against the August Coup are two of the examples that really did change things simply by being protests. Oddly these examples are mentioned nowhere.
(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 01:02 (UTC)You are on the left, you seem to support the spirit of OWS (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1202932.html?thread=95333108#t95333108) yet you have routinely criticize OWS for being too disjointed. You have said elsewhere (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1205263.html?nc=40#comments) they are "incoherent", "irrational" and "simply screaming in frustration". You go on to suggest repeatedly they will never amount to anything, without weapons (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1205073.html?thread=95567953#t95567953). I find your position quite baffling. Perhaps you could offer to clarify your position and explain. Like, you know, address my post.
(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 02:06 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 02:16 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 03:30 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 02:24 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 14:53 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 29/10/11 02:57 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 30/10/11 01:14 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 01:01 (UTC)This is poor logic. There are protests for all sorts of things going on for decades. That doesn't make the protests valuable, useful, or even tell us much at all. At some point you have to begin to wonder about the value.
I mean, let's break it down in a nutshell - Wall Street certainly doesn't care about this. So what is a long-term "occupation" down the street going to do?
What they are saying between the lines is "these people shouldn't be protesting". They shouldn't be camping outside. They shouldn't be marching. They shouldn't be shouting. And they certainly shouldn't be littering or especially defecating on American cop cars and flags. They should be doing something more constructive then simply wasteful and stupid protesting.
No. Speaking for myself, I'm saying that they should be taking that anger and doing something valuable with it. I'm incredibly direct about this - the Tea Party, faults and all, was successful because it stopped showing its collective ass and started actually doing something. OWS has shown no desire to engage - it's not a valuable form of action.
They shouldn't be protesting because it's stupid. Protesting solves nothing. Because it's time well-wasted. Because there are better ways to effect change.
Is this not true in 2011 in the west? This came up directly in the last entry I posted about the movement (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1202932.html?thread=95382004#t95382004). The protesters are not disenfranchised, and protest for non-disenfranchised people simply don't work anymore. It's an old way of showing opinion that doesn't apply anymore - your examples are all about disenfranchised groups.
Why do you suppose there is this attack on the medium of protest. Do they really want to stifle free speech?
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. If they were protesting the government, I'm sure many people would remain upset and consider them stupid. But at least they'd be targeting the right people. Free speech has nothing to do with the complaints.
(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 01:24 (UTC)Mike Short (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6463967-the-big-short) tells of new homeowners who defaulted on their first mortgage payment. Who defaults on their first mortgage payment?!!!
Better question; Who would give mortgage to people who are going to default on their first mortgage payment? To rectify this, whom do you appeal to? The government? Why?
Protesting the banks and the other Wall Streeters who encourage these practices seems right on track. Let Tea Party protest the government that allowed these practices to exist. But for shit's sake, let Occupy protest the bankers who abused the system they lobbied government to create.
The critical stifling of protests has been going on on both sides of the spectrum. Free speech be damned.
(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 01:54 (UTC)Which is fine. They are allowed to believe it, but it doesn't make it true.
Better question; Who would give mortgage to people who are going to default on their first mortgage payment? To rectify this, whom do you appeal to? The government? Why?
Without knowing the first thing about those people, you appeal to those who create the rules that require mortgages to be done a certain way, offered to certain people, etc. Or you protest the people who are taking mortgages they cannot - or, I suppose if you're defaulting on the first payment, probably have no intention of paying.
To believe that the lenders, who have a primary goal of making money, are trying to lose money on these buyers? That doesn't even pass the smell test.
Protesting the banks and the other Wall Streeters who encourage these practices seems right on track.
Protest the cigarette companies for offering a product people are free to buy or not?
Protest the candy manufacturers for offering a product that people have to choose to purchase and eat?
This is where I start wondering whether the OWS protesters have any interest in personal responsibility, either. This is not to say that Wall Street is 100% clean on this - but when you have three parties involved (lenders, buyers, government), and only one party is the target?
The critical stifling of protests has been going on on both sides of the spectrum. Free speech be damned.
Very true. As my name was called out specifically in this post, however, let it be absolutely clear that my criticism of these protests have nothing to do with stifling anyone's speech.
(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 02:06 (UTC)But Wall Street lenders receive very little scrutiny. Various oversights have been neglect.
Indeed mortgage brokers gave mortgages they knew would go bad. They would have stood to loose money, but the intention was to sell the mortgages to investors. So they profit on both ends. If the mortgage went bad, as so many did, who cares!
Wall Street deserves the attention Occupy is shedding on them. Even if it is scattered incoherencies.
(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 02:11 (UTC)I find this curious as well. The lenders have the most heat - they are heavily regulated and pressured by the government at every turn, and they rely on the buyers to uphold their end of the deal. The buyers, ultimately, have the least amount of risk - if they lose their house, they may not actually care - they suddenly no longer have to make payments and can simply rent instead until their credit repairs. The government can change, but the history of deregulatory practices is sparse compared to the regulatory increases we usually see.
It's more about the risk involved. If government regulators fuck up, accountability is low. If buyers fuck up, the risk is higher, but no one's going to jail. If a lender fucks up? Forget it. Fines, loss of income, etc. You claim there's little scrutiny on the lending side, but that's simply not factual at all - our financial sector is arguably the most regulated sector in the American (and worldwide) economy.
Indeed mortgage brokers gave mortgages they knew would go bad. They would have stood to loose money, but the intention was to sell the mortgages to investors. So they profit on both ends. If the mortgage went bad, as so many did, who cares!
Given that their income is reliant on mortgages being paid, they cared. That's the whole point. The system, as you describe it, is irrational and unsustainable, and thus makes no sense. There's no guarantee you can sell off those mortgages, and there's no guarantee that the investor will get what they're looking for, either.
Wall Street deserves the attention Occupy is shedding on them. Even if it is scattered incoherencies.
Perhaps they do. However, they do not deserve to be the first in line for the attention.
(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 02:19 (UTC)Not if they bundled it up in a financial package, rated it triple A, and sold it.
Then bet against it.
There's no guarantee you can sell off those mortgages, and there's no guarantee that the investor will get what they're looking for, either.
And yet they did it anyway, quite successfully in fact. I guess people aren't so rational, huh?
(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 02:21 (UTC)Then bet against it.
This still requires someone to be paying for it. Points this conspiracy theory continue to miss.
And yet they did it anyway, quite successfully in fact. I guess people aren't so rational, huh?
Mainly because it wasn't...quite what happened. Not in the nefarious way being claimed, at least.
(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 03:29 (UTC)Don't just read this, read the sources cited at the bottom.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007%E2%80%932010
(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 11:42 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 05:19 (UTC)My point is that the people who made the mortgages are not the ones losing out here.
And yet they did it anyway, quite successfully in fact. I guess people aren't so rational, huh?
Sorry, but every official stance on this matter is laid out very clearly in any official document you read. If you want to deny the evidence, that's up to you. Denying the evidence of the financial crisis is the real conspiracy theory. I echo allhatnocattle's statement that you should actually read the official, conclusive reports on the matter.
(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 11:43 (UTC)Only because we bailed them out with our tax dollars.
Sorry, but every official stance on this matter is laid out very clearly in any official document you read. If you want to deny the evidence, that's up to you. Denying the evidence of the financial crisis is the real conspiracy theory. I echo allhatnocattle's statement that you should actually read the official, conclusive reports on the matter.
As I said, I'm quite familiar with the stories - they miss key points along the way.
(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 21:45 (UTC)I already did this in a huge goddamn post.
http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1192103.html
We bailed out the losers (AIG, Lehman Brothers, etc.), not the winners.
As I said, I'm quite familiar with the stories - they miss key points along the way.
The stories? So you know better than:
US Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission
US Senate - Anatomy of a financial collapse- an Investigations Subcommittee report on the mortgage market, 5.5MB
Times of Crisis – Reuters: Multimedia interactive charting the year of global change
PBS Frontline – Inside the Meltdown
Credit Crisis—The Essentials topic page from The New York Times
How nations around the world are responding to the global financial crisis from PBS
In depth: Global financial crisis from the Financial Times
Timeline: Global credit crunch Published in BBC News on October 6, 2008.
Financial Crisis-IMF
Financial Crisis-World Bank Group
Global Financial Crisis-Asian Development Bank
"What Caused the Crisis": A collection of papers at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis,
Is that what you're saying? Pray tell, what key points did they miss? What did all these official sources, who spent years researching with tens of thousands of documents and thousands of witnesses from inside the industries, get wrong? That apparently you, alone, have divine knowledge of?
(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 22:17 (UTC)Yeah, I remember.
Is that what you're saying? Pray tell, what key points did they miss? What did all these official sources, who spent years researching with tens of thousands of documents and thousands of witnesses from inside the industries, get wrong? That apparently you, alone, have divine knowledge of?
Me alone? No, no, not at all. But we've already covered the basics here, and I know you're not really interested in rehashing it an nth time.
(no subject)
Date: 29/10/11 01:21 (UTC)What key points did they miss? If it's so glaringly obvious then maybe you can share it with the rest of us?
(no subject)
Date: 30/10/11 00:45 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 29/10/11 01:22 (UTC)Damn you almost got me there. I almost completely didn't notice that you 100% ignored what I said just now, so let me re-state it:
We bailed out the losers (AIG, Lehman Brothers, etc.), not the winners.
(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 04:21 (UTC)2. People who don't like protests tend to be fairly forgiving to goals they support and very unforgiving to those they don't support. People who like protests get out and document those they don't support and review them, and get engaged on some extent in those they support.
3. People who dislike protests in general are basically in most cases the same kind of people who dislike lost control in other areas as well. Dynamic and sudden changes are downers to them or downright threatening. This is probably the case with such people of all political affiliations.
(no subject)
Date: 29/10/11 04:05 (UTC)There is a certain contradiction in support the freedoms of the protesters, but dismissing the concerns of people with a different viewpoint.
(no subject)
Date: 29/10/11 23:56 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 30/10/11 02:59 (UTC)Dynamic and sudden changes are downers to them or downright threatening.
This argument can be summed up as follows: people who disagree with protesters are weak or mentally ill. I would call that dismissive. They don't have reasonable grounds to object. They are "afraid". It's all in their heads. Dismissive. They don't have a legitimate point of view. They don't even have the right to disagree. They're just feeling "threatened". Dismissive. They aren't allowed to object to the cost and inconvenience of not being able to use public spaces. No big deal, man, it's just a big "downer". Don't get bummed out, man. Can you see how this might be construed as dismissive?
(no subject)
Date: 30/10/11 05:28 (UTC)You are weak or mentally ill if you don't like sudden change? Really?
A large part of humanity function that way, and it's perfectly healthy, normal and even in some situations smart.
We are drawn to different things and repelled by different things for different reasons. My statement has (again) *nothing* to do with the political causes, or if there are sensible grounds for this or that. A person who dislikes protests in general may, if the cause is exactly in accordance with his/her thoughts sympathize etc etc. I'm simply addressing personality types here.
It's not black and white, these are just *tendencies*. Protests may have ppl attending that don't generally like public rallies, and so on.
(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 04:56 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 13:51 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 15:26 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/10/11 14:14 (UTC)These attacks against this basic tool that is protest are indeed worrying. It's like attacking democracy in the egg.
(no subject)
Date: 29/10/11 03:55 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 30/10/11 05:30 (UTC)There are useful protests and then there are pointless protests. This so far appears to be one of the latter. Maybe that could change in the future. So far, I doubt it.