Some Thoughts on the Movement
Apr. 16th, 2003 07:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labrujahOne of my oldest friends, the brilliant David Levy, who currently lives in LA while studying history, has been ruminating via email about his frustration with our generation's disenchantment with politics.
I have to agree -- I've never been an activist, but come on, how ridiculous does it have to get? Briefly, I read an article comparing protest marches of the past (like MLK's civil rights marches) with today's, and it concluded that today we're too interested in coalition-building and showing lots of numbers -- which doesn't achieve anything if the people in power aren't listening. We need marches that happen on workdays, down busy thoroughfares, if they are going to mean anything. There's too much preaching to the converted.
We're working out, slowly and carefully, a blueprint for action. Not action like making a puppet for peace or sitting at a table in the park trying to get people registered for the Green Party. Real, actual action. I want to see a youth movement that doesn't have anything to do with drinking Pepsi or whatever.
Some ideas so far:
Set up a voting support network. The reason I didn't vote last time was 1) I didn't know where my voting place was, and it was cold and raining out and 2) I didn't know who the candidates were.
So: we get people to drive around and give everybody a ride to the voting place, and then we go get a beer. Also, we hand out those info sheets that compare candidates' voting records. This is esp. important on college campuses.
Boycott. (see http://www.nypress.com/16/15/news&columns/cage.cfm for more)
David pointed out that nearly everything is owned by 5 huge coporations. So we need to pick a few symbolic companies (like 3) and do a very visible boycott with great PR.
The Little Things.
There's a thing called Con Ed Solutions (for you NYers) which is basically the same as Con Ed, but doesn't use polluting plants. look here.
Also, why not just switch over to Working Assets? You get free ice cream for a year, people.
I would love to hear what you all think of this. Also, we need a catchy name.
I have to agree -- I've never been an activist, but come on, how ridiculous does it have to get? Briefly, I read an article comparing protest marches of the past (like MLK's civil rights marches) with today's, and it concluded that today we're too interested in coalition-building and showing lots of numbers -- which doesn't achieve anything if the people in power aren't listening. We need marches that happen on workdays, down busy thoroughfares, if they are going to mean anything. There's too much preaching to the converted.
We're working out, slowly and carefully, a blueprint for action. Not action like making a puppet for peace or sitting at a table in the park trying to get people registered for the Green Party. Real, actual action. I want to see a youth movement that doesn't have anything to do with drinking Pepsi or whatever.
Some ideas so far:
Set up a voting support network. The reason I didn't vote last time was 1) I didn't know where my voting place was, and it was cold and raining out and 2) I didn't know who the candidates were.
So: we get people to drive around and give everybody a ride to the voting place, and then we go get a beer. Also, we hand out those info sheets that compare candidates' voting records. This is esp. important on college campuses.
Boycott. (see http://www.nypress.com/16/15/news&columns/cage.cfm for more)
David pointed out that nearly everything is owned by 5 huge coporations. So we need to pick a few symbolic companies (like 3) and do a very visible boycott with great PR.
The Little Things.
There's a thing called Con Ed Solutions (for you NYers) which is basically the same as Con Ed, but doesn't use polluting plants. look here.
Also, why not just switch over to Working Assets? You get free ice cream for a year, people.
I would love to hear what you all think of this. Also, we need a catchy name.
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no subject
Date: 2003-04-16 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-04-17 09:44 am (UTC)yay!
the car service for voting seems a little difficult to do in NYC, most polling places are within just a couple blocks of whereever you live. maybe flyering WHERE exactly the polling place is would help (my old neighborhood assoc. did that). and I think getting out the info sheets about candidates (esp. the local ones) is a great idea. There's a really good website that does a comparison (and can point you to who you're local candidates are)....
please keep us informed as to what you guys are up to! ê
no subject
Date: 2003-04-17 04:31 pm (UTC)The thing is, I assume that everybody is lazy. I won't vote unless I am driven to the place, or it really is within 4 blocks of my house or between my house and the subway. And it's kind of sad, but a lot of people (if not the majority) are the same way, whether they will admit it or not.
And I know a few people with cars who might be willing to spend their day driving people around to vote.
The info sheets are good, but I'm afraid of feeling like we're accomplishing something when, really, we may not be.
I will def. post more as plans move along.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-17 10:37 am (UTC)If you tell/show people how cattle are raised in feedlots (fed in troughs full of antibiotics and reconstituted animal parts, left to lie around in their own shit with no grass for miles, the whole countryside stinks of it) they might quit eating burgers. If you tell people the techniques fast-ffod restaurants use to keep employees from getting adequate pay and benefits, they might quit eating it. If you get them to understand how places like Walmart have forced the decimation of small town squares, if they know former shop owners now work for walmart at minimum wage while their stores sit boarded up and empty, if they know how the drive for ever lower prices has sent scores of american companies to build factories overeas where labor costs are lower, they might see that the price on the shelf is a lie and think about what they buy.
If people realized how many skilled jobs have been lost and the numbers that are replacing them are for unskilled lower-paid jobs that you can't support a family on, they might think twice before they buy.
print up Bush's war budget, next to a list of cuts in services. Put that next to a list of Bloomberg's doomsday budget. When people see the cost of those bombs, it's going to become harder to support the next war (because there will be another one)
Find a farmer's co-op, and organize weekly carpools of people to go buy food.
Beware of those stores who have those "shopper's cards" for "extra savings". Not only is it all a scam, but they keep track of what you buy and some will sell that info. Some places even hand over suspicious shoppers to the government. (buying a lot of cold medecine? must be a meth lab... dark-skinned and buying fertilizer? bomb!! buying flourescent lights and trays? must be growing weed!!)
I'm sure not all chains are evil, and not all mom n pops are good, but buying smaller when you have to buy, wil lessen the power of the corporations.
As for the Greens. I'm not going to argue with a thrid party, I mean I think I probably agree with them a lot more than any other, BUT... Basically, the conservatives have all managed to swallow their differences and band together under the repub's. Unfortunately, we do not have a true representational form of government, in which three parties (I'm talking ONLY about national level, I'm all for third party locals, where it actually has a chance to work and do good) can coexist. The parties that get hurt are the ones that are closest together, and the big un-split party will always win. On the national level, I think our best bet is to try to reclaim the dem party and breathe some real life into it, get them to support green issues, etc. Get green or Libertarian candidates into governorships, mayorships, maybe even House seats, and grow the base, but honestly I think pushing green for 2004 is only going to ensure Bush gets elected again. Along that vein, we have GOT to find someone who can recharge the Dems and make them into a real progressive opposition. I don't know for certain who that will be. it looks bleak.
oh lord, I've gone on forever and it is probably a big ramble, sorry. One of these days I will organize all these thoughts...
no subject
Date: 2003-04-17 04:23 pm (UTC)Example: You print out a flier about how gross factory farms are and how bad for you it is. You give it out to people at the grocery store. They look at it...
I don't know. I guess I want to focus on something more end-result-oriented -- the organic grocery carpool idea is pretty good. The lifestyle choices people make are important -- but it's easier to say "call this number and switch to Working Assets" then it is to say "never shop at Wal-mart" when, in some places, there's not much choice to be had.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-17 04:34 pm (UTC)But if I had lots of fake bacon at my house, I would probably eat that instead. (sorry, dumb example).
I want to make it a no-brainer to act politically and very specifically.
Re:
Date: 2003-04-17 05:36 pm (UTC)Also, unfortunately, if you hand out flyers at certain p;laces, you can be arrested for tresspassing, you have to be sneaky.
have you seen this site?
http://crimethinc.com/library/youcan.html
no subject
Date: 2003-04-18 11:24 am (UTC)They have some interesting and charming ideas (I like the free envelopes with treasure maps one).
However, my reaction to it is that it seems a little smug -- sending love letters back in direct mail envelopes? The people who open those are just doing their job, and I'm sure they don't go to their jobs like "Oh, I'm such a bad person for sending out direct mail marketing. Now that someone has sent me a letter alerting me to this, I will go out and find a different job."
I'm not into the kind of Fight Club tactics expressed here -- I think a well-publicized consumer boycott of a certain company would get a lot more attention and do a lot more damage than a brick through their window.
In fact, I'm certainly not against people making cool inflatable structures or anything, but I do see it as pretty ineffective if you're trying to make a real change in the behavior of a majority of people in this country. Even worse than being ineffective is making yourself think that you're accomplishing something when you're not necessarily. And that's what I disagree with about activism today.
I studied Psychology in school, and the experimental method says that you have to have measurable, quantifiable effects at the end. I want to figure out why those Ad Council ads about not smoking aren't working (statistically, they're not). And, I want the inspired, committed, forward-thinking people who are making banners to hang on the freeway to RUN FOR OFFICE. Integrate themselves into the existing political system. It's very rare that I've come across a candidate that I can get behind (Nader is the only one) -- everybody complains that we have to vote for the lesser of two evils -- so where are all the good candidates?
Sorry this turned out to be such a lengthy rant, but I'm just working it all out for the first time myself...
Re:
Date: 2003-04-18 12:05 pm (UTC)I mean look at what happened to those kids in England (? I think it was there) who slammed McDonalds and spent years in court defending themselves against a huge libel suit. I mean they were found innocent eventually, but wow, think of the cost in time and money of defending yourself against someone with unlimited resources like that! ouch! heh.
Some people here in our city were trying to hand out flyers about Taco Bell refusing to pay their tomato pickers a minimum wage, or some such thing, and were arrested for tresspassing, then harrassed for loitering when they tried to picket on the sidewalk.
Some Gramma in Cali got arrested for handing out flyers in a grocery store parking lot trying to educate people about the dangers of either irradiated or genetically modified foods.(sorry, it was a while ago, I can't remember exactly)
So yeah, I'd like to see people getting educated and people with real ideals running for office. I think the problem boils down to money tho. Corps, and the corp-owned media have almost all of it, and it's hard to get heard when they can say whatever they want and threaten the little guy into silence.
So, trying to figure out innovative ways of getting heard seems to be a big part of what we have to do.
=)