SHARE THIS SHOW:
ON THE BLOG:
RELATED CONVERSATIONS:
RECENTLY ON TOL:
TOL Our Town
- A tumblr site dedicated to the people and places that make up Oregon and Southwest Washington.
TAGS:
Environmental activists were arrested outside Reedsport this week for their demonstration to block loggers from cutting down trees that are more than 100 years old. Members of Earth First! and Cascadia Rising Tide erected a blockade so they could physically stop loggers from getting to the trees they were seeking to protect. Direct action like this is not new and has been used in Oregon over the years with various results.
Oregonians express their dissent towards logging, war, abortion, budget cuts and many other issues in many different ways. Some choose legal methods to draw attention to their cause, while others feel it's more productive to cross the legal line. Why do people choose to protest? What works — and what doesn't — when they do? And why?
Have you participated in a protest? What choices did you make about how to express yourself? What effect did your demonstration have? Have you ever witnessed a protest that changed your mind?
GUESTS:
- Shawn: Anti-logging activist with Cascadia Earth First!
- Michele Darr: Anti-war activist
- Bill Diss: Anti-abortion activist and director of Precious Children of Portland
Photo credit: Duke Geren/ Flickr /Creative Commons
-
read " Flashman "
-
The good thing about extreme protest methods is that they make people pick a side; either you must approve the protesters and their cause or you must condemn it. There are far too many people who just don't care or don't know what they believe. Seeing people passionate about a cause does so much to open open people's eyes.
The problem is protesters don't take the next step, which is constructive dialogue. So sides are drawn: Now what? If the issues are to be resolved, there really must be dialogue between opponents. But if your opponents have just been barricading you from your place of work or waving graphic materials in your face or yelling at you, can you really expect a civil and productive conversation with them? Protesters need to rethink their goals and methods. This does NOT mean watering down their convictions; it means being more graceful and constructive about them.
-
Loud, sometimes disruptive, in-your-face protests might be polarizing, but they do serve to give people an opportunity to decide which side they’re on. Which side you’re on can determine whether you consider the protest action to be disruptive – and whether that’s a bad thing.
Protests help bring issues to the public’s attention, and help elevate the ambient consciousness – never a bad thing. Protests bring public (voters’) awareness to issues so that they might get some attention when related matters come to a vote – and real change comes at the polls as well as in the courts.
On the other hand, I wonder about situations where protest can’t accomplish the desired result, where protest brings attention but no change and the protested action goes ahead unabated and with ruinous results. If the protest is about logging the last redwood, do you want to go to the polls or to court and be right? Or, do you want to save that last redwood? If the protest is against turning a park into a parking lot, do you want to be right but defeated? Or, do you want to stop construction of a parking lot?
Sometimes protest is not what’s called for. Sometimes, we don’t need protests followed by a ballot initiative followed by an election followed by a court decision followed by an appeal followed by another court decision. Sometimes direct action is necessary. Unfortunately, most direct action is illegal. But, it has such a visceral appeal for those who feel desperate at being marginalized, disenfranchised and ignored – it’s no wonder there are people out there who think George Hayduke was a real person.
-
Boycott Advertising and Consumerism
If I perceive too many bombardment ads via media I boycott the offending companies' products silently. Yes, I pay attention to advertising -- it helps me create a list of companies NOT to do business with.
-
Communicate with Government Representatives
Another way to protest is to communicate with your government representatives though this is largely a self-healing exercise. The federal and state governments are bought by special interests so you may not be able to influence positive change as an individual voice crying out in the bewildering wilderness of stupidity, but at least your dissent is on record.
-
Our government representivives are in the wrong, they have the advantage of the ability to MAKE the RULES (laws and develop policy) for the lobbyists! They really have themselves to blame, and the people need to call their representatives daily with this (the lobbyists do this daily telling them something else)
"I would like comprehensive government run single payer health care; medicare for every person on USA soil.
I think there is too much special interest in government which drowns out representation of the people, therefor, in the spirit and intent of the deceleration of independents, I propose that Federal taxes for individuals are invalid and to the extent the government is; of, for and by big business, it is hostile the constitution and the people of the USA.
To that end, taxation and authority is invalid and should be set aside until a representative (of natural people vs big business) government can be established.If not, we have taxation without representation. With big business influencing policy, big business is spending our tax dollars in the way they see fit.
until someone presents ideas or evidence these view or incorrect, we will work to establish a legitimate government for this wonderful country. You are in violation of your oath to serve the US constitution of, for and by the people"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_National_Bank_of_Boston_v._Bellotti
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckley_v._Valeo
Coming up in the supreme court next session:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission
To be clear, I am not advacating that anyone do anything illegal or that they do not believe in.Either the United States Declaration of Independence is a valid document or it isn't
What was the point of the Iraq war? Big oil has been making record profits, does that mean the US military has been fighting to increase profits for big oil? It sure looks that way.
-
Quit Your Job and go Commando
I try to encourage (subvert) my friends to quit their jobs and stop buying stuff they don't need so we can starve the government and corporate beasts of their life blood: money.
-
What is the rationale for quitting your job? I'd be all for not working, but how does one justify partaking in the fruits of other people who are working? Such as this radio show, the Internet, etc---it seems like it would be impossible to avoid this, unless you could sustain yourself off the grid.
-
I want to stop and reverse the process of wealth distribution from poor to rich. Trickle Down Reganomics did not work. Spend until we all declare bancruptcy hasn't worked. Bushanomics has not worked except for Wall Street and those who are already well off.
A billion Chinese are poor. About a billion East Indians are poor. Most of the people in Africa are poor. More people in the U.S and Europe are becoming poor. One to five percent of the world's people control 90-plus percent of the world's wealth. How is that justifiable or sustainable?
I seek to fundamentally change how we do things on this planet. Rather than accept the way we do things as "the way it is, just deal with it," when are we going to fix this planet so it is more equitable? We set this crappy system up and we're the only beings who can fix it.
I take umbrage when an executive makes 1,000 or 10,000 times more than a line worker and it's not justified.
Can you imagine a planet where we distribute resources based on need and not money? Let's think outside the box a bit. Let's imagine other ways of doing things. That's the kind of subversion and protest I'm imagining.
Quitting your job isn't practical. Most protests aren't. Protest occurs when things get too far out of balance and people decide not to be shoved around any more.
-
Love and Non-Violence
Prefer the positive way of being implied by the mythic/real nature of Obama, Gandhi, King, Tutu, Mandela, Suu Kyi and the Dalai Lama.
Overwhelm your oppressors indirectly with love and enlightenment while seeking to counteract and eliminate their negative behavior. Be the universal solvent that is ocean perpetually dissolving rock.
The trick with non-violence is realizing their is no immediate solution. The journey is the destination, blah, blah, blah.
(Okay this is way too self helpy so I'm sated.)
I never thought I'd experience a non-white or non-male president in my life's time and behold. We almost got Palin -- what a country of lunatics we be!
I recently saw a commercial with John Kennedy saying let's not go to the Moon because it's easy; let's go because it's hard.
Yeah, that's right, Americans used to chase idealistic balls called Freedom, Humbleness, Service to Others, Humanity, Egalitarianism, blah, blah, blah.
Are we going to be perpetual pooches pawing the pant legs of possibility or a slobber-covered, badly-chewed squeak toy?
-
Attitude is Everything
I recall the quote of an old southern black lady in Derrick Bell's Faces at the Bottom of the Well. "I lives to harass white folks." The eighty-something-year-old did not conventionally picket and protest; she made her presence and feelings known through being an obstreperous thorn in the side of the South's racial status quo.The fight for justice, equality and freedom will forever be waged.
-
Quit Your Job
One of the scariest things I've done is to quit a job I truly enjoyed to protest the company's heavy-handedness: "It's our way or the highway."
I chose the highway but my job divorce left me with severe financial road rash. I didn't foresee how difficult it would be to replace my old job with a better one. Oh well. That which hasn't kill me outright makes for a better story.
I realize my pursuit of freedom is just that: a pursuit. I may not be bound by the physical manacles of my ancestors but I'm still a slave to damaged thinking, consumerism, and the expectation that a corporation or government will take care of me. Don't those days feel over?
In a way starving the beast of money is counter productive because too many people lose their livelihoods. On the other hand, our boom and bust way of doing things is not sustainable and too many lose their livelihoods anyway.
Every boom and bust shows us that our systems cause stupid suffering. We selfishly rut in the mud of the moment with disregard for how our behavior affects others and the future.
-
This came in as an email from tpohara, who was having trouble posting this morning:
"Effective protest depends on what the government wants to allow.
Organized environmental protests where trees are the focus have long been acceptable, with minimal repercussions to the organizers even when trees get nailed and mill workers hurt. Compare that to the wielding of Rico laws against organizers of PEACEFUL pro-life demonstrations, and the dichotomy becomes obvious.
Perhaps it is a matter of how the public is informed about the demonstration. If it is portrayed as good, the powers that be are afraid to really oppose it. If, on the other hand, the portrayal is of injustice (no matter how ill-informed that portrait is) then politicians and administration officials have no problem with trying to quash the dissent."
-
In case you haven't seen a photo of the Elliott State Forest protest — the "free state — from last week, here's one:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_bJTpJIooOrw/SlL8wPkjhPI/AAAAAAAAAE8/CeJyQjdhiDc/s1600-h/CargoVan.jpg
-
Planned parenthood, unlike the Crisis Pregnancy Centers run by anti-abortion folks, provides affordable or free health care, without ideological, racial or moral judgement.
If Bill was concerned about preventing abortion, and not about controlling women by threatening babies as punishment for sex, then he would support planned parenthood.
When my wife needed care in the past, planned parenthood was the only place she could turn. If her UTI's had gone untreated, we wouldn't have been able to have the son we have today.
The anti-planned parenthood people, mislead about what planned parenthood does, and is it so wrong to have at least some accessible health care for women in the lower income community (N, NE Portland has more than just African-Americans.)
-
It is hard to make a case either way for the legal versus illegal. Some illegal methods seem necessary, but then again they seem necessary when we are in agreement with that side of the debate (or protest). I think in matters of human rights I would be more inclined to support illegal methods, because the justification is (perhaps) ethically clear---in environmental matters and others I think the justification is (perhaps) less clear.
This might sound silly and half-baked, but I kind of think that people who generally engage in protests are often not the most logical folks in the room. I think you often have to be driven by emotion to get that riled up over one issue, when there are so many issues of equal weight to focus on. But, maybe this is what is necessary to change things, so it is an unavoidable part of society. -
Jon Agnone, PhD Candidate in Sociology at UW, studies these questions from various angles. Here's one abstract from his website.
"Amplifying Public Opinion: The Policy Impact of the U.S. Environmental Movement." (pdf) Social Forces
Time-series data from 1960-1998 is used to test hypotheses regarding the impact of protest and public opinion on the passage of U.S. environmental legislation. An amplification model of policy impact is introduced which posits that protest impacts legislative action independent of public opinion as suggested by protest event theorists, whereas the impact of public opinion on legislative action is greater depending on the level of protest. Evidence is found for the existence of an amplification mechanism between environmental movement protest and public opinion, where public opinion impacts policy above and beyond its independent effect when protest raises the salience of the issue to legislators. These findings point to the need to restructure analyses of the impact of social movements on public policy.
-
Sometimes a protest can help galvanize the opposition because of the “type” or method of protest. How does this backlash affect the planning of your protests?
-
I would say gay pride, i saw as a protest and just hearing of the event helped me as a young adult in my coming out process.
-
Sometimes I have an aversion to protests, because I don't like being told what to do. Well this happened with Schumacher Furs, I should add for context that I'm a vegetarian for ethical reasons, yet quite frankly it annoyed me to walk around and see the protesters outside every week, so I actually went in the store on several occasions just to be a bitch---because the fur debate seems so easy and rather trite in the bigger picture. I guess it essentially made me not care at all about the alleged case against fur, I still personally wouldn't be inclined to buy it, but I wouldn't really do anything to stop it either.
-
- "Bill Diss: Anti-abortion activist and director of Precious Children of Portland "
These people indulge and delight themselves in a sort of "Death, Blood, and Gore Pornography". It is a very strange social sickness.
They lack Empathy and Compassion, it is like they bath themselves in self-guilt tripping fantasies.
-
Although you have specified that this hour was to be dedicated to talking about protest methods (underline), the anti-abortion gentleman is skilled at making propaganda with every word out of his mouth. In all fairness you need to give the pro-choice side equal time so they can explain how the protest methods of the anti-abortion movement have prevented women from attaining legal reproductive services. Shame on the moderator: you should have stopped him once he starting telling stories about praying and healing the victims of abortion. This is a show that has been hijacked by one person and one point of view.
-
There is a sort of addictive quality to a life of protest. When I first moved to Portland, I witnessed many demonstrations, and they had a real charm, a kind of edginess, that there was something big going, matters of life and death, a war of sorts. Being part of a group with such strong views, is rather addictive, but sometimes the addiction can almost supersede the message. It is hard to say whether all this is an illusion or if there is some real value in it.
-
I was a college student in Richmond, Va during the late sixties. My brother was in Vietnam, I grew up in a military family, and I was a nursing student in Richmond seeing black people treated in separate wards in the hospital with inferior equipment and care. I watched the protests against the war and about civil rights across the street from my dorm at city hall. I saw how people villified returning soldiers and I watched war scenes on TV with my mother crying while searching for her son in those news clips. What I found was that the extremes of the war scared me, did not solve my moral dilemma, and alienated me. Whereas the real life images of black people being mistreated mobilized me to fight for civil rights. I was arrested in those protests and felt I was doing good. I think my protests there did bring about some change in society. However, what happened with the Vietnam war protests divided our society and hurt our soldiers. They did not bring us home.
I think showing dead fetus and referring to first term abortion as baby killing is also alienating and frightening to young people. It has divided our society and not changed us. Showing shoes and boots puts a less dramatic human face (or foot) on the war, tee shirts on a clothesline with names of victims and survivors of domestic violence puts a face on domestic violence in a humane way. The Right To Life movement needs to learn from this and consider a humane way to protest.
-
The most interesting part of this show to me was that if you removed the specific issue of protest, the three guests all sounded like the same person. I do think there is a time and place for activism and protest but I think that more often than not the protesting lifestyle becomes the important thing for activists and the issue is really secondary. I attended an environmental studies college and was surrounded by hardcore activists. The ones who were most commited to the cause were generally bitter, unhappy and lonely. I decided then that having fulfilling, caring relationships with people and trying to be a decent, kind and responsible friend, citizen and parent was possibly the truest form of activism.
-
I think the legality of certain tactics is interesting in lue of the treatment activists receive at the hands of the federal government. I seriously doubt that most Oregonians would feel it's appropriate to convict the Cascadia forest defenders as class C felons. The intensity of the sentence seems to correlate to the potential monetary impact on private corporations harvesting the timber, not to the severity of the crime. When the activists have taken it upon themselves to be adamantly nonviolent, I think the public needs to pay close attention to that in contrast with the severity of the sentences being handed out.
-
As an uninsured, single, low-income woman, Planned Parenthood is a critical part of my life. They are my health care provider, and without them I don't know what I would do. They provide me with birth control that I wouldn't otherwise be able to afford, and have treated numerous UTI's and kidney infections that could have potentially been life threatening.
What these protesters don't understand is that PP does not encourage abortions. Instead, they encourage means to prevent pregnancy, such as birth control pills and condoms, which regardless of what religious fanatics think, is vital. People are going to have sex, whether you like it or not, and they need to have access to affordable birth control, otherwise there will be not only more women having abortions, but potentially more mouths to feed and more children in need of social services.
While I agree that abortion should not be abused, women do need to have access to safe, legal abortions. Why? Because women will seek abortions regardless of their legality, and it is better to have them be safely performed by a doctor, rather than a self-abortion with a coat hanger. This endangers the life of the woman as well. Your religion tells you that abortion is wrong? Fine, don't have one. But don't keep the rest of us from having access to safe, legal abortions if necessary.
Also, there is a PP right down the street from the one they are building, so I don't understand the argument that they are targeting the Black community. I think this statement is racist, because it implies that Black women are more likely to need an abortion, which is not true. NE Planned Parenthood Clinic on 15th and Fremont serves not only the black community, but women of all races, ages, and socioeconomic status.
To these protesters out front of the PP building, I say, find something more worthwhile to devote your time to, like feeding the homeless.
-
Comments are now closed.
When you consider that the foundation of the United States was the 1776 Violent Revolution in Illegal Protest, you have to reconsider what illegal and illegal means in reality. Quite often some people make or buy laws to make their activities legal when The People really ought to keep those activities illegal.
When you consider what effect Conservative Republican Senator Lindsey Grahams 1999 Law forbiding Regulation and/or Oversight of Derivatives has had on our economy, well I am surprised that The people have not expressed more anger at Conservative Republicans. The lack of protest just amazes me.