Globalize Your Protest

Lessons from world on fire, & how to resist Trump's Supreme Court follies.

 As the late Ruth B Ginsburg said, “Fight for the things you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” Below I’ll describe three examples of constructive protest tactics, from, Argentina, New York, and Hongkong, and give links for taking action on Trump’s Supreme Court pick. 

ARGENTINA

I like the South American casserole. It’s not a dish, it’s a protest. In 2001, when the Argentine currency collapsed, citizens reacted with protests they called casserolazos. That meant banging on pots and pans. The protests were deceptively simple. At a time when enraged people were vandalizing banks and verging on violence, the ‘casserole’ protests emerged as a pacifist alternative. In the first place, the humble soup pot—or cassserole pan, or frying pan, or cheese greater—is a symbol of hearth and home, of feeding your family, of basic economics. Everyone has a cook pot to bang on, you don’t need special equipment, or to make anything. Mass protests full of people banging on pans like this were basically fun—musical, rhythmic, and safe for families, instead of the usual violent forms of protest in Argentina. 

Critically, the casserole protests were noisy but effectively mute—no slogans, no platforms, no leaders, no lists of demands. This can be a weakness (see Occupy Wall Street below) in the long run, but is very good at drawing in people of all stripes. You don’t have to agree with everyone else at a casserole protest—you just have to oppose corrupt politics. Liberals and conservatives can stand side by side, banging on their pots, without having to argue about Sureme Court picks or tax policy. 

(There’s also a long history of banging on pots and pans in Ireland, as protest, and also a form of warning when British troops entered a neighborhood.) 

Precisely because a casserole protest says “No” and nothing more, it can become a broader mass movement. By contrast, I saw at many Portland protests this summer that leaders and speakers expected us to join in chanting “All cops are bastards.” I don’t agree—not ALL cops are bad, or bastards, that’s a fact I know from a lifetime working with police, including successful encounters with the Portland PB. So I (and plenty of others) didn’t join that chant. That’s the weakness of demanding everybody join your agenda and repeat your particular slogans.

 Nobody is excluded from a casserole protest, and therefore they became massive, populist expressions of unity, citizenship, and civic duty across a divided political landscape. This was reflected in another demand underlying the Argentine protests—“no parties.” There were neighborhood meetings all over the country where people met in plazas to argue about what to do, how to organize, and where to share information and survival resources, from food to sewing machines. But the Argentines wanted EVERYONE to participate, as citizens. Not as partisans of one side or another, but as equals. They said “no parties,” because traditional representatives of political movements wanted to turn the crisis to their own advantage, and polarization was the same trap that had created the crisis in the first place (along with a little help from international finance). 

To grow your movement, let everyone join—regardless of what they are for, they can be against corruption, election cheating, police violence, and lies. 

There is of course one big problem with that, the...

OCCUPY WALL STREET PROBLEM. 

Occupy was an explosively popular idea, which drew in hundreds of thousands of self-organized Americans in a flash, and spread from Zuccotti Park in Manhattan to L.A. and London, winning the sympathy and support of millions. Like the Argentine plazas, American parks became places to encounter and debate, to share and study. I remember walking around Zucotti Park and seeing thousands of people self-organizing into study groups, logistical support chains, and debating forums, with speakers given literal voice by the human amplifiers of the “mic check” chorus (they repeated the speaker’s words in a giant shout that allowed them to reach the far corners of this noisy environment). There were musicians, anarchists, neck-tie corporate types, black and white, students and retirees, all working together. 

The problem is what they were working toward—nothing specific. Occupy Wall Street crystallized the massive dissent in the US toward a political and economic system that bailed out banks but left ordinary people struggling. Yet Occupy was never able to coalesce around a specific demand, or demands. Occupy L.A. and many others became dominated by “black block” radicals who preferred street confrontations and smashing things, and over time the movement fractured and died.

I’ve said above that the lack of an agenda was a strength, in Argentina, and in New York. That’s what drew in such massive, spontaneous, and broad support, creating the power of these movements. 

But what do you do with that movement? These are rare moments, outside of politics, when socieities can change their agendas and values and politics in a space of weeks, not decades. How do you attract everyone, but then keep that support while actually taking action?

The key, in my analysis, is to focus on One Thing at a Time. Occupy included student socialists and suburban stock brokers, professional dads and retired grandmas. They were never going to agree on a long list of agenda items. Occupy’s strategic mistake was going from unity to fragmentation without focusing on a single, clarifying idea. The Argentines had one thing in mind—their life savings had just shrunk by government edict, and they wanted their money back. Any politician could address that, however they wanted (indeed, after the collapse, the country subsequently went through rapid re-growth under a center-left coalition that embraced capitalism, creating what the Economist called “a new golden age.”) Occupy instead went down a dark alley from which it never returned. 

SUCCEEDING WHERE HONGKONG FAILED 

The tiny city-state with its own mentality discovered powerful tools to join together in mass protests. The techniques are worth borrowing even if, ultimately, China has (with the help of Covid) extinguished the movement. First of all, HK protest were focussed on a single clear goal—defend the territory’s existing system and the underlying rights of free speech, rule of law, and accountable (if not exactly elected) leaders. Everyone felt threatened—well, most people—and the result was hundreds of thousands of people marching. Protestors learned to “be like water,” a Taoist approach meaning to give way where the police and authorities pushed, and flow in new directions. Organization was spontaneous, created through social media and subversive use of language (protestors often posted their plans with cryptic Cantonese word play that outsiders, even from the Chinese national police, could not understand). When early leaders were detained or silenced, it became a movement without leaders. Protestors paid cash for train tickets, to prevent officers from linking them to protest events; they covered their faces and smashed surveillance cameras to defeat facial recognition; they used umbrellas to defend against tear gas and water cannons, while providing a neat, gentlemanly symbol rooted in Hongkong identity. 

We aren’t facing the Chinese police, but decentralized, leaderless movements are inherently strong when facing concentrated police and military power. Be like water, and centralized, slow-moving authoritarian powers cannot hold back the flood. 

WHAT TO DO

We can also flow like water, turning weakness into strength. Be ready for unplanned and dynamic protest. 

BLM and national protests today need to flow toward building broad support, not purity tests or divisive agendas. Find a single common point we can all agree on, and you can have both a massive protest movement and an effective one. 

I would suggest a few rally points—democratize the electoral college, or raise the minimum wage to $22 an hour, or require national health plans for everyone, always. Not everyone will agree with all of these, but one or two simple ideas can take this protest movement to the next level. 

Start by grabbing your pots and pans and joining with neighbors. Do it now, we are six weeks from the election and as of today, Trump supporters are already moving to bock mail voting, diminish turnout, and intimidate early voters in my home town of Fairfax, VA. 

Vote early. Help others vote early. Get an old soup pot and join street protests. 

Here are links to voting rules and opportunities in all states and territories. Spread these widely to friends and family and others in critical locations:

Also, write to potential swing votes in the senate (Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah) demanding they wait to appoint a new Supreme Court justice. Instructions are here. https://www.senate.gov/senators/How_to_correspond_senators.htm

Romney is a supporter of paid sick leave and clean air, which a Trump appointee will overturn. Collins says climate change and health care matter—tell her what will happen on a Trump court. Gardener of Colorado, Ernst of Iowa, and Grassley of Iowa have all previously indicated they prefered to wait—remind them. Others like Lamar Alexander of Tennessee are silent—help them focus. 

See you at the Casserole!