Occupy Recapture on wheels

Posted on May 10, 2014 by David S. Meyer

Phil Lyman, elected a county commissioner for San Juan County in Utah, thinks that people should be able to use public land near them as they see fit.  The Federal Bureau of Land Management disagrees, at least partly. Since 2007 about 14 miles of trails have been closed to motorized vehicles in Recapture Canyon to protect Pueblo Indian artifacts amid Anasazi ruins.  The Bureau of Land Management, which regulates the area–and much land in the west–emphasizes that 2,800 miles of trails on nearby public lands were open for use.

For Commissioner Lyman and his allies, this isn’t enough.  To demonstrate their beliefs, about 300 people rallied before a few dozen rode All Terrain Vehicles into a restricted area, while law enforcement officials looked on.  At least some of the protesters were armed.  Commissioner Lyman emphasized the protest was against federal disregard for the interests and opinions of local residents, “Just because BLM owns the property, that doesn’t mean they own the right-of-way that exists.”

The BLM has promised prosecution of people who violate the law, and Commissioner Lyman said that everyone present realized they risked arrest.

Although some protesters were armed, the protest itself was peaceful, and local law enforcement emphasized, orderly and contained.  Other reports emphasized that some of Cliven Bundy’s children were present; they have their own dispute about the use of federal lands.  And it’s hardly surprising that Native American nations and environmentalists were outraged.

Public spaces across the country are regulated by the government which, ostensibly, represents the public interest.  There are rules about access and conduct, and sometimes use fees.  The government is supposed to balance competing interests, including safety, preservation, and revenue.  People who don’t get what they want are, understandably, resentful about what public means in practice.  (Confession: I resent that California charges $15 to park at my favorite surfing beach, which abuts a now-closed nuclear power plant–also on public land.)

Getting what you want from public resources is a function of political action, and elected officials ostensibly have more direct ways to influence political decisions that illegal protest.  But government is big and complicated, with all kinds of different interests and access points.  Change is extremely difficult, and organized interests often fail to see your interests as important and unambiguous as you do.

Taking the space through direct action, even risking damage to the area, isn’t a strategy peculiar to Westerners who want to ride their ATVs in protected areas, and Phil Lyman is hardly the first elected official to engage in civil disobedience.

Even acknowledging very different purposes and constituencies, the ATV riders remind me of the Occupy campaign.  Many more people, of course, seized on the urban spaces to make political claims; they were at it for much longer, and they weren’t armed, but they thought their use of the spaces trumped other interests and concerns.  Most significantly, however, they drew massive attention to their actions and issues.

It’s now up to the BLM to decide how to react to the protesters, and up to the voters of San Juan County to decide how to respond to Phil Lyman, who is running unopposed for re-election as a commissioner.

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Stanford, Steyer, and institutional allies

Posted on May 8, 2014 by David S. Meyer

Here’s a little wrinkle on yesterday’s news about Stanford’s coal divestment:

Billionaire Tom Steyer sits on Stanford’s board of trustees; actually, he’s vice-chair.  Steyer, formerly an extremely successful hedge fund manager, has been raising money for liberal and Democratic candidates for office for thirty years, and has recently announced a commitment to spend at least $100 million to make climate change an issue in this year’s elections.

Tom Steyer and Kat Taylor

He and his wife, Kathryn Ann Taylor, donated $40 million to establish the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy and the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford in 2008.  Steyer is a committed opponent of the Keystone Pipeline.  He is the founder and chief funder of NextGen Climate, an advocacy organization that aims to put climate change at the center of political debate in America.

Meantime, Steyer and NextGen have lately gone directly after the Koch Brothers, the most visible billionaires funding climate skepticism.  The brothers turned down Steyer’s invitation to debate climate change in general and Keystone in particular, noting that they are not really experts on the science and would prefer not to speak on the issue.  OK, in America money talks too.

But back to divestment:

All considered:  I wasn’t at the meeting where Stanford trustees decided how to respond to Fossil Free, but:

Stanford trustees could see an even bigger upside financially to taking a stance against coal.  Stanford trustees were likely to be exposed to powerful arguments about fossil fuels and climate change, made more powerful by the sponsorship of a generous and active supporter of the university.

It helps to have allies in powerful positions.

And institutional power matters.

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Stanford and the Fossil Free campaign

Posted on May 7, 2014 by David S. Meyer

Stanford University announced that it would work to divest holdings in coal companies from its investment portfolio.  It’s a relatively small blow to the coal industry, which is bracing for some bigger hits soon.  It’s also a big victory for the divestment campaign of the climate change movement in general, and 350.org, the awareness/action group founded by Bill McKibben.

Fossil Free coordinates numerous divestment campaigns across the United States, announcing that students are leading the way for the broader movement:

Students have always been key to movements of conscience, and this fight is no different.

Institutions of higher education are charged with preparing their students for lifetimes of work and service. But if those institutions are invested in fossil fuel companies, then students’ educations are being subsidized by investments that guarantee they won’t have much of a planet on which to make use of their degrees.

Colleges and universities rush to launch greening initiatives, sustainability offices, and environmental curricula, but it makes no sense to green the campus and not the portfolio. Fossil fuel divestment is a reasonable next step — and it’s the right thing to do.

The campaign offers an extremely smart strategy for the movement.  It’s less about putting financial pressure on the oil and gas industry to, uh, find something else to do, than about finding a way to engage young people.  Divestment is something to ask for, organize around, and use as a vehicle for public education.  Particularly for climate change, finding productive action and viable targets, is tricky and extremely important.  It also echoes campus-based efforts that were part of the successful anti-apartheid movement.  Campaigns, even unsuccessful ones, train and politicize activists and generate attention.  And sometimes generate victories, even partial ones.

Stanford is a big hit.  Even though its decision addresses only coal, it’s an extremely prestigious and visible institution–maybe the hardest to gain admittance to in the United States–and it’s a huge endowment.  Early adopters are likely to be moving much smaller chunks of money around and getting less attention.  (The first college to divest its fossil fule investments was Hampshire College, my alma mater, in Western Massachusetts in 2011, which adopted a much stricter investment screen than Stanford plans.  Hampshire was also the first to divest its holdings in companies that did business in South Africa–in 1977, years before any other institutions followed.  See the list of schools and communities committing to some kind of divestment here.)  Many schools and communities have thus far refused the appeals of their students.

Those who reject calls to divest will often note that Boards of Trustees have a fiduciary responsibility to their institutions, and are legally committed to generating the strongest financial returns they can.  This is part of the story about why Stanford is getting out of coal, but not oil or natural gas.    Stanford’s announcement comes just after President Obama emphasized the need for action in the wake of yet another study, this time from the White House, warning about the impact of carbon and climate change.  And just a few weeks before the Environmental Protection Agency will announce new greenhouse gas standards for power plants.  The power industry, and particularly coal manufacturers, expect this to be just awful for them.  (Opponents in Congress are going to be able to complain vigorously, but not much else.)  Divestment looks like good business for the endowment, just as staying in other fossil fuels still looks profitable.

So, what Fossil Free did was help Stanford get good press for something trustees might want to do for completely different reasons.  Successful movements focus on changing conduct as a way to change attitudes; you don’t need to get targets to agree in order to get them to comply.  And, like the predatory lion looking for the zebra with a limp, campaigns do best by knocking off the weaker targets.

Fossil Free activists at Stanford and everywhere are savvy enough, no doubt, to claim the victory, while simultaneously demanding much much more.

 

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The Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP is not going to hold a dinner to honor Donald Sterling and Leland Spencer, as it had previously announced.  Its unpaid president, Leon Jenkins, is stepping down from his position, and the national office of the NAACP has announced it will develop new policies about who the organization might properly honor and why.

The Sterling case was actually pretty clear.  The owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, under fairly constant fire for racial discrimination in his rental policies, had donated tens of thousands of dollars to the organization.  Maybe this was unrelated to his business activities, maybe it was personal atonement.  In any case, it was an opportunity to cleanse a reputation with a second lifetime achievement award.  A fancy black tie dinner advertised in the newspapers is one way to try to sanitize a reputation.

Jenkins himself had surely been thinking about what it takes to rehabilitate a reputation.  Formerly a district court judge in Detroit, Jenkins faced a federal indictment for taking bribes of money and firearms.  Although he was acquitted of criminal charges, the Michigan Supreme Court removed him from the bench, and ultimately he was disbarred.  He moved to California to start over, like so many others, but had been unable to gain admission to the California bar, which found that he was deceptive about his financial dealings.  He had, for example, failed to disclose a $25,000 loan he had taken from restauranteur Leland Spencer, who employed Jenkins–and was also to be honored by the LA chapter of the NAACP.  (details in the New York Times report here.)  It sure looks like impropriety!

But advocacy organizations need money to advocate.  Office space, professional labor, phone lines, computers, photocopiers don’t come for free, and Jenkins reported raising over $2 million, some portion of which went to support the national organization, which has had its own financial problems.  How picky can any organization be when people who are willing to write big checks come calling?  (In this case, obviously at least a little pickier.)  And unlike some sponsors, there’s thus far no indication that Donald Sterling wanted anything more than public praise.  Jenkins took the money from Sterling and the national NAACP took its share from Jenkins’s LA chapter.  No doubt, no matter how scuzzy Donald Sterling appeared, Jenkins and others thought they could do something useful with the money.

[Meanwhile, everyone didn’t make the same calculations.  Ultimately, UCLA rejected a $3 million gift from Donald Sterling that would have gone to research on kidney disease.  Is that a good move?  for science?  Will Donald Sterling spend the money on something more valuable?]

Old notions of democratic theory premised a notion of countervailing resources, in which some groups had more money, some more intense commitment, some more supporters.  Increasingly, however, it seems like money just means more–and if the other resources seem to falter, well, it means even more.

 

Posted on May 2, 2014 by David S. Meyer | Leave a comment

May Day 2014

Posted on May 1, 2014 by David S. Meyer

Same as it ever was, May Day is an international day of protest for workers rights.  Below is a picture of a march in Turkey, taken from Al Jazeera, which reports on protests around the world.

In the United States, where by design we have a different day for workers (Labor Day), May Day always seems like an opportunity to organize and demonstrate around a somewhat related cause, with or without the support of organized labor.

This year, organized labor has many issues, including raising the minimum wage which, not coincidentally, was killed in the Senate just yesterday–before it could be stalled in the House.  Occupy activists are once again trying to use the moment to reestablish visibility, holding meetings and events.  Perhaps most visibly, immigrant rights  activists refuse to let the issue disappear just because Congress can’t act.  In cities large (e.g., Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, San Francisco) and small (e.g., Salem, Oregon), organizers are trying to use the familiar workers’ holiday to break into public attention–again.  Reporters are prepared to look for issues that are often otherwise neglected.

May Day is an opportunity to organize and say something, reminding the rest of the world that constituencies and concerns remain vital and potentially volatile.

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Leveraging against a weak target: Donald Sterling’s reputation

Posted on April 30, 2014 by David S. Meyer

The straw that breaks the camel’s back isn’t always the largest one.  The tempest surrounding the LA Clippers and owner Donald Sterling illustrates much about how social movements work–when they work.

When Sterling’s ostensibly private and clearly offensive comments about blacks, including people in his employ, hit the public, outrage boiled over everywhere–including among the owner’s accomplished and highly paid employees.

The members of the San Diego Clippers threw their warmup suits down and wore jerseys inside-out to hide the Clippers logo during their pregame routine.  Players on other teams joined in sympathy and solidarity, donning black socks for games in a bit of not so subtle and not so disruptive resistance.  In the middle of the National Basketball Association’s playoffs, the symbolic moves here suggested that the players might be willing to do more–like refuse to play the games.

Surely, other owners and the league’s management took offense at Sterling’s comments; the Clippers’ owner was already recognized as a problem.  Sterling underinvested in his team, neglected the interests of the league more broadly, and was a recurrent public relations problem.  There was no residual of goodwill for him to draw upon when things went wrong.  More significantly, an owner or staffer could actually agree with every appalling sentiment expressed and still want to get rid of Sterling.  Sponsors suspended deals with the Clippers team, the players were offended and organized, and press everywhere was awful.  Punishment, even banishment, is good business.  A new commissioner was particularly well-positioned to recognize this and act forcefully, buying himself good will and good press in the process.  Almost everyone wins.

More generally, movements can be effective  by targeting the vulnerable, that is respondents who have something to lose that they care about.  The NBA already had all kinds of good reasons to get rid of Donald Sterling; the players’ collective action gave management a push to do something they might want to do anyway.

There’s an odd additional note to offer here: The Los Angeles chapter of NAACP was set to give a lifetime achievement award to Donald Sterling when the story broke, and had accepted tens of thousands of dollars from the real estate tycoon (who had paid nearly $3 million to settle a federal case of housing discrimination).  (See Alison Griswold at Slate.)  The award was for money, clearly, and the civil rights group has since decided to return the money and cancel the award.

But advocacy organizations are dependent upon large sums that most people can’t provide, and reputations aren’t always Sterling….  Certainly, there are worse things for this billionaire’s money to go to–and they do.  There’s an inherent dilemma in the dependence upon big money that movement groups need to raise. I’ll wait for your answers on this one.

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Cliven Bundy gets real

Posted on April 24, 2014 by David S. Meyer

Sure enough, as the Feds backed down and out–at least for the moment–the camera has shifted to Cliven Bundy, the rancher who doesn’t want to pay to graze his cattle on public lands.  So far, it’s not such a pretty picture.  At The New York Times, Adam Nagourney reports on the scene.  Sure enough, there are a few dozen supporters, at least some armed and girded for battle with the feds.  (In most contexts, we call people who are willing to shoot government agents in the service of their beliefs “terrorists.”)

Absent confrontation, Bundy has been filling the days with sparsely attended press conferences and opining not only about the grazing stand-off with the Bureau of Land Management, but also his beliefs on abortion, African-Americans, and government more generally.  The comments that sound most racist have been reprinted all over the web:

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.

“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he asked. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”

Expressing some nostalgia for the benefits of slavery is not quite as problematic for an independent rancher in Nevada than more mainstream (and it doesn’t take much to be more mainstream) political figures who might support him.  And it’s lately been important for Bundy to mobilize such support.  Senators who have lauded him or the cause are backing off–or disappearing from the conflict.  Other ranchers, who are accustomed to paying to graze their cattle on public lands, have already dissociated themselves from the case and the cause.  He’s not quite the poster child that even very conservative politicians want to paste everywhere.

Of course, some supporters remain.  Over time, particularly if government action remains measured and low profile, the ones who stay are likely to be at least as unattractive as Bundy himself.

The challenge for the BLM is to resolve the outstanding fees issue without making stylistic mistakes that take the focus off Bundy.  (The BLM can’t exempt Bundy from the responsibilities that it imposes on all other ranchers who want to graze cattle on public lands.)

The challenge for conservative activists who would use the Bundy case is to find a way to valorize independence, vilify the government, and stay away from the details of the case or the person.

In essence, they need to use Cliven Bundy without being associated with him.  If the focus stays on Bundy, this will be increasingly difficult.

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Uniting against the US: BLM and Cliven Bundy

Posted on April 21, 2014 by David S. Meyer

Cliven Bundy, a rancher in Nevada, has been grazing his cattle on public land in Clark County for free for more than twenty years.  (The story is all over, but you can find a succinct summary at the new site, Vox, which surely seems great on everything so far.) Or maybe he’s been freeloading; livestock degrades the land and ranchers are supposed to pay for that privilege.  Bundy, noting that his ancestors have grazed their cattle on this land for generations, claims that he’s entitled to continue doing so–without costs.  He adds that he doesn’t recognize the authority of the federal government, only the state of Nevada which, rather explicitly, recognizes the supremacy of the federal government.

Even if Bundy’s legal claims are weak, his commitment is not: he wants to continue grazing his cattle for free.  The enemy is the federal government, and particularly, the Bureau of Land Management, which has been trying to collect the fees.  Really trying.  Bundy has offered legal arguments in several courts over many years, always losing, and has refused to comply with court orders to pay and/or stop grazing.  On April 5, under the authority of a federal judge’s order, the BLM began confiscating the cattle.  Armed federal officers arrested one of Bundy’s sons for trying to interfere, and tased another one (video widely available).

Whether or not Cliven Bundy is a good guy, there are committed people who know that the BLM and the Feds are the bad guys.  A stalwart collection of supporters from around the United States has rallied in Nevada to protest the cattle confiscation and showed armed support for the Bundy family.  At peak, it looks like no more than 150 people from the photos I’ve seen, but they seem committed–and armed.  There’s a somewhat larger cheering section, fed by Fox News and scores of other sites on the web.  TeaParty.org, for example, presents evidence that the BLM slaughtered some of Bundy’s cattle.

BLM backed down, at least for now, releasing the cattle and no doubt trying to figure out another way to manage the situation.  It’s a victory for the protesters, but probably a temporary one.

While some Tea Partiers are ready to sign onto a campaign against the government, somewhat fewer are willing to a campaign for Cliven Bundy and his legal theories.  Prominent conservatives in office and in media, ready to nurse their grievances against the government, are nonetheless distancing themselves from the Bundy battle.  Glenn Beck has criticized the armed struggle, identifying a portion of Bundy’s supporters as truly frightening, and warning that the whole affair could be the right’s version of Occupy Wall Street (don’t waste a chance for a dig).

So, what does this mean?

Protest effectively deployed polarizes; it forces people to take sides.  How those sides break depend on the issues, the tactics, and the players involved.  Ideally, the organizer wants more people to support his side than the opponents–or at least more powerful or committed people.  Thus far, it doesn’t look like things are breaking very well for the anti-government campaigners.

What could change it all is the conduct of the BLM.  If the government backs down and allows the free lunch (for cattle) to continue, the protesters win and slip a victory into their efforts for mobilization.  What would be even worse, however, is police conduct that makes the Bundy family sympathetic–like the tasering.  BLM bureaucrats should now be strategizing a way to end the conflict without allowing Cliven Bundy to emerge as a hero to his supporters, and to avoid making a malcontent (e.g., David Koresh, Randy Weaver) into a martyr.

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Bankrolling Tea Party radio

Posted on April 18, 2014 by David S. Meyer

In the expansive and fragmented media universe, each of us can find the news and entertainment we want.  And, if you have the money, you can make sure others have access to your favorite news, views, and entertainment as well.  Conservatives have been more aggressive on this front than liberals, particularly on the radio.

At Politico, Kenneth P. Vogel and Mackenzie Weinger file a fascinating report on the millions spent by organized conservative groups on radio commercials.  Such groups, including FreedomWorks, the Heritage Foundation, and Americans for Prosperity have invested heavily buying ads on the programs of popular conservative hosts, including Glenn Beck (at right!), Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, and (of course) Rush Limbaugh.  There is nothing particularly new about this, or really very shocking.  The radio business is, after all, a business, and broadcasters make money by playing–and reading–advertising copy.  For hyper-popular hosts, it’s even more than this: syndication deals for the stars allow them to sell some of their advertising slots themselves.

We should not think that any of these hosts would read ads for causes and groups they dislike any more than we should doubt their commitments to the discount furniture and mattress stores they also promote.  Minimally, the groups get the ad space to promote themselves and their causes, and these promotions may induce some listeners to contribute or buy memberships.  (Whether this is advertising money well spent is a matter of dispute within these groups; apparently, it was one of many issues that led to Dick Armey’s armed and paid separation from FreedomWorks.)

What else do they get?  The hosts make money on ads and, at least sometimes, display their agreement with–or gratitude to–their sponsors by showing up at events.  I don’t mean to suggest that these radio personalities put their politics up for sale; it’s hard to imagine Planned Parenthood, say, advertising on Glenn Beck’s show, or having Beck show up at one of their fundraisers.  But the ideological alignment between the popular host and FreedomWorks is polished with large checks.  (Politico reports that at least some times, hosts alter their political judgments as they lose some sponsors and take on new others.)

Does any of this matter?  It makes sense for advocacy groups to invest in promoting themselves, their preferred view of the world–maybe even their version of the facts, and more generally, in changing the culture.  The right (right!) radio show provides access to an audience that is likely to be congenial and a host who has every incentive to be friendly.  It’s a lot of money, much more than many activist groups could consider spending, but not compared to television advertising.  And it may be a more direct pay-off than investing in lobbying or grassroots mobilization.  (Of course, all of these groups spend large sums on those efforts as well.)

Does it matter?  It’s hard for me to imagine any of these hosts taking issue with the Koch Brothers, for example, spending big money to promote their political ideals–even if they weren’t buying ads that directly lined the pockets of the hosts.  That they do buy such ads makes it even less likely.  What the advertising does is stroke media allies of conservative groups while stoking their audiences.

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Tax Day protests

Posted on April 15, 2014 by David S. Meyer

April 15 is a great day to stage an anti-tax protest.  Federal taxes are due, forms are complicated, and many people procrastinate.  Few of even the strongest supporters of a strong well-funded government are enthusiastic about filling out forms and writing checks.  Noticing and amplifying the resentment to filing and paying, anti-taxers often exploit the moment of attention that Tax Day provides.  Indeed, the Tea Party first visibly emerged through a series of demonstrations on April 15, 2009.  The Tax Day protests were a chance to protest against not only taxes, but debt, and all kinds of government spending.  But not this year.

Subsequent Tax Day protests never matched the numbers, energy, and visibility of 2009.  This year, Tea Party groups aren’t even trying.  A quick search of the major national Tea Party groups shows no planned protest activities.  These groups have found other ways to represent their concerns, including pouring money into the elections coming in seven months.

But opportunities aren’t always one-sided.  Groups with very different concerns are using 2014’s Tax Day to try to make their own splash.

In Winston-Salem, North Carolina a lesbian couple (legally married in New York) brought cameras to the post office to file a joint return that the state government has no interest in accepting.  This is part of a national campaign.

In New Jersey, protesters are using Tax Day to challenge what they describe of Governor Chris Christie’s use of state funds to build his own national reputation.  They’re talking about bridges and traffic as well.

In San Francisco, tenants rights activists are campaigning against evictions.

Retired public employees in West Virginia are turning out to protest the size of their pensions.  They want a tax exemption on their pensions which, they say, haven’t increased in decades.

Others are trying to use the day to draw attention to military spending and tax justice, and even war more generally.

I’d be surprised if any of these efforts match the feeling of a national wave that accompanied the Tea Party five years ago.  The larger point, however, is that people with a cause prospect for opportunities to press their claims–and April 15 often seems like the right time.

 

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