Rights and facts on the ground

Posted on June 29, 2012 by David S. Meyer

The Supreme Court’s ruling to uphold the Affordable Care Act means that Governor Mitt Romney, by campaigning to repeal the Act, is promising to take health insurance away from 30 million people, none in Massachusetts.  This is far tougher than never extending the protection to them in the first place.

Of course, states can take rights and benefits away from people.  The purported Communists who lost the ability to earn a living in the Red Scare of the 1950s and more than 100,000 Japanese Americans interned a decade earlier know that too well.  Much more recently, gay and lesbian Californians who lost the right to marry through a ballot initiative know that rights can be taken away.  Someone who might appear to be Latino to a tired and pressured police officer on a dark night in Arizona also now knows that people can lose, as well as win, access, rights, and respect.

But usually it takes an atmosphere of crisis for authorities in a democracy to take existing rights away from people.  War and the perception of threat help a lot, and that perception isn’t always easy to conjure up.

This week the United States Department of Defense announced that it would commemorate Gay Pride month.  Officers and enlisted personnel attended the event, grateful that openness about their sexuality was no longer cause for being discharged.  David S. Cloud at The Los Angeles Times reports:

It was far from an outre gay pride celebration, like the Manhattan parade this month that one blogger said featured “dancing boys, granny boobs, marching bands, rainbow Storm Troopers, babies, feathers, pasties, thongs — heck, even a bunny in a hat.”

But if most of the Pentagon audience wore crisp military uniforms or conservative business suits, their joy was unmistakable. Several same-sex couples said they were attending their first Pentagon function together.

“It means acceptance,” said Doug Wilson, who stepped down this year as assistant secretary of Defense for public affairs but returned for the event. “It means people can be complete human beings.”

Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a veteran of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, attended the ceremony with his partner and called the event “the right kind of step forward. It’s measured. It’s done appropriately. It’s consistent with the way the military does things.”

Many, if not most, of the opponents of ending “don’t ask don’t tell,” still oppose the open service of gays and lesbians in the armed forces.   The Times quotes Ron Crews, a retired chaplain in the Army Reserve: “The Pentagon is now honoring something that a year ago was a court-martial offense, and that’s a radical shift.”   But Crews’s group, the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, is focusing less on undoing the new policy than in stopping same sex marriages on military bases and maintaining the availability of Bibles.   The new policy effective shifted the front for the ongoing battle.  Policy matters.

And think about how hard it is to campaign against open service when gay service in the military is not an abstraction, but stories about real people serving honorably.  It’s harder to take something away from someone when you know who that someone is.

So, the Supreme Court decision makes it tougher for Governor Romney to campaign against “Obamacare” without offering something more specific to 30 million Americans who will depend upon the new law.  In effect, President Obama (affirmed by the Supreme Court) has established facts on the ground that tilt the playing field against his opponents.

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Court ruling an opportunity and a test for Tea Party

Posted on June 28, 2012 by David S. Meyer

When the Supreme Court announced the constitutionality of the Affordable Health Care Act this morning, it sounded a trumpet calling the Tea Party to arms.  Can the movement respond effectively?  Will Tea Partiers reinvigorate the movement which has become, basically, an faction of the Republican Party?

In 2009, the Town Hall meetings about health care provided the first large stage for grassroots Tea Partiers to display their commitments.  When Congress adopted the Affordable Care Act–over their opposition–Tea Partiers and Republicans channeled their efforts into the 2010 elections, and enjoyed considerable success, ousting the Democrats from control of the House of Representatives.  Since then, the most visible Tea Party efforts have been directed into the presidential contest, particularly the Republican primaries.

The impending nomination of Mitt Romney is a tremendous disappointment to Tea Partiers, who will, no doubt, recall that the Supreme Court has just upheld the vision of health care reform Governor Romney pioneered in Massachusetts.  Most Tea Partiers, however, will continue to see Romney’s campaign as their best hope for undoing ACA and sending President Obama back to Chicago.

Social movements of the middle class and above respond to bad news and to threats.  The Supreme Court’s majority decision, written by Chief Justice Roberts, is both.  The core national Tea Party organizations were prepared, and responded immediately.

Jenny Beth Martin, the remaining co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, issued a warning to the Republican majority in the House:

This is a slap in the face to the majority of the American people who want Obamacare fully repealed. The Tea Party Patriots stand with the American people and say: fully repeal Obamacare.

Mr. Romney, Mr. Boehner: the American people are putting you on notice. You both promised to fully repeal Obamacare. We will hold you to your promises.

We will vote out any politician who does not commit, in writing, to respect the will of the American people and fully repeal Obamacare.

Americans for Prosperity’s president Tim Phillips issued this statement:

For years, Americans for Prosperity has vigorously opposed President Obama’s deeply flawed health care plan. Since 2009, our Hands Off My Health Care project has rallied thousands of Americans at hundreds of events around the country, including a massive rally this past March with over 4,000 AFP activists.

The American people deserve health care freedom and choice, not more restrictions and irresponsible spending. Over the next several days, AFP will launch a series of events around the country telling Congress ‘Hands Off My Health Care,’ and demanding a full repeal of Obama’s deeply flawed health care law.

And FreedomWorks, which was critical in organizing the Town Hall shout-downs two years ago, promised to “double down” on its efforts to repeal the law.  Its president, Matt Kibbe, announced:

Without a strong grassroots constituency holding government accountable to its decisions, it’s doubtful the individual mandate would have been challenged in the first place. For that, activists across the country should be very proud. We are not going away. It’s time to double down on spreading the message that President Obama’s individual mandate is an unprecedented infringement on constitutional liberty, and to take that message to the ballot box in November.

The Supreme Court has spoken, as has the Tea Party leadership.  We’ll watch to see whether the grassroots follows.

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Starving postal workers

Posted on June 26, 2012 by David S. Meyer

Ten current and former postal employees stopped eating yesterday in Washington, DC, starting a hunger strike to protest continuing cutbacks at the United States Postal Service.  Organized by Community and Postal Workers United, they do not plan to starve themselves to death; they are, however, desperate to get public attention for their cause.

So far, this effort has worked–a little: Representative Dennis Kucinich appeared at their protest and endorsed the cause, and there’s been some coverage in local and national media.  But they’re fighting an uphill battle.

Fasting is never an easy route to political influence.  (We’ve discussed the strategy of  hunger strikes here, as well as fasting campaigns by DREAM activists and prisoners.)  If postal workers thought they could depend upon allies in Congress or their union to stave off very large cuts in post offices and sorting stations (and jobs), they certainly wouldn’t be standing outside, hungry, in the summer in Washington, DC.

They have grievances about jobs and pensions, but their cause represents a much larger conflict in contemporary American political life.  Article I Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power “To establish Post Offices and post Roads.”  The idea was that a reliable communication infrastructure was essential to building a nation.  Even before the Constitution, Benjamin Franklin ran the post office in Philadelphia, which was located in the offices of his newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette; both he and the city prospered.  Franklin served as the first Postmaster General of the United States.

Postmaster General was a Cabinet position for nearly 150 years, between 1829 and 1971, when the United States Postal Service moved from being a department to become a (somewhat) independent agency.  Somewhat?  Political figures wanted the Post Office to operate more efficiently and to cease operating as a haven for patronage.  They also wanted the postal service to cover its own expenses. At the same time, politicians didn’t want to allow the post office to operate just like a business and close unprofitable offices.  Ironically, the least profitable offices tend to be located in rural areas, often represented by Republicans in Congress, representatives who are generally reluctant to see their local post offices closed.  So, the USPS is supposed to support itself, to compete with corporations for the most profitable services, like overnight mail, and to enjoy a monopoly on the services that lose money, like 6 day a week delivery of circulars in rural areas.

With email and electronic banking, most customers are able to reorganize most of their communications to bypass the post office anyway.  Once Grandma figures out how to slide a $5 bill into an email….

The postal workers are focusing on one particular Congressional restriction, the requirement that the USPS pre-fund its pension liabilities 75 years in advance; neither Fedex or UPS are similarly encumbered.  So, the government agency is supposed to compete against the private sector, but also operate within special restrictions in that competition.  Does that sound like anything else in contemporary politics?  Does that sound like everything else in contemporary politics?

A leaner more business-like USPS would focus on profitable services and areas, leaving sparsely populated areas to pay more and/or enjoy less service–or to support a new business that somehow finds a way to survive by serving such areas.  (Hint: it hasn’t happened yet.)  It’s a somewhat different America than imagined by Ben Franklin.

Whether the four day hunger strike, in conjunction with sympathy events, can succeed in putting the future of the USPS on the political agenda remains to be seen.  The hunger strike got my attention; you?

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Defectors and dissident elites: rifts in the campaign against gay marriage

Posted on June 24, 2012 by David S. Meyer

When David Blankenhorn changed his mind about same sex marriage, the New York Times was eager to give him space on its op-ed page to explain why.  Blankenhorn has been a stalwart in the battle against gay marriage, testifying as an expert witness on behalf of a California referendum banning such unions in a federal court in 2010.

Twenty-five years ago, Blankenhorn founded the Institute for American Values, which promotes “traditional values,” right now emphasizing marriage, thrift, and public conversation.

Lots of people, perhaps now half of all Americans, now support access to same sex marriage.  But David Blankenhorn’s shift is unexpected and dramatic, and thus, newsworthy, in a way that say, that Evan Wolfson’s support for same sex marriage is not.

Many people have changed their views on gay marriage over the past few years; more Americans now support marriage now than oppose it, and the difference is particularly pronounced among young people.  But we know about opinions at the grassroots from the numbers in surveys; rarely do the visible principals in this battle admit that they’ve changed their minds.

David Blankenhorn didn’t exactly change his mind, at least as he describes it, but he did change his position.  He writes that he still thinks a mixed sex marriage is the best environment for raising children.  But he also thinks that homosexual love merits respect and dignity, and that recognizing marriage is one way to do so.  One of the few critics of same sex marriage who didn’t rely on the Bible for evidence, Blankenhorn reports that he recognized bigotry and homophobia in the ranks of the people on his side, and wanted to reject it.  Besides, he says, the battle to stave off same sex marriage is lost.  It’s more important, he says, to promote civil dialogue and to promote marriage.* He writes:

So my intention is to try something new. Instead of fighting gay marriage, I’d like to help build new coalitions bringing together gays who want to strengthen marriage with straight people who want to do the same. For example, once we accept gay marriage, might we also agree that marrying before having children is a vital cultural value that all of us should do more to embrace? Can we agree that, for all lovers who want their love to last, marriage is preferable to cohabitation? Can we discuss whether both gays and straight people should think twice before denying children born through artificial reproductive technology the right to know and be known by their biological parents?

Promising to negotiate such alliances across contending movements seems like a laudable plea for comity and progress; in a polarized political landscape where the movements are still struggling, it’s tough sledding.  (Do you know of any successful efforts to get anti-abortion activists to cooperate with abortion rights proponents to provide ready access to birth control?)  Advocates of gay marriage will want to invoke Blankenhorn as evidence of the collapse of their opponents.  And Blankenhorn’s former allies will view him as a sell-out, weak-willed and too willing to concede on matters of principle.  Alas, in movement politics when your expert no longer agrees with you, he’s no longer an expert.

This is already happening.  Maggie Gallagher, founder of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, identifies David Blankenhorn as her mentor, but mourns that he has lost his stomach for an important fight.  At First Things, Matthew Schmitz opines that Blankenhorn’s concession on marriage will not build civility nor broker compromise with the progressive forces that are launching a larger attack on religion.  If you dare stray to the comment sections on such blogs, well, the tone is somewhat more hostile.

In movement fights, the defectors are especially valuable.**  A General for Peace brings a visibility and credibility to an antinuclear campaign–at least to a broad audience–that someone who has long opposed nuclear weapons cannot command.  A Catholic for a Free Choice undermines the consensus that the Church tries to present to the public debate.  The generals don’t do much to convince the rest of the military, nor do the abortion rights Catholics make serious inroads in the Roman Catholic hierarchy, but they are important symbols for the opposition, and they give cover of a sort for people at the grassroots uneasy about their official leadership.  And they feed debates about authenticity.

Why were Tea Partiers so enamored of Herman Cain, who liked to proclaim that he left the “Democrat plantation a long time ago.”?  For Tea Partiers, Cain demonstrated that their concerns were not about race, and that the black community wasn’t a monolith (after all, only 90 percent of African Americans will vote for Barack Obama in the next election).

But back to David Blankenhorn:  Blankenhorn’s defection on same sex marriage will give some space to conservatives and Republicans eager to desert the demographic trap on social issues their party has set up for them.  Libertarians already uneasy about the alliance with social conservatives and evangelicals will have an opening to speak more directly.  Religious conviction will be an even stronger force within the movement against same sex marriage, and that’s probably a losing coalition over the long haul.  It really doesn’t matter if David Blankenhorn is a principled conservative seeking comity or a rat deserting a sinking ship.  Either way, his conversion signals a much broader shift in politics, one that social conservatives cannot welcome.

* Marriage promotion was an important project for the social conservative movement and for the George W. Bush administration, which funneled a great deal of money (some to Maggie Gallagher) into the cause, with little discernible effect–on marriage anyway.  See Melanie Heath’s excellent book, One Marriage under God.

** Kelsy Kretschmer has written great academic stuff on these defectors (e.g.)

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Immigration activists, allies, and targets

Posted on June 21, 2012 by David S. Meyer

President Obama’s shift in administrative policy on immigration has provided some political space for immigration activists pressing for comprehensive reform.  Days after the announcement, the White House hosted a conference on immigration issues that included 200 activists (reported in Politico).

The activists heard from high-level administration officials, including Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano.  Although the session was planned months earlier, the decision not to deport DREAM-eligible young people dominated discussion.  According to Gabriela Pacheco, twenty-seven years old and undocumented, who was present at some of the meetings, “There was a lot of mistrust in the room, but at the same time there was a sense of thankfulness that came with it because it was the president that made this announcement on Friday.”

Activists can’t let their gratitude get in the way of their larger ambitions.  They have to find a way to work with Obama, who has been a sometime ally and frequent target for their efforts.  Their interests may coincide, but they are certainly not identical.  First and foremost, Obama is working to win reelection.  That may be a necessary step toward comprehensive reform, but it’s certainly not sufficient.  Immigration activists are well aware that Obama did not deliver on his campaign promise of comprehensive reform, nor was he even able to push Congress (then under Democratic control) to pass the DREAM Act.

Lyndon Johnson meets with civil rights activists in the White House

Successful politicians sell out the movements they surf (discussed here), riding their energy and directing it for their own purposes.  It’s a trick for activists to be clear-eyed about this and get as much as they can for their efforts.

First John F. Kennedy and then Lyndon Johnson pushed civil rights activists in the early 1960s to focus on voter registration, an important part of their much larger agenda.  It might have been a good choice, but it surely wasn’t the only one, nor was it uncontroversial.

Because of his willingness to push the Voting Rights Act through Congress, President Johnson expected loyalty from the civil rights activists.  Activists, of course, wanted more.  Johnson felt betrayed when Martin Luther King came out against the Vietnam war in 1967.

Activists for immigration reform have to find a way to take what President Obama has delivered and figure out how to press for more.  Their efforts may include working for Obama’s reelection, but that can’t be enough.

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Still not the dream

Posted on June 18, 2012 by David S. Meyer

President Obama’s announcement of an immigrant daydream dramatically changes the landscape for both the immigrants rights movement and its anti-immigrant counterpart.

Obama’s new policy, to forgo deportation proceedings for young people (under 31) who came to the United States before the age of 16, graduated from high school, and stayed out of legal trouble, and offering temporary work permits, is something substantially less than the DREAM Act that died in the Senate in 2010.  The new policy is not a law, and allows prosecutors discretion about what legal violations comprise serious (deportable) offenses.  It is silent on the fate of slightly older residents or of the families that house these young people.  The work permits are revocable, and the next president, even if it’s Obama, is not bound to continue deferring deportation proceedings.  Most significantly, there’s no pathway toward citizenship.  Although the new approach allows some young people to work, to drive, and to live openly with less danger, it does not afford them any access to influencing policy–ever.  (For some measured skepticism, see Citizen Orange.)

All this acknowledged, it’s a big step forward for advocates of a more humane approach to immigration reform.  And it changes the political prospects for movements and their allies on both sides of this issue.

For DREAMers and immigrant rights activists, this reform promises real improvements in the lives of up to an estimated 800,000 young people–and enough of a grievance to engage them in the political process.  Some had spent the past years organizing and agitating, some even disclosing their immigration status at great personal risk.  The risks diminished, some will work, others continue their studies, and probably more than a few will engage in the only kind of politics available to them, social movement activism.  Other Americans will see who these undocumented immigrants are–and perhaps how many they are.  As more young immigrants come out, their neighbors will get a better sense of their presence in American life.  There are, of course, social and political risks here, but familiarity is as likely to build acceptance.

Winning greater victories will be hard for the immigrant rights activists.  Obama implemented the pieces of the DREAM Act that he could work without Congress.  Older immigrants and those who came to the United States as adults represent a less attractive image for most Americans, and any move toward citizenship will require a very different Congress–and probably a different Republican Party.  Expect the ongoing development of a broader movement.

Also expect to see intensifying, but narrowing, opposition to immigration reform.  Comprehensive reform that includes recognition of the 12 million or so undocumented people already here is a divisive issue in the Republican Party.  Remember that it was not that long ago that Senator John McCain, working in concert with President George W. Bush and Senator Ted Kennedy, proposed immigration reform, only to be abandoned by the base of the Republican Party.  Seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2007, Sen. McCain learned the same lesson that all viable aspirants for the Republican nomination have learned since: a hard line against undocumented immigrants is a prerequisite for Republican primary victories.   How hard a line?  Can you recall Herman Cain’s musings on electrifying the fence separating the United States and Mexico?  (Just a joke, said Cain later.  Ha.)

Anti-immigrant activists can now watch their national leaders trying to find a way to sell them out.  Stalwarts in the campaign against any path toward citizenship or comprehensive reform are understandably outraged.  FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, emphasized the dangers it saw:

Thus, with a magic wand, President Obama has added 1.4 million workers to a job market that is already suffering from an unemployment rate of over 8 percent.   And this number does not take into account the additional number of illegal alien workers that will be added to the workforce through fraud.  The impact will be particularly severe on young Americans, as the unemployment rate for teenagers is 24.6 percent, and one in two recent college graduates are either unemployed or underemployed…Moreover, the scope of the Administration’s new amnesty program (one that is certainly not intended to provide only temporary relief) belies the Administration’s claim that it will grant deferred action to illegal aliens on a “case-by-case” basis.   The Obama Administration intends to abuse the process of deferred action to grant amnesty to an entire class of illegal aliens who will now compete with American workers…President Obama insisted his proposal was not amnesty or immunity, but a new policy that would “mend” the nation’s immigration system, make it “more fair, more efficient, and more just.”  The President offered no legal justification or grounding for his actions, most likely because he has already acknowledged that he has none.

FAIR then lists the disapproving comments of a number of Republican leaders, but they are all of second or third tier visibility.  What of Governor Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican standard-bearer in the presidential election?  Governor Romney criticized Obama for offering only a partial solution and for bypassing Congress, pointedly ignoring the fate of the DREAM Act in the last Congress.  He lamented that Obama’s action would preempt the bill that Senator Marco Rubio was considering writing and offering at some point in the future.  And he repeatedly refused to say whether he would reverse the policy if he were elected president.

Governor Romney, along with many others, criticized Obama for changing policy in response to political concerns.  (As we’ve said many times, movements change the political calculus of their targets).  Is this what democracy looks like.

If opponents of a humane immigration reform policy feel deserted by their leaders, well, that’s not a surprise.  It’s not just Romney who is trying to find a way to back away from a harsh stance against young undocumented immigrants (and Latino voters who might sympathize with their plight).  While FAIR has been covering the policy shift aggressively, other conservative groups have chosen not to do so.  A quick sample of the national sites of four major Tea Party groups (Tea Party Express, Tea Party Patriots, Americans for Prosperity, and FreedomWorks)  finds no mention of the new policy; you have to search aggressively to find positions on immigration altogether.  Although many of the Tea Partiers at the grassroots are incensed about the immigration issue generally, the national groups are sympathetic to less regulation and ready access to labor.  The national groups would prefer to talk about the issues on which national conservative activists agree with their grassroots base: taxes, health care reform, and getting Obama out of office.

President Obama’s shift on policy is already exacerbating a rift on the right that national groups had been working hard to paper over.   The president has made it a little harder for them to do so.  He has also posed a question for Mitt Romney that will come up again and again, one with no good political answer for the Republican candidate.

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Lucy Lawless protests Arctic oil drilling: Her courage will change the world

Posted on June 15, 2012 by David S. Meyer

Without sword or chakram, actor Lucy Lawless occupied the Noble Explorer, an oil-drilling ship docked in Auckland last February.  With seven other Greenpeace activists, she tried to stop the ship from leaving port until she was finally arrested after 77 hours.

Lawless, who enjoys the mixed blessing of forever being identified as “television’s Xena, warrior princess,” plead guilty to trespass.  She could be sentenced to as much as three years in prison.

Because of her pre-Greenpeace life as Xena, Lawless’s protest drew international attention to the cause.  The New Zealand Herald is the only source I could find that listed the names of those accompanying her:

The New Zealand actor’s arrest and the subsequent court action received publicity from far afield, and was covered by global media giants including the BBC, ABC, Reuters, the Daily Mail and the Washington Post.

The huge media scrum outside Auckland District Court this morning also attested to the success of the protest.

“Yeah, I think we’ve helped kick off a great movement,” Lawless told reporters.

The eight activists – Lawless, Jan Raoni Hammer, Mike Ross Buchanan, Shayne Panayiotis Comino, Vivienne Rachel Hadlow, Shai Sebastian Naides, Zach Steven Penman and Ilai Amir – were initially charged with burglary but this was amended in court today to the lesser charge of unlawfully being on a ship.

The eight appeared in the dock together and stood quietly as their lawyer Ron Mansfield entered the pleas on their behalf…

In February the protestors broke into a restricted area at Port Taranaki and boarded Shell-contracted drilling ship the Noble Explorer to prevent it heading to the Chukchi Sea, off the coast of Alaska, to drill three exploratory oil wells.

They scaled its 58 metre drilling tower and set up camp at the top for 77 hours, using social media to beam their message around the world.

Lawless was adamant the protest had had an impact, saying 470,000 people supported the action…

“We want to tell (those responsible for deep sea oil drilling) absolutely under no circumstances is this a good idea. They are robbing our children of their birthright to a clean and healthy planet and they know it.”

Lucy saw her lawlessness as service to a higher cause.  Well-aware of her celebrity, she knew her celebrity would be a force multiplier for the civil disobedience action.

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Risk, Repression, and Response in Russia

Posted on June 13, 2012 by David S. Meyer

Tens of thousands of Russians took to the streets in Moscow, calling for the ouster of President Vladimir Putin, and demanding new elections.

This is just days after President Putin raised the costs of protesting by announcing fines of up to $9,000 (more than the average annual income) for participation in a street demonstration.

The Russian people defied Putin’s expectations (and mine!) that increased costs and risks would deter most people from taking to the streets.  Risking both brutal police repression and financial hardship, large numbers of Muscovites nonetheless saw their grievances as so severe and their situation so desperate that protest made a kind of sense.  And when there is so much risk, the message is even stronger and more powerful.

When only a few people turn out, it’s harder to convince others to join, but when thousands take to the streets, arrests and repression seem more difficult, perhaps less likely, and the prospects for change seem a little better.  Success at mobilization builds upon success.  When more people turn out, it’s easier to get more people to turn out.

And we’re not near the end of this story.

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Froze and reversed the nuclear arms race?

Posted on June 12, 2012 by David S. Meyer

Thirty years ago today, one million people marched in the streets of New York City to protest the nuclear arms race in general and the policies of Ronald Reagan in particular.  Organized around a “nuclear freeze” proposal, the demonstration was a watershed for a movement that seemed to come out of nowhere, not just in the United States, but throughout what was then called Western Europe.

Of course, movements have deeper roots.  Relatively small groups of people have been protesting against nuclear weapons since the idea of nuclear bombs first appeared.  On occasion, they’re able to spread their concerns beyond the few to a larger public.  Such was the case in 1982, when Europeans rallied against new intermediate range missiles planned for West Europe, and when Americans protested against the extraordinary military build-up/ spend-up of Ronald Reagan’s first term in office.

The freeze proposal, imagined by Randall Forsberg as a reasonable first step in reversing the arms race, was the core of organizing efforts in the United States, which included out-of-power arms control advocates and radical pacifists.  Local governments passed resolutions supporting the freeze, while several states passed referenda.  People demonstrated and held vigils, while community groups in churches and neighborhoods organized freeze groups to discuss–and advocate–on the nuclear arms race.

The freeze figured in large Democratic gains in the 1982 election, and Ronald Reagan ran for reelection as a born-again arms controller.  Most activists didn’t buy it, but after Reagan won in a landslide, to the horror of his advisers and many of his supporters, he negotiated large reductions in the nuclear arsenals of the United States and what used to be called the Soviet Union.

US/ Russia nuclear warheads

The arms control agreements created the space in the East for reforms, reforms that spun out of control and eventually unraveled the cold war and the Eastern bloc.

The world changed.

It was both less and more than what most activists imagined possible.

Do you want to call it a victory?

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A tactic is a tactic

Posted on June 11, 2012 by David S. Meyer

Greenpeace is innovating new tactics, an excellent piece by Kim Murphy in the weekend LA Times reports, developing a style of performance that is  a departure from blocking whalers in port.  We’ll come back to this, but first let’s talk about tactics:

People who are unhappy with a policy do something to try to advance their cause, undermining support for the current situation and/or building impetus for preferred remedies.   What do they do?  Oh so many things:  march silently, throw rocks, self-immolate, provoke arrest, hold signs, spit, sing, pray, trespass, block access to something, make a speech.  This can go on and on.

The tactic activists employ is an instrumental choice, something people engage because they think it will help them get their message out.  A good choice reflects judgments about the amount of space activists have to operate, the likely responses of opponents and authorities, and the imagined responses of audiences.   Will others join in?  Will people be sympathetic?

An effective tactic inspires supporters, threatens opponents, and creates a space for discussing issues.  What works on one day may not be so effective later on.  The tactic, be it a sit-in or  a speak-out, is a tool, a means to a larger end.  Everyone isn’t always deliberate and calculating, but effective organizers respond to their environments.

For example: Democracy activists in Russia, now facing severe fines for engaging in protest (up to $9,000), are less likely to stage public demonstrations, and more likely to take their concerns indoors somewhere.

PETA, always looking for ways to generate attention for itself–and its issues–has established a porn site.  Just the announcement of this approach has generated a great deal of attention.  But is it helpful to the animal rights movement?  Be sure that animal rights activists are arguing about this.

Although an activist or group can develop an inappropriate fixation on a particular set of tactics, blockades or vigils, for example, people concerned with being effective will respond to the world around them.

So when Shell Oil succeeded in getting an injunction against Greepeace, enjoining it from coming within a kilometer of its drilling rigs, depriving it of good pictures and threatening much larger fines, the environmental group had to innovate.  Kim Murphy reports:

The upshot is that while Greenpeace may once have faced a trespassing charge or some minor equivalent for harassing Shell’s drilling fleet, the organization now faces the much harsher penalties associated with violating a federal injunction if activists stray past the boundaries.

“Certainly this injunction we are faced with demanded some new thinking, and I guess the tactics needed to counter an international oil campaign have to be creative,” Greenpeace USA spokesman James Turner said. “Social media offers us the opportunity to use humor and inventiveness to reach people in a way that hopefully entertains and engages them, while making a serious point at the same time.”

Greenpeace’s current responses include episodes of guerrilla theater, such as staging a fake Shell reception at which an ice sculpture doused a guest with Diet Coke, while others rushed to help her by wiping up the spillage with stuffed teddy bears.  Certainly no more subtle than other Greenpeace displays, and very clear on the political points.  It’s all in the service of producing a video which went viral (660,000 + hits at this moment).

It’s less costly and less risky than confronting Shell at sea.  The questions: is it easier to ignore?  Does it raise the issue of off-shore drilling or just make Greenpeace look silly?

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