Notre Dame honors Pam Oliver

Posted on May 3, 2012 by David S. Meyer

I’m pleased to be at the University of Notre Dame, participating in the third annual conference for young scholars in social movements (I’m not one of the young ones).  Notre Dame’s Center for the Study of Social Movements will also be honoring Pam Oliver, a wonderful scholar and mentor, with the John D. McCarthy Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Scholarship of Social Movements and Collective Behavior.  A professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Pam’s scholarly contributions are numerous and diverse.

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Occupy on May Day

Posted on April 30, 2012 by David S. Meyer

Occupy didn’t end when police cleared out most of the Occupations, but the sprawling movement became even harder to define.  And mainstream media that could cover the campaigns by strolling to a local park and running tape now had a much harder time figuring out what the movement was.

Can Occupy exist without Occupations?

In fact, Occupiers continued a range of efforts to make claims about political and economic inequality, some detailed in Politics Outdoors.  Some Occupiers organized runs for elective office.  Occupiers in Oakland seized the City Hall and burned a flag.  Activists slept out on the sidewalk on Wall Street.  Occupiers challenged corporate practices and profits at annual shareholder meetings.  Students protested against tuition hikes and budget cuts and called it Occupy.  Activists squatted to prevent foreclosures and called it Occupy.  And politicians started talking about inequality, tax justice, health care, and education—but didn’t always call it Occupy.

Although activists didn’t all agree on every claim and every tactic, they could see every effort as part of something larger, a movement that contained contradictions, to be sure, but also immense possibility.

May Day, which is Labor Day everywhere but the United States, is traditionally a day to demonstrate the strength and solidarity of organized labor.   (It’s also a chance to dance around a May pole–but that’s another colorful story.)

Activists have worked to organize post-Occupation events for the last several months, building to something bigger and collective starting on May Day (tomorrow).  Unsurprisingly, mainstream media have published numerous scene setters or updates on Occupy.

Here’s Sanden Totten at KPCC.

Here’s Brian Montopoli at CBS News.

Jennifer Schuessler at the New York Times spotlights academics studying Occupy.

Meanwhile, organized through phone conferences and online forums, Occupiers are planning all kinds of things all over the country.  Occupy Wall Street has published a May Day directory reporting on general strikes planned in 135 cities.  As Occupy moves to define itself less by a tactic and more by a set of goals, its politics become sharper.  In Los Angeles, for example, there will be separate, but sympathetic protests, on behalf of organized labor, immigrants rights, and Occupy more generally.

Occupy Together summarizes much of the action and offers smaller-scale suggestions at the same time:

If you are inspired by the day of action but don’t live near any organized events you can still take part. If you can’t strike, take the first step. We can work to shift the balance of power back into the hands of the people little by little in our everyday lives.

Here are some examples to get you thinking:

      1. Move Your Money: If you haven’t already, May Day is as good as any to move your money out of a national, corporate bank into a local bank or credit union. Support your local community and break up the “too big to fail” Wall Street banks that threaten our economic system. Learn more about moving your money here: www.moveyourmoneyproject.org
      2. Have a Potluck: Share a meal with others and and talk about subsidized agriculture and factory farming or make a meal with friends to serve to local homeless people a la Food Not Bombs.
      3. Start a Personal/Community Garden: On May Day, start or pledge to start a personal or community garden. Growing our own food means independence from corporate farms. This is one more way to take your self out of a system bent on keeping us complacent.
      4. Have a Free Store/Fair: Get together and share your unwanted items with others. As they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. You could be helping someone who was about to go out and buy a (fill in your item here) anyway.
      5. Ride your bike to work/carpool with friends: Ride your bike or arrange a carpool to work. When you do this you are lessening our country’s dependency on outdated, unclean energies.
      1. Screen a Movie: Invite your friends or neighbors over to watch a documentary. After, have a discussion about how it relates to your values or the ideas of Occupy. You can watch political documentaries online at the following links for free:
        http://http://crimethinc.com/movies/
        http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/category/politics/
        http://www.documentarytube.com/category/political-documentaries        http://freedocumentaries.org/
      2. Have a Skill Share: Give a free class to share your skills and knowledge. This could be as simple as giving a knitting demonstration or as complex as teaching someone a new language.

We have the power in our hands to change the course of our day to day realities if we are willing to participate and reach out to our neighbors and communities. In the words of Steven Biko, ”the greatest weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” Big business should not be in control of us, we are the many and they are the few.

The May Day events might be dramatic; they might be disappointing.  They will provide a chance for the rest of the world to remember that those making claims on behalf of the 99 percent are still out there.  More important than May Day, however, is what activists carry on afterward.

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Occupy challenges corporate America directly

Posted on April 24, 2012 by David S. Meyer

When Wells Fargo holds its annual shareholder meeting today, Occupy protesters will be there, both inside and out, arguing against corporate greed and for some kind of corporate responsibility.

This will be the first in a series of at least three dozen protests at shareholder meetings this Spring, the latest wrinkle in the diversifying Occupy portfolio of activism.  Fifty people demonstrated last night outside the bank’s corporate headquarters, nearly half of them camping out overnight.  Organizers–and Wells Fargo–are expecting a couple of thousand today.

Corporate campaigns are nothing new for American activists.  Any shareholder can attend a public company’s annual meeting to press concerns.  In the past, one activist strategy has been to buy a share of target companies just to get to make a speech during the open mike session of the annual meeting.  Anti-apartheid activists did this in the 1970s and 1980s, as have environmentalists and others since.*

I don’t know of any case where the activists won a policy change in the annual meeting, but the directors watching from the front of the room are really less important than a much larger audience outside.  The protests draw unusual attention to a company’s annual meeting, and give activists a chance to lodge their challenges against corporate policy.

For Occupy, the charges are general AND specific.  At right is a downloadable leaflet charging the banking industry with perpetrating wrongs on the American people, including foreclosures, underwater mortgages, record profits and payouts, tax evasion, and unemployment and underemployment.

There are also specific charges against Wells Fargo.  Occupy Oakland describes the bank as:

America’s Biggest Tax Dodger – Hoarding billions of tax dollars that should be paying for public services and putting America back to work
Leads in Foreclosure – Continuing to foreclose on families in an economy it helped to ruin
Predatory Lender – Targeting those who can least afford it with exploitive mortgages and payday lending,especially low-income communities of color
Corrupting our Democracy – Protecting its profits by quadrupling spending on lobbying since the financial crisis began
Prison Profiteer – Profiting from increased incarceration by investing heavily in for-profit prison corporations and anti-immigrant legislation

The campaign to demonstrate at corporate meetings follows on many, generally much smaller, protests at banks across the country.  It’s one strand in an  Occupy campaign that has diversified to include candidacies for office, sleep-outs on Wall Street in New York, protests against foreclosures, demonstrations against cuts in state spending on education, and much much else.

A new coalition, 99 percent power, is at the head of the corporate campaigns, supported by roughly two dozen groups, including labor unions, environmentalist groups, and liberal activists.  Surely all of these people weren’t sleeping out in public spaces a few months ago, but no one owns the right to mobilize against political and economic inequality.

If Occupy succeeds, there will be many diverse campaigns invoking its name, and mainstream political figures responding to its ideas–even without giving the activists credit.

But I guess the lack of access to fair credit is what spurs this campaign anyway.

* On movement challenges to corporate policies, see Sarah A. Soule’s excellent book, Contention and Corporate Responsibility.

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Tea Party and Occupy paths to invisibility

Posted on April 22, 2012 by David S. Meyer

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll asked 1,000 adults about their thoughts on the usual political stuff, including Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.  (Most coverage focused on President Obama’s current 6 point advantage over Governor Romney.)

But the poll also asked about the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street.  Each movement garnered less support than either major presidential candidate, or either the Democratic or Republican Party.  Adding the totals for “very positive” and “somewhat positive” for each, we get:

Barack Obama          48%

Mitt Romney             33%

Democratic Party     39%

Republican Party      33%

Tea Party                  27%

Occupy Wall Street  25%

The survey reports a margin of error of 3.1 percent, which would be somewhat higher for the Tea Party and Occupy questions, as half the sample was asked about each movement.  We shouldn’t make anything, then, of the tiny difference in approval for the two movements.  But that each movement polls less support than the parties or their candidates is an interesting development.

Also interesting: 51 percent of the respondents agreed that Occupy had pretty much run its course and was no longer very important, in contrast with 43 percent of the respondents saying the same about the Tea Party.  (David Weigel noticed this as well.)

In both cases, most people seem to think that the movements have peaked and passed.  Note the different routes they took toward seeming irrelevance:

The Tea Party marched into the Republican primaries at the presidential level and below, and is having difficulty getting much out of that effort.  The presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney, is surely the next to last choice of most Tea Partiers.

Occupy, working hard to avoid being coopted by institutional politics, has had a great deal of difficulty in maintaining a national profile–particularly after the Occupations ended–even though a great deal of activity is continuing on a variety of issues, including foreclosure, education, and taxation.

Two movements, two strategies, so far, pretty similar outcomes.   Is this inevitable?

Of course, this may change if the Tea Party succeeds in knocking off Richard Lugar and Orrin Hatch, and/or if Occupy is able to stage large events on May 1 and afterward.

Or not?

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Risks and realities of media boycotts

Posted on April 19, 2012 by David S. Meyer

Rush Limbaugh’s ad feminem assaults on Sandra Fluke, who testified before Congress in support of requiring health insurance to cover birth control, provided an opportunity for his long time opponents to go after the radio host through his sponsors.  They did, but despite some visible successes, the boycott isn’t near driving Limbaugh off the air nor toward political moderation or even civility.

A little more than a month ago, following three days of sustained verbal attacks on Fluke, a few of Limbaugh’s sponsors deserted, not wanting to have their products and services associated with his style and politics.  The list of companies soon included: Geico, Netflix, Service Magic home contractor, Goodwill, Amberen menopause medication, PolyCom web conferencing, Hadeed Carpets, Accuquote Life Insurance, Vitacost vitamin supplier, Bonobos clothing company,  Sensa weight- loss program, Thompson Creek Windows, AOL, Tax Resolution Services, ProFlowers, Legal Zoom online document creator, Carbonite web security firm, Citrix software maker, Sleep Train Mattresses, Sleep Number mattresses and Quicken Loans.

You’ll note the list of sponsors includes companies smaller and less famous than those who support ALEC or command your attention otherwise.  The economic model of syndicated radio is very different.  Limbaugh’s own network, Excellence in Broadcasting, has some slots each hour to sell on its own.  Local radio stations get other slots to sell, while Premiere Radio Networks, his syndicator, also sells and barters ads.  Premiere stopped doing so for about two weeks.  As Limbaugh’s daily show airs on some 600 stations, one analyst estimated there could be as many as 18,000 sponsors, once local businesses are taken into account (See Forbes analysis).

Limbaugh is in the middle of an eight year contract which pays at least $50 million a year; it expires in 2016–a lifetime away.  As long as he maintains his audience, sponsors are going to see value in paying for access to his listeners, numbering about 20 million people.

There are other challenges: Arkansas governor/presidential candidate turned talk show host, Mike Huckabee, has launched his own conservative radio show, running directly opposite Limbaugh’s program.  Promising a less confrontational approach and a more affable personality, Governor Huckabee is already appearing on 200 stations.  If he succeeds in peeling off some Limbaugh listeners–and outlets–who want a more genial conservative approach, Limbaugh will have every incentive to double down on his own distinctiveness, holding tight to the audience that responds to his hostile hyperbolic humor.

Conservative websites proclaimed the Limbaugh boycott a failure (e.g.), but so have more mainstream outlets (e.g.).  The tempest associated with the boycott will pass –as these things do (note that Don Imus is still on the air!).  Those who would boycott Limbaugh probably weren’t listening to him in the first place, tuning in only to take down the names of advertisers.  The segmented media landscape means that anyone who can reliably deliver a definable audience will be able to make a living on air.

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ALEC, impact, and markets

Posted on April 18, 2012 by David S. Meyer

ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, backed down in the face of the defections from its corporate members.  As we discussed,  activists targeted ALEC’s support of Voter ID and Stand Your Ground laws to pressure corporations to stop giving money to the conservative legislative advocacy group.

Facing protests, petitions, and questions from investors wondering about corporate priorities, a number of companies have announced that they’re through with ALEC, including Coca-cola, PepsiCo, Kraft, Intuit, and Wendy’s.  The Gates Foundation also announced that it would no longer support ALEC.  Although state legislators pay a membership fee to ALEC, virtually all of its funding comes from these corporate sponsors.  Responding to these defections, bad publicity, and certainly the threat of more of the same, ALEC pared its legislative agenda.  In a statement released yesterday, ALEC announced:

Today we are redoubling our efforts on the economic front, a priority that has been the hallmark of our organization for decades. Fostering the exchange of pro-growth, solutions-oriented ideas is precisely why ALEC exists.

To that end, our legislative board last week unanimously agreed to further our work on policies that will help spur innovation and competitiveness across the country…

We are eliminating the ALEC Public Safety and Elections task force that dealt with non-economic issues, and reinvesting these resources in the task forces that focus on the economy. The remaining budgetary and economic issues will be reassigned.

This is a sharp turnabout for ALEC, which just a week earlier had proclaimed its refusal to be intimidated by “the coordinated and well-funded intimidation campaign against corporate members of the organization:…. We are not and will not be defined by ideological special interests who would like to eliminate discourse that leads to economic vitality, jobs and fiscal stability for the states.”

I guess there’s a fine line between economic intimidation (consumers choosing not to buy products from companies that work against their interests) and responding to market conditions.  ALEC has flourished for nearly four decades, at least partly because it’s been able to serve its sponsors.

Groups including Color of Change and the NAACP are clearly responsible for this victory, but it’s a hard win to claim.  ALEC is certainly going to continue its efforts on taxes, regulation, spending, and unions, perhaps more effectively.  It’s not clear whether any of the defectors will return, but surely ALEC has kept other supporters within its ranks.  This is exactly the kind of incremental victory that characterizes successful movement efforts in the United States.

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Tax day protests, 2012

Posted on April 16, 2012 by David S. Meyer

Watch who takes to the streets tomorrow, the day federal taxes are due.    Tax day is a predictable occasion for protest.  Indeed, the Tea Party protests in April 2009 were the first visible signs of that powerful movement emerging.

In obvious ways, protesting against taxation is almost too too easy. No one likes to write large checks without thinking that he’s getting something worthwhile for his money.  And absolutely any American can find some federal spending that he finds completely appalling: environmental protection, Medicare, meat inspection, GSA parties in Las Vegas, aircraft carriers, oil subsidies, foreign aid, Social Security, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and so and so on.  Of course, most Americans also view some of those services as absolutely essential for civilized life.  (Listen to Californians complain about taxes then pivot to talk about inadequate freeway maintenance.)

Like Roe v. Wade, Tax Day is an occasion to demonstrate a show of strength, mobilizing the faithful in the service of a partial understanding of the American revolution.  (In 1776, the cheerleaders chanted: “No Taxation without Representation,” not “No Taxation.”)

The 2009 protests were a sign that the Tea Party had arrived.  Once you turn out large crowds, however, there is an ongoing pressure to keep growing.  By 2011, after large Republican gains in the 2010 elections, the large Tea Party groups decided to avoid a Washington demonstration altogether, lest a lower turnout seem a sign of the movement’s fading.  (At left, see the 2011 anti-tax protest in Sacramento.)

Herman Cain has brought his suspended presidential campaign to Washington, DC, to rally support for his 9-9-9 tax plan.  He’s announced plans to start a movement in support of the plan, which would radically distribute the burden of taxation downward to people who earn and spend less money.  Let’s see what kind of turnout he can generate.

In Wisconsin, Americans for Prosperity rallied against taxes–and in support of embattled Governor Scott Walker.  Their opponents were also out in force.

Of course, both sides can use the same opportunities.  People who aren’t vehemently anti-tax also plan to use the occasion for their own purposes.

Gay and lesbian activists are challenging the federal tax code, which doesn’t recognize same sex marriages.  Peace activists will use Tax Day to draw attention to the hundreds of billions that the United States spends on the military, announcing demonstrations across the country. 

And in Oakland–and elsewhere–Occupy sympathizers are using tax day to raise the question of fairness.

Tax day is a moment when people are frustrated, perhaps ready to pay attention.  The effectiveness of any of these protests, however, is a function of what follows.

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Protest, police, and pepper spray at UC-Davis

Posted on April 13, 2012 by David S. Meyer

Most students, including even protesters, don’t encounter pepper spray during their studies at the University of California.

Last November, however, a campus police officer sprayed students protesting tuition hikes at the UC-Davis campus.  It’s worth looking at.

And it’s worth investigating.

Four months after the spraying, the committee appointed to investigate has published its report.

Chaired by Cruz Reynoso, who had served on California’s Supreme Court, the task force was charged with investigating the incident, evaluating the appropriateness of the police response, and assessing responsibility.

On matters of fact, the Reynoso report relies heavily on the investigation by Kroll Investigations, often contracted to consult with the University on security issues.

On matters of judgment, the Reynoso committee is clear: the use of pepper spray was not authorized or justified; campus administrators and police overreacted to the student demonstrators, assuming–without evidence–the presence of outside agitators.

On matters of responsibility, the Reynoso committee is generous in allocating blame.  From the officer who held the spray can on up to Chancellor Linda Katehi, who didn’t authorize pepper spray but was eager to clear out “Occupy” tents, everyone responsible for security on campus made bad misjudgments and mistakes.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the report is its first recommendation (p. 29–of 180):

The Task Force recommends the campus develop a broadly accepted agreement on rules and policies that regulate campus protests and instances of civil disobedience. This broadly accepted agreement should be grounded in our campus culture and regularly communicated to students. These rules and policies should be subject to regular review.

Campus rules should:
 Be consistent with free speech doctrine;
 Recognize the unique circumstances of a university community and the importance of open and vigorous debate to our institutional function and identity;
 Respect the rights and interests of non-protesting students, faculty and staff;
 Respect the legitimate needs of the University to fulfill its educational function and operate its programs without undue interference;
 Recognize that the legitimate purpose of protest in a campus setting is to inform and persuade, not to coerce;
 Determine and define “non-violent” versus “active resistance” and “violent” protests and clarify the use of force and the force continuum as recommended by Kroll;
 Accurately identify and clearly describe and communicate the legal basis for the University’s response to any protest or instance of civil disobedience;
 Identify the consequences for breaches of the rules and policies.

The Reynoso committee is clearly committed to safety and order on campuses, but the strongest message from the report is that the University of California has to recognize that protest, sometimes dramatic and disruptive protest, is part of the fabric of campus life, and indeed, contemporary politics in America.  When police overreact, in addition to proximate harm (pepper spraying students!), they undermine the mission of the university.

For the better part of fifty years, American police have moved–with frequent stutters and backsteps–toward a policing strategy that accommodates and contains protest.  Paradoxically, this makes protest less disruptive–and maybe less effective.

The strong reaction against the events at UC-Davis–and at the sporadic overreactions to Occupy protests (see Oakland!) underscores just how substantial this shift has been.

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Indicting George Zimmerman: The impact of public protests

Posted on April 12, 2012 by David S. Meyer

When Florida state attorney Angela Corey announced that she would charge George Zimmerman with second degree homicide for shooting and killing Trayvon Martin, she emphasized that her decision was not influenced by politics or protests.  Instead, she said the facts of the case should drive the response of the criminal justice system.

“Let me emphasize,” the prosecutor said, “that we do not prosecute by public pressure or by petition.”

This ideal is certainly the way the justice system should work.  State Attorney Corey should have reviewed the facts of the case, including interviews with witnesses and forensic evidence, looked at the law, and made legal decisions about whether (and how) to charge George Zimmerman.

Should we believe this?  Did the protests matter at all?  Was it necessary to broadcast Trayvon Martin’s picture across the United States and gather over two million signatures on a petition?  Did the hoodie demonstrations in the streets and in legislatures affect the decision to prosecute George Zimmerman, weeks after he shot Trayvon Martin, and weeks after local police had detained–and released–Zimmerman?

It sure looks like it.

Angela Corey works for the state of Florida in Jacksonville, and normally wouldn’t be directly concerned with the prosecution of a case in Sanford (more than 2 hours South).  The protests and petitions interrupted the apparent efforts by local authorities to excuse or ignore this killing.  Protests across the country led Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee to step down (temporarily) and the local prosecutor ostensibly investigating the killing (Norman Wolfinger) to step aside.  National attention pushed Governor Rick Scott to appoint Corey as a special prosecutor. 

The campaign for some legal response to the killing of a young unarmed man took off because local authorities appeared to have failed in discharging their duties–rather conspicuously.  The protests invoked higher authorities to intervene.  They did so, responding to a local crime in an unusual fashion.

I believe that Angela Corey didn’t consider the protests when she made a professional judgment as a prosecutor.  Without the protests, however, it’s extremely unlikely she would have had the opportunity to make this call at all.

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Targeting ALEC

Posted on April 5, 2012 by David S. Meyer

Coca-cola announced that it was ending its membership in ALEC; PepsiCo. had ended its membership in January.  This is an activist story, covered well by Peter Overby on NPR.

As we discussed, the long simmering campaign surrounding the Trayvon Martin killing gave activists the opportunity to draw additional attention to ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, but ALEC has been on liberal groups’ radar for a long time.  Funded primarily by corporate contributions, ALEC promotes business friendly legislation at the state level, writing model legislation and providing state legislators with information and training that helps them pass it.  ALEC has also promoted legislation favored by its sponsors, including the Stand Your Ground Law, endorsed strongly by the National Rifle Association.

Corporations join ALEC and offer up hefty contributions because much of the group’s agenda lines up with corporate interests, particularly reducing taxes and regulation at the state level.  ALEC’s leaders also recognize that their prospects of passing such legislation can be enhanced by shaping the electorate.  Voter identification laws are an important tool for doing so.  Although there are certainly cases of voter fraud, prosecuted at both the state level and federally, there’s a great deal of dispute about how widespread the problem is.  (See reactions in Texas.)  The Justice Department recently blocked a Texas law that would have required a state-issued photo id to be presented at the polls.  This case, and others, is now moving through the federal judicial system.

State-issued photo identification IS widely available, but the legal voters who don’t have it are disproportionately poor, black, and Latino–that is, people who are more likely to vote for Democrats, and more generally, people who don’t join ALEC.  It’s not surprising that advocates for these groups see the proposed laws as a modern incarnation of the poll taxes and literacy texts used to skew the universe of voters.

Color of Change started an online petition targeting ALEC well before Trayvon Martin was killed.  Activists also began a series of conversations with corporate sponsors that they could reach, discussing the possibilities of boycotts.  Supporters called board members of Coca-cola–and presumably other companies as well.  It’s really not so important to say out loud that they drink soda and that Pepsi no longer participates in ALEC.  Coke got the message.

In announcing its decision to leave ALEC, Coca-cola emphasized business:

The Coca-Cola Company has elected to discontinue its membership with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)…Our involvement with ALEC was focused on efforts to oppose discriminatory food and beverage taxes, not on issues that have no direct bearing on our business. We have a long-standing policy of only taking positions on issues that impact our company and industry. (from Chicago Tribune.)

Plenty of companies will surely stay with ALEC; I don’t imagine privately held Koch Industries, for example, pulling out because of the possibilities of consumer pressure.  But public companies that sell heavily branded consumer products are more vulnerable to threats to their image and their markets.  Consumer boycotts and shareholder campaigns are, minimally, a public relations nuisance, and maybe much more.

Through effective targeting, Color of Change and other activist groups were able to peel off a little bit of ALEC’s support.  More importantly, there was another day or two of news about what ALEC does.  Coke’s departure raises the important question of the relationship of stand your ground or voter id laws to a healthy business climate.

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