Remembering the present: Guantanamo protests and a decade of detention

Posted on January 12, 2012 by David S. Meyer

President Obama didn’t keep his campaign promise to close the American prison for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay.  Yesterday marked Gitmo’s 10th anniversary.  The camp on Cuba, conveniently perhaps outside the jurisdiction of normal legal procedures in the United States, has held nearly 800 prisoners at times.  There are still 171 people still in custody there, held without the prospect of a fair trial in sight.

Candidate Obama promised to close the camp within a year of taking office, forcefully arguing that detaining suspected terrorists indefinitely without access to habeas corpus violated basic American values–and laws, and undermined America’s credibility globally:

By any measure, our system of trying detainees has been a failure. Over the course of nearly seven years, there has not been a single conviction for a terrorist act at Guantanamo. There has just been one conviction for material support of terrorism…Meanwhile, this legal black hole has substantially set back America’s ability to lead the world against the threat of terrorism, and undermined our most basic values. But make no mistake: we are less safe because of the way George Bush has handled this issue.

To be sure, he faced opposition from Congress, but this is an easy promise to score.  It’s 0.

But it’s not a defect or defeat that his Republican opponents are taking him to task for.  The issue is largely absent from the political campaign, and it’s unlikely that any presidential candidate will bring it up.  Most Americans seem to have forgotten.  (See Dahlia Lithwick’s piece at Slate.)

Yesterday, organized by Amnesty International, activists protested against the continued existence of the camp, and the web of policies tied to it.  In Washington, DC, hundreds showed up, some in orange jumpsuits, to remind the president–and the rest of us–of his promise and, more importantly, of the prison camp.  There were smaller demonstrations in cities across the United States and around the world.

Protests can work to keep an issue from disappearing, even when the near-term prospects of influence are bleak.  In covering the demonstrations, mainstream news outlets have a chance to report, again, on the prison camp and a decade of detention.  Activists try to become a conscience that reminds about us about something that has been, for most, rather easy to forget.  Even absent a serious substantive debate–much less policy change–this is an important job, one that may make organizing–or even reform–possible later.

Maybe much later.

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New Hampshire, the Tea Party, and movement capture

Posted on January 10, 2012 by David S. Meyer

As New Hampshire voters and others try to sift through the mess of small differences among the Republican hopefuls (and as everyone in the rest of the country overinterprets the results) it’s good to take a step back to think about what they’re not arguing about: abortion, for example, raising taxes, or whether to cut government.

One way social movements exercise influence is by capturing the discourse on a particular set of policies within one party–or both–such that no serious candidate for office can afford to depart from party orthodoxy.

So, all the Republicans promise to repeal President Obama’s health care reforms, appoint judges who won’t recognize a constitutional right to abortion, and cut taxes, government, and the deficit.  They argue about vigor, consistency, and personality.  Around the edges of the field, they argue about evolution (Jon Huntsman buys the science here) and foreign policy (Ron Paul wants to bow out of most of the world; Rick Perry wants to go back to Iraq), but the exemplars of those policies probably don’t have much chance to come close to the nomination.

The long primary process, which includes close-up scrutiny by committed activist voters, is where orthodoxy is developed and enforced, and it can then trickle down to the rank and file until some partisans are ousted or marginalized.

Abortion politics is the classic example.  In 1980, serious Republican candidates for president supported abortion rights, but that’s a long time ago.  A few Republicans still do–and a few Democrats oppose abortion rights–but the national party positions reflect the unambiguous victory of two social movements.

But it’s harder to fudge abortion than the more expansive and ill-defined politics of the Tea Party.  Although all of the Republicans pledge fealty to Tea Party principles, the Tea Partiers aren’t buying it.  And the candidates define those principles differently.  The Tea Partiers meanwhile are less visible and are rapidly losing the ability to define themselves and their goals.

While the electoral process, particularly the presidential primaries, can lock down loyalty on some issues, on others less defined, it can soften and disperse the intensity of commitment demonstrated not so long ago.

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The Tea Party’s Iowa

Posted on January 5, 2012 by David S. Meyer

Protest movements sometimes have perverse effects, hastening outcomes they don’t want.  Tuesday’s Republican Iowa caucus has to be scored as a disappointment for the Tea Party, perhaps a sign of its dissolution.

The Tea Party, an alliance between populist and plutocrat dissatisfaction with President Obama, coalesced just after Obama took office, and focused early on opposition to his effort to reform and extend health insurance in the United States.  Now, another irony of American politics, Obama’s most likely opponent in the general election signed the legislation on which Obama’s health care reform is based.  Mitt Romney, who won a narrow victory in the Iowa caucus, is preparing to run a campaign in which he will advocate taking health insurance away from tens of millions of Americans–but not the residents of Massachusetts, whom he’s already taken care of.  Tea Partiers, and many Republicans, are understandably uneasy about this prospect.

But it’s worse than that.  The Tea Party captured the imagination of conservative activists around the country, and was an immense aid in firing up Republican voters in 2010.  It also pushed the focus of American political debate to taxes, debt, and deficit, on terms that were initially very unfavorable to President Obama and the Democrats.  The Tea Party succeeded, in part, by putting social issues on the back burner.

But Republican presidential hopefuls seeking Tea Party support sought to distinguish themselves on the vigor of their commitment to stopping abortion and gay marriage.  The Tea Party buoyed up the aspirations of several prospects who proved far from ready for presidential prime time, crowding out more mainstream–and credible–candidates for office.  Thus, the Republican field came to include Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain, but not Tim Pawlenty or Mitch Daniels.  Of course, Mitt Romney, who had been raising money, organizing, and planning, since well before the Tea Party, survived.

Republicans who were dubious about Governor Romney, including Tea Partiers, flirted with a series of alternatives who, for various reasons, were found wanting: Bachmann, Governor Rick Perry, Cain, former Speaker Newt Gingrich.  A longer list could include flirtations with Sarah Palin and Donald Trump as well.

Former Senator Rick Santorum, mostly due to his profile and politics, avoided much affection and attention, until he was the last potentially viable alternative to Romney.  To the extent he’s a Tea Partier, however, it’s as a social conservative, not really a deficit hawk or anti-tax crusader.  At this writing, it’s hard to imagine that Senator Santorum will withstand more than a few weeks of scrutiny.

And what about Rep. Ron Paul, a committed libertarian with a provenance that extends well before the current Tea Party?  His isolationist foreign policies and generally consistent hands-off approach to social issues (except abortion) represent one wing of the early Tea Party.  But they also challenge the orthodoxy of most of the Republican Party.  He brought energy and new voters to the caucuses, but there appears to be a real ceiling to how much his support can grow–and he’s close to that ceiling now.

If Rep. Paul’s support does grow, be sure that mainstream Republicans will go after him–just as some of the Republican hopefuls already have.  They will charge him with a willingness to ignore Iran pursuing a nuclear weapon and supporting the legalization of drugs–and he’ll plead guilty.

And in doing so, they will forsake the Tea Party movement for a restoration of the Reagan Republican coalition.  But the alliance of White religious social conservatives and economic conservatives comprises a smaller share of the electorate today than it did in the 1980s.

So, the successful mobilization of the Tea Party has produced exactly what most Tea Partiers didn’t want.

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Occupy the Constitution

Posted on January 2, 2012 by David S. Meyer

At least several hundred protesters marched after the Tournament of Roses Parade, drawing some cheers, some boos, and extensive media coverage.  (Occupy the Rose Parade and the Hollywood Alist estimated 5,000 Occupy marchers.)

Parades are occasions for spectacle and theater, and the Occupiers understood this.  One prop was a marcher-carried Occupy Octopus, stretching more than seventy feet and made of recycled plastic bags.  (Parade symbols aren’t supposed to be subtle: this represented corporate capitalism choking the nation’s well-being.)

Another was a replica of the preamble to the Constitution, blown up to stretch 250 feet.  The symbol has great resonance politically, but is the Constitution really an aid to the Occupiers?  It’s pretty clear that the Founders wrote the Constitution to limit and channel the influence of “the people,” and to protect the interests of better educated–and wealthier–minorities–like the Founders themselves.  And it certainly works, as they intended, to slow the pace of policy reform or political change.  Recall that the Civil War preceded Constitutional reform on slavery.

But Occupy is hardly unique in tacking its claims to an elusive or resistant document.  The Constitution is a popular prop for social movements in the United States.  Tea Party groups are also quick to roll it out and chastise their political enemies for disrespecting it.  Even so, Tea Partiers have called for repealing or radically altering the 14th (birthright citizenship), 16th (direct election of US senators), and 17th (allows federal income tax) amendments.  They’ve also been eager to undo Supreme Court decisions they think have misinterpreted the Constitution, going back, at least, to Marbury v. Madison (1803).  Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, seeking Tea Party support, has announced his intent to have judges called before Congress to explain themselves.  Be assured that activists with limited Constitutional studies in their backgrounds will be quick to question a Supreme Court that allows a national mandate for individuals to buy health insurance.

So activists view the Constitution as an obstacle to change, but only to those changes that their political opponents promote.

At the same time, both the Occupiers and the Tea Partiers are smart to refuse their opponents exclusive authority to claim–and define–the document.

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Occupy at the Rose Bowl

Posted on December 31, 2011 by David S. Meyer

A march looks a lot like a parade with demands.

Occupy the Rose Parade will present a presence–with floats–at the 123rd Tournament of Roses Parade on Monday morning in Pasadena.

The parade, patriotic and explicitly non-political, allows cause groups to follow the official parade, accepting without endorsing them.  The Occupy group has signed on, and has negotiated extensively with both local police and the parade administration to minimize disruption, but maximize the message.

One float is a large people-powered octopus, representing “the stranglehold that Wall Street has on the political process.” Local activists plan speeches and signs, and visits from at least a few well-known activists, including anti-war activist, Cindy Sheehan.  Although an Occupy spokesman has promised to respect the iconic, family-oriented nature of the parade, local authorities plan to increase the already robust police presence.

The planning for the event stirred some controversy within Occupy ranks, with some members of Occupy Pasadena participating, but the group refusing to offer an endorsement.   According to Occupy Pasadena participant, Paul Jenvey:

(Occupy Pasadena) was uncomfortable with disrupting the parade, whether intended by the organizer or not … undermining the community outreach we would like to do… (The Occupy Rose Parade) seems to be this vision of one person and the nature of the action was not decided by a democratic body.

Of course.  The consensus-style democratic deliberations that characterized the early phase of the Occupations made all kinds of negotiations with authorities next to impossible.  Someone decided to send an Occupy message at the parade, and when Occupy Pasadena temporized, he or she went ahead anyway, talked with parade officials and police to make the event work.  No one owns the Occupy name, and we’ll be seeing many competing definitions emerge in the next few months.  (This is exactly what happened to the Tea Party!)

The first Occupy float is number 44 in the parade, and there’s no news, at this point, about whether the television cameras and audiences will hang around to appreciate it.

Getting around the constraints of consensus is one piece of this story.  Here’s another:

Activists are not Occupying the Parade, but are putting an Occupy presence within it.  In negotiating an accommodation with authorities, they are making it easier for people to participate and get their messages out; they are also making those messages less newsworthy.

This is the characteristic pattern of institutionalization in American protest politics.  The Tournament of Roses Parade works much the same way as mainstream politics, making space for less disruptive dissent so they can get on with what they normally do.

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Who pays for free speech?

Posted on December 30, 2011 by David S. Meyer

One night some years ago, while rushing out to the store to get milk for my kid (my excuse), I rolled slowly through a stop sign.  A police officer stopped and cited me, apologizing as he did so.  To prevent penalty points from accumulating on my driver’s license–and watching my auto insurance premiums rise, I paid $70-80 extra and attended traffic school.

It was stupid and boring and time-consuming (a full day), but it worked.  I no longer roll through stop signs because I don’t want to go back to traffic school.  (Note: I’m sure it doesn’t always work this way; my traffic school classmates spent our lunch break recounting and comparing many previous sessions of traffic school.)

So, someone’s taken this idea to protest.  The LA Times reports that Deputy City Attorney William Carter has offered some arrested Occupy LA protesters the opportunity to avoid trial on misdemeanor charges by attending “free speech classes,” run by a private firm, American Justice Associates.

No doubt, the City Attorney’s office sees this approach as a way to save the expense and trouble of trials for serious or serial offenders.  Maybe officials also hope to impress upon the protesters the idea that in America free speech can come with “reasonable” time, place, and manner restrictions, a fact that at least some activists seem to miss.  (Having a sincere political belief, even an admirable one, doesn’t mean you can express it any way and anywhere you’d like; recall Justice Holmes’s warning about shouting “fire” in a crowded theater.)

But I’d be surprised if many demonstrators jump at the chance to pay $355 for this class, the content of which is still undefined.  They’ve already completed the course practicum, and may be willing to test the City’s capacity and interest in staging prosecutions of misdemeanor offenses.  (Most prosecutors won’t want to repeat the sorry and counterproductive example of Orange County’s handling of the Irvine 11.)

Citizens often face substantial risks and costs in their efforts to make a better world.  Participants in Occupy LA faced arrest and jail time in arraignment, to say nothing of giving up whatever else they might have been doing otherwise.

But America pays other costs for free speech–and we should.  Cities spend time and effort negotiating with political dissidents to choreograph and permit demonstrations, and then spend more money on extra police, court costs, clean-up, and maintenance.  This holds true even (especially!) when the ideas presented are heinous.  At right, see American Nazis, who Skokie police protected from counterdemonstrators.  Below see members of Fred Phelps’s Westboro Church, who consciously exploit America’s Constitutional tolerance for the expression of, uh, unpopular ideas.

Free speech has costs, social, political, and financial.  We hope the benefits are a healthier, saner, and smarter society.

Officials now estimate that Occupy LA cost the City well over $2 million for police, courts, and clean-up.  And this comes at a time when Los Angeles, like almost all American cities, faces severe budget pressure that undermines the delivery of basic services.

So, it’s easy to understand City Attorney Carmen Trutanich’s announcement that he may sue Occupy LA for the costs to the City.  Maybe it’s his wishful thinking, maybe it’s political pandering, but Trutanich should know better: it’s the cost of a free society.

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Is protest contagious?

Posted on December 29, 2011 by David S. Meyer

Thousands rally against Putin in Moscow

As the year comes to an end, unexpected and potentially powerful protest movements are appearing in unexpected places, including China, Russia, and Syria, threatening to topple regimes and change the world.

Protest movements seem to appear in a spate.  Arab Spring was shorthand for anti-regime movements in 17 countries in the Middle East and North Africa (even if a few weren’t Arab) which emerged in a cascade after the self-immolation of a Tunisian vendor.  (There’s a great timeline from The Guardian.)

It’s not the first time that such movements have spread across national boundaries. The extraordinary events of 1989 featured revolutionary movements in six nations that used to be Eastern Europe–and included the inspiring demonstration and devastating massacre at Tiananmin Square.  Roughly 150 years earlier (1848), revolutionary movements spread across Europe, stoking more activism, reform, fear, and much analysis.

Tea Party protests spread across the United States in short order in the summer of 2009, and Occupy campaigns spread from Wall Street to thousands of sites in the United States–and around the world.  Time magazine, rarely the first to any story, has declared “The Protester” the “person of the year,” proclaiming that we’re entering an era in which protesters in the streets make policy–and history.

So what’s happening?  Is protest contagious?  Why?  How?

Lots of stuff:

1.  Most people take to the streets only when they believe that protest is both necessary–and potentially effective–in getting what they want.  It doesn’t have to be a good bet, just the best one they have.  Numbers are part of that story: when more people join in a campaign, it appears to have better chances of success, so more people are likely to join.  This is a bandwagon effect.

2.  When people with similar concerns find a tactic that generates disruption, attention, and a sense of possibility, others are likely to imitate it.  The mass demonstrations of 1989 spread across national boundaries to people who saw such protests as suddenly viable.  The civil rights sit-ins that began in February 1960 spread across the South as a group of young activists demonstrated the vitality and viability of a well-established tactic in new circumstances.  Occupy and the Tea Party demonstrate similar–definitely not identical–stories.  This is called a demonstration effect.

3.  When activists who’ve been trying to organize on an issue in one place see others making progress elsewhere, they can adapt their demands and their tactics to their own situation, surfing on the publicity others have generated.  Local activists who’d worked with little attention on issues of inequality picked up the Occupy label to rebrand their own efforts.  This is opportunistic protest.  Smart activists are always opportunistic.

4.  When protest movements appear to be successful, outsiders can pour in resources, including attention, money, and people power.  Organizers in a successful campaign use the platform they’ve created to promote their causes and themselves, spreading the word.  Organizers redeploy those resources to new site.  This is organization.

Occupy activists spread the word

5.  When your opponents seem to make progress through protesting, you’re more likely to take to the streets yourself in response.  Unsettled times are unsettled for everyone.  This is countermobilization.

People who look at potentially successful protests elsewhere and imitate them make judgments, often implicit, about how similar their own situation is.  These judgments don’t have to be right in order to be powerful.  Occupy Wall Street activists explicitly sited the inspiration of the Egyptian movement in Tahrir Square that toppled President Hosni Mubarak.

It’s not a very good comparison.  No one in the United States is waiting for the Army to take sides.

But the notion of regular people taking the future in their own hands is powerful.  Organizers stretch the analogies as far as they can, and we all take inspiration from any place we can find it.

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Occupy the Iowa Caucus

Posted on December 28, 2011 by David S. Meyer

Occupy activists are flocking to Des Moines for the new year, in an effort to Occupy Iowa’s Republican caucuses?  Why?  Certainly the Occupy approach has little appeal for the Republican caucus-goers, who veer more toward religious conservatism.

But Occupiers know that every major news organization in America has camped out in Iowa, trailing the candidates, interviewing activists and experts, and eating in chain restaurants across the state.  When the spotlight is pointed at Iowa, savvy activists can crowd into it.  Occupy Iowa Caucuses promises to respect the voting on January 3, but little else.  They plan to protest candidate events (nonviolently), stage their own events–including civil disobedience–and to keep the focus on their issues–all revolving around political and economic inequality.

By mounting physical occupations across the United States this fall, the Occupy movement created its own news peg.  The occupations are now mostly gone, but the Occupiers aren’t, and they’ve spilled into other institutions of American life, carrying the same message, sometimes a little more sharply.  Smart activists will play to a crowd and a camera, whether or not they brought them out.

In Iowa, the Occupiers will march and rally and protest.  While Republican candidates are talking about abortion, judges, gay marriage, taxes, regulation, the deficit–and each other, Occupiers are talking about the costs of the military, debt, unemployment and underemployment, and education.  Whether or not the candidates respond directly, this is news for the rest of the country.  (Thus far:  Rep. Michele Bachmann walked out on an event when Occupy showed up; Rep. Ron Paul waited them out; former Speaker Newt Gingrich has ridiculed them.)

American electoral campaigns are long, ugly, and usually disappointing, but activists ignore them at their peril.  One route to influence is engaging the process, organizing and fundraising and mobilizing voters.  Another is to push the issues into the debate over and over again.  Making candidates for office respond–even if it’s to explain why they disagree with, say, raising taxes on the wealthy–is effective movement politics.

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Travel to Israel

Posted on December 14, 2011 by David S. Meyer

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I’m very pleased to be participating in the Seventh Annual Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Conference at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  I hope to learn more about about lots of things, including the tent protests in Israel earlier this year.

I’ve been asked to comment on Time magazine’s decision to name “The Protester” the person of the year.

It’s an interesting twist, and I should have something more substantial later on.

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Can the Tea Party reelect Barack Obama?

Posted on December 11, 2011 by David S. Meyer

If Barack Obama is somehow able to win reelection, the Tea Party should be on his list for a thank you note.

President Obama’s prospects for reelection are decidedly mixed, but better than we’d expect given all else in the environment.  (I follow Nate Silver at 538.com on this.)

The economy is terrible, unemployment is high, and President Obama’s approval rating is extremely low.  Normally, this bodes badly for a president seeking reelection–although in this case, Obama’s approval rating is still much higher than the ratings for Congress or the Republican Party.  The Tea Party deserves some of the credit.

At least two Tea Party achievements are now helping the president:

By invigorating the Republican Party’s base and helping the it  make huge gains in the 2010 elections, activists have been able to pressure members of Congress to work on their agenda–an agenda that isn’t very popular with the rest of the country.

The Republican Party in Congress is now comprised of people elected with Tea Party support,  others who fear being challenged in primaries by Tea Partiers, and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski.  The House passed Rep. Paul Ryan’s model budget, which would slash both taxes and government and turn Medicare into a voucher program.  Policy merits (or demerits) aside, it’s awful politics.  Republicans turned the debt ceiling debate into a debacle, and are now blocking an extension of the reduced payroll tax on working Americans to protect low rates on–really–millionaires.

Tea Party enthusiasts are still disappointed.  Others are scared.

And the Republicans need a presidential candidate to beat Barack Obama.  Without discussing intelligence and integrity at this point, candidates for the Republican nomination have created the weakest field of hopefuls in either party for generations.

The party out of power wants to nominate a presidential candidate who can win elections, and has demonstrated that ability in the past, preferably by winning big elections.  Practically, this means governors and senators, preferably from large and/or swing states.  Among the top tier of candidates, only Mitt Romney (Massachusetts) and Rick Perry (Texas)  qualify on this front, and Governor Perry has disappointed as a campaigner.  Governors Tim Pawlenty (Minnesota), Jon Huntsman (Utah), Gary Johnson (New Mexico), and Buddy Roemer (Louisiana) have generated minimal support; Pawlenty dropped out after the Iowa straw poll–and did you realize the others were still in the race?

Meanwhile, the rest of the field has included Herman Cain, a radio host who had never won an election, former Senator Rick Santorum, turned out of office by a large margin in a swing state (Pennsylvania), two sitting members of the House (Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul), and a former Speaker of the House (New Gingrich) who was forced to resign in disgrace (by his own party) more than a decade ago.

The last person to win the presidency without having won a prior election was Dwight D. Eisenhower (1952), who had been Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during World War II–a bigger job even than fronting that National Restaurant Association.

The last sitting member of the House to win the presidency was James Garfield, but that was 1880.

The Tea Party mobilization within the Republican Party scared off or silenced many establishment Republicans, and nourished several weak and improbable candidates (see above).  It has also moved the entire debate far to the right, with candidates trying to cultivate the enthusiasm demonstrated by Tea Partiers.

Because he started organizing and fundraising early, and because he has been willing to pander to the Tea Party, Governor Romney has survived all of this, but left little space and money for anyone else from the party establishment.  Romney has been unable to increase his support, and thus far, no one else has been able to topple him.

While journalists and political junkies may fantasize about the excitement of a brokered convention, it’s likely that one of the candidates still in the field will win the nomination through the primary process.  If it’s Governor Romney, he will be a less than inspiring choice for the Tea Partiers and some evangelicals at the Republican base, but he will have made enough pandering statements to them to fill the ads of his Democratic opponents.  Any of the other Republican candidates would be substantially weaker in a general election.

Either way, the Tea Party has had the perverse effect of helping the electoral prospects of its prime target.

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