What's the point of shutting down a public freeway, interstate, highway as a form of public protest?

[pinto]

It makes news, I get that. Gets a blip on the cable news and video cycle.

But the news I've seen is about the road closures, how long the traffic was shut off or delayed and the mechanics necessary to reopen the roads.

Did the protestors have a point? It didn't seem to come across. Maybe it ought to be rethought as a means of highlighting an issue, both locally and in the general media.

(aside) Should be noted that those most effected were probably workers commuting to or from jobs or those working in ground transportation and delivery services. Day to day folks. Some may have lost hourly wages due to the bonehead, simplistic stunts.

There's a better way to make a point.

[Man from Pickens]

1. The point is

that if shit doesn't change, business as usual comes to a stop

If you really mean it and aren't just posturing for self-gratification, that is what you have to do.

[onecaliberal]

3. ^^^ that

[pinto]

6. Not in that manner. You going to block your neighbor's driveway so things come to a stop?

There's a degree of difference. I drove every day down 93 in Massachusetts to go to a job. Hourly wage. If I didn't show up I didn't get paid. I don't posture for self-gratification. At the time it was simply called making a living.

Again, there are other ways that don't harm working class folks for someone else's self-gratification.

[840high]

11. +1

[NYC_SKP]

8. I'm going to have to disagree. Making life difficult for ordinary citizens is just stupid.

It's stupid and foolish and self-indulgent and counterproductive.

This helps nobody:



They are stupid young students, many of them will mature to look back on that and wonder what the hell they were thinking.

[bemildred]

57. Mario Savio:

And that -- that brings me to the second mode of civil disobedience. There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus -- and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it -- that unless you're free the machine will be prevented from working at all!!

[Mellynjess]

2. Protesting on street and highways is to get attention

The purpose of stopping traffic is for many reason. It's to get people's attention to a matter that is unjust, it get people out of their comfort zone and think about what's going as it relate to the protest. Yes, it is to get the attention of new agencies to report on the protest.

[NYC_SKP]

4. I agree, pinto. The latest I saw were Stanford students on the San Mateo Bridge.

I support the causes, but I question the strategy.

On campus, I'm sure it was all the buzz from the pictures I've seen, but I don't think it made anybody off campus think any differently about Ferguson or MLK.
As you indicate, bridge users are mostly working class people trying to get home or to the next job, or folks in the high-tech industries, or schleps like me trying to get to the other side.
Tying up traffic isn't the best thing to make friends, especially in a place where there's already plenty of traffic!

The intended message:

"We are honoring MLK's legacy by forcefully reminding Silicon Valley that, decades after Martin Luther King, black lives, and brown lives, and the lives of all oppressed people, still matter," participant Maria Diaz said in the press release.

https://twitter.com/SiliconShutdown

More than 100 Stanford University students and community members stormed the San Mateo-Hayward bridge in a "Reclaim MLK" rally late Monday afternoon, Jan. 19, to highlight injustices against African Americans.

The rally is to support the Ferguson Action's national demands, which include the demilitarization of local law enforcement and repurposing of law enforcement funds to support community-based alternatives to incarceration, Silicon Shutdown organizers said in a press release.

Hordes of protesters blocked the westbound side of the bridge for 28 minutes to symbolize the fact that every 28 hours a black person is killed by a police officer or vigilante, organizers said.

The demonstration is one of several events nationwide coinciding with the observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

"We are honoring MLK's legacy by forcefully reminding Silicon Valley that, decades after Martin Luther King, black lives, and brown lives, and the lives of all oppressed people, still matter," participant Maria Diaz said in the press release.

http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2015/01/19/protesters-block-traffic-on-bridge

[noamnety]

5. If you look historically at what has worked as a protest

it's been protests that are disruptive. If nothing else, the pissed off inconvenienced citizens get mad at their elected officials for letting things get to that state. Nobody wants to try to get reelected in an area where people feel their city has been shut down because of politics.

I'm reluctant to talk about effective protests on DU though, because the last time I wrote in support of a freaking sit in, in a congressional office, I got my thread locked for "advocating violent revolution." Because sitting is, I guess, incredibly violent.

[brooklynite]

14. With the exception of the civil rights movement, name a disruptive protest that was successful...

[noamnety]

23. The Pullman Strike, 1894

Great Anthracite Coal Strike, 1902
Steel Strike of 1959
1970 U.S. Postal Strike
UPS workers strike, 1997

Now I'm going to challenge you to name some effective protests in our history that resulted from people making sure not to inconvenience anybody.

[brooklynite]

25. Strikes are not the same as disruptive protest...

...distruption is ancillary to the labor action which is directed against the employer.

And in response to your question, repeal of DADT, marriage equality lawsuits and law changes and ACA.

[noamnety]

32. I disagree about strikes

There is a difference in that the protesters in this case don't all work for the same employer, so obviously a strike isn't an option. But when it's a transportation strike or a mail delivery strike, it's not accidental at all that regular people's lives are disrupted.

I also think we suffer from short memories when we "remember" how some of those other fights were won.



"Protests continued Friday in several California cities, including San Francisco, Palm Springs and Long Beach, over the passage of Proposition 8, which outlaws same-sex marriage. ... In San Francisco, an estimated 2,000 protesters marched down Market Street toward Dolores Park. The march stretched out for at least three city blocks, and the protesters completely blocked Market Street's westbound lanes and the eastbound lanes in places." - from 2008, http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/08/same.sex.protests/index.html

and again, 2009:


and hilariously, from DU, 2009, talking about the struggle for marriage quality: "Protest is fine, people, but fer Christ sakes...don't block or impede traffic. Others have jobs, errands and personal affairs to tend to."

Going back to 1991: "250 Marchers Block Streets in Protest of Gay Rights Veto" http://articles.latimes.com/1991-10-09/local/me-168_1_gay-rights

[Gormy Cuss]

41. Strikes are inherently disruptive protest.

Strikes affect the consumers of services and products of the employer.

[brooklynite]

42. They are not directly disruptive...

If UPS workers go on strike, I have the option to move my business to Fedex or the Postal Service. If protester block the road I'm driving on, it's not necessarily possible for me to divert.

[Gormy Cuss]

43. It's almost always possible for drivers to divert.

Even in the San Mateo bridge closure many drivers did illegal U-turns to get off the bridge and drove the long way around to their destinations. It's actually quite similar to the way one would use FedEx and USPS rather than UPS.

[LanternWaste]

47. And the dockworker strikes on the west coast are disrupting nothing...?

And the dockworker strikes on the west coast are disrupting nothing...? And your alternative to the goods they are bringing in is...?

[LanternWaste]

46. Strikes, by their very nature, are disruptive protests, regardless of target or audience.

Strikes, by their very nature, are disruptive protests, regardless of target or audience. Simply saying it's not doesn't make it so...

[petronius]

15. Even if things that are successful are disruptive, it does not necessarily follow that

things that are disruptive are successful. IMO, stopping traffic for the sake of stopping traffic, in the hope that people will be pissed off enough to think, learn, and do something positive, is a method that is likely to be disruptive but not successful...

[noamnety]

24. It's true, there are no guarantees.

That's true with any form of protest, including strikes. It's like smoking - smoking doesn't guarantee you will get cancer, not smoking doesn't guarantee you won't get it. Such is the nature of statistics, right?

Not achieving 100% correlation isn't the same as no correlation.

[Warren Stupidity]

7. Well you see if you do not shut things down the media simply ignores you.

So you can peacefully protest in a vacuum, or if you want to actually get any message out at all, you have to fuck shit up. There might be a better way to attempt to make a point, but if nobody notices your nice and wonderful attempt to communicate your message that didn't cause any inconveniences at all, IT DIDNT FUCKING HAPPEN.

[NYC_SKP]

9. I think you're wrong, big time. MLK would be ashamed of this childish shit.

A peaceful march and show of numbers is what works.

Stopping traffic and disrupting traffic and business is dangerous, and arrogant.

Arrogant and petulant and immature and counter-productive.

The most effective was to communicate a message is though measured protest, not through dangerous disruption.

Civil disobedience is a different matter entirely from civil disturbance and disruption.

Shame on you.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. You do understand that that is completely freaking false, right?

Initiation and goals of the march[edit]

During a public meeting at Zion United Methodist Church in Marion on February 28 James Bevel, who was directing the Selma Voting Rights Movement for SCLC, called for a march from Selma to Montgomery to talk to Governor George Wallace directly about Jackson's death, and to ask him if he had ordered the State Troopers to turn off the lights and attack the marchers. Bevel strategized that this would focus the anger and pain of the people of Marion and Selma toward a nonviolent goal, as many were so outraged they wanted to address Jackson's death with violence.[44][45] The marchers also hoped to bring attention to the continued violations of their Constitutional rights by marching to Montgomery. Dr. King agreed with Bevel's plan of the march, which they both intended to symbolize a march for full voting rights, and to ask Governor Wallace to protect black registrants.

SNCC had severe reservations about the march, especially when they heard that King would not be present.[46] They did permit John Lewis to participate, and SNCC provided logistical support, such as the use of its Wide Area Telephone Service (WATS) lines and the services of the Medical Committee on Human Rights, organized by SNCC during the Mississippi Summer Project of 1964.[47]

Governor Wallace denounced the march as a threat to public safety and declared he would take all measures necessary to prevent it from happening.

"Bloody Sunday" events[edit]
On March 7, 1965, an estimated 525 to 600 civil rights marchers headed east out of Selma on U.S. Highway 80. The march was led by John Lewis of SNCC and the Reverend Hosea Williams of SCLC, followed by Bob Mants of SNCC and Albert Turner of SCLC. The protest went according to plan until the marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge and out of Selma, where they found a wall of state troopers and county posse waiting for them on the other side.

County Sheriff Jim Clark had issued an order for all white males in Dallas County over the age of twenty-one to report to the courthouse that morning to be deputized. Commanding officer John Cloud told the demonstrators to disband at once and go home. Rev. Hosea Williams tried to speak to the officer, but Cloud curtly informed him there was nothing to discuss. Seconds later, the troopers began shoving the demonstrators. Many were knocked to the ground and beaten with nightsticks. Another detachment of troopers fired tear gas, and mounted troopers charged the crowd on horseback.[48][49]

Televised images of the brutal attack presented Americans and international audiences with horrifying images of marchers left bloodied and severely injured, and roused support for the Selma Voting Rights Campaign. Amelia Boynton, who had helped organize the march as well as marching in it, was beaten unconscious. A photograph of her lying on the road of the Edmund Pettus Bridge appeared on the front page of newspapers and news magazines around the world.[3][50] Overall, seventeen marchers were hospitalized, and the day was nicknamed "Bloody Sunday".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_to_Montgomery_marches

You need to learn the history of the civil rights movement. It was not all strolling on the mall in DC listening to speeches. It was a lot of nonviolent civil disobedience that got many people injured and not a few killed.

[NYC_SKP]

34. Only because I love you, Warren, and I want other thoughtful readers to benefit from this thread.

Not all protests are productive. Protesting just because is pointless, and not surprisingly guidelines have been developed to support more efficacious practices.

Excerpts of one such set of guidelines is below:

THREE PRINCIPLES OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE: THOREAU, GANDHI, AND KING

The first principle is that you maintain respect for the rule of law even while disobeying the specific law that you perceive as unjust. Gandhi very much admired Socrates’ respect for Athenian law and his decision not to flee when his prison guards were bribed. King was always confident that American democracy would eventually treat his people as equal under the rule of law.

The second principle of civil disobedience follows from the first: you should plead guilty to any violation of the law. As Gandhi explains: “I am here to . . . submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen.”

We have now arrived at the third principle of civil disobedience: you should attempt to convert your opponent by demonstrating the justice of your cause. Active nonviolence does not seek, as Gandhi says, “to defeat or humiliate your opponents, but to win their friendship and understanding.”

http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/civil.htm

The bridge kids broke the first and the third guidelines. The laws they broke had NOTHING to do with their grievance, and their actions did NOTHING to persuade anyone on who needed to be enlightened.

I love you Warren Stupidity. You help me clarify my messaging.

[Warren Stupidity]

35. The Selma march was in violation of the law.

They were not marching to protest laws against marching. They were marching against laws prohibiting equal rights. Marching across that bridge had nothing to do with laws prohibiting equal rights.

So from your statements you would have also been opposed to those awful disruptive marchers back then.

OWS frequently disrupted the shit out of, for example, the financial district, and were endlessly criticized by people just like you right here for not having the right messages, or the right leaders or the right look, or what the flying fuck ever.

You should go back to victim blaming, tone trolling is hardly as attention getting.

[NYC_SKP]

38. Read the OP, which is about the closing of the San Mateo bridge in protest of we don't know what.

OWS disrupted the financial district? You don't say!

Well, Wall Street IS the financial district, Warren, so that kind of makes sense.

The San Mateo bridge is not hurting minorities, Warren, so it makes no sense and your Selma comparisons are very sad.

And I want you to take a deep breath and try to calm down.

Maybe take a walk. I get at least five miles in every day and I think it helps me stay calm and centered.

Give it a shot.

[LanternWaste]

45. The comparisons are valid...

The comparisons are valid within the confines of the OP... if you wish to move the goalposts, don;t get upset when others ignore the move

[noamnety]

12. "MLK would be ashamed of this childish shit."

"Over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action ...”

- MLK, Jr.

[bobclark86]

17. No text to your response...

[NYC_SKP]

28. Note that the protesters are on the sidewalks.

No, Sir. Just stopping BART or blocking a bridge does nothing good.

With all due respect, this is what happens when protesters lack real leadership, or when the leaders they have lack the vision and the common sense Dr. King had.

From the looks of it, they think tying shit up gets the job done. Just stop the train and hope the media gives you the mic.

That's just bullshit and it's lazy and it's the wrong way to do it.

The likes of Dr. King are sorely needed and sorely missed.

Peace.

[bobclark86]

29. You see any cars going past in those pics?

Didn't think so.

Scary black people out being scary and threatening my commute!.

[1StrongBlackMan]

20. Because the March over the bridge and on Washington ...

used only the sidewalks, and the protesters crossed only on the lights.

Please do not use your thinking about what Dr. King would think ... to argue against what he did. For the record ... Dr. King had no problem disrupting the lives of uninvolved people to give notice to his grievances.

When I read these (and many others, where a minority group acts/speaks) threads ... All I hear is:

''I (may or may not) support your cause ... so long as it doesn't inconvenience me!"

I support non-discrimination in the workplace ... What? They're calling for Affirmative Action programming to ensure the hiring pools contain minorities/women? That's discrimination!

I oppose sexism/misogyny ... What? I can't call her a b!tch? That's a violation of my right to freedom of speech/expression!

I support treating all people with dignity and respect ... What? I can't deliberately mock them? That's a violation of my right to freedom of speech/expression!

Shame on our narcissistic a$$es.

[NYC_SKP]

27. MLK: "I have a dream. Where students go out on bridges with a Palestinian flags and tie shit up."

No, Sir. Just stopping BART or blocking a bridge does nothing good.

With all due respect, this is what happens when protesters lack real leadership, or when the leaders they have lack the vision and the common sense Dr. King had.

From the looks of it, they think tying shit up gets the job done. Just stop the train and hope the media gives you the mic.

That's just bullshit and it's lazy and it's the wrong way to do it.

The likes of Dr. King are sorely needed and sorely missed.

Peace.

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

30. I have read your responses....

I have to ask, with all due respect, what would be your way to protest?

A protest that would get real media attention, get your point across and hopefully enlist people to your cause.

What is the right way?

[NYC_SKP]

31. Thank you. First, a coordinated set of disruptive activities and a coordinated message.

Last edited Tue Jan 20, 2015, 03:08 PM - Edit history (1)

IMO, Occupy did a better job by simply being present without trying to shut down other folks' activity.

The Stanford group that tied up the San Mateo Bridge did not seem to have a coherent message, bringing a Palestine flag to the event, for example, suggests this problem.

So, a whole bunch of random acts of civil disruptions with random messages is a lot of wasted effort, in the end.

I'm supportive of people speaking out.

I'm not supportive of our doing it in ways that doesn't send a message or that just pisses people off.

In contrast to the San Mateo Bridge event was this "Black Lives Matter" themed interruption during the University of Toledo MLK Unity event:

http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2015/01/19/Protesters-add-civil-disobedience-to-Martin-Luther-King-event-at-Univ-of-Toledo.html

Thank you for the question and for the civil dialogue.

[noamnety]

37. From your post, one would think

Occupy hasn't blocked traffic - but that's not right.

[NYC_SKP]

39. They certainly have, among the hundreds of thousands of events.

However, their typical MO has not been to, for example, block all lanes of a major bridge.

As you know, OWS is deliberately decentralized, so individual events might not be representative of much.

Many "playbooks" have been written about how to productively raise awareness and move an agenda forward through peaceful civil disobedience.

Excerpts of one such set of guidelines is below:

THREE PRINCIPLES OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE: THOREAU, GANDHI, AND KING

The first principle is that you maintain respect for the rule of law even while disobeying the specific law that you perceive as unjust. Gandhi very much admired Socrates’ respect for Athenian law and his decision not to flee when his prison guards were bribed. King was always confident that American democracy would eventually treat his people as equal under the rule of law.

The second principle of civil disobedience follows from the first: you should plead guilty to any violation of the law. As Gandhi explains: “I am here to . . . submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen.”

We have now arrived at the third principle of civil disobedience: you should attempt to convert your opponent by demonstrating the justice of your cause. Active nonviolence does not seek, as Gandhi says, “to defeat or humiliate your opponents, but to win their friendship and understanding.”

http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/civil.htm

The bridge kids broke the first and the third guidelines. The laws they broke had NOTHING to do with their grievance, and their actions did NOTHING to persuade anyone on who needed to be enlightened.

[noamnety]

44. I don't think it's especially helpful to keep posting the same thing in the thread.

I read it when you posted that before, so it's weird to see it as a response to my post as well. It makes the discussion feel like I'm talking to a broken record with a canned response - not actually having a discussion based on us listening to each other.

[LanternWaste]

48. Wonderful example of the logical fallacy, post hoc ergo prompter hoc.

"this is what happens when protesters lack real leadership..."

Wonderful example of the logical fallacy, post hoc ergo prompter hoc (logical fallacies too, being bullshit and lazy). A creative allegation nonetheless.

[NYC_SKP]

49. What, attack the argument construction but ignore the content? Try again.

They didn't have a clue about how to stage a protest that would have results.

That much is plain.

If you're going to break a law, break a law related to your grievance.

Tying up traffic serves no useful end.

And, even if it did, they had no message to convey.

It was pointless.

See my other replies in this thread with examples of how they might have done it differently.

[pinto]

13. AIDS die ins, public displays worldwide, made a difference. Silhouettes, handprints. Words.

I see that being echoed in recent events here and in Europe.

Why don't you put your hand on a wall to be outlined in spray paint? A simple statement. Why don't you lie down on the sidewalk to be outlined in chalk as a corpse, a simple measure of support? Why don't you show up at a city or county or state meeting to make your case? Have you?

Yeah, it may be my nice and wonderful attempt. But trust me, peaceful and effective protest did fucking happen.

[Warren Stupidity]

21. Wait, you seriously think the aids activist movement was all fluffy unicorns?

There was a lot of civil disobedience going on. Act Up! - ring a bell?

I guess not.

Wall Street[edit]

On March 24, 1987, 250 ACT UP members demonstrated at Wall Street and Broadway to demand greater access to experimental AIDS drugs and for a coordinated national policy to fight the disease.[4] An Op/Ed article by Larry Kramer published in the New York Times the previous day described some of the issues ACT UP was concerned with.[5] Seventeen ACT UP members were arrested during this civil disobedience.[6]

On March 24, 1988, ACT UP returned to Wall Street for a larger demonstration in which over 100 people were arrested.[7]

On September 14, 1989, seven ACT UP members infiltrated the New York Stock Exchange and chained themselves to the VIP balcony to protest the high price of the only approved AIDS drug, AZT. The group displayed a banner that read, “SELL WELLCOME” referring to the pharmaceutical sponsor of AZT, Burroughs Wellcome, which had set a price of approximately $10,000 per patient per year for the drug, well out of reach of nearly all HIV positive persons. Several days following this demonstration, Burroughs Wellcome lowered the price of AZT to $6,400 per patient per year.[8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACT_UP


"peaceful and effective protest did fucking happen"

The legacy of Ghandi and King is not happy hand holding on a summer day in the park. It is hardcore non-violent civil disobedience, a willingness to lay down one's life to effect change, it is about disruption, law breaking, refusal to obey. OWS and the nationwide protests over #BlackLivesMatter are in the fine tradition of the Civil Rights and Vietnam War protest movements of the 50-70s.

For his next major action, Gandhi decided on a raid of the Dharasana Salt Works in Gujarat, 25 miles south of Dandi. He wrote to Lord Irwin, again telling him of his plans. Around midnight of 4 May, as Gandhi was sleeping on a cot in a mango grove, the District Magistrate of Surat drove up with two Indian officers and thirty heavily armed constables.[68] He was arrested under an 1827 regulation calling for the jailing of people engaged in unlawful activities, and held without trial near Poona (now Pune).[69]

Main article: Dharasana Satyagraha

The Dharasana Satyagraha went ahead as planned, with Abbas Tyabji, a seventy-six-year-old retired judge, leading the march with Gandhi's wife Kasturba at his side. Both were arrested before reaching Dharasana and sentenced to three months in prison. After their arrests, the march continued under the leadership of Sarojini Naidu, a woman poet and freedom fighter, who warned the satyagrahis, "You must not use any violence under any circumstances. You will be beaten, but you must not resist: you must not even raise a hand to ward off blows." Soldiers began clubbing the satyagrahis with steel tipped lathis in an incident that attracted international attention.[70] United Press correspondent Webb Miller reported that:


Not one of the marchers even raised an arm to fend off the blows. They went down like ten-pins. From where I stood I heard the sickening whacks of the clubs on unprotected skulls. The waiting crowd of watchers groaned and sucked in their breaths in sympathetic pain at every blow. Those struck down fell sprawling, unconscious or writhing in pain with fractured skulls or broken shoulders. In two or three minutes the ground was quilted with bodies. Great patches of blood widened on their white clothes. The survivors without breaking ranks silently and doggedly marched on until struck down....Finally the police became enraged by the non-resistance....They commenced savagely kicking the seated men in the abdomen and testicles. The injured men writhed and squealed in agony, which seemed to inflame the fury of the police....The police then began dragging the sitting men by the arms or feet, sometimes for a hundred yards, and throwing them into ditches. [71]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_March

[NYC_SKP]

50. Context, Warren. Damn, I wish I didn't have to explain so much to you.

Wall Street because of the stock market, Burroughs Wellcome, AZT pricing. Jesus Christ, it's right in your excerpt!

During the Salt March which was about SALT, Ghandi was arrested for involvement in not paying taxes related to SALT!



Your comments about fluffy unicorns are a symptom of willful disregard for a good member's comments about other ways to protest than to tie up a random bridge, and it's bush league orneriness. Ewww.

So, Warren, tell us how tying up the San Mateo bridge sent a message, how did it fit the three guidelines below?

THREE PRINCIPLES OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE: THOREAU, GANDHI, AND KING

The first principle is that you maintain respect for the rule of law even while disobeying the specific law that you perceive as unjust. Gandhi very much admired Socrates’ respect for Athenian law and his decision not to flee when his prison guards were bribed. King was always confident that American democracy would eventually treat his people as equal under the rule of law.

The second principle of civil disobedience follows from the first: you should plead guilty to any violation of the law. As Gandhi explains: “I am here to . . . submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen.”

We have now arrived at the third principle of civil disobedience: you should attempt to convert your opponent by demonstrating the justice of your cause. Active nonviolence does not seek, as Gandhi says, “to defeat or humiliate your opponents, but to win their friendship and understanding.”

http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/civil.htm

[markpkessinger]

52. ACT-Up was also quite creative in some of its actions . . .

. . . I remember a particular Act-Up demonstration here in NY. At a certain point, police began arriving in large numbers -- clearly their intent was to try to shut the demonstration down. As they prepared to move against the demonstrators, police began to very conspicuously don surgical masks and latext gloves. The Act-Up demonstrators responded in what was perhaps the single, most effective way they possibly could have responded, by breaking into a chant of, "Your gloves don't match your shoes! Your gloves don't match your shoes! Your gloves . . . etc." It was a stroke of brilliance!

[noamnety]

36. This also happened.

AIDS Protest Closes Golden Gate - 1989 http://articles.latimes.com/1989-01-31/news/mn-1493_1_golden-gate

Act Up shut down traffic in front of wall street in 1989.

And in front of (and in) St. Patrick's cathedral during mass: http://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/11/nyregion/111-held-in-st-patrick-s-aids-protest.html

[pinto]

53. Yes. I was an ACT UP member. At one point along the way, the issues were clearly on the table.

Then, some of the tactics became counter productive, imo. Others involved felt the same way. Probably happens in many counter cultural movements.

I don't discount any of it at all. Far from it. The time and place called for public action. Personally, I value my participation in many of the broad, public, symbolic statements made across the country.

[bobclark86]

16. Because closing down a highway is just to make your life harder...

Selma to Montgomery marches

Wonder how the people of Alabama felt 50 years ago in March with crowds marching down the roads there?



"Did the protestors have a point? It didn't seem to come across. Maybe it ought to be rethought as a means of highlighting an issue, both locally and in the general media. Should be noted that those most effected were probably workers commuting to or from jobs or those working in ground transportation and delivery services. Day to day folks. Some may have lost hourly wages due to the bonehead, simplistic stunts."

BTW, could you have possibly picked a worse day to make this OP?

[bananas]

18. I can't believe this question is being asked.

[gwheezie]

19. Read letter from the Birmingham jail

If you have any question about what mlk would do. mlk started shit. His letter is a classic treatise on civil disobedience. Mlk was not a passive man. He was a radical fierce and dynamic. He broke the law. He went to jail. This was not a man who went where the white power structure told him to go, when to speak and what to say.

[hack89]

22. So the protestors can feel edgy and special. nt

[brooklynite]

26. Let's agree for discussion that members of the public should be sympathetic to disruptive protests

If they're NOT, how has you awareness raising helped your cause?

[Gormy Cuss]

33. It forces people who think they're immune from something to become involved.

For example, it's easy to commute around and through a city without ever once thinking about how much it sucks to be a POC in those neighborhoods off the limited access highway.

[NYC_SKP]

40. It's a great question pinto, and this thread is revealing. Not sure that many people know.

What makes for an effective protest; what works and what doesn't?
I fear some may think that just any disruptive activity is just and right, just because the motivation is there.
So I've been doing some checking around. There's a lot I could post but I have work to do, heading downstate tomorrow.

Excerpts from: Disobedience and Democracy: Nine Fallacies on Law and Order (New York: Random House/Vintage, 1968), 119-122
by Howard Zinn (edited for brevity and copyright)

Seven guidelines for civil disobedience

2: There is no social value to a general obedience to the law, any more than there is value to a general disobedience to the law. Obedience to bad laws as a way of inculcating some abstract subservience to “the rule of law” can only encourage the already strong tendencies of citizens to bow to the power of authority, to desist from challenging the status quo. To exalt the rule of law as an absolute is the mark of totalitarianism, and it is possible to have an atmosphere of totalitarianism in a society which has many of the attributes of democracy. To urge the right of citizens to disobey unjust laws, and the duty of citizens to disobey dangerous laws, is of the very essence of democracy, which assumes that government and its laws are not sacred, but are instruments, serving certain ends: life, liberty, happiness. The instruments are dispensable. The ends are not.

3: Civil disobedience may involve violation of laws which are not in themselves obnoxious, in order to protest on a very important issue. In each case, the importance of the law being violated would need to be measured against the importance of the issue. A traffic law, temporarily broken, is not nearly as important as the life of a child run over by a car; illegal trespass into offices is nowhere as serious as the killing of people in war; the unlawful occupation of a building is not as sinful as racism in education. Since not only specific laws, but general conditions may be unbearable, laws not themselves ordinarily onerous may need to be violated as protest.

5: Those who engage in civil disobedience should choose tactics which are as nonviolent as possible, consonant with the effectiveness of their protest and the importance of the issue. There must be a reasonable relationship between the degree of disorder and the significance of the issue at stake. The distinction between harm to people and harm to property should be a paramount consideration. Tactics directed at property might include (again, depending on efficacy and the issue): depreciation (as in boycotts), damage, temporary occupation, and permanent appropriation. In any event, the force of any act of civil disobedience must be focused clearly, discriminately on the object of protest.

7: In our reasoning about civil disobedience, we must never forget that we and the state are separate in our interests, and we must not be lured into forgetting this by the agents of the state. The state seeks power, influence, wealth, as ends in themselves. The individual seeks health, peace, creative activity, love. The state, because of its power and wealth, has no end of spokesmen for its interests. This means the citizen must understand the need to think and act on his own or in concert with fellow citizens.

http://www.worldpolicy.newschool.edu/wpi/globalrights/usa/1968-Zinn-civil%20disobedience.html

Blocking the bridge, I understand why they did it: to get attention. Beyond that, it was a failure as an act of effective messaging and it was really dangerous, to boot, for the protesters and for any drivers and passengers on that route.

[Recursion]

55. Direct action needs to be, well, direct, and this isn't.

It was obvious from the action that the Montgomery Bus Boycott was about public transit. The message is in the action itself; that's what makes it direct. In comparison, I only know that the bridge closures are about police violence against minorities because somebody said so.

Blocking a bridge to get a media megaphone to then deliver your message is a different strategy (not saying it's bad, it's just sort of the opposite of direct action).

[gopiscrap]

51. Bullshit nothing ever gets done unless

it costs the rich and middle class money, time or ( blood ie the draft during a conflict)

[brooklynite]

56. And if it costs the working class money or time, well, collateral damage, right?

[Recursion]

54. When it's planned out well, it's called "direct action"

The problem is it often isn't planned out well. Shutting down I-93 would be a good example of direct action... if you were protesting the Big Dig. Shutting down a bridge would be a good example of direct action if you were, say, protesting the economic impact of bridge-and-tunnel commuters on the city. Interrupting people's brunch would be a good example of direct action if you were protesting the underpayment of dishwashers in posh restaurants.

However, for the past generation or so many activists seem to have forgotten the "direct" part of "direct action", and just want "loud action".

Take an as example the Montgomery Bus Boycott. That was direct action against the discriminatory regulations of the busses (yes, that's the plural, whatever spellcheck says). That's a sign of direct action: the form of the action itself delivers a message as well as causing economic disruption to the target. What was the bus boycott about? Busses. Now, what are the bridge blockages about? Most of the ones I've seen are about police violence against minorities. But the action is non-direct, so somebody has to tell me that.

Direct action in this case would be something like mass refusal to pay speeding tickets and citations, possibly disrupting speed traps or shift changes -- there are a lot of options, but this action, while loud, is not direct.

[NYC_SKP]

58. Well, I guess now some UC Santa Cruz students pulled a similar stunt on Highway 17

Which is a damned dangerous and curvy road to begin with.

They are simply stupid.

There is an effort to punish them:

https://www.change.org/p/george-blumenthal-expel-ucsc-students-who-participated-in-the-blocking-of-hwy-17-on-march-3-2015?recruiter=66051220&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=autopublish&utm_term=mob-xs-signature_receipt-reason_msg