Steal This Thread

[McCamy Taylor]

Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence.
William Blake The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Intro.

Think of this thread as the flip side of my last journal, Know Thyself . A few days ago I wrote that corporate interests select our political leaders in sham democratic elections. These puppets then abuse the power of the United States to exploit the citizens of other countries for the economic benefit of their corporate masters. Their actions violate international law and the laws of common decency, but what is a concerned citizen to do? How does one person challenge a giant system?



This is not a new problem. The tale of David and Goliath, illustrated above, demonstrates our eagerness to confront and triumph over seemingly insurmountable obstacles. In our development from infants to adults, we battle numerous “giants”. Our successes (and failures) determine what type of person we become.

Some of us become the type of person who must speak out against tyranny. Though governments throughout the ages have attempted to suppress the voice of dissent, they seldom succeed in the long run, because it is human nature to question authority, when authority seems to conflict with basic human nature.

Some of the folks who question do it with such creativity that they get others to listen and start doing their own questioning. This is what I call creative protest . It is not a new phenomenon (despite what the war protesters of the 1960s may have thought).

I. Levelers, Ranters and Quakers

In the 17th Century, England did a lot more than execute a king. A whole bunch of people began to press for religious and economic freedom. Three of the most outspoken groups were the Levelers, the Ranters and the Quakers. We are all familiar with the Quakers, who taught that spirituality came from within, that women could preach just as well as men and that war and fighting were immoral. Quakers questioned the authority of the Church, interrupting services, preaching in the streets and generally pissing off the status quo. For their troubles, they were persecuted, exiled and executed, but they survived.

Levelers were more concerned with economic freedom. They preached equality as a time when the rich and powerful claimed divine right. One of the ways they demonstrated their beliefs was by building communal farms on village greens, cooperatives which held all property in common---a couple of hundred years before Marx.



And then, there were the Ranters, who believed that we are all free from sin. They defied convention by running around naked (like Adam and Eve), which shocked their countrymen. All this over three centuries before the “streakers” on the 1970s.

http://www.answers.com/topic/english-civil-war-radicalism

http://www.exlibris.org/nonconform/engdis/index.html

II. This Country Owes Its Existence to Creative Protest

If special interests can not defeat the popular forces which oppose them, they will sometime try to co-opt them. Case in point, the so called “tea parties” which are being bankrolled by corporate interests allied with oil/gas, health insurance and other powerful lobbies. They would have us believe that this nation was founded, because Americans did not want to pay British taxes. In fact, the Founders were sensible people. They knew that no government could function without revenue. They were after something entirely different, a vote in what their taxes would be and how they would be spent. The Revolutionary War was fought for suffrage. The British pocketbook was attacked, because that was the best way to get the folks across the Atlantic to listen.



Even, John Adams was stirred by the actions in Boston Harbor.

"There is a dignity, a majesty, a sublimity, in this last effort of the patriots that I greatly admire."

If you consider what John Adams would later become as the second president of the United States (think Alien and Sedition Act), this remark shows the power of creative protest. It also demonstrates that property rights were considered secondary to human rights by the people who founded our country. Take that, Monsanto!

III. John Brown’s Body

If anyone tries to tell you that violent dissent is un-American, remind them about John Brown. The man committed premeditated murder in Harper’s Ferry. But because he acted violently in defense of slaves who were themselves the victims of ongoing violence, he was widely praised both here and in other countries.

In his appeal for a pardon for Brown, French novelist Victor Hugo revealed an excellent understanding of human nature.

For — yes, let America know it, and ponder on it well — there is something more terrible than Cain slaying Abel: It is Washington slaying Spartacus!
Victor Hugo

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Victor_Hugo%27s_letter_to_the_London_News_regarding_John_Brown



As a novelist, Hugo would have recognized the power of the tale which was unfolding. Brown’s bold but unsuccessful attempt to single handedly free the slaves of Virginia turned him into a modern day David. Someone who dared to tackle giants was a hero, a man whom other Americans (many of whom were disaffected emigrants of Old Europe) aspired to become. His death would represent an intolerable capitulation to the oppressive forces which all humans but especially Americans feared. Since people strive to create meaning with their lives, they would take his death and use it to fashion a more satisfying story---one in which Brown died physically but triumphed spiritually. That could only be accomplished by ending slavery.

As an aside, I want to mention the three basic stories which science fiction writer, Robert Heinlein described. First is the Brave Little Tailor. That is probably the most popular story type in this country. Next is Boy Meets Girl---which encompasses any tale of compassion. We all love a character in direct proportion to how much he loves another person or thing. Third is The Man Who Learned Better. We expect those who make mistakes to learn that there are consequences. A story about a law breaking president who gets away with it (George W. Bush) is much less satisfying than the tale of a law breaking president who gets caught and who suffers. That is why the Obama administration is having such a difficult time trying to convince folks to just “move on.” We attempt to create these stories in life, to make the world seem “fair” or right. Corporate interests are doing a better job of using these basic story telling units for their own purposes---witness “Joe the Plumber” the average man who tilted at windmills---but people can still spot the real thing. For instance….

IV. MLK Jr. was the Real Thing

What gives creative protest resonance? What makes some causes seem more urgent or valid than others? Refer back to the three basic stories above. If the cause pits an underdog against an all powerful force, you can get the attention of a lot of Americans right there. This is one of those situations in which weakness becomes strength. If you seem to be giving much of yourself in exchange for very little (compassion), you also capture the popular imagination. If you demonstrate a wrong which has not been righted---someone has profited from the bad behavior and needs to be taught a lesson---then you are home free. Your story is so resonant that Americans will want it to be true. Keep in mind that meaning is subjective. We decide which causes are important, which grievances must be addressed, which laws must be upheld. Everyday, all around us, people treat other people badly, and we do not notice. Or, if we notice, we look away. Only sometimes do we decide to take action.

It helps if we can see the injustice.



It helps if the cause has a hero whom we can root for, whose victory becomes our own victory against our own daily injustices.



That is why J. Edgar Hoover tried so hard to sully Dr. King, spreading rumors about affairs, using the press (such as the New York Times ) to attack him. Americans want to see a human face on their protest—a compassionate, fearless, altruistic face. Which is why the Murdoch-GOP-Scaiffe slime machine works so hard nowadays to attack the political opposition personally rather than ideologically.

That is why the Bush-Cheney administration refused to allow photos to be taken of those soldiers killed in Iraq. Out of sight, out of mind. That is why the mainstream media did not show the nation that protesters outnumbered supporters in DC back in January, 2001, when our selected not elected president was being sworn in and it is why Donahue was fired from MSNBC for questioning the march to (the Iraq) war.

Despite such attempts at censorship, our expanded opportunities for the dissemination of information---the internet, television, magazines---have made it easier for people to protest creatively. Nowadays, there is no excuse for anyone to think What can I, just one person, accomplish? .

Opposition is true Friendship.
William Blake The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

[Esra Star]

1. Yoink........

[pnorman]

2. Steal it? I'll Google-bookmark it instead!

Is this yours? If so, I'm impressed!

pnorman

[Truth2Tell]

3. Nice one McCamy!

I won't steal it, but I did log in to rec it. K&R.

[alittlelark]

4. Thank You. n/t

[FlyingSquirrel]

5. Your OP is wholly unsatisfying

because it does not give me anything to disagree with, nor does it provide a nice packaged polar viewpoint.

In fact, it confuses me and hurts my head.

Therefore I'll give it a kick and a rec.

[PretzelWarrior]

6. you are a superior writer and researcher

way to really dig deep into history in our common western tradition to put together lineage of protests in our modern era.

[mimitabby]

7. Steal this book

am I the only one old enough to remember where you stole your thread name from?

Nice writing. well said.

[bluescribbler]

8. No, you're not.

I'm old enough to rmemeber the Youth International Party, the Chicago Seven, Barry Freed, etc.

[Soylent Brice]

9. ...

[mimitabby]

10. I feel better now.

thanks guys

[Soylent Brice]

11. .

[zeemike]

12. nope, I remember too.n/t

[zeemike]

13. Great post, but you did no t tie it into the book title

Steal This Book.
And probably most here don't understand what it was all about.
But it was part of the tune in, turn on, and drop out philosophy of the hippies.
There approach to fighting the overwhelming odds was to drop out of society and not become just another consumer of goods and services which is the life blood of our economic system.
They wanted to go back to the land and become self sufficient. And we would do well to consider this as a way to undermine the corporate masters.

Also you must note that protests were different then...they were civil disobedience and not just a protest that is done in a free speech zone, and promptly ignored by all. They had sit ins and love ins and some chained themselves together to make it more difficult for the police to break it up....that was creative civil disobedience not just protest.

The power of protest is taken away by the obedience to the rules...and you could have a million people in DC protesting the war or health care and the powers that be would just go on vacation until the protesters cleared out and then is is back to business as usual.

As Gandhi said, non cooperation with evil is the only way for the powerless to win.