The Tactics and Strategy of Protest
Nov. 20th, 2011 02:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peristaltorI know most of you are either sick of or exhilarated by our national excitement that calls itself the Occupy movement. I vacillate between the two myself. Heck, I hopped a downtown bus a few weeks ago just to check out the excitement, only to discover it was at that time dwindling to about four or five people.
Just as I leave, it seemed, Scott Olsen's projectile to the head and the following concussion grenade to the helping crowd care of the Oakland Police moved many around the country to take back to the streets. One thing led to another, and the police, trying to clear a crowd from 5th and Pike, decide to break out the pepper spray. Dorli Rainey's image is now everywhere.
The police say they were trying to clear the crowd from the street, a place normally used by cars. People drive cars to get from one place to another. If people are in the street, the cars probably shouldn't try to drive there. I hope that's clear. In fact, blocking the street was the whole idea, according to Rainey:
Why you only get real attention should be obvious: People get pissed at being held up in traffic. They are unlikely in their delay rage to be very generous to those that hold up traffic. So people expect the police to clear the roads. Which is what they did.
Ah, but now we have a good look at consequences. When the police unleashed pepper spray at this poor, little-old-lady, an event that led to the iconic photo, the reaction really snarled traffic two days later:
Okay, here's a question: Why was the blockage of a single block, 5th and Pike downtown, different from the "peaceful demonstrations" that blocked one of only six bridges crossing the Ship Canal, and quite arguably a far more necessary route to the city as a whole? The latter demonstration was just as angry, just as determined to get their voices heard by being a temporary nuisance. Shouldn't they have been fire-hosed with pepper spray?
Ah, but let's read a bit more, shall we? Back to the story on the University Bridge protest:
The thing is, past protests have gone first to Montlake. Years ago, I was tooling around the city exploring parks along the Ship Canal. For those of you who may not remember (or care), I used to work piloting boats here in town. I am far more familiar with the parks as seen from the water than the park lands themselves. So I headed out to a place tug captains sometimes call "Pussy Point," a place where the canal is close to a secluded island park in the lake. Hit your spot light as you motor past, and you often enough get an eyeful of coitus al fresco to make it worth a glance, especially after midnight.
I visited Foster Island during the day. Highway 520 divides the island; visitors must take a soggy path under the freeway to get from one side to the other. As I was wandering, I suddenly noticed that the traffic noise was, well, gone. It had been there a few minutes earlier. In its stead, there was a dull roaring coming from the West. I went to the fence separating the park from the road. Coming up the empty freeway was a crowd, incensed at the results of a recent election. They had massed in Red Square at the nearby University of Washington, then headed toward the water. Police were unable to get the bridge tender to raise the Montlake Bridge in time, which would have prevented the protesters from gaining access to the freeway. Instead, the police had to close the freeway for over two hours.
What the linked article doesn't mention is the fact that the protesters wanted to block the freeway. Many supporters of I-200 hailed from the East of Seattle, and SR 520 is one of the main links between the Eastside and town. Blocking it, this mass (which had fallen in numbers to about 30, many of them photographers recording the event) decided to vent their wrath at the lily-white suburbs east.
They didn't get far. They walked to just before the Western highrise bridge and were met by a State Patrol car. He calmly suggested they turn back, since the weather really sucked that day. Seeing the white caps on the lake churned up by a strong December breeze, they wisely did. The bridge is over a mile long and almost at lake level. It had to be getting cold.
I'll be honest here: I don't much like protests, especially when I see them as opportunistic. Blocking a freeway is a stunt that got them no love from commuters. I even yelled at them from behind the park fence, saying, (IIRC) "Get over it. You lost!" I've been outspoken about the ineffectiveness of protest before.
Now, though, I sense a change. It seems people are learning about how best to craft a protest. The I-200 protesters in '98 didn't get any love from commuters, so avoid blocking a freeway. Avoid blocking the emergency access ambulances need to access University Medical Center near the Montlake Bridge for obvious reasons; no one wants to be blamed for someone unable to get to the Emergency Room in time. The University Bridge protesters therefore seem to have learned a few lessons from mistakes of the past.
This raises an important question: Should the police focus on defusing a single event, or on avoiding repetitions of the conditions that led to the event?![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bradhicks thinks the latter is more important. He points out that not all cities responded with brute force:
I encourage you to read Hicks' take on the differences between St. Louis and Seattle, et al. The University Bridge protest escort took a page from St. Louis's tactics. If they had done so earlier, there wouldn't have been a bridge protest to escort.
I have to conclude here that ham-fisted police policy responses have done more to fuel the protest fire than quell it, something the little old lady with a face full of spray knows well.
Dorli Rainey, you see, has been no stranger to protest. A few days after the spraying, she emerged from the hospital. A reporter asked her what she would say to the police officer who sprayed her. She said, "Thank you." Her picture has reinvigorated a protest almost moribund a few weeks ago.
Oh, and she has a blog, wouldn't ya know, though it doesn't look as if it's seen many recent updates. I haven't myself, but maybe you would like to peruse her blog and better know this Old Lady in Combat Boots.
Just as I leave, it seemed, Scott Olsen's projectile to the head and the following concussion grenade to the helping crowd care of the Oakland Police moved many around the country to take back to the streets. One thing led to another, and the police, trying to clear a crowd from 5th and Pike, decide to break out the pepper spray. Dorli Rainey's image is now everywhere.
The police say they were trying to clear the crowd from the street, a place normally used by cars. People drive cars to get from one place to another. If people are in the street, the cars probably shouldn't try to drive there. I hope that's clear. In fact, blocking the street was the whole idea, according to Rainey:
On Tuesday night, she said, she was part of a group who stayed a few minutes after police told them to disperse.
Protesters were talking aloud about leaving when police converged, holding their bicycles and spraying pepper, she said.
"You only get real attention when you block a few streets," she said.
Why you only get real attention should be obvious: People get pissed at being held up in traffic. They are unlikely in their delay rage to be very generous to those that hold up traffic. So people expect the police to clear the roads. Which is what they did.
Ah, but now we have a good look at consequences. When the police unleashed pepper spray at this poor, little-old-lady, an event that led to the iconic photo, the reaction really snarled traffic two days later:
Hundreds of demonstrators marched onto Seattle's University Bridge on Thursday, snarling traffic during the evening rush hour in one of several rallies nationwide for "Jobs Not Cuts."
Seattle police escorted the group from the University of Washington to the University Bridge, and later reported there had been no conflicts in what they termed "the peaceful demonstrations."
This was in marked contrast to Tuesday night, when a group of Occupy Seattle demonstrators was pepper-sprayed by police while blocking downtown traffic, first in Belltown and then near Westlake Center.
Okay, here's a question: Why was the blockage of a single block, 5th and Pike downtown, different from the "peaceful demonstrations" that blocked one of only six bridges crossing the Ship Canal, and quite arguably a far more necessary route to the city as a whole? The latter demonstration was just as angry, just as determined to get their voices heard by being a temporary nuisance. Shouldn't they have been fire-hosed with pepper spray?
Ah, but let's read a bit more, shall we? Back to the story on the University Bridge protest:
Plans were originally to congregate on the Montlake Bridge, but several hours before the protest, organizers switched to the University Bridge in order to eliminate any interference with hospital traffic and Highway 520 access.
The thing is, past protests have gone first to Montlake. Years ago, I was tooling around the city exploring parks along the Ship Canal. For those of you who may not remember (or care), I used to work piloting boats here in town. I am far more familiar with the parks as seen from the water than the park lands themselves. So I headed out to a place tug captains sometimes call "Pussy Point," a place where the canal is close to a secluded island park in the lake. Hit your spot light as you motor past, and you often enough get an eyeful of coitus al fresco to make it worth a glance, especially after midnight.
I visited Foster Island during the day. Highway 520 divides the island; visitors must take a soggy path under the freeway to get from one side to the other. As I was wandering, I suddenly noticed that the traffic noise was, well, gone. It had been there a few minutes earlier. In its stead, there was a dull roaring coming from the West. I went to the fence separating the park from the road. Coming up the empty freeway was a crowd, incensed at the results of a recent election. They had massed in Red Square at the nearby University of Washington, then headed toward the water. Police were unable to get the bridge tender to raise the Montlake Bridge in time, which would have prevented the protesters from gaining access to the freeway. Instead, the police had to close the freeway for over two hours.
What the linked article doesn't mention is the fact that the protesters wanted to block the freeway. Many supporters of I-200 hailed from the East of Seattle, and SR 520 is one of the main links between the Eastside and town. Blocking it, this mass (which had fallen in numbers to about 30, many of them photographers recording the event) decided to vent their wrath at the lily-white suburbs east.
They didn't get far. They walked to just before the Western highrise bridge and were met by a State Patrol car. He calmly suggested they turn back, since the weather really sucked that day. Seeing the white caps on the lake churned up by a strong December breeze, they wisely did. The bridge is over a mile long and almost at lake level. It had to be getting cold.
I'll be honest here: I don't much like protests, especially when I see them as opportunistic. Blocking a freeway is a stunt that got them no love from commuters. I even yelled at them from behind the park fence, saying, (IIRC) "Get over it. You lost!" I've been outspoken about the ineffectiveness of protest before.
Now, though, I sense a change. It seems people are learning about how best to craft a protest. The I-200 protesters in '98 didn't get any love from commuters, so avoid blocking a freeway. Avoid blocking the emergency access ambulances need to access University Medical Center near the Montlake Bridge for obvious reasons; no one wants to be blamed for someone unable to get to the Emergency Room in time. The University Bridge protesters therefore seem to have learned a few lessons from mistakes of the past.
This raises an important question: Should the police focus on defusing a single event, or on avoiding repetitions of the conditions that led to the event?
bradhicks thinks the latter is more important. He points out that not all cities responded with brute force:Multiple news sources are reporting that the multi-city raids on Occupy Wall Street and its regional imitators were coordinated by the National Council of Mayors, via conference call right before they began. A few minutes ago, I saw an article on a San Francisco news website alleging that, based on deep-background off-the-record anonymous law enforcement sources, the FBI was on that 18-city conference call as well, and that it was the FBI that advised cities on tactics: go in hard, with as many cops as you can, wearing black riot-squad gear to make sure you have the psychological upper hand; do it in the middle of the night and keep the reporters as far away as possible.
The St. Louis Beacon non-profit news site is reporting that St. Louis's mayor didn't bother listening to the conference call himself; he let his chief of staff take the call. And after seeing how other cities handled their raids, and comparing it to how St. Louis handled its raid, I'm left wondering: did Jeff Rainford laugh out loud at the FBI and the credulous mayors who were listening in? Or did he manage to hide it?
I encourage you to read Hicks' take on the differences between St. Louis and Seattle, et al. The University Bridge protest escort took a page from St. Louis's tactics. If they had done so earlier, there wouldn't have been a bridge protest to escort.
I have to conclude here that ham-fisted police policy responses have done more to fuel the protest fire than quell it, something the little old lady with a face full of spray knows well.
Dorli Rainey, you see, has been no stranger to protest. A few days after the spraying, she emerged from the hospital. A reporter asked her what she would say to the police officer who sprayed her. She said, "Thank you." Her picture has reinvigorated a protest almost moribund a few weeks ago.
Oh, and she has a blog, wouldn't ya know, though it doesn't look as if it's seen many recent updates. I haven't myself, but maybe you would like to peruse her blog and better know this Old Lady in Combat Boots.