Okay …. I’ll read that e-book.

I tried to grab it off UseNet as a PDF because I find it easier to read, but it was not available. So, I just finished copy/pasting the text into a Word Document via the URL you referenced above.

I don’t read economic “theory” books, but rather economic “complaint” books.

Books like these:

Outsourcing America
What’s Behind Our National Crisis and How We Can Reclaim American Jobs
By Ron Hira and Anil Hira
May 30, 2005
http://www.amazon.com/Outsourcing-America-National-Reclaim-American/dp/0814408680

Encyclopedia of White-Collar & Corporate Crime
By Lawrence M. Salinger
August 03, 2004
http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-White-Collar-Corporate-Crime-Multi/dp/0761930043

Keep Smilin’ and don’t let your mouse byte yuh!

Calm

I would recommend Michael Albert’s “Trajectory of Change” (South End Press, 2002).

For more on parecon, I would recommend Albert’s “Parecon: Life After Capitalism” (Verso Press, 2003), the full text of which can also be found here: http://www.zcommunications.org/zparecon/pareconlac.htm. Also good for parecon is http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/topics/parecon.

Well, it seems that the type of protest you encourage has been practised since at least 1960, and we are still in the same boat as we were 50 years ago!

Obviously; it don’t work.

I would think that after 50 or 60 years, one might conclude that it is time to change strategies.

Calm

So as not to be left out in the cold, I had to look it up.

At the same time, every corporation has its own set of owners, human or otherwise, who have the right to do as they please with it, as people outside a corporation do not have any right to interfere with its activities while it abides by the law. Although market economists note that all consumers can influence corporations through their own market interactions, or the buying and selling of their goods, services, or even shares, advocates of parecon are unsatisfied with this as this influence has a limited extension, and organization of collective consumer action is difficult in a market economy. Pareconists believe that the state is unlikely to interfere in the market for the benefit of the public, and advocates interpret economic history as demonstrating that it is more often the other way around, through means of plutocracy. Being huge agglomerations of economic power, large corporations tend to interfere with the decision-making of states by lobbying for legislation and policy that suits their interests or, in many cases, by bribery, or by financing huge propaganda campaigns for the success of some political candidate who would support the corporation’s interests. An example included the corporate slogan “what is good for General Motors is good for America.” In some cases, there have been corporate-backed coups. However, Milton Friedman believes that such corporate lobbying is only possible in states that allow for significant state interference within the economy.

Promoters of parecon hold that the pursuit of private profit and power by these kinds of corporations is not in the interest of the majority of citizens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_economics

My understanding of the newspaper business is that if they told us the truth there would be riots in the streets. And people don’t buy newspapers during a riot …. they steal them. So, no newspaper is going to detail any truth.

I only need to review how the media covered anti-war protests in 2003, or how the media is covering the recent arrests of protesters at the RNC trip in Minneapolis.

My history is with unionism as a local union president. I believe that the “organization” of events or protests is far too difficult a task to perform. There are too many instances of infiltration by cops and the like.

It is not safe to work as a group any more.

People need to act in an “unorganized” fashion …. committing single acts of disobedience and not as a group …. each breaking one window a day or on a particular “decisive” or “agreed upon” day …. and at a place and time of day of their choosing.

If 25 thousand people broke a window next Friday, as an example, it would not go unnoticed. It could be a car window or a store front window or the window of a house.

25 thousand people getting up on a Friday morning and deliberately setting out on their own to make their statement.

Calm

Few things come with guarantees. Of course, any strategy carries risks.

“But thinking things through beforehand might help.”

That was the point of the article.

“You say you are a pareconist. I happen to know what that means, unlike, probably, about 99.9% of the American public. If it is going to mean anything to them, it will have to build on their experiences in a meaningful way–for example, a demand for free speech rights in the workplace.”

A treatment of parecon, or parecon-related strategies, was beyond the scope of the article.

You say you are a pareconist. I happen to know what that means, unlike, probably, about 99.9% of the American public. If it is going to mean anything to them, it will have to build on their experiences in a meaningful way–for example, a demand for free speech rights in the workplace. Just a suggestion.

While I’m not sure I would do it myself, I couldn’t get too worked up if someone were breaking the windows of huge corporate offices, or some such. That said, would it be more likely or less likely to win public support from people currently unassociated with the movement? Personally, I think it would do more damage than it would help.

Going after anything smaller, though, than a huge corporation would, I think, cause only negative repercussions. Even going after someone’s BMW, while a luxury sedan, is not, I don’t think, a good tactic. I think there would be too great a chance people would start to fear for their own Toyota Corollas (or whatever).

“The public might become agitated, but I think that the polls would tell us that 75 percent of them are already pissed off at the government and would admire those doin’ something about it.”

This is partly why I think going after media outlets directly would be a good idea. As you say, I think people are quite ready for massive social change. I think people are ready for a revolution. But the media are not going to help propel this process. In fact, they actively inhibit it. They are part of the problem. So I think they should be a target.

And for, say, garbage workers who go on strike, I think said workers would have more power if they could compel the media to report honestly on the issues affecting them (the workers). So I think that, even for striking garbage workers, including the targeting of media outlets in their (the workers’) strategy is a good plan.

But we already know the media will not willingly do this.

“It hardly matters whether they march on the convention center or the local newspaper.”

I don’t know how many protesters were in Denver. Just for purposes of discussion, let’s say it was 2000. Suppose they all went to the studios of one of Denver’s public TV stations (I don’t know how many such stations Denver has). Suppose they all went there to specifically protest Obama’s failure to support single-payer, or perhaps they picked three issues like single-payer, Iraq, and the PBS’s poor coverage. Or whatever.

Wouldn’t 2000 people in that situation make for a more effective protest than 2000 people standing in front of riot cops and TV cameras looking solely to film violence they can blame on demonstrators? Yes, technically that could happen outside public TV offices as well. But I am arguing for making the media an intrinsic part of what’s being protested. I don’t see how you do that without going to the media outlets to protest.

In other words, I think you can protest, say, Obama’s lack of single-payer support and media dissembling by going to the media. But I don’t see how you protest both of those things by only protesting at the DNC. And I don’t the left is as effective as it could be unless it makes the media an intrinsic part of what it’s protesting.

“What sorts of changes are you actually proposing?”

I am a pareconist. I think all organizations, including media-related ones, should be built on pareconish norms. A longer answer is really too long for a simple article comment.

I’m really enjoying the discussion goin’ on here. Your the kind of people I would appreciate in my forum. Nobody screamin’ and callin’ each other idiots.

When I mention violence, I don’t mean violence against a person. I’m thinking of property damage. Like walking down the street and scraping the paint on every BMW yuh see.

When garbage or public transit workers go on strike for better wages, I don’t think we begin to hate the strikers. We get angry and call city hall and demand that they negotiate in good faith to settle the issue.

The public might become agitated, but I think that the polls would tell us that 75 percent of them are already pissed off at the government and would admire those doin’ something about it.

Calm

This is virtually never the correct tactic in the United States, or other first-world societies. (An exception might be, say, union workers trying to prevent scabs from crossing a picket line. There, some low-level violence might be justified.) You can’t out-violence the state, and trying to do so will win you nothing.

“A public TV station is on private property.”

Even if this is true, legally so are broadcast signals. Activists fight for those. Why not public stations as well?

This is all getting beyond the scope of my original essay though.

Ditto shutting down city streets. Most people sitting in cars just want the police to clear out protesters so they can get to work. If you turn the people in cars against you, who do you imagine is on your side? Protesters at the Democratic convention got minimal attention, in good part because it wasn’t a very large group of people, and, fortunately, I think, they didn’t do anything really stupid or provocative to get attention. Maybe they would have done better to focus very directly on weaknesses of Obama. For example, the war in Afghanistan should’ve been the focus of the anti-war march, since Obama has more or less signaled that he wants out of Iraq, but he is firmly for escalating the war in Afghanistan. Obama’s failure to support single-payer health care is another failure that could have been the focus of protests. But very few people in the US care if a few thousand protesters who look like protesters at all the other conventions show up to sneer at the Democrats for being dominated by corporations. It hardly matters whether they march on the convention center or the local newspaper.

Calm

Well, yes, huge numbers. I mean, 100 people won’t get it done. But we have demonstrations of literally tens of thousands of people, and those demonstrations are barely mentioned in the media, and the mentions that do occur are hardly adequate. What if those tens of thousands people, instead of going to the event, went to a TV station?

And if the private versus public property issue is a concern, why not go to a public TV station? You might still get arrested, but you’d certainly have grounds to ask just who owns public TV stations anyway. And if you do have only 100 people and you’re planning a demonstration, why not go to a PBS outlet?

Well, if you shut down the downtown area of a city or the main traffic lanes entering the city, you have the attention of all the commuters …. all the public attention you want.

You don’t need the media to tell those people caught up in traffic jams or to have retail outlets unable to stock their shelves that there is discontent or a problem in their midst.

A protest “off the sidewalk” and into the street will have the message quite well known to those affected.

I never understood why people don’t use violence to make their point.

Our government does it all the time. When you look at the the history of America and all the violence they have perpetrated around the world during the past 250 years …. it would be quite clear that our leaders know that violence is the only way to gain what you want or feel you need.

The Rich Folks in America are running scared! The Partiot Act is for the protection of the Rich Folks because they don’t want a Hitler-Trip to happen in America.

I think the media has sold us a “conscience” while at the same time knowing that “conscience” is just a figment of of a useless imagination.

The media is broadcasting “Religious” themed shows because the establishment is trying to sell the Poor Folks a conscience

As the Rich Folks walked by the Poor Homeless person upon the street during past years …. the Rich Folks don’t want the Poor Folks walking by them as they are strung-up on lamp posts out behind some gas station.

The only reason Hitler came to power was because of the depression of the 1930’s.

Poor Folks in Europe suffered alot more then the Poor Folks in North America. The Poor Folks in Europe watched the Rich Folks flaunt their wealth during the Roaring 20’s …. and they remembered this as the Poor Folks were selling their family heirlooms in Pawnshops. It just so happened that a majority of the pawnshops were owned by Jewish Folks and Gypsies.

Calm

1. It divides your forces, making you confront the enemy on numerous fronts.

2. There is no guarantee that the media will give the protest any more coverage simply because it happens to be at their front door. Indeed, once it tumbles to the fact that this is the aim it may ignore it altogether.

3. It is more difficult to organise and coordinate effectively.

Calm made some good points. Disruptions of commerce hurt, more, I think than anything else short of physical violence (to which, fortunately, we are still a long way from needing to resort)

You ought to understand the beast. The media are after a story. If you can’t give them a story, then you’ll get no media attention. At the least, advertise your cause – billboards on busy highways do have an impact. Take out a commercial on a major network during primetime. Too expensive? Standing in the middle of a busy downtown street during morning rush hour will get you on the six o’clock news. If you can’t create a story, the media don’t care.

This is precisely why people need to protest at G8 meetings. The protesters, police, teargas, clashes, blood – these are the exciting things that get media attention.

If you carry a sign – why not have a web site address where people can get more information.