It is not the job of the protesters to draft legislation. That’s the job of the nation’s leaders, and if they had been doing it all along there might not be a need for these marches and rallies. Because they have not, the public airing of grievances is a legitimate and important end in itself. It is also the first line of defense against a return to the Wall Street ways that plunged the nation into an economic crisis from which it has yet to emerge.
Tag Archives: activist example
Protesters Against Wall Street – NYTimes.com
Posted in How To Win
Tagged #occupywallstreet, activism, activist example, new york times
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Pie-ing Murdoch: Activism or Egoism?
An “activist” just tried to pie Rupert Murdoch and The New York Times Blog put it very simply:
Unless the activist who charged at Mr. Murdoch wanted to help distract attention from his testimony — and that of Rebekah Brooks, who is now giving evidence to the Commons select committee — he seems to have failed spectacularly. The attack sent journalists scrambling to get still images and video and will no doubt get more attention from the public than anything that was said today.
[...]
As Ben Quinn of The Guardian reports, a British activist named Jonnie Marbles has claimed responsibility for the attack on Rupert Murdoch, writing on Twitter: “It is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before #splat.”
Does Rupert Murdoch deserve to be humiliated? Yes. He’s horrible. Is hitting him in the face with a pie going to do that more so than what he’s doing himself? I’m not sure.
Was this needed? Did it help? So far reaction seems to be: no. Murdoch was doing a great job digging his own grave.
Having lived in San Francisco in the late 1990′s this did remind me of the “Biotic Baking Brigade” a group of “pie throwing anarchists.” They made a movie. Here’s an excerpt:
Maybe it was my youth, but it was always a thrill to hear about the BBBs latest strike. Although there’s moments in the video that make me shudder (is it possible to explain détournment and not sound like a pretentious grad student?) the BBB clearly had a sense of humor. They also seemed to put the cause above themselves as individuals. It wasn’t so important that you knew who the individuals were – they acted as if they were many, and encouraged anyone to take up the tactic. They explained their frustration and their reasons for using this tactic made some sense within that logic.
Most importantly, the BBBs targets weren’t already portrayed as demons in the media. San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and Bill Gates were receiving news coverage that was mostly favorable. And an executive of a lumber company destroying the redwoods was basically not on the media’s radar. Pie-ing that executive in the face at a small press conference opens up a chance to get another perspective in the news while making it a much bigger story. I might be in a bubble, but I don’t think either is the case with Murdoch.
Jonnie Marbles posting on twitter in time with his pie-ing of Murdoch is very deliberate. On twitter, he describes himself as “activist, comedian, father figure and all-round nonsense.” Activist/comedian I have no problem with, but those together with father-figure? For me, that kinda reads as “attention-starved.” I’m sure pie-ing Murdoch must have felt awesome. And I’m sure Jonnie Marbles is quite proud. But it’s not about Marbles.
This idea overlaps with a phrase Stephen Duncombe and I coined: Political Expressionism. A Political Expressionist’s work is not political in the sense that it affects power. It’s an expression of a personal feeling about politics (i.e. “F**k Bush!” or “I am so mad about the news!” in one form or another). It feels good personally and it might resonate with a few others, but it’s about expressing a feeling of frustration or anger. As long as expression is what the work is about, its focus and the goal is not to affect power. And if you’re creating a media spectacle shouldn’t that be the real goal?
Coming back to the point made in The Times: pie-ing Murdoch was a distraction. As good as it probably felt, and as much you or I would have loved to do it, it was not effective. This hearing didn’t need more attention. Murdoch didn’t need to be taken down a notch, he’s already sunk himself to the bottom.
What do you think?
UPDATE: Jonnie Marbles writes a column in the Guardian where he tells me what I already know about Murdoch and admits he, to some extent, humanized the wicked old man.
Posted in How To Win
Tagged activist example, Biotic Baking Brigade, comedy example, humor, Rupert Murdoch
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New ‘Tactical Urbanism’ guide for aspiring guerrilla urbanists | Grist
The Next Generation of New Urbanists yes, these are young New Urbanists, because New Urbanism has been around long enough that it’s getting a little … old and the Street Plans Collaborative want to help. They’ve put together a “Tactical Urbanism” guide that you can download for use when you need some ideas about how to catalyze lasting change in your urban world.
Examples include guerrilla gardening, pop-up cafés, mobile vendors, and “Build a Better Block” projects. Most involve partnership with government agencies or local business owners, but they are almost all things that ordinary folks can initiate. Here’s how the guide’s authors explain the concept of “tactical urbanism”:
via New ‘Tactical Urbanism’ guide for aspiring guerrilla urbanists | Grist.
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Tagged activist example, architechture, empirical, making it real, street, success, vision
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Culture Gap – New York Bike Lanes
Duncombe and I have said more than once “you can change the laws, but it won’t matter if the culture doesn’t change with it.” For lack of a better term, I’m going to call this – for now – a Culture Gap.
A change may be “the right thing,” environmentally, economically, socially, for justice, but if people aren’t ready for it the change wont happen. Worse, you may see a backlash against the policy or enforcement.
Sadly, this may be what’s happening in the argument over New York City bike lanes. An extensive New York Magazine article today dives into these ideas:
The DOT can put in bike lanes by the thousands, but the more important transformation will be internal: We are going to have to learn to accept a decrease, however minuscule, in our individual freedoms. For bike lanes to really work, New Yorkers are going to have to learn to share.
Sharing, however, will first require a commitment by all New Yorkers—and especially bikers—to abide by the rules of the road. “If you’re going to put more cyclists on the street, you have to make sure there’s more enforcement,” says Nancy Gruskin, a music teacher and activist based in New Jersey. And until recently, that hadn’t happened. “It feels very haphazard: You throw something out there and expect that the structure is going to build itself, and what happens is that you have civil war.”
Luckily, I think the cultural shift is already underway. Anti-bikelane activists will lose, eventually. They have to. There is a “teething process,” as a transportation advocate in the article put it – and I like the image of a cry baby it evokes – but the bike lane process could be smoother, more efficient, and more effective with some cultural work.
The next question is what kind?
Posted in How To Win
Tagged activist example, bike lanes, culture gap, nyc, policy, politics, transporation alternatives
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UCSD arts professor cleared in at least one investigation « Last Blog On Earth
UCSD arts professor Ricardo Dominguez did not use school funds inappropriately, according to the findings of a University of California official investigation into Dominguez’s involvement with a controversial art project.
On Jan. 11, the UC system began investigating Dominguez’s use of just under $5,000 of grant money to fund the Transborder Immigrant Tool (TBT), a GPS-enabled Motorola cell phone meant to aid immigrants crossing the border by providing information about water caches in the desert and offering moral support in the form of streaming bilingual poetry.
Critics, most notably Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter, say TBT helps facilitate illegal entry across the U.S.-Mexico border and therefore should not have been funded by taxpayer money.
“The investigation came to an end on July 21,” a relieved-looking Dominguez told CityBeat. “Now, the funny thing about this is that everybody was copied on the e-mail, all the major players, except us and my lawyers. So, it was only by accident that I discovered that on July 21—this was only a couple of days ago that I discovered this—that the final report came out. And, basically, after all this sort of stuff,” Dominguez said, pausing and leaning toward his laptop to read from the e-mail, “‘The final conclusion is based on our review procedures. We concluded that neither the university funds nor effort were used inappropriately during the development of TBT or the project.’ So, that’s one victory for artwork.”
But Dominguez isn’t completely off the hook.
He’s still paying legal fees to fight yet another university investigation and audit of his actions and involvement in what he calls “electronic civil disobedience,” which is the title of one of the classes he teaches at UCSD. In May, Dominguez spearheaded a virtual sit-in to protest UC policy changes. He and his students flooded UC system president Mark G. Yudof’s website, forcing it offline.
Dominguez said that shortly after the virtual protest, he was informed that the UC system would be looking into possible criminal charges and revocation of his tenure.
While that investigation continues, Dominguez said the good news is that TBT has been chosen to be showcased in several national and international art shows. A few TBT prototypes are currently on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego’s Here Not There: San Diego Art Now exhibition and the piece has also been accepted into the 2010 California Biennial, plus a few exhibitions in Europe.
“It legitimizes it for the legal teams,” Dominguez said, explaining that investigators did not look at TBT as an art project until curators at contemporary-art museums recognized it as one.
via UCSD arts professor cleared in at least one investigation « Last Blog On Earth.
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Tagged activist example, art example, brain dump, ricardo dominguez
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