Full video at:
http://fora.tv/2009/01/16/Naomi_Wolf_at_the_Hudson_Union_Society

That's *quality shit right here.

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by radx.

Brilliant!!!

I just finished watching the full program and it really is worth spending 61 minutes on.

I'd counter-argue that all the piddly laws do almost nothing to your ability to effectively protest, you just have to be willing to go to jail. That's not necessarily new, and can actually be a very effective part of protest.

When the blacks staged sit-ins in the 60s, they did it knowing full well that they'd be arrested. I'd go so far as to suggest that they needed to get arrested to be effective. If they had just gone and hung around a diner for a couple hours and then went home, who would have noticed aside from those immediately present?

People are way too sensitive about arrest, particularly here on the sift. A lot of people seem to think that civil disobedience; breaking an unjust law; means that you shouldn't get arrested. It doesn't. You're still breaking the law and you should be arrested. Furthermore, getting arrested is crucial to drawing attention to what you protest. Fuck the permits and the laws about bullhorns and staying on the sidewalk. Organize a flashmob and get out there and, peacefully, break some laws. One night in jail, probably with all the people you were protesting with, isn't going to ruin your life. It'll probably be the most awesome slumber party ever.

Basically what she is say is there hasn't been real protest since the Civil War.

At first I thought she was about to have a point. But weren't mass protests that stop traffic illegal in nearly every example she gave, including successful ones in our own history?

She seems to be implying that permits didn't even exist in her parents generation, like they were all allowed by law to protest anywhere they wanted and as loudly as they wanted. She must know that isn't true, so why make the claim?

^ the point is that you have to break the law to make a difference.

and were being fooled by our "right to assemble" because the protections in the constitution that were so proud of are a sham. because we can be incarcerated for taking the action that has been shown throughout history to work.

and we abhor military and police enforcement against protesters in other parts of the world, while at the same time, the same actions would be taken by our government if we had the balls anymore to stand up and impede some fucking traffic.

Exactly man, she seems to be complaining that serious protest is now impossible because you might get in trouble with the law.

Her hippie forfathers weren't so weak-kneed.

Back in 2003, when the war in Iraq was imminent, I was working in a high school in Chicago, and several students came to me, telling me that they were staging a walk-out, to protest the war. This being an American high school, I could imagine that quite a few of the 'protesters' were walking out just to get the rest of the day off. They asked me if I supported them. I told them that I supported the Constitution of the United States of America, and those actions taken to create, uphold and defend that document. They took this to mean that I supported them, and headed off to do a little civil disobedience. To their credit, they walked an astonishing distance, from high school to high school, picking up a throng as they walked, a la Boys Town. They ended up downtown, and several of our students were front and center in the pictures taken at the rally.

The next day, several of the students who had organized the walkout discovered that they were given out of school suspensions for their actions. They ran to me, expecting me to howl in righteous indignation, and go to the administration to demand that they not be punished. They were quite surprised when I said, "And...?" I didn't have one jot of sympathy for their plight. Instead, I retrieved a copy of Letters from Birmingham Jail, Common Sense, Civil Disobedience, and several other books of a similar bent. I told them to use the time off wisely, to discover the rich heritage civil disobedience has in our nation. It it is, I think, the expectation of 'getting away with it' that has neutered our protests. The fact that 'free speech zones' exist at all is an affront to the Constitution. I told my students that it was the punishment they received that gave their protest meaning. Accept it willingly, because by accepting it, they were saying, "This inconvenience is nothing compared to the great injustice we stand against. We suffer it willingly, if it means that others might not suffer in the future." They got it, served their time without grousing, and actually learned a little something about being a citizen.

So.... if mass protests, the kind that stop traffic, and the kind where people get arrested or even killed, are the most effective - then why is the government of Iran back to exactly the way it was?

oh yeah, cause Micheal Jackson died, and all international news media immediately turned to cover that story instead.

Harumph. I still think violence is underrated amongst both the left and right-wings in American politics. Law is the same thing as violence. You can't have a law unless it's backed up by the violence of law enforcement officials. So laws are already a form of violence upon you. And you always have the choice to defend yourself, violently, against violence. The issue is just whether or not you can stay alive or free afterwards.

If you don't like a law, I don't think you should only use non-violent means to overturn it. If you care about overturning that law enough, never take violence off the table. Presidents never take the option of violence off the table when dealing with issues of policy, neither should you.

I guess it makes sense the left-wing is more into the "non-violent" protest stuff. After all, the number of weapons in the hands of US right-wingers, civilian and military, is probably 10x the number that is in the hands of US left-wingers. Not too many people from liberal regions of America rushing to fill the ranks of the NRA or the US Army.

Sorry, I stopped the video after about a minute. I mostly stopped listening when she said she "knew" the protests of her day made a difference "kind of spiritually? [sic] in a way? Like, people were being changed." First, if I "know" something, I don't put a verbal question mark after it. Second, people were being changed huh? That's spiritual? Political change has nothing to do with changing people? You were younger. You were personally affected by your experiences much more strongly. You identify that as "spiritual" because of your Haight-Ashbury hippy-dippy upbringing. Step outside yourself for 5 minutes if you want to talk about activism. Why do people have such strong inward focus when it comes to activism? Especially older activists. Maybe you derive your beliefs internally, but you're expressing them externally, to the world, to the people you need to change. Switch gears for fuck's sake if you want to accomplish anything.

A couple people made this point: people are afraid of getting arrested and think that they are entitled to break the law without punishment. I think part of the problem is that our "activists" are wearing gray tweed blazers that accentuate their bustline and cleavage and have highlights in their hair. Your cause is most likely bullshit m'lady, that's why your protest is failing. Try sticking "overpermitisization" on a placard. Now that a cause the masses can get behind!

Like I said, didn't watch it. Is her point that protests don't work because government, presumably the people protests are targeted towards, have created bureaucracy to make it harder? That's the game lady! You fight them, they fight you. You don't win by saying, "hey, stop making this harder." Try something else! Mass protest worked before. Now it doesn't. Stop trying to sell me 8-tracks and get some new methodology. Christ, I did not like this woman.

Iran has irrevocably changed due to their protests. Political and historical change does not occur like it is presented in history books, with stark changes sweeping through at pivotal events. It happens at the individual level, incrementally. One day you wake up and the world is very different than it was a few years ago.

The Iranians, whose population is dominated by youth, has just passed verdict on where they want there country to go. A sentiment that heretofore was whispered in barbershops or over coffee, has been, en masse, confirmed. It makes a huge difference to know that it's not just you.

And it's not just Iran, real protests happen all over the world, all the time. And they do foment change, just nothing you will see on CNN or Fox.

And that is why I am so against the man in uniform.

Because he perpetrates the violations of the constitution.

I want the right to stop, where ever the fuck I am, and scream out: "Fuck you!" at the top of my lungs.

Fuck you and your freedom of speech zones.

Fuck you and your business as usual.

BRB some one is kicking my door down, I!

*dead

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