Quote of the Day: On Violence

"...but violence only strengthens your enemies and weakens your cause."

- Charles M, Blow, "Violence Is Never the Answer", NYT 2016-05-26, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/opinion/violence-is-never-the-answer.html.

Which is better, civil disobedience or voting?

I posted the following response to a Coffee Party article on civil disobedience and voting.  A commentator claimed that corruption was preventing people from voting.

Corruption is not excluding people from voting, individual voters are excluding themselves. When we have turnouts of less than 50% in 2010 the no shows have only themselves to blame. I often wonder how many who protested in Madison had voted. How many of those who signed the repeal petition in Wisconsin will actually show up for the recall election? Turnout in 2012 was low because too many stayed away because President Obama wasn't "perfect". If you're going to wait for the "perfect" candidate, you are going to let other people vote in some very imperfect people.

Rules of democracy - 1) show up to vote; 2) vote for who you believe in, even if you have to write some body in; 3) show up to vote; 4) the only vote thrown away is the vote not cast; 5) show up to vote!

Also make your voice known to the media; not just in the letters section. If a reporter claims, for instance, that Gingrich "won" in Georgia, email the reporter that only 6% of the eligible voters cast their vote for Gingrich in the Republican primary. If a reporter claims that someone won in a "landslide", email him or her that that someone received the vote of only 1/3 of the eligible voters. If we get more accurate reporting that show how thin the support of the "winners" is, maybe we'll get more people saying, "OMG, if I had only voted!"

Be your own little get-out-the-vote campaigner. On election day or the day before, drop off a home-made flyer at every house on your block. Be non-partisan. Make up a few catchy slogans like "Democracy counts on your vote to work".

Finally, be sure to show up to vote!

After I wrote the above I thought about how representative civil disobedience and voting are compared to each other.  If 1,000 people show up for a demonstration in a town of 200,000, how representative are they of the other 199,000?  If 60,000 people vote on election day, aren't they more representative of the 200,000 than the 1,000?  Talk about the 1%, the 1,000 are only a half percent!

Iranian TV playing with fire reporting on Occupy movement

The Coffee Party on Facebook had a link to "Crackdown on OWS, creative tactics and the strategy to take back power". The lead-in on Facebook is "Interview with Chip Pitts, human rights advocate and Stanford law professor. "Occupy Wall Street is the closest thing to a civil rights movement in my lifetime...Lots of strands including Occupy movement, academic research and the Coffee Party are coming together in a beautiful harmony."

It was uploaded to YouTube by PressTVGlobalNews on Nov 17, 2011.

"The United States is currently grappling with growing protest rallies against corporatism, poverty and social inequity in the country." - from the text accompanying the video.

I'd say guess who PressTVGlobalNews is, but I've already partly given away that PressTV is owned by the Iranian government.

I wonder how many Iranians watch PressTV in Iran and how many wonder why the Iranian government doesn't practice what it preaches.

Here's another piece of fire that Press TV is playing with - "Russian Opposition demands free and fair elections".

Are these cases of do as I say, not as I do?

Little bucks demonstrations vs. big bucks advertising

Mark Jeneson wrote "Make change with money, not protests" as a local view in today's Duluth News Tribune. Online it's titled "Create change through spending, not Wall Street protests".

Jeneson argues that taking all one's money out of the big banks will bring about more change than protests. However, these little private acts will only be known by a few people and may or may not spread. These little acts have a small chance of making major headlines.

To make headlines, most people need to demonstrate. They don't have the big bucks to advertise like the Koch brothers and their surrogates. Think of demonstrations as middle-class political advertising. If the cause is popular, more people will take part and more headlines about the cause will be made.

The ultimate lawn or demonstration sign

VOTE

Be the dēmos in democracy

Are you an armchair activist?

I am not a big fan of demonstrations or petitions; they often seem to me to be more mob rule than serious deliberation.  For the 1,000 that show up for a demonstration, were there 10,000 that had a different opinion?  For the 100,000 who signed a petition, were there 1,000,000 who had a different opinion?  Just like all the no-shows on voting or the uncalled on polling, we can never be sure what the inactive think.

However, like letters to the editor, one should often raise one's voice to at least make an opinion known.

Reading today's Al Jazeera blog on Libya I saw that Avaaz has created a petition urging the UN Security Council to impose a no-fly zone in Libya.  Avaaz's campaign for sanctions two weeks ago with 450,000 emails stunned the Security Council office.

One must admit, such actions often do get attention.

Is Gov. Scott Walker following the Wisconsin Constitution?

The preamble of the Wisconsin Constitution states:

We, the people of Wisconsin, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure its blessings, form a more perfect government, insure domestic tranquility and promote the general welfare, do establish this constitution.

First, Gov. Walker had on his podium at his acceptance speech a sign that that stated, "Wisconsin, Open for Business".

Business generally means a few people, not "the people".  This was clearly shown when Gov. Walker was entrapped into speaking with a resident of Manhattan, New York,  David Koch, Executive Vice President of Koch Industries.

Second, by raising such a contentious issue as restricting the rights of public employee unions, no matter at what level of government, he definitely is not seeking domestic tranquility.

Third, promoting the welfare of business over people is not promoting the general welfare.

Some would argue that this is a case for impeachment.  Whether it is or is not, the Wisconsin Legislature is controlled by Republicans; impeachment is a moot point.

Maybe some Wisconsin dissident would display this version of the Wisconsin Constitution:

We, the corporations of Wisconsin and elsewhere, grateful to the Republican Party for our freedom, in order to secure its blessings, form a more pliant government, insure domestic tranquility and promote corporate welfare, do establish this constitution.

Compared to North Africans, Tea Partiers are quibblers

Many people in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen are staging wide-spread protests against autocratic governments that were elected, if you can call it that, by sham processes.  Their governments have been corrupt, the top raking in all kinds of benefits with no accountability, the bottom requiring bribes to do the simplest things, like even apply for a government job.

The protesters are fighting the police and army with their large presence, stones, and returned tear-gas canisters (made in the U.S.A.)  In Alexandria, the protest was so overwhelming that the police gave up and shared water bottles with the protesters.

Meanwhile, back in the U.S.A., underwriter of these corrupt regimes in the name of defense, some Tea Party supporters are appearing in public with weapons to protect themselves against "the overreaching government".

How is the government "overreaching"?  It is taxing them more than they would like to provide services they claim they don't like.  They complain that their freedoms are being taken away, but it seems that they have plenty of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly to express their views.  Have you heard any reports of blocking of the internet, shutting down newspapers, or canceling the licences of broadcasters in order to silence supporters of the Tea Party?

How were these "overreaching" government activities achieved?  By elected officials and their appointees.  Sure, we see flawed elections.  But the Floridas and Ohios are the exceptions rather than the rule.  Do we have corruption and bribery?  Sure!  But how often are those who complain about or who expose corruption put in jail or otherwise silenced?  If such silencing was going on, would we even have a Tea Party?

If America is supposedly "exceptional", would we even have a Tea Party to complain about all the things that "are wrong"?

Change with a carrot instead of a stick

I was wandering around the New York Times and was attracted to a Freakonomics article "How Much Do Protests Matter?" I surprised myself by reading many of the following comments. One comment completely diverted my attention; it mentioned the Carrot Mob.

The about page of the Carrot Mob had a 10-minute video that kept my short attention span attentive. Essentially, they take bids among business for some improvement; in this case, liquor stores in a give area were asked to bid on a percentage of sales they were willing to commit to energy efficiency. The winning bid was 22 percent!

The owner's son said they typically gross $1,000-2,000 per day. He guessed that the partial day sale, I think it was two or three hours, would gross $5,000. It grossed over $9,000 for that short period.

With that money, they made several energy improvements, including new seals on their coolers.

The Carrot Mob idea has caught on in several states and countries. The next Carrot Mob is in Brooklyn, NY on August 23. The Mob will descend on a Deli that bid 21% for whatever. I didn't take much care in reading the rather disjointed announcement. See http://brooklyn.carrotmob.org for your own take on what is going on.

What's happening on the streets in Tehran?

From most of the news available, it would seem the people of Iran have been quiet while Ayotollah Khameni presents Ahmadinejad with a decree confirming the latter's election to a second term and while a trial of over 100 accused is proceeding.

All is not quiet. The Lede in the New York Times has many photos and videos showing otherwise. See http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/four-years-ago-in-tehran-a-more-united-regime/

What can we do about Iran?

Not much.

Almost anything anybody does, whether it be politician, newscaster, or even blogger, is seen as foreign meddling. Of course, any regime that has officially-sanctioned human rights abuses considers any comment as interfering with internal affairs. In the case of Iran, they do have a bit more justification for paranoia given the long history of other nations directly interfering.

I had a scheme to cause a minor disruption in Iran. It was not something that would put the country in a snarl, but something that, if enough people participated, would be noticed by the government. But I thought better of it. It would be "foreign meddling" and could provoke a similar disruption in other countries.

Many people are holding solidarity demonstrations, both peaceful and violent. If people in Iran know about them, they may feel others are supporting them. However, isn't that kind of news being suppressed? Besides, how much have anti-US demonstrations changed American foreign policy, even when a large portion of Americans sympathize with the demonstrators?

There are three things that Americans can do.

First, write to the President, your Congressional representative, and your state's Senators supporting the measured response that the President has given.

Second, donate to human rights organizations that are following the situation.

Third, keep yourself informed of developments.

Fourth, drive less! I almost forgot this. Iran is one of the authoritarian petro states. Oil is propping them up. If oil use declines radically, these states will have less funding and become weaker. Because oil prices have dropped dramatically from their eyes, they already have some severe economic and political difficulties. Less oil consumption around the world makes these states even shakier.