Daily Kos: Why yesterday’s protests were stupid
Now’s as good a time as any to take a break from mocking the teabaggers in favor of a more serious look at what they accomplished yesterday.
I’ve never made a secret for my distaste of most street protests, and of groups like Code Pink that think they are accomplishing anything with their street theater. But when I set out to write Taking on the System, my book on effective organizing in the 21st century, I had to dig deep to figure out why I didn’t like them, and how to differentiate the usual ineffective ANSWER-organized protests with those that actually had a positive effect (e.g. the Jena Six and pro-immigration protests of a few years ago).
I finally determined that for a protest to be effective it needed to:
be novel and/or unexpected
have a sympathetic, singular, and media-friendly message
provide great visuals
tap into a hot-button and timely issue.
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