Many of us, if not most, have no experience with political activism. As Americans we are more accustomed to watching protests on TV in foreign countries than exercising our own political rights at home. Ironically, in a country where our freedoms are enshrined in the Constitution, very few of us participate in government and make our opinions and voices heard. The result, as we all know, has been taxation without representation in the form of war and financial bailouts that go directly into the pockets of criminal bankers. Until the financial crisis hit, many of us had been living in a state of consumer denial and political apathy more correctly defined as learned helplessness. In other words, so long as we had some comfort in the form of cheap material goods, and so long as political corruption did not affect our jobs or our pocketbooks, we were content to let things take their course.
Americans have always had a high tolerance for inequality, with each individual believing that they will always find themselves on the right side of the rich poor divide. Because inequality is not only tolerated, but actively promoted in America, it has provoked economic and social decline in the form of unemployment, poverty, crime, violence, neurosis and despair. While criminals in the banking sector, corporations, and our government have deliberately brought the United States to a state of collapse, we have passively allowed it to happen. The problem with the United States is not just economic, it has to do with our values and beliefs as a nation. By focusing on individualism, short-term gain, material comfort, personal leisure and mindless entertainment, we have forgotten that a resilient, enduring society is built on merit, hard work, intellectual debate, cooperation, thrift, and honesty. This political amnesia and negligence has allowed the greed, corruption, and criminal activity of the rich 1% to damage our nation and our democracy. Now that it has become clear as a mountain stream that the government does not represent our interests and is bought and paid for by the criminal elite at catastrophic expense to the American public through mass unemployment, foreclosures and evictions; now that what was the middle class has become a feudal underclass representing 99% of America, we are waking up and remembering Jefferson’s wisdom that “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”
A protest has to start somewhere. In this case it started in New York and was aptly titled Occupy Wall Street. While initially ignored by the mainstream media, the internet and social networking spread the message quickly, as it had in the Arab Spring. While few appreciated the irony of the Middle East (demonized by the West as primitive, authoritarian and corrupt) providing an example of how to assert our rights, the result was nonetheless successful as more and more Americans began to understand, perhaps for the first time, that political activism is possible in the United States.
In the face of peaceful protest, police brutality and repression gave us a candid glimpse of the true nature of our democracy. Protestors were cordoned off by police barricades, pepper-sprayed, clubbed with batons, and arrested for assembling peacefully in public and private space. The government hoped that by cracking down early with violence, intimidation and arrests they would keep people in fear and prevent them addressing their grievances through direct political action. But as the stand-off in Zuccotti Park illustrated, when the people unite in peaceful opposition, the government must back down or risk completely losing its threadbare legitimacy. The US government and the corporate 1% that run it know they cannot win a game of chicken with the American people; because we are the government. Again it is appropriate to quote Jefferson, “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny, when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” The Occupy Wall Street movement represents the end of the line for the status quo and the start of a new beginning. It is time for all of us to organize and take to the streets to demand accountability from our government.
Protest is both hard and amazingly simple. For a protest to be successful everyone must join. It is not enough to sit in one’s living room and complain to sympathetic friends and family. These complaints only leave us feeling depressed and impotent in the face of the problems that surround us. A nation of armchair activists accomplishes nothing. We are not seen, nor heard, and by failing to gather in public we abet an irresponsible, corrupt and predatory government. Furthermore, by staying home and allowing a brave few to fight our battles in the street, we rob public protest of its true source of power: people. When few people gather they are more likely to be ignored, intimidated, and signaled out for abuse. For those of us who rationalize that we don’t have time to protest, we must ask ourselves: when will we find the time to defend our rights? We must also understand that citizenship is an obligation that requires us to donate our time to a cause larger than our own immediate self-interest. In other words, we have to make time to protest. In a nation that, according to Nielsen’s “Three Screen Repot”, spends approximately five hours a day watching TV, this time is available. And for those of us who consider voting the extent of our political obligation, by now it must be clear that voting for candidates funded by corporations is a waste of time. The truth is the main roadblock to activism for many of us is simply a lack of experience. But now that we have made our decision to take part, because we are fed up, our nerves and fears turn to resolve and even excited anticipation as we prepare for the fight.
When you finally walk out that door with your poster in hand and meet in the public space with others who are frustrated like yourself, you find your sense of isolation, doubts, fear, and anxiety evaporate in the light of a common cause. You realize that there are in fact many people of all ages like you, upset with their government and its lack of accountability. Although they come from all walks of life and backgrounds, talking to them you realize you have a lot in common: principally the desire for fair-paid work, a roof over your head, and food on the table for yourself and your family.
So this is what it’s like to be politically active, you think, feeling the energy of the crowd and the rush of being part of something larger than yourself. You realize to your amazement that political participation is fun; it is a social event, an excuse to meet and talk to other people, and to express opinions that hitherto have been repressed. “This is what democracy looks like!,” you respond to the chant, savoring the truth of the statement. And you wonder why you waited so long to participate. The community you longed for in empty suburban streets, apartment complexes with closed doors, sterile strip malls, and alienating freeways is a political one, one in which people discuss ideas, agree and disagree and form opinions to exert pressure on the government to draft policies and laws to manage the nation according to the people’s needs. This is not the city council meeting where you and twenty other citizens voice your opposition to some ill-advised development plan, only to see it rammed through by cynical council members; this is a space of true compromise and cooperation, in which people are not bought and things are not decided beforehand in backroom deals. Occupy Wall Street envisions a democracy where everyone who participates has an influence on the path we take as a nation. Imagine that.
When you do decide to get out on the street, it’s best to be prepared. I set about making some posters the other day for a local 99% protest. I went to the store and bought some poster board and mused as I did on the possibility that, as the Occupy Wall Street protests grew, there would be a run on art supplies. Having seen protests before and having participated in one at the university where I used to work, I noticed that the posters people made were often hard to read. The key to making a good poster is to be succinct in your message and to write in big letters. While this may seem obvious, many protesters try to cram manifestos onto their posters, and write in cuneiform or like a doctor filling out a prescription. I encountered this problem when I first sat down and brainstormed some ideas of what I wanted to say and share with the public. One of my calls to action was to be the following:
CUT THE DEFENSE BUDGET
INVEST IN INFRASTRUCTURE
R&D, TRAINING & EDUCATION
TO CREATE JOBS
AND MAKE AMERICA COMPETITIVE
Now try writing that on a 22” by 28” poster board; if you can fit it, it will not be legible to a motorist at a stoplight or a passerby on the other side of the street. Furthermore, unnecessary articles, prepositions, and conjunctions need to be eliminated. So I boiled it down to the following:
Which brings me to another point about posters. You’ll notice how the red draws attention to the poster itself, while the black lettering stands out on the white background. Readability is key. If I had written black on red, I would have lost my audience. It might be funny to think about protesting in this way, as marketing, but it is. You want to get your ideas across, and as any graphic designer or ad-person will tell you, the font, color and placement of the text is key in achieving this. Block letters are therefore de rigueur. Also the beauty of writing on half sheets of printer paper is that your sign is reusable and can contain any number of messages as the political situation demands. Also, if you make a mistake in the lettering or spelling, as sometimes happens to even the most detail-oriented activist, you can start over and not mess up the poster itself. In regard to lettering, it is good to start in pencil to make sure the words fit. There is nothing more frustrating than coming to the end of a political statement and having to leave off the last letter. For example:
THE REVOLUTION IS HER-
Also, it is important to avoid categorical statements. For example:
BANKERS ARE CRIMINALS!
While in large part true, this does not get at the root of the problem; and it makes us feel helpless to change anything. Instead, make your message a call to action:
In the above poster, we are going to do something about the bankers: try them in a court of law and then jail those who are guilty of crimes such as fraud and insider trading, otherwise known as theft. We also make the association between the theft of bankers, and the fact that it has caused the economy to collapse resulting in high unemployment and the lack of fair-paid jobs for those who normally engage in productive work, and not financial speculation with other people’s money.
Like your resume, the ideal poster should include action verbs that motivate people. While the poster above pushes the limit for space and therefore has to discard verbs, this final example is illustrative:
We could have made many damning and true statements about corporations, but instead we are asking the public at large, and more importantly the government by and for the people, to do something. Revoking, repealing, terminating, eliminating, etc. corporate personhood, would make corporations legally liable for their actions. Add to that the elimination of corporate campaign contributions and we are really making progress in establishing the democracy we have lost.
From one amateur protester to another, I encourage you to make posters with creative messages that express your unique character and highlight your particular grievances. We are the 99%, the country belongs to us, and we will take it back. I look forward to seeing you out there at the next rally.
Further research
Books:
The Lonely American, Jaqueline Olds & Richard S. Schwartz
From Dictatorship to Democracy, Gene Sharp
Documentary:
Inside Job, Charles Ferguson
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