Adaptive Curmudgeon

A couple weeks ago I got a nomination to this prestigious(?) award.

The shadowy Liebster organization is jointly run by George Soros and the Koch Brothers to unknown ends.*

A “nominating” e-mail arrived a couple weeks ago and promptly ignored it. Then someone’s blog linked to mine (probably while I was doing something pointless like gazing at my woodpile or fretting over inflation).  Today I decided I’d better do my part and respond.

I’m supposed to “nominate” five other “small” blogs and send the award on to them. Thus keeping the chain letter going forever. Since rules annoy me and I’m only half aware of what’s going on in the “blogosphere” I’m going to nominate only one blog.

The Ultimate Answer To Kings. Go there and read it.  Now!  I’m something of a homesteader myself and know how tough it can be.  Joel at UATK seems to be going at it with endless gusto and therefore his blog is a great read.

I discovered I’d been nominated twice and I hadn’t said thanks or anything. Apparently I don’t play well with others.  But better late than never; thanks to Excels at Nothing who confused me with someone who is smart and Den of the Wolfman who groks that this is all a plan for total domination by our internet overlords. He also beat me to the punch by ignoring the chain letter method and nominating only one blog; mine (blush!).  Thanks to all.

A.C.

*I’m making that up.

Unlike hobby protests, serious protests can be (and usually are) brutal. Hobbyists who marinate in 1960’s rose colored memories (often through second hand exposure) think protests are fun. Serious protests are not fun. Serious protests are something to avoid. Avoiding chaos is the whole purpose of society. Societies, organizations, governments, free citizens, and subjects alike all would rather avoid serious protests.

Not infrequently serious protests foment war. Damage can be widespread. Sometimes people are killed. Established orders (good or bad) can give way to absolutely unpredictable results. There’s no guarantee the aftermath will be better than what came before.

For all these reasons, serious protests are rare, frightening, and often fail. When hobbyists Occupied Wall Street they pretended they were a serious protest. It is fortunate for all of us, especially them, that they were just playing and didn’t unleash anything particularly deadly.

Here are five examples of serious protests. They were all dangerous. They all came only as a last resort. They all shook the firmament of their societies. Note that they span divergent societies. Note that they span centuries of history. Note that some succeeded and some failed. Note that none was without risk or the possibility of disaster. When you read about these you’ll know that Occupy Wall Street is just (so far) so much bullshit and posing.  There is no guarantee you can go home after a serious protest as if it was a spring break holiday:

1. Tienanmen Square (1989) “Attention Communist rulers of our home nation of China. The Communist system is making us poor and pissed off and we’re not going to take it anymore. We know that it’s dangerous to oppose the Government but we’re occupying a public place to make sure you address our concerns.” (Aftermath: The Chinese government killed about 800 people in one day to utterly crush the Tienanmen Square movement.)
2. Polish Shipyard Strikes (1980): “Attention Communist Party members here and their puppet masters in Soviet Russia. The Communist system is making us poor and pissed off and we’re not going to take it anymore. We want labor reform and some basic rights like freedom of speech and religion. If we don’t get what we want you’re never going to get a ship out of this harbor again!” (Aftermath: The Polish state became far freer with limited bloodshed. Lech Walesa is a hero.)
3. French Rebellion (1792): “We like the freedoms that the American citizens have and wish the same thing for ourselves. The monarchy has to go.” (Aftermath: the French revolution might have superficial parallels to the American revolution but it spun wildly out of control.  It might have started as an “Arab Spring” and maybe guillotining King Louis XVI was standard protocol but it turned into an orgy of violence where some 1,400 people were imprisoned and guillotined.)
4. American Rebellion (1776): “Hey King! You’re not the boss of us! Your taxes and governing style piss us off. We know you’re going to send an army to kill us and we’re prepared to kill you right back.” (Aftermath: The American revolution wasn’t all tri-cornered hats and fifes!  While we all remember the shot heard round the world at Concord, we all forget that a quarter of New York City was destroyed.  By comparison with a hobby protest; hippies in 2011 whining about student loans aren’t signing documents with a 10% chance of death and nobody is suggesting drums and patchouli will level Manhattan.  Luckily it turned out well.  America, with significant help from France, became a beacon of freedom and liberty.  Go team!)
5. Martin Luther (1517): “Hey Pope! Despite the fact that the church is hugely powerful and you’re said to be the infallible liaison to God I’m calling bullshit on you and your organization. Here is a list of 95 specific reasons why I think the way you’ve managed the church is wrong. You can doom me to hell but you can’t shut me up.” (Aftermath: Schism. The church did not take well to Mr. Luther’s complaints and soon a hodgepodge of wars erupted sufficient to fill several history texts.  Notably the Thirty Years’ War which was a perfect demonstration of the term “cannon fodder”.  I’m insufficiently skilled in religion/history to summarize the mess that stomped all over Europe but I know a whole lot of peasants fought to death while the rest starved and cowered in fear.  The only outcome I can really quantify is that the debate over indulgences was over until Al Gore started marketing carbon credits.)

So there you have it. Serious protests are brutal and can light the fuse to epic changes; some good, some bad, but none painless. Occupy Wall Street yahoos whining about student loans have not fully considered the gates of hell that a serious protest can open. The right (and responsibility) of civic protest is a component of being a free American citizen, but it is not a toy. It is the last resort for a serious, legitimate, and unbearable series of grievances. Hobby protesters think protesting is fun; a way to kill a weekend. It is not. The OWS folks and their ilk are children fiddling with a loaded gun without comprehending the the tragedy they might inadvertently cause.

I coined the term “hobby protest” to describe the type of protests where people take to the streets for seemingly minor issues and with seemingly ill defined goals. Occupy Wall Street (OWS) isn’t the first of them and it won’t be the last. What are some other examples?

One thing I wanted to avoid was the medias myopic view that the 1960’s protests were the watershed moment of the entire history of Western Civilization. (The media has never seen a protest that didn’t make them want to listen to Bob Dylan and talk about Woodstock.) I tried to think of centuries old (universal) examples of hobby protests. Possibly ones in different cultures and various locations. I couldn’t think of any. (Perhaps the Temperance movement? Luddites?)

The best I could do were all recent. Here are a few recent examples of hobby protests:

1. Occupy Wall Street (2011): “We want uh…stuff. And rich people suck. So they should give us their money. The government sucks too…so it should give us more stuff. And the student loans we voluntarily took to study unmarketable subjects are huge so we shouldn’t have to pay them back.” (Aftermath: Nothing yet.)
2. Greece (2011): “The government is out of money. We want to keep getting the stuff it’s been giving us. We’re going to break windows and burn cars until the government has more money and gives it to us.” (Aftermath: Burning cars has yet to generate more money for anyone.)
3. Los Angeles Riots (1992): “Cops who beat up Rodney King were acquitted and that pisses off. We’re going to spend a week burning buildings and cars. We’ll also beat the shit out of an innocent trucker. Why? Because he’s white and somehow bludgeoning a man for his race makes up for racism.” (Aftermath: Several destroyed neighborhoods from fire, looting, and arson. Regionald Denny, who I think was the epitome of an innocent bystander was severely injured (as well as many others). Rodney King, regardless of the LAPD’s stupidity isn’t exactly a saint; since his 10 minutes of fame in ’92 he has been arrested in 1995 (90 day sentence), in 2003 he wrecked his car fleeing the police while drunk (broken pelvis), in 2007 he “innocently” received a shotgun wound, in 2011 he had two events (driving erratically without a license and later arrested for driving under the influence). Either Rodney King has the kind of luck that redefines mathematics or he’s a thug. If you’re going to riot to protect an innocent man this isn’t the Rosa Parks you’d hope for. Meanwhile the LA Police department started with a bad reputation at the time and now, big riot and decades later, still has a bad reputation.)

In my next post I’ll contrast with historic “serious protests”. These are a lot more powerful, and dangerous, than hobby protests.

I think Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and the mini-me protests that sprang up to duplicate it elsewhere were “hobby protests”. Since I coined the term, I might as well fully define “hobby protest”. I’ve used OWS as a current example but it is by no means unique. Here goes:

The whole point of a “hobby protest” is to have fun by cavorting in the public sphere. By definition, a “hobby protest” must be covered by the media or it ceases to exist. OWS seemed to be courting the media almost as much as the media was falling all over itself to cover OWS. They fed on each other. Non-hobby protests (“serious protests”) can be self sustaining without press coverage. For example, the anti-apartheid protests in South Africa which happened during a media blackout. Notice the difference? Without press coverage, OWS would have been “bored students and hippies on a campout in an unusual location” and nothing more. Folks in South Africa had things that needed to be addressed with or without a camera nearby.

For a “hobby protest” the experience of a group activity is part of the motivation, as are drama, and boisterousness. I suspect a “hobby protest” is fun, especially for folks with a gregarous personality. Maybe a “hobby protest” is akin to a large sporting event where the audience gets to take the field?

Hobby protests do not benefit from clearly defined and attainable goals, humility, efficient organization, self-policing, and unobtrusiveness. Therefore hobby protests tend to have less of these characteristics. Also fretting about portable toilets and parking space is boring. Too much emphasis on logistics detracts from the fun.

Hobby protests benefit from soulful music, amusing antics, funny costumes, and minor vandalism. So they tend to showcase them.

Hobby protests can be satisfying to the participants even if they accomplish no permanent change. Thus, meeting their demands won’t (in itself) end the protests; if anything it will encourage more. For example, if the OWS people got everything they wanted (including an autographed photo of Obama, a pony, and pancakes for breakfast) they’d be protesting something next year. (And they certainly will be out protesting, bank on it.) Maybe the issue du jour will be an environmental issue, or something related to alternative sexuality, or genetically modified carrots, or something I can’t even guess. The point is that there’s always something to protest if it’s your hobby. By comparison, if the TEA Party folks got what they want, they’d vanish without a peep pretty quickly. The TEA Party folks just aren’t that fun loving and their protests weren’t all that fun for them. You get the vibe that the TEA Party folks would rather be home pruning the Azaleas.

Most tellingly, “hobby protests” only exist where they are tolerated (even coddled). Berkley has protests constantly. Why? Because pepper spraying a hippie is their version of “oppression”. China has been quiet since 1989. Why? Because the government killed about 800 people in Tienanmen Square.

(I’m not advocating Chinese style repression but the Birkenstock crowd should be thankful American protesters have not been silenced because they are dead. Whenever some twerp is wailing about pepper spray and protesting about cuttlefish in Guam I’m glad I’m not seeing the Chinese response of tank tracks over crowds.)

In Part III I’ll list some historic “hobby protests”.

I have long considered it a done deal that Athens would plunge into riots this summer. However, I expected the winter chill to keep things from boiling over for a while. Either I’m too much of a northerner and overestimate a Greek winter or (and this is more likely) I underestimated folks’ ability to confuse “bitching about things we dislike” and “changing things we dislike”.

Thus Athens is said to be in riots recently because apparently “austerity” can be counteracted by rioting. Really? And how is this supposed to help?

In honor of Greek “excitement” I’m posting a set of articles I wrote around Christmas and had planned to post around May. Is that not adaptive? (At least more so that burning cars to make money appear?)

The first post (which is not specific to Greece but rather rioting) arrives tomorrow.

“There are precocious children in pre-school who have never lived in an America in which the Senate has passed a budget.”

My unsolicited, uninformed, and unpopular thoughts on foreign events in 2012 (for everywhere but the financial/socialist rabbit hole that is Europe):

21. Vladimir Putin, because he is Darth Vader, will retain power.
22. Kim Jung-un, because he is the third son in a line of power whores, will retain power.
23. Large numbers of Americans and Europeans will incrementally decide that China, which appears to own everything, isn’t quite as stable as it seems. As soon as they realise this they’ll have a collective involuntary bowel movement. The rest of us already knew we were screwed so it’ll be just another day.
24. Guantanamo will remain open. Nobody will care unless a Republican wins the White House.
25. American troops (or some form of euphemism that means “mercenary”) will still be fighting in Afghanistan through most of 2012. Nobody will care unless a Republican wins the White House.

Foreign Events (In The Progressive Utopian Bliss That Is The EU):

26. Several European states will get new Prime Ministers. If three or more progressives win, the phase “European Spring” will be on trumpeted in the New York Times. If three or more conservatives win, the phrase “Meltdown” will be used. Meanwhile the nations in the real “Arab Spring” will be busily killing dissidents and non-believers.
27. Europe’s slow burn was demographically written in stone years ago and it’s still playing out exactly as expected. Things will get ugly because apparently folks would rather let it play out in full technicolor than do anything at all to adapt. If you’re watching from a distance, make popcorn. If you’re living there…uh…good luck.
28. Annoying people which have spent most of my life telling me how awesome Europe is and why America should be more like it will suddenly find some other target of adulation. Anywhere with socialised medicine will be a good candidate but it’ll be increasingly hard to find such nations that don’t have current riots in their capital cities.
29. The European common currency, which chains drowning and strong swimmers together, will persist even as everyone has a theory about how to deep six it. I’m not sure what will happen after 2012 but watching Brussels work though the mess they’ve created will be like seeing a sausage made back into a dead cow.
30. Everyone who’s ever had to kick a lazy relative off the couch will sympathise with Germany. Everyone who’s ever camped on a friend’s couch will sympathise with Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain.
31. The oil based socialist utopia of Venezuela will continue it’s slide into oblivion.
32. Haiti, which was a shithole before its earthquake, will continue to be a shithole.
33. Japan, which had an efficient and orderly society before its earthquake, will continue recovering at an impressive rate. I will put a Japanese bumper sticker on my Honda and set my Chevy on fire.
34. Somalia, which didn’t have an earthquake, will keep developing it’s pirate based economy.

I could be wrong… wouldn’t that be great!

Here’s the link to Cassandra Report I.
Here’s the link to Cassandra Report II.