These are the two defining American protests of the past year or so. I would like to say that one is an excellent example of protest and one is an excellent example of what protest is not. This is important to know and understand because protest is one of the more important tools to force responsiveness from our politicians, and each misuse weakens the impact of protest in general.
I would like to say that Occupy Wall Street, or something like it, was largely inevitable. A lot of people are unhappy about a very specific thing, in this case the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression, so they reach for every tool in their possession to do something about it. The issue is that there are two functions to protest. The first they did very well, which is focus the discussion of the community on the topic and raise awareness. They brought together broad coalitions in a handful of locations and forced news focus and passersby. However, the worst financial disaster in almost a century was already a top news story and had already effected almost every one's lives directly. The thing that I feel was the problem was the next bit. The Occupy Wall Street protesters sacrificed the second function of protest, which is to raise awareness and take steps to implement a solution. There was never a unified goal espoused by the Occupiers, there was no solution promoted or even really discussed. There were folks in the Occupy Movement who sought the end of American Capitalism, and others who simply wanted additional funds for start ups and more organized Economic Development Initiatives. In order to maintain the size and attention grabbing nature of the protests those organizers that did exist backed off from this essential function of the debate. As a result, the Movement has slowed and broken up to the point where it no longer commands media attention, and yet no progress to ending the economic problems that spawned the progress has been made that wouldn't have happened anyways.
The websites that engaged in the SOPA Blackout did both forms of debate very effectively. They took an issue that most folks hadn't heard of, a bill in congress that was sailing through the process with bipartisan support mostly because it hadn't yet been examined thoroughly enough, and made it news. Between the witty comments of content producers like The Oatmeal and the temporary loss of essential services such as Wikipedia both news outlets and people who don't normally go looking for news found the information. And what's more, there was a clear cut step that the Blackout websites all promoted, they told people to contact their congressional representatives. People did, and in very large numbers. Before the day was out, several Congressmen who were previously in favor of the bill had withdrawn their support. A few days later legistlation that had been only a matter of time in passing now look almost dead in the water.
The difference is clear, to me at least, in order for protest to be effective in America today there must be that second step. Protest cannot just be used to draw attention to a problem and be allowed to let go at that, protest must also point out a way for us to do something. Problems don't just go away because we complain about them, problems go away because we fix them. When protest ceases to be a catalyst for fixing the problem, then we loose the effectiveness of protest and make things that much more difficult the next time we need protest to both draw attention to a serious problem and provide a method for a solution.
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