Perhaps it is time Filipino activists re-evaluate things. It is becoming evident that traditional protest movement organisers and leaders like Leftists and ‘civil society’ cliques are no longer able to inspire the popular sentiment and, as such, no longer possess the clout to mobilise the numbers and secure sufficient media mileage for their causes. For all the connections with journalists and media personalities we are led to believe these people enjoy, the results dont seem to match that perception.
Perhaps we are seeing today the effects of a prolonged case of society-wide rally fatigue. Worse, it could be more a case of the powers-that-be learning, over the past decade how best to deal with protest rallies. Indeed, no thanks to the rally overdose of the mid-2000s, Pinoy politicians are now well-appraised of the best defense against grassroots uprisings that aim mainly to attract attention but fail to demonstrate endurance – and that is to ignore them.
Unless I am missing something or have not stepped back far enough from the picture I am seeing, there seems to be no one else.
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Groups commonly associated (fairly, or unfairly) with the “Left” have largely been discredited, perhaps (1) by the larger collapse of the Communist bloc which were the real-life implementations of the musings of their key thought leaders and (2) by the misguided posturings of some of their former leaders in the Philippines’ quaint “party-list” politics. Groups commonly associated with the new social media “empowered” clique of activists may have never even possessed any clout to begin with; that the clout we all thought they possessed were mere figments of a vision blinkered down to a 5-inch range by our mobile devices.
Thus, an important point to highlight is the quantifiable political power wielded by today’s activist groups. Numbers of followers, “reach” statistics, and other digital metrics don’t seem to really provide good indicators of how much digital activity translates to influence that yields real world effects or outcomes. Today’s protest groups can essentially be ignored by the objects of their protest without consequence. They present no real threat to said powers-that-be. Worse, they present nothing directly relevant to the general public.
Four-season activism: Connie Picciotto’s White House ‘peace tent’
The other important ingredient:
Endurance.
The “Occupy” Movement perhaps should have taught us a few lessons. The Occupy guys mounted protest actions that lasted days. Weeks even. And these were the nice guys. The really badass ones make protests their entire way of life.
In Washington DC in the US, Concepcion ‘Connie’ Picciotto set up a ‘peace tent’ outside the White House in 1981 to protest all war and champion the cause of peace. The encampment has been there as a permanent fixture ever since — 33 years and counting!
In for the long haul: Aboriginal Embassy in front of Parliament House, Canberra
In New York City’s Central Park in 1982, one million people demonstrated against nuclear weapons and for an end to the cold war arms race. It was the largest anti-nuclear protest and the largest political demonstration in American history. And on International Day of Nuclear Disarmament protests were held on June 20, 1983 at 50 sites across the United States. Wrote Tad Daley on the Huffington Post in 2012 (the 30th Anniversary of the Central Park rally)…
The June 12 gathering was the apogee of a citizen action campaign known as the “Nuclear Freeze,” which took flight immediately after the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan. It was a passionate, intense, and indeed terrified response to accelerating nuclear weapons programs, an across-the-board military buildup, and infinitely irresponsible bombast from high Administration officials — even Vice President George H.W. Bush! — about our nation’s willingness to “wage and win” something they called a “protracted nuclear war.”
Hundreds of thousands of peaceful demonstrators gather in New York’s Central Park, 1982 to protest the nuclear arms race.
Suffice to say, these guys didn’t just gather in a park, take selfies, then go home before dark to logon to Twitter and promote the latest Samsung device. These activists meant — and still mean — business. It is no wonder Filipinos are no longer able to coalesce into a national force worthy of the attention of people who matter. There is no such passion and conviction evident in this tired beaten-down society. Considering the Philippines’ most pressing issues bring its activists head-to-head with no less than the President himself, nothing short of a real kick-ass protest movement is needed to move things along. So far we haven’t seen any such worthy enough to take its place amongst the world’s greatest protest movements.
[NB: Parts of this article were lifted from the Wikipedia.org articles “Aboriginal Tent Embassy” and “Anti-nuclear protests in the United States” in a manner compliant to the terms stipulated in the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License that governs usage of content made available in this site. Photos courtesy DailyMail.co.uk, IndyMedia.org.au, and CBSLocal.com respectively.]
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
Your pen is like a scalpel blade. Or, your keyboard is like a chopping board. Okay, I’m bad at this.
Maybe the blogosphere needs someone like Crisostomo Ibarra’s Simoun. Would he be able to bring about change today? I’m slowly getting convinced that it might have to come to something like that someday.
At the end of the day, the politicians aren’t afraid because they have the dependent, begging “masses” in their pockets.
Activists need to learn that unless their movements translate into actual political power, like a solid voting bloc or a party that fields its own candidates based on principles, it’s all just noise.
Even if the activists do organize, play the game and stay for the long haul, in the long run, the idiot “masses” will still outnumber them. The politicians have been doing this waaaay longer than them.
People are disillusioned on protests and demonstrations. They are disappointed by the EDSAs “Hakot demonstrations”. The Aquinos demonstrated against Marcos. Now, the result is: they are worse than Marcos…they are even worse thieves, feudalists, and oligarchs.
The Churches are not involved in politics anymore, except the Iglesia ni Kristo Church.
Iglesia ni Kristo is involved in political block voting.
However, I believe the political volcano is brewing inside , not outside. There are ends to the patience of people. If they snap: that will be the day…French, Russia, and other countries demonstrated that in their revolutions.
Yea Russia and France really showed what happens when the mob rules…. Napoleon and Lenin so this will be good for the Philippines.
lENIN had a good run, and Stalin stopped Hitler from ruling Europe. Not too shabby for a country that has been thwarted,by the the west at every step, by the west.The same West that should have been grateful to Russia/USSR for winning the war on the Eastern front. But Greed crept in and the rest,as they say, is history.
Really, REALLY. and then they did what kill 40 million plus of their own, your and idiot to think they are good in any way. Stalin took out Hitler out of necessity. 500k died just to take Berlin. think of that in today’s standards…. US only lost 300k+ in all of WWII.
Whats with the insult JIM? Am I in-correct in stating they defeated Hitler?Stalin didn’t ‘TAKE OUT HITLER OUT OF NECESSITY’, he was double-crossed by Hitler and was defending his country when the Wehrmacht ran out of gas in the middle of the winter,on their way to Moscow.
Pograms/Ethnic cleansings, or whatever you, or anyone else, wants to call them have been happening since The Jews Killed the Cannanites, and The Jews and all other people have been backing their actions up with the whole “GOD” argument ever since.(Funny how the whole murder of the Canannites doesn’t get too much attention these days in Western classrooms,HUH?). At least Hitler did not do what he did and then stand behind GOD and neither did Stalin.
BTW, was defeating Hitler such a good idea to begin with? He saw a bunch of greedy ass J@#-Bankers imposing economic slavery on his people, and decided to do something about it,and the Franco-Vichy Gov’t. stood there and let him do it too.
Just how well did the Western schools that you attended inform you about what the terms of the ‘Treaty of Versailles’ actually were? Huh,Jim? Didn’t hear much about the butchering of the Cannanites EITHER, did ya Jim? Maybe a li’l too much Anne Frank and not enough FRANK discussion on what was really going on in Europe post ‘Treaty of Versailles’?
By the free-wheeling way you hurled that insult my way I’d bet you are one of those misguided old guys who thinks Truman dropped the bomb(s) in order to save lives,yes? HA!,LOL!!! to save lives? To think there were, and probably still are, people who believed that line of shit is just incredible. if you think so, then you’ve got some nerve calling me an idiot.
You don’t understand anything about history. You are obviously a progressive who for some odd reason think Stalin and Hitler are good in any way. They are butchers and criminals who found their way to power. It was said the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. Yes Europe paid for their idiotic Treaty of Versailles and that somehow merits or defends what Hitler did. Really “western classrooms” that says it all about you. Your nose is stuck so high where it can’t even smell the roses. BTW I am hardly defending the Europeans who are also stuck in an elitist progress trap. Greedy Bankers HA! Capitalism is the only way a country can lift its self out of poverty and no amount of social engineering will help. THE IS NO INCOME EQUALITY AND NEVER WILL BE… because there are always winnings and losers.
@JIM , you do not know anything about me, you just don’t. I had nothing to do with what happened in 1916 or 1933 or the winter of 1942.The right or wrong of it is a matter of interpretation.
You MIGHT have it all figured out,YEP. The who, what , why, where and how. The right or wrong of it as well.
but not a single answer to any of the questions I posed to you,no?
Just quick judgements of about what you think you know about me, and a couple of insults.
RIGHT.
@JIM, No insults…just a different view,HERE:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/06/09/world-war-ii-unknown-war-paul-craig-roberts/
HA HA History from a 9-11 truther site good one. All you do is filibuster away. You are much like the Philippine politics and activism… its all a game show. Your revisionist history has all been played before.
All you know how to do is judge/insult, Dude.
you have said nothing that has any basis in fact.The war in Africa was lost, or is that hear-say? Rommel had been defeated, Russia had Von Paulus entire Army surrender, all by Junr 1942 ! Two years before ‘D-Day’, laugh all you want. The truth of the facts bears out what PCR states in the article I cited.What do you have in the way of a rebuttal? NOTHING!
Like I said your judgements and insults make nothing a fact.SO, Dream-on, dude…
it is not MY revisionist anything either.Unlike you, I wasn’t born yet.
????????????????????? Your stuck on what ever. Just filibuster away. No insults but the truth burns.
If the truth burns your ass must be on fire. Not only dd you not present any facts as a rebuttal but you used an in-appropriate word, fillibuster, for the situation. It leads me to believe that you not only do not know what your talking about, have nothing but insults, your ass in on fire and do not know what the word fillibuster even means.What a dope(One good insult deserves another huh?).LOL, You’ll get no more reply’s from me.G’day.
The very sign that people have become tired of street demonstrations is back in 2005. Cory tried to raise a People Power thing against Arroyo, after the fallout over Hacienda Luisita. But it failed, thankfully.
They are not activists they are paid lobbyists. Think how someone with a little money can get a few hundred or a thousand people to protest anything. It would be a great TV show to interview these protesters about the issues. I bet I could get people to protest a ham sandwich with a little money. BTW most activists are paid by NGO or payola from a politician.
Enough protests.
Roll up the Guillotines!
Now that is what needs to be done, drag these thieving scumbags by the scruff of their sleazy ass necks, right up to the block! Put their scrawny ass neck right ON the block!!!Hold em down……
…..and let her rip!!!!
I second that notion. Stop with the pussyfooting and start turning heads. Literally. That seems to be the only option for these pig headed sons of bitches.
Hangga’t di isinasama si Noynoy sa ipinoprotesta, ayaw ng mga tao maniwala na di moro- moro ang rally. Ang problema pa wala silang tiwala sa maaaring pumalit. Si Cardinal Tagle at isang matinong pulitiko ang manawagan, pag hindi naglabasan lahat ang sukang-suka sa gobyernong ito. Ang Leftist kasi kontra lagi kung sino nakaupo. Baka kailangan Ex=CJ Puno at Cardinal Tagle ang manawagan sa Rally. Dadagsa ang mga tao, lalo na kung sa EDSA gaganapin.
Maybe it is that the whole ‘Left vs. Right’ argument is an outdated paradigm.Indeed, when looked at skeptically the ‘Left’ is difficult to discern from the ‘Right’, as they are looking(?)like one in the same these days.
MAYBE a better way to propose a shift in the ‘Activist’s collective approach is to point out where the battle lines are to be drawn.
A REAL good place to do that would be to suggest that it is not the ‘Left’ vs. the ‘Right’ but rather the ‘RICH’ vs. the ‘POOR’, and anyone wanna guess who is winning the battle?