Grassroots Organizations & Civil Disobedience
I used to be a member of MoveOn.org. Like millions of other members, I signed online petitions, wrote letters to my representatives, and donated money.
But, can we really expect the drastic changes we need to be achieved over the internet, with the click of a mouse button?
The day I gave up on MoveOn was right after a huge anti-war protest in Washington DC. Other organizations were there such as CodePink and ImpeachBush.org. Weeks before the protest, I was getting email reminders from those groups and others, but there was no mention of it in any of MoveOn’s emails. MoveOn was at the rally, but with a small, select group of people who, I suppose, were acting as representatives of all its members.
Power is in the numbers and MoveOn has over 3 million members. What would happen if it (and other groups) got one million people together for mass civil disobedience protests? Not just for one rally, but on a regular basis. Maybe our leaders would start paying attention.
Civil disobedience doesn’t mean having a big mob riot. It’s not about violence. It’s simply refusing to obey the law in a peaceful, civilized manner. At the anti-war protest, only a handful of people out of approximately 500,000 who attended, participated in civil disobedience. Cindy Sheehan was one (and the only one shown on the news). Despite the fact that it was a 3-day event, the entire protest went mostly ignored by the media. If 500,000 people can't get a message out through a peaceful demonstration, perhaps peaceful civil disobedience could. It's also harder to arrest 500,000 people than five people.
When those five people refused to move from the White House steps, they were carried off by police officers. They got a fine. No difference was made and everyone has pretty much forgotten the whole event now. But, if 500,000 people refused to move, it might make those in Congress and the White House squirm because it would be sending a clear signal that "we the people" are getting restless. "We the people" are not putting up with lies, crimes, and a corrupt government anymore. Revolutions don't happen by themselves.
MoveOn's petitions, house parties, and TV ads aren’t working (Conservatives don’t pay attention to anything by MoveOn.org anyway), so these grassroots organizations need to take it a step further. They need to move the fight from the internet to the White House steps.
As individuals, we’ve done everything we could. We inform and educate others on our blogs, we plead with our representatives for reform, and we donate money to causes. But, our voices are being ignored. Mass civil disobedience sends the message that we refuse to be ignored any longer.
With elections coming up, now is the time to put the pressure on. Liberals know that most Democrats in office aren’t effective and many are as corrupt as Republicans. We're all hoping that they can take back both houses, but what if that doesn’t happen? And if it does happen, what if it doesn’t change anything?
Right now in Pennsylvania, Democrats are working hard to keep Green Party candidates off the ballots, just as they did when Ralph Nader tried to run for President. That’s not democracy. It ensures that two rich White men, who are concerned with their own interests, are our only choices once again.
We’ve become complacent as a society and our government knows it. It’s comfortable in that knowledge, which is why we need to do something radical to shake things up and make them afraid. After all, there are a lot more of us then there are of them.
Waiting and hoping for change isn't going to bring it about. Groups like MoveOn.org have the power to bring change, but are they willing to use it?
-----------------------
"Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." – Frederick Douglass
- ActUp is an AIDS Coalition with a civil disobedience manual
- Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" essay, written in 1849
- United for Peace and Justice often engages in civil disobedience
- CD articles from a Christian anti-war group: Why Civil Disobedience? and AFSC's Guide to Civil Disobedience
