Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Jerry Ashton Co-Author of 'The Patient, The Doctor and The Bill Collector' OWNER Without a path from protest to power, the Women's March will end up like Occupy

By a friend of mine from Occupy, Micah White:

Shortly after Donald Trump’s shock election victory, I received an urgent call from one of the co-creators of the Women’s March on Washington. She was concerned at a moment you might expect her to be ecstatic. Hundreds of thousands of women in 17 countries had already signed on in solidarity, and the numbers kept growing. Yet despite the tremendous momentum, she confessed a nagging skepticism about the effectiveness of the protest.

“I’m not that interested in the march itself but in what comes afterwards,” Fontaine Pearson confided to me. I admire her candor because I know it takes courage to voice such a concern. It is her difficult question – what comes the day after? – that every supporter of the Women’s March should be earnestly figuring out today.

Without a clear path from march to power, the protest is destined to be an ineffective feelgood spectacle adorned with pink pussy hats.

It is exciting when a protest meme leaps from social networks to the streets, capturing the imagination of millions, prompting this very website to proclaim that the forthcoming protest could be among the biggest in American history and Vogue to commission glitzy photos of the core organizers dressed up like Eileen Fisher models. But it is all too easy to succumb to the false hope that a big splash is a transformative tsunami.

Don’t be fooled. It is not. I’ve been there, as the co-creator of a raucous pro-democracy meme that inspired months of Occupy protests in 82 countries. And I can tell you that raising awareness and getting media attention is never enough. Frankly, neither brings the people closer to sovereign power.

For all those who want the Women’s March to be the start of an enduring revolutionary movement, here is my advice on how to increase the odds. (cont. at link)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/19/womens-march-washington-occupy-protest Show less

Without a path from protest to power, the Women's March will end up like Occupy preview image

Without a path from protest to power, the Women's March will end up like Occupy

Social activists have succumbed to one of the most enduring myths of contemporary American protest. It’s time to consider what happens the day after LikeComment24 1w

Michael Dewey Michael Dewey My occupy message is clear: bring all the troops home and feed and rebuild the countries we have destroyed. Like 4d

Danielle Amory Danielle Amory Michael, I'd agree with you to a point but there's one teensy, tiny bit of Trumpism that most of the public missed: Who is going to hire them once they 'return home'? Feed and rebuild...uhm, shouldn't we be trying to 'feed and rebuild' at home first? I feel empathetic towards the people who the wars have done the most harm, but it can not be undone by a 'Hail Mary' bandaid.

Right now, as we sit here our own roads, bridges, schools and people are falling apart and need rebuilding. Jobs that were, are gone and not coming back in time to save those who are living on the street or working 4 part-time jobs to pay 3/4 of their income in a place to live. Charity begins at home.Show less Like 1d

Danielle Amory Danielle Amory As for the Women's March on Washington, Jerry you are right. It comes down to 'Now What? ' I get so tired of these 'let's protest something', to get in front of a media that doesn't care and a general public that can't see the value of exactly what's being protested against. So there are women angry about Trump's 'women as second class citizens' spiel...and? Women, at least the ones I know, aren't these helpless, uneducated, eyelash fluttering nitwits he thinks they are. But guess what, in the end, he's still President of this country and this 'march' did exactly what it was intended to do - Exhibit to the world how silly many American women are.Show less Like 1d

Peter Burgess Peter Burgess I am really disappointed in my generation of leadership ... academic, business, political, etc. Success has been measured in money wealth and collateral damage caused by my progress to more wealth has been totally discounted. Economists have happily reported on national level GDP growth without paying much attention to the Gini coefficient which is about a small number of people doing very well and a whole lot of people going backwards ... something that has been going on for around 50 years with nobody in leadership doing very much if anything about it. Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was asking leadership a simple question ... 'What are you going to do to make our world a better place' and leadership basically said 'Screw You!' which was fine for the rich and powerful but did not resolve the underlying problems. My view is that as long as things like money profit, money wealth, GDP growth, etc are the dominant metrics for decision making we will continue to get decision making wrong !Show less