Recent actions by city mayors to send in police in riot gear
to forcible remove Occupy protesters from public parks will actually benefit
the protesters.
In my book, Getting
Things Done in Washington, I examine the events leading up to the passage
of six historic pieces of legislation.
In each case, advocates for change were helped by image events that
gained them support and/or spurred political leaders to action. For example, Shays rebellion in 1786 provided
the shock that convinced James Madison, George Washington and others that the
Articles of Confederation wasn’t working and that the country need a new
Constitution that gave more power to Washington. The publication of Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle that vividly describe the
horrible conditions in meat packing houses in Chicago galvanized support for
passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act in 1906 which
greatly expanded federal government oversight of the food and drug
industries. Finally, protests following
news reports of the brutal murder of fourteen year old Emmett Till in 1955 in
Mississippi and news coverage of police action against participants in the bus
boycott led by Martin Luther King in Montgomery, Alabama that same year finally
garnered sufficient public support for the passage of the first Civil Rights
legislation in more than 80 years.
These examples illustrate an important lesson for those who
are dissatisfied with the way things are and seek change. Real change usually requires some crisis,
shocking expose or other confrontation either real or staged to garner
attention, raise the consciousness of average Americans and spur the general
population to demand that political leaders finally take action.
Bottom line Occupiers:
Strange as it may seem, when the police are sent in to move you out,
they are actually helping your cause and the more aggressive they are the more they help.
No comments:
Post a Comment