October 2010
5 posts
10 tags
Stewart Turns 'em Out, But Can't Turn It Up
Ladies and gentlemen, the numbers are in and it’s official: Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert outdid Glenn Beck nearly three times over. According to CBS News, the only organization doing a systematic count, some 215,000 people armed with signs, costumes, and a whole lot of sanity showed up to the Comedy Central-sponsored rally on Saturday, as compared to only 87,000 for Beck in his August...
Why a comedian is now liberals' No. 1 hero →
Quotidian Dissent’s blogger-in-chief Niv Elis writes on Jon Stewart in the Christian Science Monitor!
11 tags
The Ruckus - October 27, 2010
In this edition of The Ruckus, Quotidian Dissent’s round-up of interesting and exciting protests around the world, we bring you street riots, frogs legs, and protest votes.
In Ecuador, anti-government protests over planned wage cuts spiralled out of control, resulting in five deaths. The protesters attacked President Rafael Correa and kept him holed up in a hospital, in what he called an...
8 tags
Remembering to Never Forget Darfur
The pile of dead teenagers strewn on the grass of Lafayette Park flummoxed the South Korean tourist group who had come to photograph the White House. The corpses lay alongside black paper tombstones inscribed in chalk: “200,000 - 400,000 have DIED since 2003”; “3,600 people die per day”; “22% of people do not have access to clean WATER”; “Let’s save Darfur NOW! Stop the Silence.”
The teenagers...
9 tags
Rally? What Rally?
Context is everything.
Normally, tens of thousands of citizens gathering in the nation’s capital would be considered a victorious display of strength. But in the wake of the recent Glenn Beck Rally and Tea Parties in Washington, the union-organized One Nation Working Together rally seemed woefully under-attended. Intended to demonstrate that the American left is still alive and kicking,...
September 2010
5 posts
11 tags
Sitting In Wheelchairs, Standing Up For Their...
Bobbie Wallach, who has suffered from Multiple Sclerosis for 30 years and is wheelchair-bound, was arrested last year. Twice. Now she’s back for more, handcuffing herself to the White House fence and participating in other forms of civil disobedience with ADAPT, the direct action group that fights (non-violently) for disability rights. As they have every year for the past decade, the group...
6 tags
WatchNBC ran a story about protest at the White House. Quotidian Dissent readers will recognize Peacewalker Mike Oren, Rocky Twyman of Pray at the Pump, a Palestine protest, and Concepcion Picciotto, the 30-year protester.
12 tags
The Prayer Warriors
The Pray at the Pump group believes that there’s a solution for all of the nation’s problems. Put politics aside, let go of silly policy ideas, and focus on a more powerful avenue of fixing the world: prayer. It works with any religion, as long as you’re praying. “It doesn’t matter to us. It can be Muslim or whatever,” says Rocky Twyman, the group’s founder.
...
5 tags
A Holiday Born of Protest
This Labor Day, in addition to enjoying barbecues and celebrating the end of a relentlessly hot summer, Quotidian Dissent would like to recall the history of the holiday. It sprung forth from a protest:
The original inspiration of Labor Day was a protest of the traditional 12 hour work day. Worker strikes, boycotts, unrest and even riots laid the groundwork for labor reform and a dedicated...
9 tags
Glenn Hearts Barack - A Love Story
If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then Glenn Beck has a huge man-crush on a figure he regularly tears apart on his show: President Barack Obama.
In addition to “taking back” the civil rights movement, Beck also appears to be “taking back” Obama’s Change movement. Take, for example, the images that Beck uses on his show (and on his merchandise) to promote his values:
They are...
August 2010
7 posts
9 tags
A Mad Tea Party
When is a Tea Party not a Tea Party? When is a political event not a political event? “I haven’t the slightest idea,” the Mad Hatter would reply. The Hatter of this event, of course, would be Glenn Beck, the Fox News rhetorician who has built his career on controversy. On Saturday, August 28th, he descended upon the Nation’s capital with an estimated 87,000 of his...
11 tags
The Borders of Free Speech
It is not unusual for the Borders bookstore on the corner of 18th and K St. in Washington to host talks by authors promoting their books. What is unusual is for the speaker to inspire a protest.
But when the speaker in question is Pam Geller, a blogger of the extreme right and one of the loudest voices against the Islamic Center at Park 51 near ground zero, a protest seems inevitable.
“There’s...
13 tags
The Ruckus - August 23, 2010
Nudity, Houses of Worship, and Choreography. No, it’s not a revival of “Hair,” it’s this week’s edition of The Ruckus, giving you the latest trends in the world of protest!
As the maelstrom surrounding the so-called ”Ground Zero Mosque” spun into a fury, thousands gathered at Ground Zero, denouncing plans for the Islamic Center. The craze spread around...
9 tags
Protest v. Protest: Battling Over Gay Marriage
It is a dreary Sunday on Capitol Hill. The anti-gay National Organization for Marriage (NOM) pointedly sets up their rally by the nation’s legislature, turning its back to the high court just across the road. The courts have not been kind to their cause of late, overturning the ban on gay marriage in California just days before.
Although the rain had let up an hour earlier, the organizers...
5 tags
Tweeting the Revolution
Mehran Divanbaigyzand had steered clear of Iran activism for nearly 30 years. Two things pulled the Iranian expatriate back into the cause. One was the flagrant election fraud last June, which blocked the reformist Mir-Hussein Moussavi from the Presidency in favor of the hard line Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sending thousands of Iranian protesters into the streets. The other was Twitter.
“A few...
8 tags
Asking the World to Pay Attention
“The only way that the Islamic Republic can stay in power is to kill and maim and rape and torture.” So says Maria Rohaly, a co-founder of Mission Free Iran, a group devoted to supporting the democracy movement in Iran. Rohaly has been active in the cause since her friend, a member of the pro-democracy movement in Iran (not to be confused with the Green Movement, which advocated reform within...
13 tags
The Ruckus - August 4, 2010
On this edition of The Ruckus: swearing for nature, a $1 revolution, and Chinese prostitutes.
Environmental activists armed with only F-bombs and T-shirts have embarked on a campaign to clean up the Gulf of Mexico. The organization UnF—ck the Gulf sells “UnF—ck” shirts in support of charities working to clean-up the BP oil spill (see their R-rated video here.)
A new...
July 2010
15 posts
7 tags
Lights, Camera, Immigration Rally!
If all the world is a stage, then the White House is a really useful set piece. That, at least, is how well-organized protesters with a coherent media strategy see it. In their calculations, the best way to get their message delivered to the government is through television, radio, and written media. When Casa de Maryland, a group devoted to the welfare of the Latino community, organized a rally...
8 tags
Of Exes and Expatriates
Quenby Wilcox hasn’t seen her children in over two years. She has no access to her assets or her fledgling business. Her life has been thrown off course by an issue that affects millions of people around the world: divorce. As messy as ending a marriage can be on its own, Wilcox faces the added complications of competing national jurisdictions and international law.
Originally from Louisiana...
14 tags
The Ruckus - July 25, 2010
This week on the Ruckus:
The Westboro Baptist Church staged a protest at a Lady Gaga concert in Missouri, calling her out for her pro-LGBT views, and saying that she and her fans are “heading straight to hell in a gender-confused, self-loathing, tone-deaf hand basket.“ Despite her public calls “to pay these hate criminals no mind” and ignore them, Gaga fans expressed...
9 tags
The Falun Gong Show
Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. Breathing practices and daily exercises. The religious rituals and principles of the Falun Gong (aka the Falun Dafa) don’t exactly evoke images of subversive revolution or threats to national security. Yet, this is how the Chinese government regards the group, which it has outlawed and suppressed for 11 years. Founded in 1992, the religion ran counter...
6 tags
Who is "Vegan Cocoa"?
That was the Ayn Randian question everyone was asking a group of activists outside the White House last winter. The flummoxed activists, from the animal rights organization Peta, had to explain that their “Free Vegan Cocoa!” signs were an advertisement for samples of non-dairy hot chocolate, not an imperative directed toward the government.
The Peta organizers learned their lessons,...
8 tags
Walking for Peace, Running for President
Ladies and Gentlemen, remember that you heard it here first: Mike Oren, the PeaceWalker, is running for President.
In case you didn’t already know, Oren has been walking for peace since 2004, trying to generate publicity against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. At 56, he has walked nearly 6,000 miles in his so-called PeaceQuest, and although he’s arrived outside the White House for the...
The Ruckus - July 9-16, 2010
This week on the Ruckus, your weekly round-up of interesting and unusual protests from far and wide:
Angered by the arrest of a bubble-blowing protester at the G-20 meeting in Ontario (among other police actions), several hundred protesters held a bubble-in, blowing swarms of bubbles in front of the Ontario legislature.
Following the murder of 28-year old Egyptian activist Khaled Said by...
7 tags
Protest U
The group of young, Hispanic protesters brandishing homemade signs cluster together, intently participating in an act remarkably atypical of protesters: listening. For the most-part, they are the children of undocumented workers, brought to the United States in their youth and raised, for all intents and purposes, as American. Due to their lack of citizenship they lack access to significant...
9 tags
The Power of One?
Think again Aimee Mann, it looks like one is not the loneliest number after all.
Just ask “TC from DC,” the ebullient, nicknamed fanatic who says she’s been coming to the White House to protest, all by her lonesome, 4-5 days a week for over two and a half years. Ensconced in her bible-quoting posters, an Obama-as-Joker sign, and an Israeli flag (no protest is complete, it seems, without an Israel...
5 tags
Schooling the White House
Marching up and down the 1600 block of Pennsylvania Ave, Lori Thomas is a walking billboard. Brandishing 2-sided signs in each hand and wearing fully body posters in front and behind, she spreads her message on education.
A teacher from Rochester, Ms. Thomas has felt the effects of education policy in her classroom, and has a lot of insight on the subject. After an unfavorable report criticized...
8 tags
The Ruckus: A Weekly Round-up of Protests
Welcome to “The Ruckus,” Quotidian Dissent’s weekly round-up of creative, significant, unusual, or just plain funny protests from around the world. By stepping outside protest in the beltway, I hope “The Ruckus” will expand the discussion on different forms of political expression (and, occasionally, entertain).
This week:
A group of disgruntled mothers in Apopka,...
4 tags
Jews against Israel -or- Six Opinions
There is a saying that if you put two Jews in a room, you’ll get six opinions. Today’s protest offers ample evidence.
It started with a tip from a friend: Loads of Orthodox Jews are protesting at the White House today. Against Israel.
The organizers, called Neturei Karta, are a group of ultra-orthodox Jews who believe that the existence of Israel breaches Jewish law. Rabbi Shaya Burke, from an...
7 tags
5 tags
Things Aren't Always What They Seem
It was a slow day for protests.
I scoured the crowd outside the White House for several minutes before I realized that the woman in yellow was not, as I first thought, my good friend Conchita (whose tent was 10 feet away), but a Vietnamese woman carrying out her own protest.
Brandishing a generic response letter from President Obama and describing herself in very broken English as...
June 2010
3 posts
7 tags
We Exist.
In the first week of tracking protests, one of my core assumptions has already been challenged. Protests are intended to appeal to an audience. The final audience, I assumed, was always policymakers, whether influencing them directly or through electoral channels (e.g. influencing public opinion through the media, which elected officials pay attention to). A group of 8 protesters from the...
6 tags
Low-Hanging Fruit: Concepcion Picciotto and the 29...
The first subject of Quotidian Dissent is perhaps the most appropriate, because she has literally been protesting outside the White House all day, every day since 1981.
Concepcion Picciotto, who emigrated from Spain in the 60’s, is the archetype of the crazy protest lady, espousing a conspiratorial worldview in pamphlets, flyers, and two large yellow signs that have become a fixture in...
5 tags
Welcome to Quotidian Dissent: The Daily Protest
It happens every day, without fail. A small crowd equipped with signs, slogans, chants, and a cause gather and march outside the White House. Or the Capitol. Or the Supreme Court. These driven activists are determined to make a difference, some way, somehow. And so, for several hours, they shout their opinions outside the halls of power and distribute literature to passers-by, hoping that...