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What protests have won: Part One [1]

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Date: 2025-03-30

Social Movements Constrained Trump in His First Term—More Than People Realize

“Another World Is Possible”: How Occupy Wall Street Reshaped Politics & Kicked Off New Era of Protest

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to a few months later, November 2011, during the Occupy protests, about a thousand students marching in New York City outside a meeting where CUNY trustees — that’s City University of New York trustees — voted to authorize annual tuition increases. This is Julian Guerrero of Students United for a Free CUNY. JULIAN GUERRERO: [echoed by the People’s Mic] Me, myself, I’m in debt $70,000. I actually got a letter from Sallie Mae saying that if I don’t start paying today $900 a month, they’re going to have more aggressive attempts at collecting my debt. And so, I’m going to burn this right here and now. ASTRA TAYLOR: Now, the Debt Collective is an organization for debtors that fights for the cancellation of all kinds of debt and the provision of the services, the public goods we all need to survive and thrive. It has its roots directly at Occupy Wall Street. So, just like Nelini felt that space to talk about her condition honestly, you know, for many of us who were in debt, Occupy was a similar space, where we could see that we were not alone — and that is actually the Debt Collective’s slogan: “You are not a loan” — A space L-O-A-N, right? — a space where we could come together. And debt was actually part of the protests around the world at the time. Tuition hikes sparked protests in Latin America. And later, in Quebec, there was a wave of protests. And so, you know, we followed the threads of debt, once the parks were cleared, because how we were thinking about it at the time was, you know, “Yes, we’re occupying Wall Street, but Wall Street occupies our lives. And how does it do that? Often in the form of debt. We’re forced to debt finance things that should be publicly provided.” And it was at Occupy Wall Street that we had the collective epiphany. We started to recognize that our debts, which were so burdensome, could actually be a potential source of power, a source of leverage. And by consistently organizing, we’ve moved the needle on that issue. I think, you know, we now are in a world where leading politicians talk about student debt cancellation. The Debt Collective has won billions of dollars of student loan cancellation for debtors. And that demand started at Occupy Wall Street. MORE

Rebellions Work

Boycotts, like so much of Black protest traditions, trace back to the abolitionist movement.The African Methodist Episcopal (AME) and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) churches organized a major boycott of goods produced by those enslaved in 1830. The churches played a major role in organizing both the “Colored Free Produce Society of Pennsylvania,” an all-Black male organization, and the Colored Female Free Produce Society of Pennsylvania, created and led by Black women. The boycott targeted sugar and cotton produced on Southern and Caribbean plantations. They not only boycotted goods produced by the enslaved, but they presented alternatives for sugar and cotton produced by free men and women, as well as their own distribution networks and retail stores.MORE

Serbia is once again trying to oust an authoritarian. What can we learn from its past success?

5 lessons on bringing down a dictator 1. Strategize and organize. In “How to Start a Revolution” – a documentary on the lessons of nonviolent theorist Gene Sharp — the first lesson is to plan a strategy. According to Sharp, the Tiananmen protests in China in 1989 failed not because the student organizers lacked numbers or passion, but because the students leading the movement lacked a strategy, which led to disunity when the state initially offered negotiations. “This Is An Uprising” authors Mark Engler and Paul Engler likewise argue that movements need to combine strategic planning with “spontaneous” mass protest into strategic campaigns of momentum-based organizing. A pro-democracy movement’s strategy must do several things. First, strategists must identify the incumbent dictator’s “pillars of support” and potential points of weakness. This includes analyzing partisan, elite and ethnic bases of support, each of which may shape strategies of contention to seek incremental shifts in the “spectrum of allies.” Second, strategists must employ inverse-sequence planning. That is, don’t start by planning tomorrow’s rally. Instead, start by crafting your “vision of tomorrow” or ideal endgame, then work backwards step-by-step from the end of the game tree to today.MORE

What the US can learn from South Koreans who stopped an authoritarian power-grab

1. Take action commensurate with the threat and move quickly The South Korean Constitution explicitly states that when the majority of the National Assembly request that martial law be lifted the president must comply. After martial law was declared, civil society activists shared information about the police blockade of the National Assembly and the possibility of MPs being arrested, calling for people to gather at the Assembly. As activists arrived, they began livestreaming the situation outside the assembly via social media. The opposition leader also initiated a livestream from his car while heading to the assembly, appealing to supporters to gather. Over 16,000 people assembled outside the assembly that night. They arrived before the martial law forces’ armored vehicles and helicopters, helping MPs scale the walls of the blockaded assembly building. Those who arrived by taxi reported that drivers didn’t accept the fare.MORE

I hope these articles bring information, inspiration and a sense of hope to those who are despairing and thinking that movements and protests don’t work. I have some ideas to make this an ongoing series, so see you soon!

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