The protesters deserve to be exonerated ,I';m glad they were and I acknowledge the good intentions of Tent University ,but for purposes of becoming more effective ,I wish to discuss what didn't work about it. The group was somewhat successful in getting press for the absurd arrests, but demonstrations ,as strategized by Ghandi and King are to show the brutality of those in power to gain popular support,and in the hands of those who know how to work it,such arrests are pure gold.Unfortunately the students aren't really experineced enough to know how to exploit the press effectively enough,good try but no cigar.What i see as tragic is that they didn't succeed in counteracting the intent of the arrests,which was to scare students away from the "action".This worked well,attendence dropped drastically for the rest of the week. To counteract power requires understanding strategy and tactics,which are not the same.The same tactics can have different effcts in dfferent circumstances .To be committed to particular tactics.The right keeps winning power in the US because they are results oriented ,while the left is committed to tactics that no longer have the deisred effects.
The other major mistake of this action was the failure to create Real solidarity with university workers.Oh there was plenty of rhetoric about it,Emergency meetings to address the tent city caused decisions about raises for some workers,for which they 've been fighting for months to be delayed,meaning that the demonstration directly took money out of the pockets of some University workers.I understand that this wasn't the organizers intent,it's just that they weren't really organinzed enough to understand and predict the effects produced by the action.This sort of shortsightedness is one of the 2 major reasons that progressive/radical elements have been continueing to lose political influence in the US .The other major ,closely related ,reason is the continual failure to distinguish between leaders and followers. If we continue to treat the followers of the rightwing demagogues and plutocrats as our opponents we will continue to lose.This means actually having enough respect for middle class suburban white people to treat them as equals,just like we rightly demand that they do with underpriveleged and oppressed peoples.Without recognition of what is common to all,including plants and animals ,we fail. But this requires understanding the values of those with whom we differ.So far most radical and progressive politics in the US haven' t succesfully done this,and so demonstrations are easily spun in the press as levers to maintian the power structure.When I try to tell activists how this works I generally get intense resistence,and often hostility .Yet criticism is what we continually offer as political action,and we often elicit defensiveness, opposition and hostility from those whose minds we're ostensibly out to change.Rush Limbaugh knows exactly how to use this immaturity against us and much of what is called political action ,on the left,and this is exaclty what the rigth wants us to do,because they use it to strengthen their power base. We must figure out how to show mainstream people how our issues matter to them in the long run which shouldn't be hard to do-the tax burden has ,under bush been shifted onto them,exactly what the conservatives ,in their bid for power,said they were against.When we make the middle class feel blamed for the excesses of the neocons they've been fooled by ,we strengthne their loyalty to those liars.It's harder to persuade someone of something when there is an adversarial relation,this is Limbaugh has worked so hard at making the term liberal an insult.Divide and conquer always works.And to the extent we play into that strategy we re-enforce the current regime. If you really want change,make friends with some republicans,strnthen your relationship[ with your right wing relatives,don't let political views stand between you and other humans,we can only solve our problems as a community,which must include all.