Hong Kong proteseters have their own song

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49661135?fbclid=IwAR0CjHlo9_hgi_MhBVmThDommiuGXwIl9kv_DO5SuegRT2EypTW12HEGJ94

"A few weeks ago, Thomas posted the first version of Glory to Hong Kong - sometimes translated as Glory be to thee, Hong Kong - on LIHKG, a local Reddit-like forum (link in Cantonese).
He said he felt the need for a song that captured the energy of the protesters, so composed the marching-style tune."

so you've hit the streets. Will reformists join in? The case of Iran

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/01/05/why-havent-reformists-joined-the-protests-sweeping-iran/?utm_term=.10f12216098c

 "As I have argued elsewhere, the dominant strategic thinking within the reform movement was initially pessimistic about the viability and consequences of protest. Grievances were so deep, they feared, that mass mobilization could stir up emotions, spawning radicalism and providing hard-liners with an excuse for repression, possibly leading to civil war.
Each time conservatives cracked down on reformist activists and blocked their initiatives within the state, the reformist leadership and intelligentsia called on the supporters to be calm. For example, when a prominent reformist leader was arrested, a reformist newspaper wrote that the arrest 'might be a plan to agitate emotions, and we should not give any opportunity for repression. Thus, at this time, any [protest] gathering will serve the interests of authoritarians.'
One leading reformist organization even coined the term 'active tranquility' for this strategy, which calls reformists to keep pushing for their demands but avoid confrontation, with a view to gain the trust of hard-liners. Reformists also saw the ballot box as the main pathway to peacefully push for political change and incompatible with mass mobilization.'"

So when your natural allies don't want to join your protest, what can you do?  I would also like to remind you that the Philippines reformed due to street protests.  Also, it's a good time to read Martin Luther King's Letter from Birrmingham Jail.

Political protesting works!

http://www.hcn.org/articles/chaffetzs-public-lands-bill-defeated-by-power-of-the-people?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=58a3b9e204d3016b65a3752c&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

"While Rep. Chaffetz’s bill passed the Natural Resources Committee in 2014, it had never passed the House or reached the president’s desk. That likely would have changed during this Congress, where the House and Senate Republican majorities are ideologically opposed to the federal government. The only thing standing in the way of the sale of those 3.3 million acres of land that belong to you, me and every other American — and the only thing that stands in the way of the next similar bill becoming law — is the willingness of ordinary people to call their members of Congress and even leave their homes to attend a rally with one strong message: Kill this bill.

This is not to discount the power of less focused public dissent. The Women’s March against President Trump generated such overwhelming public support in Washington and around the world that the White House still busies itself telling everyone how unimportant it was. That kind of protest will continue to have force and meaning throughout the coming Trump years.
But protesting a specific bill in no uncertain terms can produce results. At a time of unified Republican government, that kind of protest — which has already succeeded in this new Congress — may be the most potent legislative tool the American people possess."

From one who knows, what to do in face of a horrible congressional bill.

Protesting Works!

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/technology/donald-trump-social-networks-protests.html

"Even for those who did not assemble on either weekend, the pictures carried special power. Amplified on social media and echoing across every TV network, they suggested something larger afoot, something democracy-defining. “Something’s happening out there,” Ana Navarro, the Republican never-Trumper and television pundit, declared on Twitter.

Something sure is. We’re witnessing the stirrings of a national popular movement aimed at defeating the policies of Mr. Trump. It is a movement without official leaders. In fact, to a noteworthy degree, the formal apparatus of the Democratic Party has been nearly absent from the uprisings. Unlike the Tea Party and the white-supremacist “alt-right,” the new movement has no name. Call it the alt-left, or, if you want to really drive Mr. Trump up the wall, the alt-majority.

Or call it nothing. Though nameless and decentralized, the movement isn’t chaotic. Because it was hatched on social networks and is dispatched by mobile phones, it appears to be organizationally sophisticated and ferociously savvy about conquering the media.

Over two weekends, the protests have accomplished something just about unprecedented in the nearly two years since Mr. Trump first declared his White House run: They have nudged him from the media spotlight he depends on. They are the only force we’ve seen that has been capable of untangling his singular hold on the media ecosystem."

I wrote about Anonymous in 2008 springing up apparently out of nowhere to take on Scientology.  Again we have "leaderless" protests growing from public concern and confronting a problem of obvious concern to many.  Organized online, without any hierarchy involved, unconcerned about established organization that isn't doing anything anyway, protesters by the hundreds of thousands move politics.  Expect more of this.

How Facebook hurt the Syrian revolution

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/12/facebook-hurt-syrian-revolution-161203125951577.html

"Erica Chenoweth, a professor at the School of International Studies at the University of Denver, has argued that social media is helping dictators, while giving the masses an illusion of empowerment and political worthiness.
At a recent lecture at Columbia University, when asked for an example where social media played a negative role in a social movement, Chenoweth paused a little to finally say, 'what comes to my mind now is Syria.'
Indeed, social media hurt the Syrian uprising. It gave the Syrian people the hope that the old dictatorship can be toppled just by uploading videos of protests and publishing critical posts. Many were convinced that if social media helped Egyptians get rid of Hosni Mubarak, it would help them overthrow Bashar al-Assad.
It created the false illusion that toppling him would be easy and doable."

I'll have to ponder this a while.  I would assume Syrians would know more about their country than what they read on Facebook and not be swayed by information that contradicts their on-the-ground knowledge.

Deray McKesson on activism

http://www.theverge.com/a/verge-2021/deray-mckesson-interview-black-lives-matter-digital-activism

"I love Twitter. I think about Twitter as the friend that’s always awake. It’s why I tweet so much. I’m interested to see which of the platforms will be the first one that allows people to build skills. Right now, mostly, it’s about information sharing. We haven’t seen a platform really be [about] skill building, so I’m hoping that’ll come next. It’s been interesting to see Snapchat grow and change, [and] I think that in the coming years we’ll see that. I’m not one of the people who is a Twitter doomsday person. I think that we’ll see the golden days of Twitter ahead.

I think that we have to be open to new ways of organizing and new ways of building community. I’m mindful that we aren’t born woke, something wakes us up, and for so many people, what woke them up was a tweet or a Facebook post, an Instagram post, a picture. I never criticize people who [others] deem to be Twitter activists, or hashtag activists, because I know that telling the truth is often a tough act, no matter where you tell that truth. I think that’s important. I think that we’ll continue to see the platforms push and redefine the way we organize.
In terms of the new organizing, you think about how you can use people on Slack and mobilize them, you think about how we can spread messages on Twitter. I think that we’re just at the beginning of seeing the power of technology to really push in the social justice and the equity space. I think that moving forward in terms of what the solutions look like, I think we’ll see platforms like Twilio be really important. I think we’ll see these sort of quieter, seemingly, platforms take a primary role."

This is a great Q&A for a prominent activist of our time, reflecting on how technology works for activism, and what needs to be done to move forward from here.

Why do some protests work while others fail?

http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/11/how-should-trump-protesters-organize-themselves.html

"One of the most consistent answers I got was that protesters should realize that protests aren’t enough. There’s a real risk of catharsis being the start and end of the resistance to Trump: Protesting feels good and righteous, but if nothing comes after then it may not accomplish that much. It’s key, therefore, to understand the limits of protests and to put them in a broader activism context. 'There are some people that think that protests solve everything; you just have a protest, it’s going to make everything change,' said Fabio Rojas, a professor at Indiana University and the author of From Black Power to Black Studies: How a Radical Social Movement Became an Academic Discipline. 'That’s not true — it is a tool that does a very specific thing, and you have to understand that when you start out.'

Protests are effective — sometimes very effective, in the case of big ones — at drawing attention to a given cause, and all else being equal they have an impact. 'There’s a lot of research showing that there is an effect of protest on policy,' he said. 'If you protest rather than do nothing, that does seem to attract attention, and that does seem to make institutions lean in your direction.' But beyond that, it’s important, Rojas said, to have a clear sense of what a given protest is for.' What are you really trying to accomplish with a protest? Are you trying to influence a specific policy? Are you trying to build solidarity within the movement? Are you trying to persuade people who are watching the movement, or even trying to persuade people on the other side of the movement?'”

What to protest about and what to do along with protesting seem to be 2 key parts of success.

Does social media have a downside during revolution?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/10/07/how-social-media-undermined-egypts-democratic-transition/

"During the heady days of revolution, social media seemed to unify Egyptians across disparate ideological trends around a limited, shared goal. That didn’t last. As time went on, social media encouraged political society to self-segregate into communities of the like-minded, intensifying connections among members of the same group while increasing the distance among different groups."

"The mobilization of fear was concentrated more in the politically activist communities than in the broader public. One of the most striking findings in the statistical analysis is the extremely low incidence of “fear basket” terms in the Couch Party cluster. Contrary to the common portrayal of Egypt as a society consumed by fear and chaos during this time, the apolitical group was not consumed by fear, or at least not talking about it on Twitter. Instead, fear basket terms seem to be most found within the activist cluster and the Islamist cluster, the most politicized of the groupings."

So people form cliques.  I see this every day on social media.  But I guess that's their point - what happens to a revolution when the cliques start forming?  Can you still maintain a revolution or is this a sign of the end?

Did Occupy Wall Street accomplish anything?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/measuring-occupy-wall-strreet-impact

"While critics of Occupy took issue with it at the time for its lack of specific demands, a clear organizational structure or strategies for next steps, it has come to resonate politically, said Heather Gautney, a sociology professor at Fordham University.
She pointed to Sanders' campaign, saying Occupy's injection of income inequality into the discourse paved the way for the Vermont senator's calls to get money out of politics, rein in Wall Street banks and provide free public college education.
Nicholas Kiersey, a political science professor at Ohio University, said Trump's political presence is part of Occupy's impact, as well.
'If Bernie Sanders represented a left-wing popular suspicion that had felt all of a sudden very legitimate in expressing its grievances, Trump, I think, represents the mirror of that from the right,' he said. 'They both, in a sense, have ridden the momentum of popular dissatisfaction.'"

The concentration on the 1% vs. the 99% came from Occupy Wall Street.  that is built into our political discussion now.

How Bahrain stopped the Arab Spring there

http://observers.france24.com/en/20160906-bahrain-monarchy-arab-spring-repression-revolution?ns_campaign=reseaux_sociaux&ns_source=twitter&ns_mchannel=social&ns_linkname=editorial&aef_campaign_ref=partage_user&aef_campaign_date=2016-09-06

"As the months went by, the Bahraini government went about methodically silencing voices of opposition and discontent. Today, there are practically no opposition figures still free. Professor Valeri says that the regime really started to crack down in earnest after the legislative elections in 2014.

'Up until 2012, world powers like the United States and the United Kingdom were pressuring Bahraini authorities to reform. But after 2012, the US and the UK were under the impression that the Arab Spring movement in Bahrain was over [Editor’s note: The Arab Spring movements that took place in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya had all managed to unseat their dictators by this point] and that all that was left of the struggle were small skirmishes going on in some of the villages. The diplomatic tone changed and these governments started saying that Bahrain would undergo reforms but that it would be a slow process.

Then, in 2014, the US and the UK started pressuring the opposition al-Wefaq party, the main Shiite group in the country, to participate in the legislative elections. Al-Wefaq was trapped. If the group participated in the vote, it would cut off its electoral base, which wanted more radical reforms. However, if it refused to participate, then then it would be accused of standing in the way of reconciliation. It ended up choosing the second option. The Bahraini government took it as a go-ahead to carry out a widespread crackdown on the legal opposition.'"

Saudi Arabia sent in vast numbers of troops to stop a peaceful protest.