_{THIS ARTICLE OF MINE APPEARS IN THE S-CAR NEWSLETTER, FEBRUARY 2012.  COMMENTS ARE MOST WELCOME.}

The advent of unexpected forms of social conflict challenges conflict analysts to answer two hard questions.  The first is “What’s really going on here?”  What are the underlying causes, current dynamics, likely outcomes, and possible options for resolving this conflict?  The second is, “Why have these events surprised us?”  Since we are conflict analysts, why didn’t we see this struggle coming and recommend creative ways to deal with it?  The answers to these queries are closely related, but let’s start with the issue of surprise.

An uncomfortable fact: new eruptions of large-scale social conflict almost always take most academic experts and policymakers by surprise.  Virtually no one anticipated the civil disorders of the 1960s and 1970s in North America and Europe, the global rise of religiously-motivated conflict in the years following the Iranian Revolution, the great massacres in Rwanda, the Congo, and Darfur, the uprisings of the Arab Spring, or the eruption of more than 2,500 mass protests in some sixty nations under the Occupy banner.  Conflict specialists are equally taken aback when expected struggles fail to materialize – for example, when the Soviet Union collapses or South Africa dismantles its apartheid system without a bloodbath.  While some commentators consider recurrent surprises of this sort a result of the inherent unpredictability of human behavior, others, such as our late colleague, John W. Burton, attribute them to our faulty understanding of society and conflict.  To paraphrase Shakespeare: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our nature, but in our theories, that we are taken unawares.”

Burton, it seems to me, had it mostly right.  Although the timing of mass protest movements is notoriously difficult to specify (one recalls a disheartened Lenin complaining that the Russian Revolution would not occur in his lifetime), they can be predicted with rough accuracy, provided that the analyst is paying close attention to relevant social and psychological factors.

The Occupy movement is the product of changes in social organization and human motivation that largely escaped analysis because prevailing theories directed our attention elsewhere.  Most of those theories, to speak of them generally, were of two types.  Stability theories, emphasizing the factors that make for social integration and political adaptation, viewed Western society (in particular, the United States) as “post-ideological,” and therefore no longer subject to intense internal conflicts of the sort that produced the labor-management struggles of the New Deal era or the mass protests of the decade following John F. Kennedy’s assassination.  Conflict theories, while focusing on failures of integration and adaptation, took as their main text the story of social identity – the struggles of oppressed or marginalized ethnic, racial, religious, gender, and cultural groups for recognition and fair treatment, and the need for established systems to accommodate their demands.

These theories seemed diametrically opposed, but under the surface there were links.  Many analysts of both schools assumed that, since the underlying socioeconomic system (“late capitalism” or “finance capitalism”) was either stable or irreplaceable, basic questions of social order involving class structure and ranking, social equality, and the control of politics by major financial interests, were “off the table.”  When they spoke about basic human needs at all, the analysts tended to focus on people’s needs for identity, recognition, and autonomy – not for jobs, effective participation, and social justice.  Even when the economic system plunged into its worse crisis since 1929, these mindsets persisted.  Stability theories were so strongly held that few scholars believed that the Arab uprisings of 2011 or even the Greek and Spanish demonstrations provoked by the economic crisis could help inspire protests in “mature” capitalist nations like the United States.  Identity theories were so strongly held that the re-emergence of social inequality, corporate corruption, and the need for economic democracy as crucial issues for Westerners went largely unnoticed.[1]

What, exactly, do conflict studies specialists need to know?  What “research questions” should we be addressing?  First, I believe, we need to know what made so many people long quiescent, where matters of public policy were concerned, adopt a highly activist mode and turn out not just to protest injustice but to participate in acts of civil disobedience.  Assuming that many activists were mobilized, in part, by their direct exposure to the economic crisis, what other factors came into play to translate economic pain into a craving for radical change?  The received wisdom used to be that economic downturns dampened protest movements rather than generating them.  In this case, however (as in certain previous cases of mass mobilization for change), lowered satisfactions seemed actually to engender radical hopes.  Despite Ted Robert Gurr’s pioneering work, this phenomenon is still poorly understood.[2]

Second, we would like to plot possible future trajectories for the protest movement and for counter-movements of the Center and the Right.  Although numbers are hard to come by, the total number of activists participating in occupations in the United States probably does not exceed a few hundred thousand.  Yet polls conducted by Pew and other reputable organizations establish that more than 60% of Americans are in sympathy with their basic egalitarian, anti-corporate, pro-democracy sentiments.  Does this mean that the movement is fated to become larger and more important in the coming years?  Or is it likely to be divided, co-opted, and weakened by the political dynamics of a presidential election?

Authorities have now evicted occupiers from public parks in New York, Oakland, Denver, Salt Lake City, Portland, Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other cities while leaving a few (e.g., those in Washington, D.C.) at least temporarily in place.  Evictions notwithstanding, protestors in virtually every location have declared that they will continue to engage in occupations (for example, of foreclosed or abandoned homes) and other acts of nonviolent civil disobedience, as well as working to build a movement for radical social and political change.  According to the steering committee of one Washington, D.C. organization,

Shifting power to the American people requires much more than an occupation.  The Occupy Movement needs to build on four strong components – (1) non-violent protest and civil resistance, (2) non-participation in the existing corporate finance-dominated economy, (3) the development of concrete plans and policies to transform the corporate economy into a people’s economy, and (4) ending government dominated by money by shifting political power to the American people.[3]

What everyone would like to know is whether this movement has “legs,” and, if so, what its future direction and function are likely to be.  The point originally made by many critics that the protestors had no political program had some apparent validity at first, but now seems increasingly less germane.  Movement representatives have called not only for a renewal of occupations on a large scale in spring 2012, but also for a series of conferences to discuss concretizing political policies.  Already, there is considerable discussion of demands for a tax on financial transactions, elimination of the capital gains tax preference and other loopholes for the wealthy, creation of a federally-funded and popularly controlled jobs program, development of community alternatives to the corporate economy, eliminating the private financing of political campaigns, and more.

There is a good deal of theoretical confusion about what demands like this mean.  When some commentators criticize the movement for not making “concrete, realistic demands,” what they are really criticizing is the unwillingness of the occupiers to play the political game according to conventional political rules (for example, by picking major party candidates for office and supporting them).  Most occupiers are not interested in making demands that are relatively easy to realize because they are consistent with existing structures of power and privilege.  Most are even less interested in becoming part of the base of either major political party.  The great question is not whether they will have political influence; they have already helped move issues of social class and inequality to the center of national consciousness.  The great question is whether they will have the sort of independent influence enjoyed by certain previous movements of mass protest in America, from the Abolitionists of the 1840s and labor radicals of the 1930s to the antiwar/civil rights/cultural liberation movements of the 1960s.

Are we, in fact, at the beginning of another one- or two-decade period of mass protest in America?  Or is this movement already “history”?  Belatedly, in the search for convincing answers to such questions, we are finally getting around to studying crucial social structural issues and their political/cultural implications.

Happily, it’s never too late to begin.

Here’s the debate caused by a photo of U.S. Marines in Afghanistan urinating on dead Taliban fighters:

The higher-ups in Washington insist that desecrating enemy corpses is immoral, illegal, and ultra-impolitic.  Others think it’s not so terrible.  Bill Maher, for example, thinks that torture is a lot worse, and Rob Reiner agrees.  “Nobody condones it, obviously, but war does make people a little crazy. You put young people in a situation like that, they’re seeing their friends killed next to them, and they act out. There’s no justifying it, but it’s expected,” says the former star of All In The Family.

Who is right?  Both sides — and neither one!  Desecrating corpses is clearly an abomination.  And atrocities of this sort are absolutely to be expected in wars, particularly wars of counter-insurgency.  But what this really means — what nobody wants to say directly — is that the administration and the generals who are responsible for starting and prosecuting the war are directly responsible for these predictable atrocities. In moral and, very likely, in legal terms, it was the commander-in-chief and his generals who pissed on those dead Taliban soldiers, not just four Marines.

Of course, the president and his minions will try to exculpate themselves, as always, by throwing full responsibility for wrongdoing onto the bottom-dogs.  This transparent dodge should not disguise the fact that those who started the war and continue to prosecute it are ultimately responsible for war crimes.  I would like very much to know if Bill Maher and Rob Reiner agree with this, or if they think that everyone should be held guiltless.

As the Congressional Super Committee Flounders, the Occupy Super Committee Presents Solutions | October 2011.

Click on this, friends.  Read the report.  And remember, the next time people tell you that the Occupy Movement has no specific goals, tell them that the best report by far on specific measures needed to end inequality, create jobs, and regenerate American society is this one — a product of the Occupy Washington DC movement based in Freedom Plaza.

Read it, circulate it, and fight for it!

October 21, 2011 2:53 am

Letter to the Editor

A protest movement in its infancy

Occupy DC protest in Capital Hill.

The October 6 Coalition in DC has forced the police to grant it a 4-month

permit to occupy Freedom Plaza (Pennsylvania Ave., between 12th-14th  Streets).  October 6 (“Human Needs, Not Corporate Greed”) is part of the most important and promising popular movement in the U.S. since the uprisings of the sixties and seventies.  I will be blogging more on issues and opportunities presented by this great development in the coming days and weeks.  Meanwhile, come to Freedom Plaza or McPherson Square!  Participate in the General Assemblies and demonstrations! Attend the MLK Monument dedication this Sunday the 16th!

It’s time to make some history.

So, the US and NATO went to war in Libya, allegedly to protect Libyan civilians from Bad Muammar Gaddafi.  Not to overthrow Gaddafi, of course, since they were not authorized to do that by the United Nations, but only to protect civilians.

Now, thanks to almost ten thousand NATO airstrikes, military intelligence and mercenary “trainers” donated by the Western powers, and weapons supplied by Europeans and Persian Gulf sheikhs, the area loyal to Gaddafi’s government has shrunk to several towns in Tripolitania, including the large city of Sirte.  Rebel forces are rocketing and cannonading Sirte now and NATO is striking the city from the air.

What?  You haven’t heard any real news about this?  You don’t know how many civilian casualties the NATO and rebel strikes are causing?  Welcome to the Unreal World of the Western media, which has made the Libyan war magically disappear from its news pages and websites.  Nobody is covering the war from Sirte.

Nobody knows how many are dying or being wounded there.  The fact that a civil war is continuing in Libya is an embarrassment to everyone, especially to Barack Obama, who wants to claim the rebel victory as his only “win” of the season.

The safety of Libyan civilians was once presented to the world as the casus belli for this Western intervention.  Now that its real purpose — the removal of the uncooperative Col. Gaddafi — has been achieved, it’s ok for the NATO-backed rebels to kill Libyan civilians.  I hate to sound like Mr. Negative, but this is genuinely disgusting.

AMERICA IN CRISIS:

HOW CAN WE BUILD A MORE JUST AND PEACEFUL SOCIETY?

AN OPEN FORUM – TEACH-IN

TUESDAY SEP. 20, 4:00-6:30 PM

S-CAR, TRULAND BUILDING, ROOM 555

3330 WASHINGTON BLVD., ARLINGTON ROOM 500

ALL PRESENTATIONS WILL BE SHORT, ALLOWING FOR DISCUSSION.  SPEAKERS INCLUDE KEVIN ZEESE, ORGANIZER OF THE OCTOBER 2011 MOBILIZATION IN FREEDOM PLAZA, AND OTHERS.  THE FORUM WILL BE FOLLOWED BY HARVARD LAW PROF. LAWRENCE LESSIG’S SPEECH ON THE CRISIS OF THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM IN FOUNDERS HALL, 2D FLOOR

SCHEDULE:

4:00 – Welcome and introductions by S-CAR Prof. Rich Rubenstein.

4:10 – SPP Prof. Jessica Heineman-Pieper on Structural Violence and Possibilities For Transformation

4:30 – S-CAR Prof. Solon Simmons on The Rhetoric of Liberty and the Future of Liberalism in America

4:50 – GMU American Studies Professor Dave Kuebrich on Grassroots Movements and Social Change

5:00 – Mason undergrads Anartha Gamboa, Ce Garrison and Jason Von Kundra on the Tar Sands Action and Non-Violent Resistance

5:20 – Investigative journalist and S-CAR Visiting Scholar Gareth Porter on The Media and U.S. Foreign Policy

5:40 – S-CAR Visiting Scholar Diane Pearlman on Social Science, Paradigm Shifts, and Political Strategies

6:00 – October Mobilization organizer, activist, and author Kevin Zeese on How to Stop The Machine and Make a New World

George Mason University’s region-wide celebration of books, Fall for the Book, will feature a discussion of Reasons to Kill: Why Americans Choose War at the Shirlington Public Library in Arlington, Virginia on Wednesday evening, September 21, 2011 at 7:00 p.m.  Rich will present the book briefly, apply some of its insights to current events, and engage in a lively discussion with the audience.  Y’all come!

Here is British Prime Minister David Cameron describing the recent series of riots in London and other cities: “sheer criminality, pure and simple.” The riots, says the Conservative PM, have nothing to do with poverty, inequality, or social exclusion. Their cause is a culture of permissiveness, of “rights, not responsibilities.” Such wanton lawlessness deserves one and only one response: severe punishment.  Anyone who suggests that the misbehavior has other causes is a lily-livered apologist for crime.

Now flash back to 1965, when the Watts ghetto of Los Angeles went up in flames and rioters there battled police for five days and nights.  President Lyndon Johnson described the riots as “the acts of a few mean and willful men.”  Other American leaders agreed that disorders over the next four years in New York, Newark, Detroit, Chicago, Washington D.C., and other cities represented “sheer criminality, pure and simple,” for which the only feasible remedy was punishment.

This is how politicians in power and shocked citizens normally describe unexpected civil disorders — as reflections of the rioters’ barbaric indiscipline, greed, and lust for destruction.  But in 1967, the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner Commission) reported that the primary causes of the American riots were institutionalized racism and social inequality.  One year later, the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence (Eisenhower Commission) produced a multi-volume study describing the structural causes of violence in America in detail, and concluding that major social reforms were needed.

All of this is pretty much forgotten in the wake of the British riots.  Under the pressure of untoward, politically embarrassing events, historical amnesia replaces memory in the same way that denunciations and furious calls for official violence replace thoughtful social analysis.

Cameron’s basic move is the “either/or” fallacy: either we must hold rioters responsible for their actions (yay!) or explain their behavior as the result of social conditions (boo!).  But this is a fallacy, as well as an oversimplification of the most primitive kind. We know very well that human behavior is the result of both moral choices AND social conditions.  People are responsible agents, and wanton violence, especially against innocent civilians, clearly deserves condemnation.  But, equally clearly, those excluded, brutalized, and excluded by a failing social system are also victims whose acts represent a form of protest and revenge.

The British riots, of course, are not identical the race-based uprisings of the sixties.  They are more akin to the Los Angeles riots of 1992, which expressed outrage over poverty and inequality as well as racial and ethnic discrimination.  Another relevant comparison is with the French youth who set fifteen cities ablaze in 2005 in response to police brutality, unemployment, neglect, and discrimination.

The tendency of powerful politicians to treat each outbreak of civil disorder as entirely new and unique reflects a profound unwillingness to recognize that the SYSTEM they represent is in crisis and needs radical change if genuine peace is to be restored.  As the Riot Commissions recognized, punishment alone will not end these explosions.  Nothing will do but to satisfy people’s legitimate needs for social inclusion, decent jobs, and human dignity.