{"id":1085,"date":"2012-05-01T15:00:24","date_gmt":"2012-05-01T19:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sinkers.org\/stage\/?p=1085"},"modified":"2012-05-01T15:00:24","modified_gmt":"2012-05-01T19:00:24","slug":"guest-columnist-dc-has-no-may-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sinkers.org\/stage\/?p=1085","title":{"rendered":"Guest Columnist: “DC Has No May Day”"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the moment, I’m in the middle of a rather involved piece — a sort of an infographic — that’s going to take a while to draw and lay out, so here’s a really excellent article by my friend, comrade, and fellow Town Hell Posse member, “the Cubster”, originally posted on his Tumblr site.<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sorry about the cursing, and… actually, on second thought, no — I’m not sorry about the cursing. If you can’t handle it, tough. –mf<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

DC has no May Day<\/strong><\/span>
\n <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Or, why the Institute for Policy Studies can eat shit.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"washdcDec0111-02crop300sq\"I\u2019ve often groused about how the activist millieu in DC is domesticated, low key and dead. Every event inevitably follows this formula: BORING SPEECH followed by THREE WORD CHANT, with ANNOYINGLY SERPENTINE MARCH that passes by OUTSIDE BORING OFFICE BUILDING, OUTSIDE BORING OFFICE BUILDING, OUTSIDE BORING OFFICE BUILDING, OUTSIDE BORING OFFICE BUILDING, winding up OUTSIDE BORING OFFICE BUILDING, with BORING SPEECH, THREE WORD CHANT, THREE WORD CHANT and BORING SPEECH. Sometimes, BORING SPEECH is interspersed with BORING FOLK MUSIC.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost as if all of these events are planned by the same central committee. We\u2019ve long been frustrated and irritated by the presence of 501c(3) non-profit groups\u2014 they latch on to every movement and suck the life out of it. Suddenly, every event \u2014no matter how grass-roots its origins\u2014 is handled like a goddamned rock concert, with backstage passes and VERY BUSY STAFFERS who are VERY IMPORTANT AND CANT TALK WITH YOU RIGHT NOW WOULD YOU KINDLY STEP AWAY FROM THE SPEAKERS. You have to butter these little shits up, too, or else they\u2019ll do everything in their power to keep you from taking pictures or interviewing people.<\/p>\n

Politics.<\/p>\n

So it comes to pass that every activist event ends up following the same fucking script, with people on the street becoming so accustomed to the routine that they block it all out. The people of DC have acquired ninja-like prowess in dodging and brushing off bright, shiny-faced youth with pamphlets, and shitty, squawking bullhorns just blend into the white noise of the city. I know, you\u2019re getting less than minimum wage to hand out fliers for an hour or two and it looks good on your curriculum vitae when you apply to another 501(c)3, but the people who told you to do this have no connection with the worker you\u2019re slowing down who needs to catch the subway or else she\u2019ll lose her minimum wage job.<\/p>\n

This is why no one who lives in DC gives two shits about activism anymore, and why no one bothers to start anything. You\u2019d think DC would be alive with political discourse on every corner, but it\u2019s not. Everything has been domesticated. Tamed. Broken. Every movement, no matter what it is, will inevitably be co-opted by a large, well-funded nonprofit who will then move its own people into leadership positions in the original, grass-roots group. Or\u2014 as with the case of Occupy DC, where there is no leadership position\u2014 the nonprofits will create leadership positions with their own people already in the position; namely, the Institute for Policy Studies\u2019 involvement with Occupy DC. We were looking up info about tomorrow\u2019s May Day event at Malcolm X park, and saw this press release<\/a>. That\u2019s odd, Occupy is just supposed to DO THINGS, not have press agents and people who live in very expensive apartments in Alexandria<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho ARE these people?\u201d \u201cHmm\u2026 they work for something\u2026 Institute for Policy Studies?\u201d \u201cINSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES?! A FUCKING NON-PROF?!\u201d \u201cYeah, fuck that shit, I\u2019m not wasting my time on that crap.\u201d<\/p>\n

What DOES MayDay DC have planned, anyway? A carnival? A family friendly outing of happy, puffy, safe pablum that completely undercuts the serious nature of the entire goddamned 99% message? The right wing and corporatists are waging a very literal waron working people, dissidents and anyone who doesn\u2019t fit into their narrow \u201cGod-Money-Empire\u201d worldview, and the best way to demonstrate this is by having nonprofit staffers dress up in CLOWN COSTUMES for a goddamned PARADE?<\/p>\n

The common line of apologist bullshit from non-profits is that without the power of a nonprofit, they wouldn\u2019t be able to pull in notable speakers or professional sound systems\u2014 which is probably they\u2019ve had their sights set on Occupy since it first appeared. Think about it\u2014 a legitimately grass-roots movement that doesn\u2019t want or need your fucking Genelec monitors that you can\u2019t mix properly, and where speakers like Slavoj Zizek spent their own money to travel to and attend. Hell, DC may actually by a perfect example where right wing media may have had its baseless propaganda finally hit a mark: a rich, well-funded group of flatulent, old \u201cestablishment leftists\u201d really have taken over the activist scene in DC.<\/p>\n

The major difference between what Institute for Policy Studies does and what Americans for Prosperity does is AFP has the backing of the Koch brothers\u2019 billions, and IPS only has donations from a few well-off people from left-of-center. Either way, both of these abominations are the very definition of astro-turf political movements. Nothing of any journalistic importance will happen at Malcolm X park tomorrow, and I\u2019m certainly not going to risk my brand new camera and lenses to cover a fucking astro-turf event that\u2019s already being photographed by talentless hacks working for a fucking non-profit. Fuck that shit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the moment, I’m in the middle of a rather involved piece — a sort of an infographic — that’s going to take a while to draw and lay out, so here’s a really excellent article by my friend, comrade, and fellow Town Hell Posse member, “the Cubster”, originally posted on his Tumblr site. Sorry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,392],"tags":[426,427,428,429],"class_list":["post-1085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dc-local","category-occupy","tag-institute-for-policy-studies","tag-nonprofits","tag-think-tanks","tag-wonks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sinkers.org\/stage\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sinkers.org\/stage\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sinkers.org\/stage\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sinkers.org\/stage\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sinkers.org\/stage\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1085"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/sinkers.org\/stage\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1100,"href":"http:\/\/sinkers.org\/stage\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085\/revisions\/1100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sinkers.org\/stage\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sinkers.org\/stage\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sinkers.org\/stage\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}