I march, therefore I am. We post: we are

If you're wondering why Stephen Harper didn't jump to Jack Layton's rather lame call to "unlock these doors" of parliament, it's very simple. Firstly, the Prime Minister of Canada isn't like a church custodian with a key-ring. More importantly, nobody was arrested. Note that I wrote arrested not interested.

That's the answer. Nobody was dragged off by police in handcuffs. Not one, not nearly enough to grab the Prime Minister's attention.

On Saturday (1/23/10), my friend and colleague with The Globe and Mail British Columbia bureau, the ever-musing Rod Mickleburgh and I were texting - as I marched and tweeted, and he did whatever it was he was doing. We agreed that demonstrations just aren't what they used to be. And they used to be something.


I grew up in Regina at a time when there were still vivid memories of the Regina Riot on July 1, 1935.

In 1935, unemployed men at a camp in British Columbia began a train trip to Ottawa to demand that the federal government do something to help them. The journey, known as the On to Ottawa Trek, was cut short when the group reached Regina. The government issued arrest warrants for 7 of the trekkers and when police tried to arrest the men at a peaceful rally, a riot broke out. A policeman was killed, several officers and trekkers were injured, and many arrests were made. The so-called "Regina Riot" brought the trek to an end.

The Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament (CAPP) demonstrations will never be recorded alongside that riot, the Winnipeg General Strike (1919: one of the most influential protests in Canadian history), or Vancouver's infamous APEC Conference student protests.

What we just witnessed last weekend in Canada, when a smattering of small protests were staged against Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to prorogue parliament, was self-expression. Canadians aren't comfortable with self-expression, which might go a long way in explaining why recent public demonstrations have been so uninspiring. We are self-restricting in our self-expression, unless its about hockey.

In theory, practice, or appearance, protest can be restricted. Cases in point: the approaching Olympic Winter Games has caused the City of Vancouver and the Integrated Security Unit (responsible for all Olympic public safety) to enforce the isolation of demonstration to "protest zones." More covertly, a network of security cameras will keep watch on street-corner self-expression. Also, the International Olympic Committee, despite opposing public and legal concensus, has disallowed women ski jumping as an event.

Goverment, economic conditions, religion, social and cultural practices, or media monopoly can all restrict self-expression. That's when opposition spills into the streets. At least, it is supposed to.

What worries the geezer elite (conservatives, business and mass media) is that protest can and has widened into riots, insurgency, revolts, and revolution. It can, but rarely does.

People take it to the streets, and some of them hope it will grow into something more than a winding stroll through downtown. Perhaps, like fans of stockcar racing who are there to see the crash-and-burn, some marchers hope somone will throw a rock through a window. Still others arrive at the marshalling point for the protest, embrace the exhilarating, temporary carnival spirit - a recurring example being the monthly "Critical Mass" bicyle rides - then, after whatever time it takes for attention spans to be distracted, feel that they've done their bit, got the idea, and wander off to Starbucks.

The democracy that Mr. Harper abruptly short-circuited is founded on a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, free from usual constraints, robust and wide-open.

As with most demonstrations today, robust, unconstrained free expression rarely amounts to much more than a shrug under a parka. But that misses the point of what has become today's form of mass street protest. The march isn't planned to accomplish a concrete result by demanding the passage of a particular piece of legislation or, in this case, force an unpopular leader to reverse a decision that he made - which further added to his unpopularity, so what does he care?

Instead, organizers focus on affirming. (*YAWN*)

While in the past a march was judged successful if it affected a political outcome, today's protests are judged on how they affect a protester's sense of self.

The most recent and memorable example this phenomena, until the recent tea party movement in the US, was when

the press didn't quite know what to make of the Million Man March on Washington, D.C. There was no precedent for a march designed primarily to allow participants to encounter each other and pledge life change--so media coverage focused largely on the sheer number of marchers and on (Nation of Islam Leader Louis) Farrakhan's loopiness. What they missed was the fact that the Million Man March was creating a model for a new type of demonstration. Most of the copycat marches since have had something of the same flavor. Even if they were ostensibly focused on a specific policy goal--and many don't even pretend to have that impetus--organizers have crafted marches to be fulfilling experiences for those who come to participate. Any impact on those outside the march seems to be an afterthought.

When blogs give everyone the pundit's power to bring down network anchors and political leaders and shape a political agenda (at least in the US, if not yet in Canada), dissenters no longer need protests and marches to be heard. CAPP had already proven that it was a voice that would not be silenced. It had been affirmed by 200,000 Canadians before heaing the siren's call to take their success to the streets. They shouldn't have.

Yet there remains among many a need for something more--to have an adventure, to experience an historic event, to make direct connections with like-minded people. This existential desire, plus a certain nostalgia for the good old days, fuel much of contemporary march culture. Which is fine: Protesting for protesting's sake serves a market. But so do rock concerts and tractor pulls. If today's marchers want their efforts to mean a great deal more than that, they would do well to recognize the real reason why the marches of yesteryear are remembered. It wasn't just about the messengers. It was about the message.

If you are to serve your market then control your message. Politicians who depend on votes to keep their job do respond to the will of the people. But Stephen Harper, the master politicial tactician, reads our will be done through public opinion polls, not protest signs.The signs are re-cycled and his numbers will rebound in the polls.

That's why, after Saturday's marches and rallies, Stephen Harper did not end prorogation because a few thousand Canadians went for a Saturday afternoon walk. Opinion polls will ultimately show that the Canadian people didn't care.

Anti-(fill-in-the-blank) protests have the appearance of offering everything, and representing many, often incompatible agendas - but an alternative or a solution. Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament had a solution in their message that was resonnating with hard-working Canadians. But the simplicity of that message - Get back to work - was lost in a the not-rally-ready speaches from all the old familiar faces criticising the government's handling of everything from the environment to the treatment of Afghan prisoners to omnibus justice legislation.

Despite drumming, marching, singing, screaming and chanting, a coherent message didn't emerge on Saturday. When I heard someone shout, What do we want? There was an awkward silence. We should have been chanting Get back to work over and over again. Therein lies the problem. When you don't stay on message - ask a politician - you expose your cause to the kiss-of-death: definition by geezer media.

social movements come to be contextually framed within the news media... the subjective framing of social movements within the news media often serve to impede or undermine the intents of the organizations.

there exists an asymmetrical relationship of dependency between social movement organizations and the media. This relationship describes a situation whereby social movements “greatly depend on the media to help them mobilize, and to validate their standing, while news organizations are less dependent on movements for the stories they feature”; as a result the media have the power and ability to influence how events are perceived... the issues and concerns of regular citizens become overshadowed by the priorities of the media and the affiliated corporate and political elite. Instead of existing as a forum for issues to be brought forward and debated, the news media is dominated by common, attention-grabbing themes such as violence instead of covering the more subtle motivations behind a social movement’s actions. As a result, organizations such as (CAPP) are not often legitimized or supported by news media coverage, as it tends to focus only on the sensational aspect of movements’ actions, particularly emphasizing any form of violence. As such, organizations’ attempts to foster public awareness of their causes become lost in biased news coverage.

Geezer media gets all huffy with social network sites like Facebook because those young whipper-snappers don't give a tinker's damn about the middle-aged white guys on TV. (Trust me, I used to be one.) Studies have concluded that the mass media can and will disempower protest groups, and that includes cyber protests challenging the status quo. The media will report

about protesters' appearances rather than their issues, emphasize their violent actions rather than their social criticism, pit them against the police rather than their chosen targets, and downplay their effectiveness. This kind of coverage constitutes what has been called the "protest paradigm," which leads to new coverage that supports the status quo.

There is no appearnce or violence or police lines to report on when the protest is online. As soon as CAPP showed itself on the street, old media in Canada was following an established routine.  Faces on Facebook fell into the geezer's comfort zone.

The initial geezer reporting of the Facebook group was dismissive. Michael Geist writes in TheTyee.ca:

As the group began to take flight, it was surprising to see political leaders and analysts blithely dismiss the relevance of Facebook advocacy. Editorials pointed to other large groups to demonstrate the group's irrelevance, noting that joining a Facebook group was too easy -- just click to join -- to mean much of anything.

Its political partners having taken an unscheduled holiday, thanks to Mr. Harper, and with nothing to report from the usual sources to ardently defend the status quo, the media geezers made nice with the kids it had criticized. The Facebook group did take flight because, ironically, mass media, with nothing to report from a prorogued parliament, had only CAPP as its headline for the prorogation story, thereby increasing interest and membership in the group.

Geezer media is a whore that'll give anyone head for $40. Never fall for a whore. Its headline reporting tricked the Facebook faithful. Once the story was framed as an I dare you show me, the horny kids behind the group announced that there would be protests across Canada on January 23rd. Now, taking a long drag on its self-important analysis because it believes the story to have come and gone, old media has dumped on new media, and gone back to bed with its regular political johns who pay a lot more than $40.

When old media took hold, CAPP - a new-form protest group that was being effective by using new social network tools - made the mistake of organizing an old-style street protest. It was that decision which has allowed old media to return to blithely dismissing new-form advocacy because the numbers online didn't translate to proportional feet in the streets.

Had CAPP stayed close-to-homepage and on message - Get back to work - its momentum would not have been interrupted by the perception that Saturday's public protests were what all the fuss was about. Affirmation? For whom? The fuss can recover from the setback by staying online where it belongs, and grow in numbers Mr. Harper can't ignore. Therefore, keep posting, and post some more because we post, therefore we are.