Rebels
Without a clue
You sell your flesh to those
Who chew ours up for you
Then tell you

You’re safe

And you’re saving
The world
When you can't
Even live
In it

 

Bleeding hearts get dryer
Religions expire
But we stay afloat
As long as you rock nature’s boat
Do you really think

We will not destroy you?
You know we employ you
Better than you do

Yourselves.   

 

            ‘Activism’ doesn’t work. My most precise specialty training is in impacting public policy, and I would NEVER call individuals successful in this endeavor such as Tony Stiles’ guests this week ‘activists’. In social science circles, this term is derogatory; and while the semantics are certainly unimportant as many successful individuals self-define as such, the distinction I’m about to outline is crucial. But before I discuss the successes of Tommy Chong and Glenn Jacobs and why they are above this label in my perspective, let’s examine what activism as I see it looks like in the real world.

 

What Is An ‘Activist’?

 

            According to dictionary.com, an activist is “an especially vigorous advocate of a [political] cause”. Hence, activism is measured by effort, dedication, and fervor – methods and outcomes, not to mention the content of the cause, have nothing to do with it. Considering this definition, political activists come and go faster than the NSA’s excuses for violating the Constitution, and the grand majority of them don’t even rate a footnote in history. To demonstrate what I mean, let’s look at a few examples that actually scratched the surface of national headlines.

            Remember those union protesters in 2011 against Wisconsin committing the ‘deadly corporatist sin’ of making union membership voluntary for State employees? One of the most vocal and long-lasting protests in recent US history – that effort encouraged a score of legislators to flee the State to avoid quorum for passing the law (which is a crime), bused 1000s of people from all over Wisconsin to the capital for protests, launched several recall elections including that of Governor Scott Walker, and was joined by all of the left-leaning mainstream media in committing every logical fallacy and abuse of statistics known to empirical science. If that’s not ‘vigorous’ I don’t know what is, and yet they failed completely and miserably – as I predicted they would on my original blog at http://neurotoxinsfyg.blogspot.com. The law they opposed was passed and remains on the books, Walker became the first governor in US history to endure a recall election, and while they managed to seize a couple of State legislature seats in highly competitive districts, they fell short of their objective of gaining a majority so they could fight the law in a special session. Before I explain how I knew the day that effort started that it would fall flat on its face, the lesson is that ‘vigor’ is not a measure of success.

            Perhaps an even more universal example with which I perpetually upset Progressives is the Occupy Movement – a movement whose lack of success and eventual fall into infantry status for other efforts I also predicted on the same blog. Here was a national collection of individuals quite rightfully pissed off at the government and particularly its codependent relationship with Wall St for the devastating condition of the US economy in 2011. Many of the members were veterans and college students, demographics that have in past times of political turmoil been very influential in movements that effectively impacted public policy. They had loudspeakers, banners, websites, and 1000s of dedicated members nationwide that voluntarily lived in public parks and donated their professional services to the cause for weeks at a time. They even had, although supporters shudder to admit this, some very rich and powerful sponsors including Warren Buffet, George Soros, Michael Moore, and MoveOn.org. Yet I say confidently that they accomplished nothing. What few agenda items they put forth such as overturning the Citizens United ruling and reinstating the Glass-Steagall regulations repealed in the 1990s remain hopelessly out of reach politically, and the Democratic Party unapologetically ignores them and moves to the right as it picks up moderates expelled by the Republican Party like Charlie Crist. Why? Occupy was certainly dedicated and ‘vigorous’ as activists.

            Not to leave conservatives without a well-deserved slap, let’s recall the recent Supreme Court rulings on Arizona’s Immigration Law and homosexual marriage. Residing in California and very close to the Mexican border, I witnessed the activism that passed those laws first hand. The border militarization advocates in this county love Jan Brewer and Joe Arpaio more than anyone in Arizona ever will; and many conservative forums and publications here ran their ads soliciting money and support for Arizona’s law in hopes it could eventually be implemented in San Diego. The activists in question went so far as to make lists of Arizona based business operating in California and encourage supporters to buy their products in order to assist that State government’s tax revenue. As for Proposition 8 – CA’s own State Constitutional Amendment against recognizing homosexual marriage – for 2 months leading up to the referendum, you could not stop at a red light in this city during regular business hours without witnessing half a dozen idiots dancing around on the street corner with “Restore Marriage” signs. As far as activism goes, the numbers of people these causes were able to mobilize are quite impressive. Yet the legislative success of both was short-lived as the Supreme Court unrepentantly deposited them in history’s trash can, where I unrepentantly contend both belong. While it’s pleasant to think of the Supreme Court as a neutral system of judicial review, it is a highly politicized entity that responds to its own set of political pressures and checks and balances. The activism in favor of the fascist policies in question failed to impact this system, vigor notwithstanding.

            What these examples and millions of others that materialize daily in protests, sit-ins, petition drives, the formation of various short-lived organizations, and so forth have in common is a lack of fundamental understanding of the political environment and the needs of people not directly involved with them. Much like someone devoted to becoming a physician cannot do so by relying solely on hard work and passion about medicine but must actually acquire skills and education; loud and emphatic advocates cannot hope to substitute effort for knowledge and expertise. However, in stark opposition to science-based professions, our country teems with the myth that any individual or group of people with enough emotion and dedication can change the world. I’m here to tell you this is simply inaccurate. And while the inspiration for my nickname originates from my habit of dispelling such adult equivalents of the belief in Santa Claus, my purpose is not to discourage our patrons from political involvement but to direct them toward effective ways.

 

So What Do Chong and ‘Kane’ Have That All Those Idiots Didn’t?

 

            In social science, those who successfully impact public policy by following empirically-tested practices are called ‘organizers’. And while those of us who are formally trained in this are not snobs who think the training is required (in fact many of the best organizers in history were not formally trained), the distinction between ‘activist’ or ‘advocate’ and ‘organizer’ is drilled into us from the very first day.

            Advocates are driven by their own personal values (which all of us invariably have) and are ‘vigorously active’ in trying to push these through into public policy. While this seems like an admirable endeavor at first glance, it is actually quite contrary to the nature of a free state. Essentially, it consists of using the government to force your personal values down the throats of your fellow citizens with a lack of heed for the rights and needs of others impacted. The same pattern is also what makes advocacy so ineffective. Passionate as they are, advocates often rigidly promote policies they fervently believe in based on their ideological views, but which are objectively unpopular and radical – sometimes even among those on whose behalf they are allegedly advocating as was the case with many Wisconsin public employees desperately wanting to dump their terribly corrupt and unrepresentative unions. Coupled with the unwillingness to compromise and explore other ways of addressing common problems, this passion over reason approach makes it difficult for advocates to attract moderates and seek alliances with influential stakeholders. The United States offers no shortage of corrupt, politically biased sources of funding and media attention for ridiculous activist causes; but we have witnessed these failing over and over in recent years as they can’t create the diverse coalitions of support needed for success.

            Organizers, on the other hand, specialize in understanding the political environment before trying to change it. While we certainly have personal values like all people, seeing something we disagree with prompts us toward research into the causes and roots of it, with a very important inclusion of the perspectives of all stakeholders involved. While formal training in this is certainly beneficial, many people who are naturally good at understanding others and have experience building community relationships often have a knack for it as well. At the risk of sounding cliché, open-mindedness toward the perspectives of others and the underpinnings of existing policies or conditions changes one’s own perspective and makes it more flexible, a quality that then allows organizers to build coalitions that deliver change effectively because it is backed by a broad, diverse coalition and seeks to avoid delivering harm to any demographic. On the flip-side, it also allows one to make friends of and negotiate with would-be political opponents; understanding their core interests and then educating them on the actual impacts of the policies involved. Regardless of your take on their political views, famous organizers like Mohandas Gandhi, Saul Alinsky and Martin Luther King succeeded because they were skilled and talented in understanding the landscape and bringing divergent interests together for common causes. The fervor and passion we witness in their speeches and quotes is very misleading, as the conclusion that THESE were the keys to their success is simply erroneous despite the fact that we are led to it as children.

            With that distinction in mind, let’s explore why I proudly consider Tommy Chong and Glenn ‘Kane’ Jacobs worthy of the ‘organizer’ title. Like some guests on past shows, Chong’s political endeavors have centered on the legalization of cannabis. While drug use has always been rampant among Americans and celebrities in particular, Tommy Chong first and foremost deserves credit for his courage and openness about it and his political views during his earlier career in the 1970s and early 1980s – the height of the war on drugs when cannabis culture was considered deviant and lived under the constant threat of repression by Federal authorities. While I doubt intentional assessment of the political landscape was what motivated Tommy Chong in those years, his congenial engagement of like-minded souls allowed him to build relationships with a broad cross-section of organizations fighting what then seemed like a losing war against the growing power of abusive authorities. In doing so, Chong became an icon for cannabis enthusiasts, as well as for opponents of the encroaching, propaganda-spewing police state. His friendly, relaxed demeanor stood in stark opposition to it. In light of this, when the war on drugs began to show its first signs of collapse as a policy in 2003, the targeting of Tommy Chong by Bush Jr.-appointed Pennsylvania US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan in a sting operation for selling drug paraphernalia perfectly legal in the State of CA was completely unsurprising to me. Chong was cannabis’s friendliest and most politically effective face at the time; and vigilante Federal law enforcement bureaucrats of the era had a pervasive strategy of example-making to ‘scare’ the political opposition into submission to the administration’s alleged moral superiority.

            After serving a 9-month term in Federal prison – a completely ridiculous sentence in terms of judicial precedent for his level of involvement – Chong returned several years later to prove his organizer prowess by destroying Buchannan’s budding political career. By 2009 the incompetence and counter-productivity of the intimidation strategy had gotten Republicans fired from the White House and both Houses of Congress, and the crafty Buchanan resigned her post as US Attorney and set out to capture a Congressional seat in the looming 2010 backlash against Barack Obama’s belligerence in the opposite political direction. According to all the polls and publications from the time that are easily searchable – extremely liberal and union-connected Democratic Incumbent Jason Altmire was quite vulnerable in said political climate and Buchanan was poised to beat him as a sweetheart of the GOP political establishment and funded by it. But Tommy Chong rolled in to Pennsylvania with his own bankroll and significant popularity with civil libertarians and ran a powerful campaign exposing Buchanan’s outright totalitarian tactics as a US Attorney. Coinciding with the rise of the government-wary Tea Party, this kept Buchanan from even making it into the general election as she was crushed 65%-35% in the Primary by small government politician Keith Rothfus.

            Whether or not Chong understood that fanning the flames of civil libertarian rage in 2009-10 would result in Buchanan’s own party throwing her into the Bush Jr.-era political dumpster is quite irrelevant. He accurately evaluated the political climate and his personal popularity in it, and directed his resources toward exposing a very dangerous and abusive politician in an era when such abuses were deal-breakers for voters. I don’t deny that Chong was partially driven by a personal vendetta, but he was able to find allies and build a broad coalition by focusing not specifically on the issue of cannabis, but on Buchanan’s neglect for the Constitution and disrespect for human rights. Hence, Tommy Chong’s ability to build relationships and understand how to combine what he wants with what others want allowed him to succeed in doing the country the favor of removing Mary Beth Buchanan from the political spectrum. Since then, as his entertainer career has picked up again, so has his involvement in several organizations working to legalize cannabis and reign in Federal law enforcement abuse – organizations you likely have not heard of because they are effectively impacting public policy rather than protesting loudly in the streets.

            As for Glenn Thomas Jacobs, better known to many as the WWE’s Kane and to hardcore political professionals like myself as Citizen X; his accomplishments do not quite mirror those of Tommy Chong. But he has shown much capacity and talent and I believe they will yet considering he is significantly younger. In 2006-7, Jacobs effectively used his influence as a professional wrestler with young, disgruntled Americans to introduce them to the basic concepts of personal liberty in his blog and podcast under the pseudonym Citizen X. With his immaculately easy-to-understand expression that I can probably never hope to match, the brilliant Jacobs composed scenarios in which Citizen X (whom he described as “an average American like you and I”) embarked on perfectly reasonable, honest ventures and encountered the arrogant incompetence of government as a frustrating obstacle, often making the ventures no longer worth the cost. Particularly remarkable was Jacobs’ rare focus on immoral government behavior such as corruption or ulterior motives. His blog sought to expose the backwards unintended consequences of over-reaching regulation, and in doing so introduced many frustrated adolescents of the era to the causes behind their daily problems. In 2008, Jacobs became one of the first celebrities to endorse Ron Paul for President – introducing many previously unaffiliated young wrestling fans to the man that would soon become their political idol. In my personal opinion, Jacobs’ influence on the rise of youth liberty movements through these endeavors is highly understated and under-appreciated. He understood both his buy-in with the demographic in question and how to effectively present views to them that were mutually beneficial. In more recent history, Jacobs has demonstrated his potential as a politician by calmly destroying establishment hacks in televised arguments with facts and logic that were extremely easy for the audience to grasp. For what it’s worth – I personally join Ron Paul in encouraging the Big Red Machine to challenge Tennessee’s establishment lifer Lamar Alexander for the Republican nomination for US Senate in 2014; and perhaps to give the latter a sweet ‘Kane’ promo in his victory speech.

           

Conclusion

            The key takeaway here, even though it seems counter-intuitive coming from an anarchist, is that politics is a collaborative sport. Traditional left and right claiming to promote collective responsibility in fact rely on deception and popular ignorance to tie policies palatable to a very small minority to overgeneralized concepts of morality and sprinkling on passion in place of rational thought. As I have discussed in past editorials, the rise of alternative media and a general paradigm shift toward more empirical social thinking has made these activist tactics inspiringly ineffective, and paved the way for liberty-minded organizers who understand that collective benefit lies in the least interference of people in others’ lives, especially by means of government. However, many in this movement remain stuck in the activist mindset, expecting that impassioned confrontation with political opponents that defends personal liberty from an ideological dedication will carry us to victory. While I agree with your ideology, trying to force the repeal of laws many people view as beneficial or necessary makes us more enemies than friends, and in the long-run is likely to backfire as the stereotypes of libertarians unconcerned with the plight of our fellow man are abused by our opponents. I urge you to seek to understand effective organizing, and to learn from soft-spoken celebrities like Tommy Chong and Glenn Jacobs who have successfully brought your views to the mainstream through calm, congenial, friendly behavior. If this sounds boring because you’re spoiling for a fight, keep in mind that their results have been to expose opposition figures like US Attorney Buchanan for the oppressive, reality-denying lunatics they are.

 

 

 

About the Editor:

Neurotoxin holds a dual BA in Psychology and Political Science and an MSW with a specialization in Community Organizing. Politically, he is a “structural anarchist”; a school of thought that believes in treating all power structures as facts of nature that should be accounted for but not preserved. This school of thought dictates that policy ought to be driven solely by its empirically calculated outcomes.

Neurotoxin is the co-owner of Edge of Chaos – a political podcast and blog that can be found @ www.edgeofchaospodcast.com and http://www.facebook.com/theedgeofchaos.