The End of Protest: A New Playbook For Revolution

Like 2017, 2011 started out as a year of rebellion.  By February of that year, hundreds of thousands had taken to the streets in such diverse places as Cairo, Egypt, Madrid, Spain and Madison, Wisconsin to protest austerity measures proposed by their governments.  During those early months of 2011, a new tactic emerged:  people engineered a democratic takeover of public space and refused to release it — an occupation.  Here in Madison, people camped out in the Capitol Rotunda from February 20th until March 5th, establishing their own libraries, day care centers and popular assemblies before eventually being evicted by the Capitol Police.  Later that year, that tactic went viral in a big way, as Adbuster magazine contributor and Berkeley activist Micah White promoted a deceptively simple concept:  Occupy Wall Street.   After the call went out on Adbuster’s mailing list, seemingly from nowhere, thousands of protestors emerged to hold Zucotti Park in New York’s financial district for a total of twenty eight days.  Occupy inspired similar protests around the globe, even including scientists in Antarctica.  Six years later, though, what, exactly, did all those protests accomplish?  That’s the question Micah White is asking himself in his new book: “The End of Protest: A New Playbook for Revolution.”  Micah White joins 8 O’Clock Buzz host Brian Standing by phone.