Re: “Don’t harass the bigots”. Stop shilling for the status quo. And please refrain from lecturing real progressives about effective action.

(Link to gag-making blog post in question HERE)

The most egregious lickspittle from her blog is this:

But these are the lines you should not cross:…Harassment. The line between harassment and speaking out may seem difficult to define, but a general rule of thumb is that if you’re trying to deluge someone or trying to force them to listen to you, you have crossed the line. Phone calling, then, is always harassment, because, as noted, you can’t know who is calling unless you engage them. It’s coercive. You have a right to speak out, but they have a right to ignore you if they want. Don’t try to get around that.

Maybe if Amanda Marcotte and other “sensible”, “adult” liberals would bother to apply (or maybe learn?) some historical perspective, they could be taken seriously when they speak about people who take direct action. Or maybe they would just have a better sense of when to just be quiet.

Here is a sampling of some of the virtuous liberal nonsense that people who agreed with Amanda’s smarty-pants article had to say:

“Michael” (1): I can barely think of any time harassment is fair, even if the accusation of the group is true, because likely the people who see the attacks, or hear the phone calls, didn’t even institute the policy. Often they just joined, or are paid employees.

Really, Michael? Can’t think of any times when people who didn’t make the policy and are just doing what they’re told might be legitimate targets of resistence? Why don’t you think on that for a moment. We’ll get back to you.

“Kevin”: It’s so frustrating when this crap happens. A few hotheads can completely erode the distinction between liberals and conservatives, at least as far as headlines and public perception go. In addition to which, it’s wrong to begin with. We have got to make a stronger stand against people on our side adopting the hatefulness and violence of the other side, however few they may be.

No, Kevin. The distinction between liberals and conservatives on the issue of Memories Pizza’s ant-gay policy is that liberals (progressives, actually—no one cares what liberals do or think) oppose the discrimination against LGBT persons while conservatives pretend that not serving them because they are LGBT persons is not discrimination. It’s so frustrating when liberals can see every side of every struggle over justice, but can’t work up enough concern to fight for the right one—and win.

Amanda Marcotte [the article’s author]: Harassment isn’t a legitimate technique. That’s why it’s associated far more often with people who have illegitimate causes, such as anti-choicers or Gamergaters. People who are right tend to be a little more confident about direct persuasion.

Gosh Amanda, did they teach about the civil rights movement in your school?

Most of what was done to the owners of Memories Pizza and Hate Shop was neither more nor less than an updated version of the 1961 lunch counter sit-in campaign in Greensboro.
You may not recall that the campaign lasted for six months and involved as many as 300 protesters at a time sitting it at and around the small lunch counter, in addition to the clutter and disruption caused by reporters and TV crews that the sit-in organizers deliberately called to come and report on the disruption.

DISRUPTION is a key tool of direct action. This is a oncept that seems too upsetting for some liberals on some struggles.  I even know a few self-certain liberals in the Washington, DC area who claimed that the local protests in solidarity with Ferguson were “counter-productive” because they would cause rush hour traffi jams that would alienate “the very political class in Washington they need on their side.”  True story.  I’m hoping I don’t need to explain the cravenness and self-serving stupidity on offer, here (?)

Disrupting business as usual is designed to upset and raise doubt and uncertainty (insecurity!) about status quo power and its expected ability to maintain “order”. You can bet that the customers and wait staff at that Woolworth’s lunch counter saw the daily sit in—which drove away paying customers, cost the servers tips, and cost the lunch counter concessionaire business revenues—as harassment.  Because it was.

And it is also true that the people most directly impacted, the counter servers, were not members of the Greensboro power structure responsible for the policy.

But, the verdict of history is that the harassment and disruption was justified in order to force change. Memories Pizza could have done what Woolworth’s did: PUBLICLY ANNOUNCE THEIR ACQUIESCENCE TO THE PROTESTERS DEMANDS FOR JUSTICE.

Pretty simple.  Just call back that reporter and tell her you want to issue a public statement reversing your hate policy.  No more “harassment”.

Oh.  I’m sorry, Amanda and polite liberals.  Is that too “coercive”?  Why?  Is there some reason why the strategies and tactics of direct action should be suspended in the fight for LGBT justice? How are strikes, boycotts, sit-ins, taking over the ROTC campus recruitment office not coercive?

I suggest taking a look at some labor history to see how collective bargaining rights were actually won. Nasty phone calls were on the genteel end of the spectrum.  Grow up liberals.

Or is it that nice liberals of today think more can be accomplished by being “better” than the forces they oppose?

Tip: You aren’t better.  Your cause is more just.  If you want to be better (or more virtuous, morally superior) than others, go join the Scouts.  Go seek your merit badge or gold star for good civics somewhere else.  If what matters to you most  is what you see when you look in the mirror, social justice struggles are not for you.  Because the cost of losing a struggle where actual human justice is on the line is too high for concerns about how your actions will make you look.

Get over yourself.  Literally.

Centrist-minded, Kennedy School, see-both-sides liberals need to hush up and go to a library to discuss their concerns over ends-means relationships while real progressive advocates get the job done for social justice by direct action.

Act or be silent.

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(1) Names have been disguised to protect the feeble.