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Tensions Between Archivists and 'Occupy' Protesters Over Preserving the Movement
An anonymous reader writes "At one point an NYU librarian literally got into a shouting match with a protester at an Occupy protest, trying to make the case for why a digital record should be kept of photos, videos, audio recordings, posters, and other materials, so future scholars and activists can recount what happened. Academics are taking unusual steps to preserve the protesters' stuff, including 'distributing postcards promoting archiving at protests, developing automated systems to download photos posted online, and asking participants to vote on which images are most important for the historic record.'"
I thought people were afraid of being recognized by police using the archives.
Turns out they're arguing over whether to call themselves the Judean People's Front or the People's Front of Judea.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Perhaps none that we can see today, but I can imagine why there's such a push to archive absolutely everything that happened with these protests.
Maybe I'm being a bit too hopeful, but some time decades in the future, perhaps these protests will be seen as 'what got the ball rolling' to vast, sweeping changes.
You never know what the future holds, but I for one hope that these protest started something bigger than they could ever have imagined. It just takes a while for that snowball to grow at first.
And IF those protests were indeed the start of eventual mass changes... would it not be beneficial to have documented as much as we can on them?
Organizing that stuff is hard work. Work continues getting 1960s protest info cataloged. Stanford had a group trying to organize Martin Luther King's stuff. That took years. Then they got the archives of the Black Panther Party, and are now grinding through that. The archives of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) are at Kent State.
Much of the plder stuff is too variable for fast scanning. Somebody has to put posters, handouts, and brochures through a flatbed, slowly. The fast book scanners need more structure.
but some time decades in the future, perhaps these protests will be seen as 'what got the ball rolling' to vast, sweeping changes.
What you are thinking of there is called the "Tea Party".
The funny thing is that mostly the two groups had the same complaints (the Tea Party dislikes big banks just as much as Occupy folk). Only instead of camping illegally The Tea Party stayed outside for just a few days each month to show people they existed, and then went back inside - to occupy the only thing that REALLY can have an impact.
The primary system.
The Tea Party has been going through and cleaning out (to the degree they can) the Republican system, starting at the lowest levels. It will take time but over time the Republican party will become much more libertarian and less big government as a result. The Tea Party already had substantial impact in the last elections, especially in primaries, and frames the debate even today.
All of that, without people getting arrested, or breaking laws.
That's why the occupy movement doesn't really matter, it's all a stage show at this point to prop up what already exists, not to really change anything. It's not directing any energy at anything that can actually make change occur.
They could have done the same things for the Democrats that the Tea Party has done for the Republicans but with no real goals defined and a basically crazy unwillingness to accept that leaders can make things happen, Occupy just drifts along now to be used by whomever wishes to do so.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Technically, you're correct. However, the coverage the protests received from Big Media are also copyrighted to Big Media, which puts it outside the financial range of individuals who want to use that coverage without paying for very expensive per-item licensing fees.
For example, I'm personally aware that the University of Kentucky archives contacted CBS to get a 6 minute video clip of their basketball team in action from 1998 to include within a larger documentary about UK's sports history. CBS said it would cost about $10,000 for that one clip. The story's the same for other copyrighted history like the 1979 Who tragedy in Cincinnati, Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, and countless other historical events.
The NYU archivists know this, and it's why they can't count on Big Media - they have to do it themselves.
You're trolling, but there is truth to the point that many of the people at the protests didn't even know why they were there. Literally, when asked on camera, they couldn't give an answer. They just wanted to be part of an anti-authority movement. It ended up becoming another generic anti-capitalism movement, like what the Iraq War protests became after a few days. A certain element was defecating on police cars, committing sexual assault, and littering parks with tons of garbage.
It's so much easier to blend into a crowd and yell with them at the top of your lungs to make yourself feel better about a general anger you have toward society. It's so much harder to actually effect change by contacting politicians, convincing the public, studying the law, and generally having an impact on the legislative process so that something actually comes out of any of it.
It's one of the reasons I'm irritated by anyone with a bullhorn, even when they say things I would normally agree with. It comes off like a pushy way for them to vent. They're aware of the image of themselves as a protestor with a bullhorn, and they get hooked on that image. Then it's over, and they go back to the office job they were trying to get away from in the first place.
Actually change something--then I'll be impressed!
The Occupy events were held on public property where there's no reasonable expectation of privacy. They uploaded information about the events to public websites. They handed out materials to the general public. There was far too much media coverage. Why should they get ANY say in what's retained in a permanent record? They already made it themselves.
The Tea party does not give a shit about republicans.
They want small government, constitutional, conservatives.
Of course the lefties in the group will call small government "anarchy" and constitutional "weird idea people" and conservative "Clinging to God and Guns out of fear".
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Most are unaware of it, but the social tension evidenced in this conversation comes from changing living conditions. The world is full. Further economic growth is neither possible nor desirable.
A growing economic pie allowed large disparity in income. A shrinking economic pie directs people's attention back to large income disparities.
Most OWS and Tea Party (they may distrust and fear each other, but they have more in common than either will admit) real grassroots sympathizers & supporters know there's something going on that they don't like, but they're not sure what to do about it. Last year a wave of popular revolutions swept the Arab world, driven by the same feeling. Liberals and Conservatives use different words to describe seemingly different things, but the origin of their discontent comes from the end of growth. This impending paradigm shift is at the origin of the social conflict played out on this page.
It is foolish of people to focus on redistributing wealth, scapegoat, bicker, or wage war, when the entire edifice is in peril. Yet it is in our nature to behave so in the face of a bottleneck predicament. Know Thyself
I have to call bullshit here... but I'm not saying that as a defense of the current movement, but rather I'm objecting to your idealization of the 60's. All too many baby boomers seem to have a fuzzy, romanticized version of what happened in the 60's.
There was no shortage of bad actors mixed in with more idealistic folks then, just as is the case today. We have, with varying degrees of success, already sugar coated a lot of 60's history. All of the negative aspects you point out in the current movement have analogous issues in the 60's movement.
Of course, there were a lot of good things that happened as a result of the counterculture movements of the 60's. If we pretend there were no such negative aspects to these movements, and then use this optimistic but false dream of the past to condemn modern movements via a flawed comparison to an idealized version of the 60s that never actually existed... then it seems we have missed the entire point of these counterculture movements.
You're trolling, but there is truth to the point that many of the people at the protests didn't even know why they were there.
Does that make their concerns any less valid?
It's so much harder to actually effect change by contacting politicians, convincing the public, studying the law, and generally having an impact on the legislative process so that something actually comes out of any of it.
Exactly. Especially when you don't even know exactly why you're so pissed off at society. Maybe you don't realize it's because you didn't like that cop's thuggish attitude the other day when he pulled you over for "weaving across lanes" and then pressured you into a drug search. Maybe subconsciously your mind is still pissed off from when the TSA hassled you at the airport. Maybe those taxes, and the 10x as many hidden taxes disguised as fees, charges, and a hundred other words are really fucking dragging you down. Maybe you don't appreciate the child services people harassing your neighbors because the dad got put in jail for possessing three marijuana plants.
Maybe it's all that and more. Not all of us are fucking scholars enough to understand exactly why we're pissed. Doesn't mean the anger isn't real, and doesn't mean it's just going to magically go away if we wish hard enough. If the same tyranny and oppressive bullshit remains in place, then the anger will continue to build, until it can't build any more. It's that simple. You don't want to be there when it explodes.