Political Theater

OT for a moment, but Howard Dean is on CPAN right now, live, at the DNC meeting in DC.

BTW, if anyone has a better link to the Sensenbrenner meeting, please post it. That link is s l o w in loading but it was the only one I could find at the time.

Thanks.

Great ideas, Casey. As we think about acts of theatre (which is, if you think about it, storytelling writ large), it might be useful to learn about the work of Augusto Boal, a devote of Paulo Freire, who wrote one of the seminal books abooks about political change: Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Boal runs workshops in Europe and in the US with his Theatre of the Oppressed.

The following is from the Theatre of the Oppressed Laboratory website (http://www.toplab.org/) in New York City.

"Yet Boal is confident that the Workers' Party--whose support continues to grow and which includes senators who still live in slum areas, "close to the people"--can still make an impact. "We are not fighting to get power, but because we want the happiness of the people," he says. "If the government does good things, we will support it."

Though the party is "not at all homogeneous," and includes liberation theologists as well as socialists, it does have a precise program of land reform, health measures, and educational expansion. Boal also stresses the need to tackle international debt, which he calls "a form of modern slavery." As president of Rio's Human Rights Commission, he has been able to release prisoners being held in jail illegally. "We are a workers' party," he says, "we want to improve the life of the majority."

Born in 1931, Boal has spent most of his life as a theater director. Now head of two centers for the Theater of the Oppressed (TO) in Paris and Rio, he holds workshops around the world to teach TO skills. What makes his eyes sparkle, and gives you an idea of the energy that keeps him going, is his faith in the creativity, spontaneity, and ability of all people, however underprivileged, to change their situation. Each new TO method originated when audience members showed him new possibilities. TO is about creativity from below.

Boal was initially an author (Lean Wife, Mean Husband, 1957), and then pioneered political protest theater with Revolution in South America at the Arena in Sao Paulo in 1961. Breaking with European models of drama, Boal began to use local traditions. Inspired by the educational ideas of Paulo Freire (author of The Pedagogy of the Oppressed) and outrage at social injustice, he started doing agit-prop theater in Brazil's poorest areas. In the 1960s, he was performing plays about taking up arms. On one occasion, a peasant in the audience stood up and suggested an armed raid on an oppressive landlord. Embarrassed, Boal and his actors backed down. But the incident taught them to listen to the people.

Boal then progressed to the more audience-based TO. At first he just asked spectators for ideas to alter his plays' endings. But the real breakthrough came when he asked an angry woman, who was dissatisfied with how his actors interpreted her suggestions about how to deal with an unfaithful husband, to come on stage and show them. By inviting spectators to act out their ideas he created Forum Theater, which generates solutions to problems and also functions as a rehearsal for action in "real life."

Arrested, tortured, and "persuaded" into exile by the Brazilian military in 1971, Boal came to Europe. Here he found that as well as "concrete oppressions such as poor wages, and objective problems about how to make a strike or fight racism," there were also "introspective and introjected repressions" such as "fear, loneliness, and the inability to communicate." In Paris in 1981, he started workshops designed to tackle what he calls "the cop in the head."

The Rainbow of Desire is his name for the skills needed to combat our internal police. His new manual of techniques has just been translated into English by Adrian Jackson of the London Bubble theater, which specializes in participatory drama and educational projects.

By confronting the "cop in the head" collectively, Boal says we can generate the confidence necessary to tackle social problems. Answering the criticism that such methods only "cure" participants and have no wider impact, he says: "We can never measure the social effects scientifically--but wherever this work is done people notice that they have changed, often profoundly." Whether in Africa or Scandinavia, "people discover needs they didn't think they had." In India, for example, peasants who were confronting "objective oppressions," such as poverty, also "suffered subjective problems to do with family, couples, and sex."

*******

Another approach to developing "message" and story is what he calls the Rashoman approach. Read about it here:

http://www.toplab.org/rashomon.htm

****************

Let's build on these ideas...

I think it's important to use the whole brain in our creativity. We have alot of words and text but the media is visual, as are parades, masks, drawings, photographs, icons.

People have limited time and visuals (including text but short, large, bold etc) are processed very rapidly and accentuate the more in-depth small print, lengthy but meaty passages os longer speeches (spoken word).

Theater also attracts media, as electronic tv media is hungry for the visual or related/easily-digested and processed image. With everything from icons and logos on our webpage to what we do in our streets - this integration of left brain linear sequential print orientation & right brain wholistic spatial pattern recognition can be very powerful.

Marshall McLohan pointed out 40 years ago that we were becoming a global community because of technology and he hadn't even completely conceptualized the internet! "The medium is the message" - his catchphrase. It's true!

I will also add that, IMO, blogs (and the DCP) are our virtual theatres of the oppressed.

People find voice here. Ideas are developed, and enacted. Those actions are evaluated.

Pass it on...

Great thread header, super ideas.

Heck, look at the attention a woman can get for suffering cold feet before her wedding!

The neocons have been using drama to manipulate voters and the media for decades - everything from mailing out photos of pregnancy terminations to creating dramas to distract news viewers. The church service itself is a form of drama, with speakers who are actors. The neocons have managed to kidnap the message from the pulpit in many, many cases, turning that drama from spiritual to political.

Let's run with this idea. Drama engages people.

What we need to do in this theatrical atmosphere is to remember that we must continually be 'shocked, simply shocked' at things like Sensenbrenner's actions. Tomorrow on the Sunday snark shows, Dems should be scandalized. We need something for coingate too. Why can't we make the comparison between priceless coins and a mother rolling pennies to buy milk. We should see and photograph members of Congress reading the Toledo Blade, and mentioning that it's the ONLY place to get this important story. In fact some enterprising person located in Washington should get a nice big stack of Blades and DELIVER them personally to the offices in Congress.

Why can't we all go to our local craft stores and buy some yellow feathers? I'd love to see everyone encouraged to mail a yellow feather to the sub-committee memebers local HOME offices and then call their local media about the yellow feather campaign to save big bird. Enclose a note with your thoughts. Get a few sheets of Barney or Sesame Street or Clifford stickers and like a little kid WEAR a sticker on the back of your hand everyday, to work, to shop, to the library. When someone asks you why a big person like you is wearing a sticker, TELL them and make sure you have a few stickers on hand to give away. Send a sheet of stickers to congress, and see if we can't get some people to join the 'wear the sticker, save PBS' campaign.

There are so many things we can do. Got any Mr. Yuk stickers? Isn't bug spray a poison? Hmmmmm. The Downing Street memo, now lets see. I KNOW!!! Send all the major media a fax today, ask them, 'if Michael Jackson reads the Downing Street Memo, will it be news?'

Those are my ideas, so far today.

DiAnne--my sistah--

we are as one...

tutt,

I LOVE the yellow feathers idea. Let's put it in the forum and get some organization going on it.

And the fax idea is great too.

Who is in?

Karen

Right! Cabarets of the Concerned. A friend's new blog is called Silenced Majority Portal, for example.

Here is one of my favorite street theater groups:

http://billionairesforbush.com/index.php:

Here is another (local branch, with sound link, but they started in Australia and are international. My mom wants to start a branch in North Dakota)

http://www.raginggrannies.com/home.html

And I can't forget:

http://www.codepink4peace.org/
(It's Women for Peace - very active, very brave)

"The Downing Street memo, now lets see. I KNOW!!! Send all the major media a fax today, ask them, 'if Michael Jackson reads the Downing Street Memo, will it be news?'
Those are my ideas, so far today."
Posted by: tutterfly at June 11, 2005 10:42 AM

All great ideas, the above is my favorite. LOL

Of course, Mr. Credibility himself, Tony Blair, has said that the memos contents are not true. And Colin Powell was on Jon Stewart to castrate the story. He spewed out the neocon talking points on the issue, and Jon didn't question it, being strangely in awe of the other Mr. Credibility.

Karen

You met the Backbone Campaign people, from Vashon Island here. They were also in Boston during the DNC. They use a theatrical approach to putting forth their platform of ideas. Their site won't open but their merch site gives an idea (and this is a free plug for them):

http://www.cafepress.com/backbonegear

Civil unions for all!!

San Francisco rallies are always highly theatrical. In Seattle, we had the famous "turtles" during the Battle of Seattle (WTO 1999). That became iconic, with a simple idea, and now they're part of history.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.historylink.org/db_images/turtle02.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm%3Ffile_id%3D2871&h=212&w=260&sz=17&tbnid=_kaHZLpzy5EJ:&tbnh=87&tbnw=107&hl=en&start=6&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwto%2Bturtles%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DN

tutt

Colin Powell went on Jon Stewart?
They must be scared.

Here is a good self-made flyer by Elizabeth, one of many circulating (internet and hard copy). We are distributing them in our cell, door-to-door, giving them out to people on the street, leaving them in coffeehouses, etc. When doing so, we ran into other people who were doing the same thing!
_________________________________________________

I am writing to urge you to contact the following people requesting that they investigate the facts contained in the Downing Street Memo.

I have attached letters I sent to Washington Senators Cantwell and Murray, as well as John Kerry, and John Conyers (my personal hero). Feel free to send the letters as is (after changing my name to yours), or to adapt them as you please. I primarily attached them so you would have the relevant addresses. (She then has attachments in the email & a sheet with a letter, in the hard copy)

The Downing Street Memo is a smoking gun. We need to seize the moment and run with it. Don’t let up. Write letters to media demanding that they cover the story. Call in to radio talk shows. Do anything and everything you can think of. Put up posters (someone in Queen Anne is putting up posters on the DSM). Call or write your representative and members of the House Judiciary Committee

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=994
Kerry plans to raise issue of leaked Downing Street Memo

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Conyers_reaches_extends_signature_goal;_creates_t_06_03_2005_0503pm.html
John Conyers - DSM

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/House_Judiciary_Democrats_to_hold_hearings_on_Downing_Street_mi_0609.html
House Judiciary hearing on DSM

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Conyers_says_MoveOn.org_joins_Downing_Street_memo_petitio_0609.html
MoveOn and DSM

If you don’t have time to write letters, think about calling the following people and tell them you support further inquiry and investigating possible grounds for impeachment.

(She then provides addresses for John Conyers, John Kerry and our two local Senators - email, fax, phone and snail mail)

http://judiciary.house.gov/CommitteeMembership.aspx judiciary committee

I'm in. Tut, you are rocking. I would like to nominate Tutt as Head of Political Theater for the DCP. You are Amazing, with a capital A as in Action. This can REALLY expand our visibility (this is how I think...) at the same time we are getting important things done.

Let's start the Yellow feathers campaign immediately. We can have this campaign in full gear by Monday. I think we should have a planning meeting in the IRC this weekend.

Who's in?

Tutt, it's your call. The FIRST think we can do, for the yellow feathers campaign is set up a free blog at typekey. We can do that over the weekend.

Who's in?

Here' are other places to get yellow feathers besides craft stores: call first of course, but party stores, teacher supplies, some dollar stores have them, and you can also get Elmo stickers at party stores and drugstore chains, too.

I can get the information for all of the appropriations committee members home offices and post it and we can push out this idea to the new blog we create for it.

off topic----

i can't find anything about the recruitment numbers that were supposed to be released yesterday. have any of you seen, heard, read anything?

I can meet in the IRC either later tonite, or tomorrow evening. The weather here is outstanding and I promised my kids that we would swim the weekend away. School here doesn't get out till Thursday the 16th, and the poor darlings are frying in their non-air conditioned school.

Got feather, will blog.

I almost forgot Pants On Fire Theater:

http://www.pantsonfiretheatre.com/

Perhaps you remember also Ben Cohen's "Pants On Fire Mobile" - which travelled the country last summer:

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/stories/2004/jul/21/PANTS_ON_FIRE_07-21-2004_P523J4M.jpg

Ben Cohen also distributed pens which had pull-out tiny screens - one side compared US with the rest of the world's military spending, graphically. The other side compared military budget of the US with that of Head Start, education, healthcare, environment etc. by the US. I was able to whip it out at a meeting at work and say, "I just happen to have those figures right here!" when Head Start cuts were being discussed - this in front of a bunch of conservatives. lukewarms & apoliticals, not to mention my boss.

tutt

You mean the "recruitment numbers" that were held til June 10th, rather than being relesed on the "first working day" after the end of the month, as they are normally supposed to be?

I heard on American Public Radio that they were below target for the fourth month in a row, for the Army at least.

Here - the African Business News published it:

http://www.africasia.com/services/news/newsitem.php?area=mideast&item=050610193908.ic4vw91v.php

Brilliant idea - Save Big Bird!

I'm going to Minneapolis and just received this from the person picking me up at the airport:

You are arriving on the same day as G W Bush! Do you want to greet him later that afternoon?

DiAnne,

Oh ho hohooooooo, man.

PLEASE, please go greet him. Please, begging now. He's needs a special DiAnne greeting...

Tutt,

I will figure out a time and post it.

They are planning a big push for recruitment over the summer, so watch out for where you high school teens hang out. $40-50,000 can be a powerful incentive for kids who are at an age when they think they are immortal.

I think I saw a story in the NYT or the WaPo.

I too promised swimming all weekend, but I will still be posting, and Poly Sigh will be posting, there's a new Tao of Politics piece coming up tomorrow and a blogger is working on a piece about the cuts in HUD to section 8 housing. Lots coming up, gang. Check in over the weekend for more deets.

Tut,

Military Behind in Recruits
From Associated Press

June 11, 2005

WASHINGTON — All four of the main military services are having trouble attracting recruits to their reserve forces, though only the Army is falling short in attracting people for its active-duty ranks, the Pentagon said Friday.
[snip]

The Army National Guard is 24% behind its recruiting target through May; the Army Reserve and the Air National Guard are each 20% behind; and the Navy Reserve is 12% behind, according to Pentagon figures released Friday.

Only the Air Force Reserve is significantly ahead of its goal, at 117% of the total it expected through May. The Marine Corps Reserve, which fell short in May, has met its year-to-date goal.

The slippage in Air National Guard and Navy Reserve recruiting has been largely overshadowed by the more serious struggles of the Army's active and reserve forces. In May, the active Army sent 5,039 recruits to boot camp, 25% fewer than its goal. For the first eight months of the budget year, which ends Sept. 30, the active Army had 83% of the recruits it expected. Army recruiting has been hurt by mounting U.S. casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-recruit11jun11,1,1994006.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Casey
I'll be blogging from Minneapolis, & hopefully get some live-action photos from said event (and hopefully not need bail bond), then probably disappear into internet-less regions for a few days (my mom's in ND), unless I can hit a library. There is a chance I can meet a ND DCP blogger though!

Have to go to a shower - life goes on - people get married, have babies. I'll check back though & hope to see a way later on here to alert people with a "yellow feather" project! Happy swimming!

A reminder to all to sign the Conyers letter:

478,348 Signatures and Counting

With a big boost from MoveOn.org, the count of signatures on Congressman Conyers' letter to Bush asking for answers to the Downing Street Minutes is 478,348 and climbing. Clearly we will pass the goal of 500,000 before the Congressman delivers the letter to the White House on Thursday and we all rally in Lafayette Square Park.

Sign the letter

http://www.johnconyers.com

Video:

GOP Walks Out on Patriot Act Hearing
http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm

More Fuel for the Fire:

Law lord says UK and US tried to bend international law with Belmarsh and Guantánamo detentions ..

One of Britain's most eminent judges yesterday accused the British and US governments of whipping up public fear of terrorism, and of being determined "to bend established international law to their will and to undermine its essential structures". ..

He added: "Nobody doubts in any way the very real risk of international terrorism. But the Belmarsh decision came against the public fear whipped up by the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom since September 11 2001 and their determination to bend established international law to their will and to undermine its essential structures."

(Belmarsh is like Britain's Gitmo)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1504266,00.html

The oilman who changed White House reports on global warming is leaving his post ..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5067647,00.html

I'm in!

I just located yellow feathers, looks like finding the stickers might be more of a challenge, but am still checking on those. Feathers very reasonable, sell by the bag.

DiAnne:

If ever, you're in jail, we're your bail!

If you're ever in a mess, S.O.S.

That's friendship, friendship...etc. song credits to..?

Um, CORRECTION TO EARLIER POST

The new Tao Of Politics piece will be ready for NEXT Sunday, not tomorrow. Apologies, for rushing greatness, to Matthew Carnicelli. Sorry, Matt. Will be patient while you work, dear...

We now resume with our regularly scheduled blogging.

O.K., I found Sesame Street stickers at a party market, the feathers are at a craft store, and that is quite an accomplishment for this neck of the woods, considering the drive to pick them up is 65 miles one way, and the city I am driving to doesn't even have a toy store.

I have plans made this afternoon, and will be in and out. I will check back later for the post about the meeting and the blog Casey is working on so we can discuss this later there.

Happy Saturday everyone!

A poster of Big Bird being prepared for the oven by conservatives complete with Puritan belt buckles in their hats and on their shoes, wearing tights; laughing, eating, drinking and their pockets overflowing with money.
Lobbyists in the background whispering sweet nothings into the ears of the head Conservative, whose hand is inside the pocket of the lobbyist.

maybe if sesame street was recruiting soldiers for the Human Mill in Iraq they would triple the funding for NPR...

Okay, I am working on getting the new blog up on typepad (called yellofeathercampaign), but I can't meet until tomorrow, so I will post on whatever the most cureent thread is tomorrow morningish.

Posted by: Toolmaker at June 11, 2005 04:09 PM

I like it! Actually, how about having the head
Conservative also holding a money bag, with the word Jesus on the bag?

Thinking about this this afternoon, my mind went into mural mode. Puritans in the background, burning "heretics" at the stake in one corner, whipping their slaves in another, counting piles of 'coins' in another, and a firing squad of them aiming at a line of women and children in another.

DiAnne:I believe Ed Schultz will be broadcasting from Minneapolis.
I remember butt man following Bob Dole around at his campaign stops in 1996 in a giant cigarette outfit.
Something appropriate for July 4th would be an uncle sam on stilts carrying a jar of coins or being gagged.Could call him constitution man symbolically burning the constitution.
Or symbolically dumping a truck load of fake coins in front of Taft's office.

The Dems should be holding press conferences EVERY TIME Repubs pull this stuff... Call them on it. Every time. Stay in the public eye, and let people know just how many Americans are represented by the Dem delegation. They are literally telling millions of Americans to shut up and sit down.

Loud noise. Every time. Loud noise. Every time.

Why don't they get this????

Victoria....good question, one that most every progressive is asking. We let issues slip through our hands.

The DNC needs a Rapid Response Media Team, instead of debating Issues Ad eternum. This team will have email trees, ready to respond with organized templates to situations like this.
It would be multi tiered, the first tier people that actually appear on media. the next tier would be supporting staff providing facts, figures, and Constitutional issues. The tier below that would be people like ourselves, able to contact thousands quickly. The tier below that would be people peaceably assembled on street corners, at the Mall in DC, in front of their local reps office organized to publically protest the silencing of Democracy in Our Government.

Its not brain surgery, the DNC should stop complicating simple issues. If they cannot figure out how to respond to the sillyness going on they should let someone else manage National Political Campaigns.

Toolmaker --

Well, supposedly that is what the new congressional Dem communication office was for...
They held a press conference to say they'd be responding much more rapidly to Repub attacks.

I don't know. Maybe they meant faster in dog years.