The problems with protests... [UPDATE: adjunct professor Evan Rowe suing college]

[Below is a post from last December about protests and "the bizarre tale from Evan Rowe". He got fired from Broward College and he is not happy about that. You can read about the latest on Evan Rowe from Deirdra Funcheon at the Broward New Times; he is suing Broward College. Our local malcontents, EarthFirst!, are mentioned first on their problems with staging a protest. I would strongly encourage you to open the link in the third paragraph, "exceptionally long hand-wringing diatribe". It is very enlightening to say the least. Without further ado, here is the original post from December:]

Protests are not easy undertakings. They take coordination, many people, and it is always helpful to have a clear and concise message. There are even groups that hold workshops on how to put on successful "actions", as they are called in the trade. Eh hem.

For instance, even here in Lake Worth, our Lake Worth-based EarthFirst has exhibited a Keystone Cop approach to protests. Just in case you missed the "battery in the lake" you can read about it here. Even more curious is the EarthFirst protest scheduled for December 12th that was apparently cancelled with no public notification. It is true that if a tree falls in a forest and there is no one there to hear it, it doesn't make a noise. That is, as far as the media is concerned.

Now we enter the bizarre tale from Evan Rowe who is a professor of history at Broward College writing for the New Times. Professor Rowe writes an exceptionally long hand-wringing diatribe on why activists in Ft. Lauderdale can't get organized and shut down the annual Winterfest Boat Parade. Without further ado here are some excerpts from Professor Rowe:

The target selection of bridges was an improvement on previous actions, as was the highway shut down in miami [sic] but the ability to put up enough points to overwhelm police forces long enough to take, hold, and control private spaces for long enough time periods of time is the one of the next major tactical hurdles.

[later...]

There has been some backlash to the protests as they have angered commuters. A Sun-Sentinel writer, Gary Stein, today dismissed the protestors [sic] for "being cute on social media" as he totally missed the bigger point of police aggression and injustice. He also condescendingly advised "don't be total slobs."

[and...]

Actions that might disrupt the boat parade are viable defensive moves that can POTENTIALLY [emphasis added] send a symbolic message but use improved tactical actions. And while they are not yet at the level of daily or weekly workplace occupations or strikes against key capital targets, they do show an improvement in the defensive ability.

I would bet the good people of Ft. Lauderdale are interested in knowing a professor at Broward College was so determined to shut down the city. It is also illustrative that Professor Rowe laments the lack of a message by the protesters. Curiously, I found it difficult to discover a coherent message in the article by the Professor in the New Times. And so it goes...