A while ago I was out on my favorite jetty with a couple of weekend anglers. We were all casting out into the race as the tide brought the schoolies into the bay and then out again. Casting and retrieving, casting and retrieving, casting and retrieving. I do what I usually do and vary my retrieves. First, I cast out and reel in fast, pulling in my weighted Savage Sandeel so quickly that it rides the surface. Then I cast out and reel in slow, letting my lure hug the bottom. Next, a medium retrieve, keeping the lure in the middle of the water column as best I can. Probably my most productive retrieve incorporates a little twitch or jerk as I pull my rod back quickly, then let my rod back down and give the line some slack while I reel in. This retrieve brings the lure up quickly then lets it drop back down, simulating a wounded baitfish and giving the bigger fish I’m after a chance to hit the bait on its slow fall. The guy next to me that day, however, had just one technique: he cast out his lure as far as he could and cranked it in as fast as possible. Over and over for more than an hour he did exactly the same thing with every cast and retrieve. I caught a good number of schoolies that day. He caught nothing.
Activists can get stuck in tactical ruts. What do we do when we want to express our anger? We march! What do we do when we want to make our case to authority? We distribute a petition! (or march!) What do we do when we want media attention? We stage a die-in! (or march!). There’s nothing wrong with marches or petitions or die-ins…or strikes, protests, speeches, occupations, flash mobs, media pranks, or any other tactics that activists use, The problem becomes when they are used reactively and automatically. I remember once being in a workshop in Texas where a participant announced that they were holding their 21st Annual March Against the Death Penalty. A young activist beside me innocently remarked, “If you’ve had twenty marches already, and we still have the death penalty in Texas, don’t you think it’s time to try something else?” Marches have, and can be, markedly productive displays of people power and a means to challenge power, but they don’t always work. This holds true for all tactics. What worked one year might not work the next, and what works with this audience might not work with that one. And you won’t know what works best until you’ve tried a variety of approaches.
