Thread by @m_older

I'm rereading The Pushcart War for reasons and am reminded again how it is not only science-fiction (set in the future!) and formally inventive, but also is a manual for collective action, resistance, protest, that is very relevant today. So here's a thread:

For those unfamiliar, The Pushcart War is a children's book by Jean Merrill, copyright 1964, with illustrations by Ronni Solbert, who was Merrill's partner for almost 50 years.

It's framed as a history, but the dates of the events recounted are in the future, and they stay in the future, moving forward in time in every edition. This is why I say it is science fiction, or at least speculative fiction: it imagines a possible uprising against oppression

and tells that story as though it had already happened, from the perspective of a future in which the oppressors are totally unknown to young children. That's where the book begins: with a Forward (by an imaginary professor) about the importance of understanding how wars start.

The Foreword is explicit about the story being a metaphor "For big wars are caused by the same sort of problems that led to the Pushcart War." (The imaginary professor then praises the author's research while mentioning one small imaginary error in an imaginary statistic).

Then there's an introduction, signed by Jean Merrill, which emphasizes the importance of children, particularly, understanding how wars start. In the edition I'm reading now, this introduction is dated October 14, 2036, and the Pushcart War takes place in 2026.

The book proper (Chapter 1) begins with a specific act of violence: a truck runs into a pushcart. The story of this act is told in detail, with dialogue and dates and times and locations, & then it's explained that only reason we know all this is that it was documented on camera

Chapter 2 explains the winding trail of that accidental documentation very much by chance becoming a part of public record and eventually a tool for understanding the act of violence.

Chapter 3 telescopes out to make it very clear that the act of violence that "started" the war was not the beginning at all. It gives us the context for the rise of the trucks, and how crowding and terrible traffic became a point of pride for the city, making it hard to fight.

It also gives us context on the pushcarts, describing a thriving community with history and leadership and specific cultural knowledge.

Chapter 4 continues the contextualization, giving a sense of the power of the trucks, and includes the 100% boss move of several pages LITERALLY COPIED FROM THE TELEPHONE BOOK LISTINGS

Which, by the way, is a kid favorite.

Chapter 5 continues the ominous context. Chapter 6 gets to the politics. A mayoral candidate promises to reduce trucks, and this is a popular policy! And then the incumbent makes a speech reframing that policy and turns the race around.

The speech is a demonstration of political rhetoric and reframing. It starts by referencing the city pride mentioned earlier, then draws a chain of connections from the source of that pride - the size of the city - to big businesses, and from big businesses to big trucks.

Then sets up the opponent as being against rucks and therefore against progress (and peanut butter). You can find variations on this same speech being given in the present by replacing key terms.

Chapter 7 is the skewering of experts, influencers, and the TV programs that enable both.

It also has the crucial insight that while an influential person stating the situation plainly and publicly may have started the war, without that the oppression would have gone on unchallenged "until it was too late"

Chapter 8 uses an imagined primary source, a trucker's diary, simultaneouslly to humanize some truckers, show how seriously awful others are, give us yet more understanding of the catastrophic traffic conditions, and, through the description of a secret trucker meeting,

to show us the strategy of the oppressors. The leader of one of the big trucking company says "why pick on the poor trucks?", appropriating the role of victim - and doing it internally, as a leadership tactic/signal to all the truckers under him

Then we have a diversion of blame onto the pushcarts - more on that soon. There's a neat aside about stereotypes of truckers, which sets up the really dangerous baddie, who gives us another example of tricky rhetoric.

First he says that he and the other leaders of the company "hear" about the problems with pushcarts from the truckers, who are out in the streets, that they wouldn't know themselves, but they get the facts from their employees - populism- and then it's clear what they have to do.

Look at this predating #Infomocracy by more than 50 years: "Louie explains that what we have got to do is to educate the public. 'When people complain about the traffic [...] we have got to tell the people who is to blame. Otherwise, they will be blaming the trucks.'"

Seizing the narrative, disinformation. Followed by a "'I know these people'" - dehumanizing a group- and then a bit of personal history he's not proud of: this CEO's father was a pushcart peddler. Class shame, probably immigrant shame as well although that's not explicit.

Then he mentions a "Master Plan" that will make everything better once these turbulent pushcarts are dealt with.

The diatry writer asks other drivers about the plan and "they say it is probably the usual thing -to make things better for the truckers in the streets and maybe more money for the drivers." Vague promises about a plan that followers interpret without evidence as benefit for them

This is taking longer than I expected and I'm realizing I probably should have made it into an essay I could get paid for but anyway I'm going to take a break and I'll continue later because I love this book and have so much to say about it.

Ok but just a little more because this next bit's really good. Chapter 9 starts by telling us how the trucks have "an enormous advantage", because although the diary tells us they had already targeted the pushcarts, at the time no one knew: the attacks pretended to be accidents.

Not just accidents, but isolated, rather than coordinated. Sound familiar?

Then it describes in some detail the disinformation campaign. First we learn that people are talking, saying "'I hear it is the pushcarts that are to blame.' [...] Where they had heard nobody was sure." But the intrepid researcher of the book has an idea:

There's a weekly newspaper "published as a community service" by the baddie's trucking company. It's free to groceries stores to give customers and sent to city council members, etc.

So here we have information pretending to be of the community and not-for-profit and in fact using the resources of a large company to spread propaganda by undercutting news sources that need to profit to function.

There's an anonymous columnist calling himself (pronoun as in book) "The Community Reporter" <- again, appropriation of community identity - and writing about "The Pushcart Menace" - a phrase with particular resonance in 1964.

The Community Reporter writes about what "people" want. It's presented pretty broadly here, won't be hard even for kids to pick up on the game - hopefully they continue to recognize it, because it's everywhere, and not always much subtler.

Now, maybe not many people read this propaganda "(Some grocers said that they had trouble giving it away"), but - WAIT FOR IT- "enough people did [...] for one of the more respectable daily papers to announce a series entitled "'Pushcarts-Are They A Menace to Our Streets?'"

Industry propaganda disguised as community paper and pushed by industry funds -> mainstream news covering an entirely invented "menace."
Sound familiar?
NINETEEN SIXTY-FOUR.

In the series, the reporter interviews the head of a trucking company - not the one with the plan, the one with the victim complex. Again he uses the word "poor" about the trucks (anthropomorphizing a truck); claims that the facts are speaking for themselves; and

cites the number of accidents involving pushcarts as proof that the pushcarts are a menace. (the "accidents" are deliberately caused by the truckers).
SOUND FAMILIAR?

The chapter ends with pushcart peddler Old Anna, incensed because the Community Reporter said pushcarts were unsanitary, saying "'You ask me what is the menace [...] And I will tell you. It is *plastic bags*!"

and on that prophetic note, I really am going to take a break. Tbc.

I should be working on the final edits for The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles but *rubs hands together* let's talk about the Pushcart Model of Collective Action instead! We're on Chapter 10 which is subtitled "The Pushcarts Decide to Fight"

At this point we've come back to when we started; that is, to just after the act of violence that we saw committed in Chapter 1. That's right, Chapters 3-9 showed how the roots of violence start way before the violence happens.

The pushcarts decide to fight in a meeting which somewhat parallels the truckers meeting earlier, although we see it directly, not through diary entries. Notably, the meeting was called to crowdfund or, as we used to call it, take up a collection for the peddler whose cart was

destroyed in Chapter 1. In other words, we see this community first in an act of mutual aid. (it's also a wonderful lesson in introducing a large ensemble cast and quickly "tagging" each with memorable characteristics, in this case usually what they sell on their pushcarts)

The peddlers move pretty quickly through chipping in for the new pushcart, to commenting on increased violence, to sharing information that makes clear the bigger picture of malicious rumors (disinformation) and violence framed as accidents.

Then the Pushcart King, Maxie Hammerman, says he will explain based on a lot of thinking. He is demonstrating the leadership role of taking a big-picture view of the situation and considering the opposing interests and strategies at work, then synthesizing and communicating.

He explains the strategy against them: the trucks are making the city unlivable, so "they have to find somebody else to blame". They chose pushcarts because pushcarts are few and *seem fewer than they are*
Sound familiar?

The pushcarts seem fewer than they are because they stick to their own neighborhoods, we can think of parallels with minority groups that seem fewer than they are to the majority because they stay in their own neighborhoods (where the majority don't go) but also of groups that

seem fewer than they are because it's dangerous to be who they are.
One peddler points out that even if the trucks kill all the pushcarts, that won't solve the traffic problem that is making people angry at the trucks.
MH: "So then they will have to find someone else to blame."

Sound familiar?

Okay, but the pushcart peddlers do not want to all be killed. So they decide to fight. Notably (and despite the title of "Pushcart King") they decide this by a vote -

a contrast to the trucker meeting, where the bosses claim to be acting on input from the employees but do not ask for it publicly, and announce plans that they do not explain in detail.

The pushcarts have decided to fight, now they have to figure out how. Some are fine with causing physical harm to the truck drivers, but there are challenges and risks to every method they think of, and others don't want to hurt any people at all, including truck drivers.

The idea of how to fight comes from Carlos, who almost never speaks up in meetings. In Ch 11, we learn that Carlos is a great carton-flattener, and what that means; only after learning about his job, we learn that the reason he doesn't speak up much is that he only speaks Spanish

A lot of the pushcart peddlers have Eastern European and particularly Jewish-associated names, and the illustrations reflect this (recall that the illustrator was the author's partner). And now there's Carlos, who only speaks Spanish. The Pushcart King translates for him, because

"Maxie Hammerman spoke Spanish and twelve other languages. He had to, being the Pushcart King."
So this is a fairly diverse community, at least linguistically. But it is important to note here that there are no characters identified as Black or Asian in this book.

Carlos, in translation, says something important. While other peddlers have been focused on "fighting", Carlos points out "that the problem is to make people see who *is* blocking the streets." This is absolutely a physical war, but it is also a battle of perception & narrative.

The insight is not to look for something that will hurt the truckers, but to look for something that will hurt their propaganda. And Carlos has the answer, which he got from his son. Note how often kids have important roles in this book, even though they are not main characters -

Carlos's son, the boy who took the photo documenting the violence, and more later. (They are mostly though not all boys - more on that later too). These are realistic, and important, roles for kids to play in this struggle.

The idea is a pea-shooter, with pins stuck through the peas. A peddler asks if they will shoot the truck drivers, but "It is Carlos' belief that even truck drivers are people." <- ANTI-FASCIST REFUSAL TO DEHUMANIZE THE ENEMY! "He has told his little boy that he must never shoot

at people, and he does not wish to set a bad example." <-another example of respecting children. The pea-pins are to be used instead to shoot at the tires, immobilizing the trucks and *showing everyone who is really blocking the streets*

The peddlers (mostly) love this idea, but the other important thing from this chapter is the question of how to pay for peas and pins. Protest actions have costs - also contrast this to the truck companies funding a weekly paper they give away for free.

But Maxie Hammerman has the solution here: he reaches out to a movie star -the "influencer" I mentioned from Chapter 7- who had expressed her anti-truck opinion. Allies.

Chapter 12, the start of the pea-shooter campaign, is pretty great and I don't want to ruin it for people, so I'm going to (TRY to) pull back a little and just draw out a few key insights.

The pea-shooters remind me of something I heard from @LAKauffman about the value of protest actions being playful or humorous. This also helps for the pacifist pushcart peddlers who struggle with the idea of harming even a tire, but quickly start having fun.

And while this action is fun for the peddlers, it is incredibly frustrating for the truck drivers, leading them to act worse and worse, which contributes to the puncturing of their propaganda.

In Chapter 13 we get Maxie Hammerman's version of dataviz: a map of the city with red and gold pea-pins marking hits on trucks. "Although Maxie had not left his shop all day, he had the clearest picture of the battle" <- importance of different roles

He uses this to deploy resources strategically: while the peddlers all started in their usual vending areas, when they come in from ammunition he can send them to unblocked streets.

The chapter ends with some terrible sexism about how women can't shoot pea-shooters accurately, only slightly mitigated by the woman in question leveraging stereotypes ("Who would suspect an old lady") and the excellent motto "By Hand"

To Be Continued!

Also, my new book THE MIMICKING OF KNOWN SUCCESSES comes out tomorrow!!! Atmospherically Holmesian mystery and f/f romance set on Jupiter! It is fun and genre-bending and getting great reviews, please ask your fave indie bookstore and/or library for a copy!