Hey Hey Ho Ho

I just drove past an anti-war protest outside the Atlanta History Center, as I ran to Whole Foods to get some lunch. It was maybe 15-20 people, holding signs equating Rumsfeld to a Weapon of Mass Destruction, urging us to get rid of George W. Bush (uh, that chance came and went folks!) and my favorite: "No US in Iraq." That guy gets points for being brief and direct.

They also had a bunch of Orange jumpsuits with the word GITMO across them. One girl appeared to be enjoying the process of putting one on, and everyone else appeared to be enjoying the process of watching her do it (she wasn't wearing very much underneath it.)

And of course, there were a couple TV news crews there to interview and make sure these people look like complete whackjobs in time for the 6:00 news.

I went through my protesting days in college, when I was part of the FSU Women's Center and a student political party called Progressive Coalition (oh yes, we wore the "PC" label with pride). We protested outside every nightclub when a girl reported being given a date rape drug there. In conjunction with Florida PIRG we protested every time someone in Washington floated the idea of wanting to drill for oil or natural gas off the Florida coast. I did abortion clinic defense. We collected witness statements and signatures on a petition in a nearby small town where women were reporting that police officers were forcing them to have sex in order to avoid getting tickets or being arrested for made up charges. We even held a sit-in inside FSU president Sandy D'Alemberte's office to make him listen to a list of "demands" about tuition increases and fees. I was a regular radical back in the day, I was on the speed dial of every single group seeking to round up the usual suspects to go walking with some signs, some catchy chants (usually fitting the mold of "hey hey ho ho the _________ has got to go"), and I actually was really into the idea of making a difference and putting myself out there to do it.

And yet, I look back, and I think "god I was stupid." To everyone driving by those protests, reading about them in the paper or seeing footage on TV, we looked like your average marginalized crazy teenagers. There were the kids with the dreads or the excessive piercings, girls not wearing bras, boys wearing Che T-shirts, we basically fit every cliche. And the message of any notice or coverage that we got was never about what we were actually protesting...either overtly or subtlely it was "look at these ridiculous freaks in all their futility."

I think that rather than sending the same 12 marginalized people to protest every single thing under the sun, it's important to save it for when it's really needed, when what you're protesting is so significant that the message won't be lost and it won't be easy for people to assume it's just the same 12 hippie holdovers who can't seem to understand that the 60s are over.

I hate the Iraq war, and I'm not really fond of this president, but right now I don't think protesting it, in this fashion, makes a positive difference. It supports the same ideas that the right and the middle have held about war protestors for the last half century. Now if we could get 10,000 people to march through Atlanta protesting the war, that might mean something. Even 1,000. But 15 people...nope. You're a sideshow. Sorry, guys.

UPDATE: apparently according to griftdrift, Rumsfeld was speaking in town today. It makes a little more sense now (not much, but some)...