Last Thursday, I had a choice: go to a Groovelily concert, or go to an anti-war protest. I sent e-mail to my concert companions, to the effect of – I’m going to the protest. It’s called for 5pm. I may or may not make it to the show at 8.
Drove to Someday Cafe via Mass. Ave. and MIT, and was very pleased to see students &c. marching down the street, blocking most of it (we drivers could get by single-file), the cops accompanying them with their flashing lights on. I was rather depressed about the state of the world, so went to Someday, had some tea, and took the T to Government Center.
The protest was lame. Ill-thought-out, it was a pacifist protest – wholesale against war. Bring Our Troops Home. While a great sentiment, this leads to a perception by the opposition (the war’s/administration’s supporters) that the people there were a bunch of peaceniks. That’s easy to dismiss: Are you pro-Saddam, then? Would you rather he remain in power? Peace-not-war isn’t the point here. The point I was (thought we were) protesting is how the war was brought about, the Bush administration’s blatant disregard for the UN, its hypocrisy and self-serving attitude – all these things are much better articulated by others. The Boston protesters made their arguments an easy target for dismissal, and that’s a pity.
Pity, the above, but not disastrous. What was appalling was one of the first speakers. She was the first one I heard; I might’ve missed others while in a different part of City Hall Plaza. In a shrill voice, this woman informed us that the “bastards” who are ruining this country and what it stands for (I’m wildly paraphrasing here) are to be found not only in our central government, but also in our communities – in the face of police, who are brutal and evil and and…
And the police were standing there, keeping peace, hundreds of them behaving themselves impeccably.
I don’t know that this was the case everywhere, at all times; perhaps there was unnecessary police action. In fact, I think this, at least, signals which side of the protest line the police are officially on. But what good does it do to villify them? Like enlisted military servicepeople, they are doing their jobs. They’ll arrest yo ass if you try to block the entrance to a federal building. In fact, it seem that that’s the point for those who did get arrested; they wanted to be taken in, this is their form of protest. Downtalking the police is going to do zero.
Then the same speaker called on us all, Catholics and former Catholics alike (I am not kidding), to unite – and led us in prayer to the Catholic god. I had no words. She was trying to unite us this way?
Later, we marched down to Copley Square, which actually felt good (if ineffectual with regard to its actual effect on war decisions). It helped that I’d run into some people I knew, so we actually had thought-out conversation while walking.
Then I went to the concert. It was grand, a wonderful way to spend time, and I suspect that the laughter and good vibe generated at that show may’ve done more to counteract the general wave of suck than the protest.
Indeed. I was at the same protest, and while I felt some good came of it, it had two (seemingly contradictory) problems: the overall message was too vague, but the individual speakers were too… divisive? controversial? So the general chants all seemed far too recycled — “what do we want? peace etc.” and so on being just grabbed out of the bag of peace protest chants and not really expressing anything non-trivial: take a look at any of Bush’s speeches and you’ll see him expressing wishes for longterm peace. But then, even when the crowd in general didn’t seem to have a focused agenda, all of the speakers had theirs, so whether they were complaining about Bush and his questionable election, or attacking Israel, or anything that didn’t have to do with the situation in Iraq, one by one many of them made me feel upset that I was a face in a protest behind them. (And that’s not even counting the protesting-for-protest’s sake crowd; I’ll have to admit that I felt kind of proud of the giant Bush puppet my group had, even though I couldn’t quite understand what the symbolism was.)
OK, I don’t think I said anything there that you didn’t say in your post, but might as well hit POST instead of deleting it all.
The thing I’ve noted lately is how recycled all the protests seem. being (barely) old enough to remember the Viet Nam protests, these seem like pale imitations.
Vika’s point about the police illustrates that perfectly. In the 60’s and early 70’s the “establishment” was scared shitless of counter culture youth and the peace movement that they pushed. The goverment at the time reacted with violence. Police really did bust heads of people just for disagreeing with the goverment.
But you know what? I would like to think we’ve progressed some since 1969. I think today’s police are better trained, and have the bad example of the 60s to look back on. Also I think the goverment, while still nibbling at our civil rights is not so unsophisticated to try thug tactics like that today.
Today it just looks silly to go on about how brutal the police are. They are clearly not the enemy. So why is this woman saying things like that? I think only because she somehow learned that that was what you were supposed to do at a protest. It isn’t about that war, its about the protest. That is sad. If people are that out of touch, no wonder we have Bush in the Whitehouse.