For a couple of weeks, Steve Vargo and his associates at the Columbus, Ohio chapter of World Can’t Wait leafleted coffee shops, posted online information and successfully landed stories with local media including the Columbus Dispatch and the local NPR station — all regarding a rally to be held as the Dixie Chicks came to town, a rally in support of the virtues of free speech, dissent, and opposition in American society. That rally was held today.
I was inspired to go to this rally partially because I was in substantive agreement with the idea of the rally, and partially because I wanted to check out the local Columbus political scene. When I arrived at 5:45 pm (15 minutes after the announced beginning of the rally) these were the assembled participants:
Adding myself, that made for six people in attendance. By the time I left at 6:45 pm (45 minutes before the announced end of the rally) twelve people counting myself had showed up.
Twelve people — this in the 15th largest city in the United States, in a metropolitan area with 1.7 million people.
It’s not that people didn’t know the rally was going to happen. Vargo put the signs in the places where politically-minded people show up, and the biggest hometown paper even interviewed Vargo about it, days in advance. No, the issue here is that a fair number of people knew about the rally but decided not to go. With the rally mostly over, only twelve people out of a much larger number of sympathetic people had decided to show up.
When a TV station’s cameraman drove up along the curve, hopped out and took footage for the evening news, right at the beginning of the rally, he got a whopping six people in his lens. What kind of a message does that send to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who (maybe, if the station decided to even show the pics) saw such a meager attendance at a rally supporting free speech and the right to dissent?
Now imagine that twenty people instead of six had showed up in the cameraman’s lens. Now imagine that thirty people had been there. Now imagine fifty. Even twenty is a different picture for media consumption than a lonely six, isn’t it? The difference between six and twenty is fourteen people out of 1.7 million.
The lesson I bring home tonight is that in the vast majority of places where people live in this country, the decision of just a handful of people — read: YOU and YOUR FRIENDS — to show up at a political demonstration can make a big difference in how the demonstration is perceived. Being there matters. What you do matters.
So, to flog this horse yet again, visit pax.protest.net and see what’s going down in your neck of the woods. Then, if you find yourself in agreement with the sense of a demonstration, by all means go there. You’ll meet like-minded people, you’ll get a bit of fresh air, and, yeah, the chances are good you’ll make a difference — as much of a difference as a body can make in this damned big world.
Isn’t this just the extension of “where’s the outrage?” How much clearer do we need to see it before we accept it? AMERIKKKA DOESN’T CARE!!! We’re all about ourselves. We can’t declare our personal stance on any “substantive issues” for threat of backlash by the corporate world, ya know. It’s an all volunteer protest! Yeah, that’s it.
Yes, let’s all despair, despair, despair!
The time has come to redeclare what the American identity is. We don’t care about freedom. We just care about having a good time, watching football, and driving big cars.
When was the last time either of you, Tom and Eliot, attended a demonstration?
We as American’s have rights, I agree with Tom in the backlash part but it is not by corporate big wigs, I also agree with Eliot in that this 30′s 40′s propaganda that the “Americans for……” are trying to push is not going to work, we do care about freedoms, we cant express it with out violence.
Our generations have not been taught to take a stance, rally for or against an issue, discuss intelligently how to fix the problem not just sit and complain. The only way we have been taught is either put up or shut up, and the guy with the most toys wins.
Change that beginning with the children, meaning parents take back your responsibility for your children and be the only ones responsible for your children, schools start cracking down on the real idiot behavior, not the false fear advertising the govt thinks you should crack down on, communities take back your schools and start demanding your children be taught the things that will get them a job. You teach them where the world came from that is what church is for!
It’s not gonna happen tomorrow guys, but someone gotta start the domino, who’s it going to be? Complain because its broke or find a way to fix it so we can move on.
If you look back in the logs of posted statements, you’ll see i’ve kept in touch with this site when we protested outside of the college where i teach in Bryn Mawr when Bush visited BM College. There were loads of people lined all up and down the street. Many people honked in support and some people drove by, gave us the finger, or screamed obscenities at us and told us to go away. It didn’t matter that we protested. It didn’t make the news, although 7 tv trucks were all over the area filming. And nothing happened anyway. The war goes on, and it’s getting worse (we’re heading into “regional” conflict now), so don’t even go there with the “when was the last time. . .” uppity bullshit. I sent you a message a few days ago jumping up and down happy that there’s a mass rally planned in October. Hopefully everyone will take off for one day and stand together for all this shit to stop! Get to know your neighbors and colleagues and hope for peace. Finally, a chance to DO something positive and constructive besides just blogging about how bad it is. Don’t you worry that we’re just singin’ to the choir here, and bickering among ourselves? While elsewhere people are sending pictures of hundreds of thousands of innocent victims dying and injured by all the war, sectarian fighting, drought, tsunamis, floods, violence, crime and accidents? Doesn’t it seem overwhelming sometimes? So, sue me for being cynical.
Awesome! Glad to know you’re doing and not just saying.
we just want to be seen next to those
marmots.
and shhh. did you guys.. do the …
thing.. and for the marmots and …
all …of everything…?