0 miles driven so far this week
There was a handful of pigeons at last week’s protest in downtown Columbus. No, not real pigeons, but some very odd birds: bobbing their heads and chanting some very odd things at times. Not funny odd, like the guy with attitude who shouted “Dump that skeeza Condoleeza!” No, just odd odd, like the woman with a funny hat who screamed “No Justice, No Peace!” before pausing and screaming “Peace! Now!” She didn’t look outraged; she looked unhinged. And while I had personal sympathy for her troubles, and wouldn’t dream of stifling her right of free speech, I was troubled, too, that six or seven of these odd and very loud birds in a group of thirty-four could give the event a really flaky and unhinged feel.
There are people who will join any protest for any cause, just to have the chance to vent old outrages, exorcise personal demons and engage in yelling on the street that won’t get them sent to detox. That number is pretty much a constant; what’s variable is the number of stable, camera-ready people who are out there freezin’ for a reason. If you have a publicly-announced protest with small turnout, it will have a high proportion of odd birds. If you have a publicly-announced protest with large turnout, it will have a low proportion of odd birds. If you want your protest to win the sympathetic attention of the broader public, bigger is definitely better. The larger a (peaceful) demonstration is, the less flaky, less unhinged, and more serious it will look.
I don’t know if I would perservere with so many of that kind of people–would I want to be associated with that kind of movememt? Is that why the crowd was small?
some good things about chicago rally:
Huge police presence scared away pigeons, dweebs, doofusses, and probably anyone with so much as a parking ticket. You could hear where the rally was from 2 or 3 blocks away becasue of drums and sound system. Nice looking lady, probably student read a canned speech, which got into the newspaper. Drum drounded out any potential ‘creative’ chants by doofusses. At one point the sound sytem went dead, but someone pulled out a bullhorn that worked and everything continued. The evening news showed street theatre type images–a guy on stage with spiked purple hair, walking Cheney, Bush, Condoleeza puppets chained together –making the people behind the rally look trendy and hip. Lots of people passing out literature to educate people.
bad things about chicago rally:
there weren’t people invited to give speeches, so after the canned speech from the parent organiztion was read, all there was left to do was the same two chants over and over. everyone knew the march would probably not take place on michigan avenue, but no one filed in that part of the program after the judge ruled earlier in the day.(no plan B) Not everyone is reading-oriented, instead of just literature to educate, need speeches with easy slogans to explain position.
nice things about vietnam marches:
instead of:
{leave home alone, try to find rally address alone, take public transportation alone, nasty crowds, don’t know anybody at rally, don’t know anybody on march}
there was a nice sense of community as everyone met with people from their dorms, then went together to the place where everyone from their university gathered, then went together to the street where they entered parade at assigned point. If you had never been away from home and didn’t know the city or the transportation system, you had a group of people you knew who weren’t wackos to march with. Also there was some subtle peer pressure at the dorm to join the march.