Notes on protest from the Rude Pundit

[XemaSab]

"Between Saturday's March for Peace and yesterday's protests, the Rude Pundit has realized that the greatest problem with protest in America is that it's too fuckin' nice. It's all well-regulated and permitted and placed so that it inconveniences as few people as possible. This is protest against the powerful that is sanctioned by the powerful and, indeed, is that truly protest at all?

A real protest shuts shit down, fucks up the day, goes on so that the powerful have to listen or take a strong stand against the protesters. A real protest doesn't stay on the sanctioned path - it veers off and tries to get those who aren't part of the crowd to join in. Back thirty-six years ago, with its anniversary on Thursday, on May 4, 1970, protesters got shot and killed at Kent State for not listening to those who would tell them how to speak freely in this allegedly free society. The Rude Pundit knows someone who was there who said to him, "It was the hardest thing in the world to get up the next day and march. But you had to. Otherwise they had won."

If those in power can merely condescendingly look at hundreds of thousands of marching people and say, as the President and so many do, "Isn't it great that people in a free country get to express themselves," then that protest is a failure. In other words, get that fucking flag out of the Rude Pundit's face."

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/



The protest in Crawford was the closest thing our movement has had to being heard. Why? Because it unsettled the people in power. Bush actually was forced to make a decision about how to respond.

Think about it. Effective protests aren't the protests that stay inside the First Amendment zones.

[Sydnie]

1. You are absolutley correct

It only works when it's handled like a flash mob.

[stellanoir]

2. Yeah

Whatever happened to flash mobs???

Those were the best.

[ClintonTyree]

3. That's the way it was back in the 60's.........

and yeah, I'm old enough to have "been there, did that". Protests back in the 60's and 70's were sometimes designed for maximum disruption effect. Today's "1st amendment zone" protests certainly aren't grabbing the nation's attention like they did back then. Maybe it's time for me to dust of my walker and start some shit! ;)

[XemaSab]

4. Even the anti-war protests... the largest protests in the world

Were basically ignored by the media because the protesters were too "polite."

Maybe it's time to get rude.