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Great article over at Washington Monthly about the bizarre form political protest has taken on in the last decade or so. Here's a small taste:

Perhaps in an age when blogs have given average people the pundit's power to bring down network anchors and Senate leaders and shape the nation's political agenda, dissenting Americans no longer need protests and marches to be heard. Yet there remains among many a need for something more—to have an adventure, to experience an historic event, to make direct connections with like-minded people. This existential desire, plus a certain nostalgia for the good old days, fuel much of contemporary march culture. Which is fine: Protesting for protesting's sake serves a market. But so do rock concerts and tractor pulls. If today's marchers want their efforts to mean a great deal more than that, they would do well to recognize the real reason why the marches of yesteryear are remembered. It wasn't just about the messengers. It was about the message.

Over the course of the two years I lived in San Francisco I saw many a protest. And almost without exception they annoyed me. And then, inevitably, I'd get annoyed that I was annoyed. After all, this was a protest. As someone then about to head off to work on a PhD in Political Science, protests shouldn't annoy me. But they did, and I couldn't help it.

I never really tried to put it down into words, but what always bothered me was that the protests always seemed so... irrelevant. A bunch of like-minded people gathered together, usually somewhere convenient and pretty like a city park, to listen to speeches, sing songs, hold signs, and chant. But more, too. To listen to bands, play frisbee, whatever. It always looked - and felt - like a big picnic, just one where people happened to be holding signs about how much they hated the President.

So I'd walk by, grumble, and wonder... "What the hell is the point?" There they were, in a park in the middle of an upper middle class neighborhood in SF "protesting." But it would, of course, never... EVER.. make a difference. Except of course to the people involved.

Which is what this article lays out in such clarity. "The postmodern protest." It's not about politics, its about the people. It's the logically illogical conclusion of the whole "The personal is the political" idea. But it misses the whole point. Protest is about changing the world, not changing ourselves. And by engaging in protest like this, I honestly think that people protesting end up doing more harm than good. If they do any good at all, that is.

Why? Because for most of these people, after they've left their political picnic, they go home feeling as if they've "done something for the cause." Except they haven't. All the did was have a political picnic with a few friends. They didn't confront anything or anyone. They didn't push society. They didn't force people not like them to think. They hung out with some friends, listened to music, and had a good afternoon out. And feeling as if they've "done something" to "change the world" they go back to their normal lives, not realizing that in the end they've really done... nothing but have some fun.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for fun. All for it. I am, after all, a DJ. It's just, well... if you're going to do something, do it. Do it all the way. Attending a picnic is fine, it has its place. But its not a protest. And I'm tired of people pretending otherwise. If you care about the world, if you want to change it, you have to engage it. You can't just hang out with people who look like you, talk like you, and think like you. It doesn't work that way. It never has, never will.

Ah, but what will make all this change, you ask? I'll tell you.

The Draft. Coming to a superpower near you. And you know what? If this is the role we're going to play in the world, they're right. We really have no other choice.

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