Out at the downtown mall, fridays after five etc., to see the Nice Jenkins, and what do I see?



Jackassery.

When will progressives learn to protest in a meaningful way? People wearing giant paper-mache caricature-heads of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice being led around in prison stripes in shackles. Yeah, that's going to convince the people whose minds you are trying to change. It may make you feel better, but it doesn't do a progressive cause any good.

While to be fair, these guys weren't ruining someone else's protest, they were free-lancing at a public event, it still is annoying and progressives should put the kabosh on it. Here's why.

Go to any major progressive protest in this country, anti-war, anti-Bush, civil rights whatever, and inevitably, a group of total jackasses will show up and ruin your message (as we have previously pointed out here and here and here. It will either the "I hate my conservative dad" anarchists wearing all black and asking for a beating, the "I want to be a 60s flower child" wannabe hippy there to smoke pot, or the "I want attention" crowd putting on puppet shows, wearing masks and generally turning the whole thing into a joke. Progressive protests should not just be an excuse for people to act out and be pretend hippies for a day, they are deadly serious things and we've forgotten that. And no matter how many people come that look respectable and wear a suit or look like an average working schmoe, who ends up on the news? The jackasses. That's who. Your message is officially lost, your opportunity to show your opponents that you're just like them, lost. Everything is subsumed into the needs of immature peons to have a vacation from their normal lives.

Dammit people! What good do you think these things do? Here's what these guys just don't get. The people whose minds you're trying to change? They hate hippies. They hate kids wearing all black with combat boots. And when you portray the people they thought were going to be good leaders as war criminals and monsters, they see it as an attack on them. We should be emphasizing that it was ok to make the mistake to vote for these assholes, let's all agree that they're failures and move on. Rather, actions like these entrench opinions, and make people less likely to rationally look at the truth and change their minds. You're attacking them too, don't you see? It's threatening, especially when it seems to be coming from some hippy-commune types.

Now here's how you protest.


The freedom marchers knew what they were doing. When the cops beat the crap out of a working man, or a guy in a suit, who looks like the asshole? These are marches that emphasized the humanity of the marchers, and that was the point, so they're a little different from the point of progressive marches of today. But people, if the people whose minds you are trying to change don't first see your humanity and your similarities to them, they aren't going to listen to you, ever. The Bush administration isn't listening either way, but their constituents, that's who you are trying to reach.

Anyway, time to republish the Give Up rules of protest. We've given up on marches until people start doing the following things.

1. No one may wear costumes, build puppets, or carry signs with dirty language. If these people show up, they are the ones who get the attention, and your message is immediately and totally destroyed. Tell them to leave and never come back.
   
2. People should wear their best clothing. No one is too upset when an anarchist gets the snot beaten out of them. They get very upset when cops beat up men and women that look like them. So, dress like the people whose minds you are trying to change. Wear suits, dresses, and put on your best face. This is like a job interview for your idea of changing the world.
   
3. Protesters should know why they are there, be respectful to the media, and if interviewed, be prepared to say something succinct and informed about why they are there. Do not give the finger to the cameras (and I'm someone who loves giving people the finger).

Until the progressives start enforcing these rules at their protests it's just going to be so much wasted energy. Until then, we're giving up, we don't waste energy.

...and I would just like to point out one of Minimalists' past comments on this phenomenon:

Hard to do that when some chucklehead is standing behind you, wearing a big papier-mache' Cheney head and screaming about legalizing hemp.

Ha! It's like he predicts the future.