LIGHT RAIL COYOTE
First of all, war is bunk.
Secondly, even though we've been acting as if we've been at war more or less since last year, and I'm certainly not surprised that Bush's lame ultimatim approach to doing what we're doing anyway has finally hit action level, I'm still shocked that we've actually declared war, this is it, the big moment of denoument. Well, I guess it's fair to say that we're quite a long way from any kind of denoument (as if real life followed fiction construction. If only), but this feels so different from what I suspected.
I participated in the anti-war march last Thursday in Pittsburgh, and it was an amazing experience, though also thought provoking for a number of reasons. All of the spin on the march in major media outlets has focused mostly on the 120+ arrests that took place later in the evening, and on the two incidents of inappropriate (in my mind, at least) protester action. At one point, a commuter continued forward with his car as a protester on bike stood in front, partially crushing the protester's bike and pinning him under it. The protester sustained minor injuries but his bike was wrecked. In response, another protester jumped on the car's trunk and tried to rip off its license plate. It's a pity that this, one of the only non-peaceful actions during the entire march, is the widest-publicized, but obviously the major media picked up on that much moreso than the many commuters and other by-standers who responded favorably to the march.
The next day at work, I talked a little with my employers about the march and my participation in it, and I was kind of surprised to hear that their main opposition to the march was its inconvenience for the commuters stuck in the middle of the traffic jams it caused. Maybe I'm just young, idealistic, and radical, but WHAT THE FUCK ELSE is supposed to happen? As I understood it, one of the major objectives of the march was to keep "business as usual" from rolling along, to make people question the events on the news, and to highlight the impacts of the war. Obviously many different agendas surface at these protests, but from what I witnessed, the general action was one of peaceful (if civilly disobedient) dissent, which was only malevolent in the above situation and it one other case of vandalism, when some protesters tipped over a dispenser for the newsweekly Pulp. Maybe the cause would be better served by a vigil and other "more peaceful" actions, but I believe in the ability of a group of people to stop every day, mundane actions on such an important occasion. I think the activist community in Pittsburgh and all over the world ought to discuss these issues, about how to best represent dissent without only serving to polarize opinions on both sides. But I feel energized, and while protests may not change that many opposing opinions, at least they have the ability to energize participants, to make us more critical, wary, and better informed, and I certainly feel all of those things as a result of my participation. It's unfortunate that the group's focus has shifted, at least for the moment, towards police violence, but that's also a necessary concern given the mess that ended the march.
Only one more thing: indymedia is your best bet for coverage and information about not only protests but all other kinds of news, all over the world. We need indymedia right now, so read and learn.
First of all, war is bunk.
Secondly, even though we've been acting as if we've been at war more or less since last year, and I'm certainly not surprised that Bush's lame ultimatim approach to doing what we're doing anyway has finally hit action level, I'm still shocked that we've actually declared war, this is it, the big moment of denoument. Well, I guess it's fair to say that we're quite a long way from any kind of denoument (as if real life followed fiction construction. If only), but this feels so different from what I suspected.
I participated in the anti-war march last Thursday in Pittsburgh, and it was an amazing experience, though also thought provoking for a number of reasons. All of the spin on the march in major media outlets has focused mostly on the 120+ arrests that took place later in the evening, and on the two incidents of inappropriate (in my mind, at least) protester action. At one point, a commuter continued forward with his car as a protester on bike stood in front, partially crushing the protester's bike and pinning him under it. The protester sustained minor injuries but his bike was wrecked. In response, another protester jumped on the car's trunk and tried to rip off its license plate. It's a pity that this, one of the only non-peaceful actions during the entire march, is the widest-publicized, but obviously the major media picked up on that much moreso than the many commuters and other by-standers who responded favorably to the march.
The next day at work, I talked a little with my employers about the march and my participation in it, and I was kind of surprised to hear that their main opposition to the march was its inconvenience for the commuters stuck in the middle of the traffic jams it caused. Maybe I'm just young, idealistic, and radical, but WHAT THE FUCK ELSE is supposed to happen? As I understood it, one of the major objectives of the march was to keep "business as usual" from rolling along, to make people question the events on the news, and to highlight the impacts of the war. Obviously many different agendas surface at these protests, but from what I witnessed, the general action was one of peaceful (if civilly disobedient) dissent, which was only malevolent in the above situation and it one other case of vandalism, when some protesters tipped over a dispenser for the newsweekly Pulp. Maybe the cause would be better served by a vigil and other "more peaceful" actions, but I believe in the ability of a group of people to stop every day, mundane actions on such an important occasion. I think the activist community in Pittsburgh and all over the world ought to discuss these issues, about how to best represent dissent without only serving to polarize opinions on both sides. But I feel energized, and while protests may not change that many opposing opinions, at least they have the ability to energize participants, to make us more critical, wary, and better informed, and I certainly feel all of those things as a result of my participation. It's unfortunate that the group's focus has shifted, at least for the moment, towards police violence, but that's also a necessary concern given the mess that ended the march.
Only one more thing: indymedia is your best bet for coverage and information about not only protests but all other kinds of news, all over the world. We need indymedia right now, so read and learn.
