Protests: Sigh.
I’m sitting for 20 minutes on Embarcadero, trying to get to work. There are about 100 people slowly taking up 3 lanes, bright pink banners and a flag- though I couldn’t read any of the writing. I sat there, patiently, fixating on a toddler tripping lightly on the bumps of the painted line road, holding both of his parents’ hands. Finally impatience got the better of me and I negotiated my way out and tried to go over Telegraph Hill the other way.
I turn off to go over Stockton, and North Beach traffic is also at a dead halt.
Thing is- the protest- I couldn’t even tell what they were protesting! I saw “War=Lies,” which, due to the low turnout, made me kind of depressed. No amount of road rage could make me not appreciate civil disobedience, peacefully. But I did have to get to the East Bay, and there was no way over there (without an additional hour and a half via BART). Living in the city there’s a protest, it seems, every week. “San Francisco is the best city to protest,” a neighbor told me the other day when we were discussing the Torch issue. Is there protest-fatigue? Like too many CALPIRG kids knocking on Palo Alto homes (that’s a strange phenomenon- ivy league kids spanning out every summer night from 6-8pm, knocking on doors.)
Ah, SF Gate answers my question: May Day Parade
I think it’s the "preaching to the choir" aspect that bothers me the most. A planned protest at City Hall? Rock on. Disrupting downtown in the middle of the day? "Oh yeah, gotta make sure all these right-wing warmongering San Franciscans hear about how bad the war is going."
I’m going to go ahead and sound jaded right now. When I first moved here, I thought it was great for all these people to be protesting. I still think large-scale, occasional, organized protests are good. Let San Franciscans know what roads to avoid. It’s a pretty safe bet these folks are against whatever you are. Educate people who don’t know your message.
But, as much as I didn’t want to believe it, I have real-life experience of something entirely different going on. Some of these people, especially in the small groups, who really want to block roads or march in unexpected places with no objective and no plan, just… want… to … be on TELEVISION.
It broke my little idealistic heart when I got to know some of these folks personally. But it turned out to be the case with a few folk, small-time charity to help their fellow man is not in the interest of these kids— it’s only when the media is around. And while they get their "look how much I care" moment in the paper or local news-spot; hard-working people who are driving their hybrids and care about the war just as much; are burning that precious oil we are all fighting about. Just while waiting for "Jane Rebel Protest" to get the attention they lacked from their parents.
It’s so sad… Jaded post ended now.
Hear hear.