Saturday, November 12, 2016
FIELD TRIP
I do not like demonstrations. I approve of them unreservedly, but I do not enjoy taking part in them. I feel anonymous and foolish, standing in a crowd and chanting slogans. But there are times ... Yesterday I heard Michael Moore on the Chris Hayes TV show [Moore has been splendid, by the way] talking about a planned Milion Woman March on Washington scheduled for January 21st, the day after Trump's inauguration, and I recognized that this is one of those times. I made a hotel reservation and bought a plane ticket. I expect there will be a great many other men there on that day.
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6 comments:
I too feel uncomfortable in demonstrations, especially about shouting in chorus. I wonder if the profile of your readers is that of leftists who feel uncomfortable in demonstrations.
that's me... i hate participating in demonstrations. if i go, it is usually as a legal observer. but i am going to this one. the organizers have invited all feminists, not just women.
I also feel super weird in them...
Here I was thinking (now dumbly, it appears) that I was the only one.
But, yes, this is shaping up to being a major one. We had better get over our individualism and/or introversion.
My feelings are mixed.
First if the march is, say, anti-US intervention, the experience is different than it is, say,
having to do with supporting or protesting an electoral result. The latter is acceptable
the former is not. Thus in the former, one sees the fangs of the police state everywhere as it were as
opposed to ballons and endless tables with political books, posters, and happy faces.
I think marching in the streets of DC with tens of thousands can be empowering. Also,
the anonymity, at least for me, has given me permission to yell and holler in public. Better
than yelling at a pillow.
However, unless it is really an important march, there are disqualifying negatives. One is
the numbers. It becomes a game of how many people demonstrators can actually get to DC. If the demonstrators
muster 400,000 the networks report 50,000 and give you scant coverage anyway. And nowadays,
demonstrators are corralled into "free speech" zones.
Finally the organization and money involved could be better spent. I worked on one march
from Amherst. The amount of work lining up buses, mobilizing people, and getting money
for everything was enormous. Then (this happened to be in January too) you ride in these
buses all night, march in the freezing cold, get back on the bus and arrive back home totally
exhausted and uninterested in mobilizing anything again for quite some time.
I think it makes more sense to organize in one's own community. Say a thousand in a thousand
cities. Less expensive. Much easier to do. Less dependent upon national staff. And building
networks and new organizations that might just take root, hence the opportunity to link into
local issues and politicians/business leaders and keep the thing going.
I demonstrated against the Iraq War when I was in college. The utter failure of the anti-war movement was somewhat disillusioning. I haven't protested since. However, there were several BLM marches I would have joined if it had been feasible. I did donate some money to a local Ferguson organization at the time. I gave what money I could to Bernie too. I am hopeful that there is a march somewhere in MN I can join, since I have neither the means nor the desire to travel to D.C.
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