Barking up the wrong tree

Wednesday, Nov. 02, 2005 @ 6:29 p.m.

There was big anti-Bush protest around the campus area today. News choppers flying around, campus police officers patrolling... and lots and LOTS of cars stuck motionless on the roads due to idiotic people who think their protest is a good reason for them to walk out to the middle of the road and just STAND there shouting and screaming their chants. Just what LA needs... more traffic.

The signs those people are carrying around said "Stop Bush", not "Stop Traffic", so I really couldn't see how standing in the middle of the road and bugging the shit out of drivers was a good statement for their cause. There were even a few over-passionate people that kept shouting "Impeach Bush!!" angrily at me. What did I do?? Why are you screaming in my face as if it's my fault that there's an idiot in the White House?!??

While I completely support the rationale behind the protest, I'm very disenchanted with public protesting. I mean... don't people realize that it's just not working? There have been anti-Bush protests since the very moment he got ~~elected~~ selected in 2000... and look at him, still there, second term no less. Protests have been staged not just in America, but all over the world. Yet look at him... still there, with his monkey face and his unintelligible speeches, completely unphased. So what if his approval ratings are at an all-time low? I don't see why they even come up with those numbers, especially if nobody ever does anything with them other than reporting it and going, "Oh wow, that's really low... (silence)... Whoops, the turkey's done! Let's eat!!".

Maybe I should rephrase... it's not that nobody does anything, it's just that nobody does anything that's significant. Therefore, nothing ever changes. Protesting, to me, is a dumb waste of time and energy. Do people actually think that Bush is going to notice tomorrow that there was a protest in Los Angeles today? Even if he does... what are we expecting, that he steps down immediately upon receiving that piece of news? That's just about as possible as Donald Trump expressing humility.

Yes, change would not have happened throughout history if everybody just sat there and did nothing at times of crisis. But the problem is, it takes a lot more than just the willingness to express your dissent. It takes luck. Rosa Parks has been credited with spearheading the civil rights movement by just refusing to give up her seat and move to the back of the bus on that very fateful day in 1955. She made a statement, but she was also lucky in the sense that her story got out, and in turn sparked a chain of events that eventually resulted in the civil rights movement. How many other African Americans showed their discontentment before her, but got nothing except being thrown in prison instead? How many of these incidents happened, only to get silenced, contained, and forgotten the following week, month, or year? I'm going venture a guess and say "tons". I'm in no way discrediting the fact that Rosa Parks was an outstanding woman. I'm merely saying that she became the historical figure she is partly by being at the right place and the right time.

What we have to realize is that human beings are masters of habituation. If you're reading a book in a room filled with noisy people talking, after a while, you're going to get habituated to the noise, and you won't even notice it anymore. Similarly, having a protest every week isn't going to solve anything. The same old people, the same old chants, the same old signs... it's not a wonder why protests are not very effective. You have the will to voice your dissent, so what you need is to make the luck. Do something different, do something shocking... get people to notice you. And not just any people... it's gotta be the people that matter. Don't tell me "Bush has got to go". Hell, I can tell myself that. Go tell someone that can do something that we can't! If Rosa Parks had protested her incident on the bus to only her own family members, do you think the social change that followed would have occurred?

So please... keep your protest on the sidewalks, get the hell OFF the road, and out of my face!! Do I look like Bush to you?!??

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Barking up the wrong tree