What seemed for so long to be an end has proven to be just a beginning.
Just two weeks ago when World Can’t Wait was on the verge of posting a full page advertisement in USA Today and thus reaching into every nook and cranny of America, there were about 50 protests planned. The USA Today ad and other efforts led to over 240 protests, ranging from tiny, last minute gatherings of a dozen people or so to 1,500 marching in Chicago, 4,000 in New York City and 1,000 right here in Minneapolis in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday!
1,000 people took to the streets in traditionally bellicose Minneapolis?!? On a Thursday afternoon??!? Unheard of, yet true.
Here is the banner that led the way:
Eight months of planning and organization paid off with one of the largest protest marches this painfully polite, oversized little Minnesotan town has every witnessed.
Earlier this year I contacted World Can’t Wait and agreed to become the Minneapolis organizer for their organization. ImpeachforPeace.org is the extension of that commitment and the relationships that followed.
It was a remarkable privilege to have such an active hand in creating a forum for such powerful speakers as Keith Ellison and Clyde Bellcourt, Ford Bell and Michael Cavlan and others as well as help produce a concert of such amazing and diverse talent both local and from around the nation – ranging from the folk comfort of Nashville’s Donal Hinely to the explosive metal rock of local band Harsh Reality.
If you build it, they will come.
Come be a part of the growing wave that will wash our nation’s capitol clean of corruption.
Come be a part of something much bigger than all of us.
Fizzle.
The event (and all like it nationwide) was a wet noodle, motivating a teensy fraction of the population to flail in the street. It’s not growing, it’s shrinking. If all those people had gathered food for food shelf, delivered meals to homeless or homebound people, or picked up litter… THAT would have been time well spent. Modern life requires more creativity than sad banners and sore feet. Drag your group into this century and make a difference… and stop begging for one.
Comment by Richard — October 17, 2006 @ 9:53 am
A few points:
• Why do you assume that people involved with the event don’t spend time helping the needy? I was an organizer for the event, and for my job I help homeless people find housing and improve their lives.
• Obviously I agree that helping the needy is important. However, without addressing the need for larger systemic change, people are going to suffer a lot more in the long run. It’s critical we address threats to democracy and freedom before we find crucial social programs gutted and our freedom to dissent taken away. Protesting is one important means we have of doing this — not the only one, but an important one.
• From where I’m sitting, the movement looks like it’s growing. It may not always be growing as fast as I would like, but it’s still impressive how many people showed up on a Thursday! How much bigger would it have been if you would have joined us in the planning?
• An immense amount of creativity went into the planning of this event, and the people marching showed they had ample enthusiasm for the cause. Sad banners and sore feet? What protest are *you* talking about?
Comment by ineptsegue — October 17, 2006 @ 11:30 am
FYI:
Anyone in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, please consider helping the local Habitat for Humanity with a building project in North Minneapolis next week.
Plymouth Congregational Church has a work week scheduled with Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity October 24-28 (Tuesday to Saturday). The project is a rehab of a triplex in the 300 block of Queen Ave. No., at the corner of Glenwood and Queen. It is interior work including drywall and trim, etc.
Plymouth CC is coming up short on their crews. They can use 5-10 people more each day.
Anyone interested please e-mail me at: [email protected] and I will forward you the contact information for this project.
For those of you in other states, please go to http://www.habitat.org for information on local projects.
Bonus! For those of you who think Jon Bon Jovi is a hottie (duh.), he is featured on their index page as he introduces Project HOME in Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Soul Charitable Foundation and Saturn, which together will renovate 15 decaying homes in one of Philly’s most in-need neighborhoods.
I land in the high 90’s as nearly fully hetero on the Kinsey scale, but knowing his heart for the poor now I think I might at least give him my real phone number on the inside of a matchbook. President Clinton can be seen in the background trying hard not to stare at his Bon Jovi ass.
~~~
For the record, I attempted to send the following personal reply to Richard, but it came back as undeliverable. It would seem that Richard is the classic definition of a “troll”, an online critic who insulates himself from actual dialogue by sending from a fake e-mail address. Richard, if you read this, I welcome an ongoing dialogue and would have much more respect for you if you prove yourself willing and capable of engaging in an open intellectual debate and discussion of the issues and topics that you revealed above to be of concern to you.
Here is the reply I attempted to send to him:
Richard,
I thought you might be interested in hearing some of the comments following your entry on my blog. There have been four replies, including one from me:
http://www.impeachforpeace.org/blog/
Thank you for your contribution. A little cognitive dissonance, – agreeing to disagree – is a good thing. It inspires critical thinking, which is what this country desperately needs more of.
~ Mikael
Comment by Mikael — October 17, 2006 @ 12:08 pm
Fizzle- you have some good points…I’m not sure how effective protesting and banners are either- but I do it cause I don’t have another idea and I feel like I need to do something…doing nothing isn’t okay..do you have any ideas on a more effective way to make a message heard? If you do I’d sure like to hear them.
Comment by sarah — October 17, 2006 @ 12:47 pm
Our nation was founded on dissent. Three men refused to sign the constitution because they believed it gave too much power to a central government and these objections gave us the foundation for the Bill of Rights. Dissent gave women the right to vote, ended slavery, and put beer back in your fridge. None of that, great and small, would have been accomplished without banners and sore feet.
650,000 Iraqis are dead. 3,000 Coalition troops are dead. 50 Londoners are dead. 200 Madrilenos are dead. 2,700 flying or working on 9/11 are dead. Our Bill of Rights might very well be dead with the signing of the Military Commissions Act today. 1,000 Minnesotans couldn’t stand it any more and went out into the streets to be counted as those who will not have these acts committed in their names. Disagreeing silently isn’t an option that bodes well with people who see these atrocities as something that they can change or at least bring to the attention of people more concerned about the Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie peace talks than getting back our right to talk privately on our cell phones with warantless NSA eavesdroppers listening to every pizza delivery person we call out to our homes.
Dissent has changed our country in every other century of its existence. With a majority of the country disapproving of the job the President is doing and the GOP quickly unraveling from scandal after scandal, dissent is definitely time well spent.
Comment by Angela — October 17, 2006 @ 1:12 pm
I for one was heartened to see such a large turnout on a sunny weekday. After six years of feeling powerless, of railing against a distracted and deceived majority, it was good for the soul to be among like minded individuals with an earnest desire for change. Coming from Tennessee, it felt good to know that I wasn’t the only one wanting the Bush Regime gone. I think it is interesting, Richard, that you used the words “flail in the streets.” I believe all protests necessarily involve a little flailing, if by that you mean an action that draws attention to a serious emergency. That’s what we have in this country, a very real and dangerous situation. Those who gathered to “flail” did so to draw attention to that fact. We could argue about the effectiveness or merits of one approach over the other and your comments regarding helping those in our communities are certainly valid. But with all due respect, I saw a large contingent of people from all walks of life celebrating together the obligation of democracy. They had differing views on how to achieve the same goal and expressed equal parts anger and optimism, frustration and enthusiasm, anxiety and whimsy. But I don’t recall any begging.
Flail On!
Donal H.
Comment by Donal — October 17, 2006 @ 2:46 pm
Hi. I was one of the first organizers with WCW and have spend a lot of time organizing with them. Due to some differences, I do not associate with them.
I think a lot of you made some great points. I actually see where Fizzle is coming from and agreee with some of it. however that was a backwards and reactionary way to critique something that is not harmful or a danger to positive change. I don’t agree at all with the way WCW organizes, promotes, or puts itself forward. I still support the chapters who allow me to support them because we need more movements like this and we need unity. What Fizzle said was very effective, if the goal was to divide progressives and start petty arguments. If you can mature your communication skills, you’ll have a much easier time changing things that you do not agree with.
You are right though the atmosphere at WCW and RCP events is often very dreary and depressing. The banners and life of it ingeneral is not creative and inspiring. This is why artists have a very hard time working with them. I’m not saying that all the chapters are like this, because they are not. But the big ones are. In fact, the St. Paul chapter has made some innovative and very inspiring leaps in this fight that we should all learn from.
You are right though. Logos, banners, newpaper ads, radio ads, and a corporate attitude comming from the national offices and Chicago offiices are not effective and I’ve seen lots of money wasted on these efforts. The thing WCW, in general, should work on is stimulating our society and its people to take up projects like this on their own. As long as WCW wants to unify everyone under their name, logo, and political line, things will not change. What operates like a business, stays a business and is subject to the rules of business. By marketing WCW, you commodify it and it is a bad idea to commodify driving out the Bush regime.
The numbers of people ho came out to the WCW events were shockingly low, although I knew they would not be massive. We need to get down to the roots of our socity, we can’t take the shotgun ad campaign approach on this. No effective movement in history came about by selling a logo on a shirt, putting out expensive ads, or selling newspapers and books. If you want people to take up WCW and hit the streets with it, you have to develop a culture that truely understands the need for it. People can articulate very well all the problems with Bush and corporate America, but they don’t want to join WCW and have a “massive day of resisistance.” Why? Not beccause they are apathetic. Not because they are scared, but because of the essence of the organization itself. We’ve got to unite with all kinds of people. Religious, radical, progressives, whatever and we need to develop a progressive culture with good leadership.
Also if you notice, WCW followers and organizers are primarily white middle class people. This is a problem. The people most affected by what WCW opposes are poor folks of color. If you can’t even get them to show up at your marches and events, we’re going to be stuck in this forever. You’ve got to dig deeper and be proactive.
I understand what you mean about food and shelter. But you need to look at the direction that we are headed in very closely. Food and shelter will be the least of our problems if Bush or his heirs start a nuclear war, allow another Katrina incident, or escalate its serveilance, imprisonment, and torture of its own citizens and people around the world. Yes, people are hungry, but we can’t invest everything we have into providing food and shelter while we rest on the verge of a fascist reemergence.
That’s all for now.
Unity in this great struggle,
Tristan James
Comment by Tristan James — October 17, 2006 @ 3:04 pm
Fizzle – Thank G-d that in this country we have the right to voice our opinion. And thank G-d the people that are marching are having the right to do so. If it wasn’t for people marching, women couldn’t vote, workers would have no rights, Roe-v-Wade would not exist (today I am not sure about tomorrow). We have (somewhat) of a free news media and so on. And as a Jewish person I thank G-d for all the people that stood up and shouted that we have rights. Thank you to all the people that have stood up and marched in the name of peace and equality. If it was up to you we would not have any freedom.
Comment by jodie fahey — October 17, 2006 @ 3:41 pm