I haven't had myself a good mock in quite awhile, and I'm due.
Recently, the NYT ran an article ['Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Those Old Protest Tactics Have to Go', June 13] about the new and exciting methods that politically active leftward-leaning folks have devised to enact real, lasting, social and political change in our country. Some examples:
[Christian] Herold has ordered hundreds of one-inch, gold-plated bells - the kind that could easily adorn a Christmas tree - that he plans to distribute to any takers. He will call participants in his Ring Out project to surround ground zero - as close as they can - and raise a cacophony to "ring out the Republicans" shortly before the convention opens on Aug. 30...Axis of Eve, a protest group formed in January to focus on women's rights, is selling underwear adorned with anti-Bush slogans and is organizing 100 women to flash them during the convention (The underwear will be worn over body suits or leotards to keep it legal.)...
Luke Kuhn, 38, a self-described radical who lives near Washington, has sent out e-mail pleas seeking a suitable kiln to melt a brass ring, about the size of a large wedding band, inscribed with Bush Über Alles, at the start of the convention...
Zoe Strauss, a Philadelphia photographer, is urging people to wear red bandannas en masse as a symbol of protest and plans to bring 10,000 to the convention to hand out...
Wendy Tremayne, a performance artist, is recruiting volunteers for a Vomitorium, a re-enactment of a Roman orgy that she plans to stage as a protest against imperialism, consumerism and gluttony...
Founding Axis of Eve member and underwear-protestor Zazel Loven offers her rationale:
"We wanted to think of some unique, creative way to engage people in a different way, to reach out to people who weren't politically engaged. I had been to marches but I wanted to go beyond that."
Ms. Loven likes to be called "Eve Angel," a fact I note only because every single person I have ever known who has dropped their given name for some New Age-ish Monikor like Tree or Willow or Your Spiritual Superior has been, for lack of a better term, an utter flake. It's a reflection of the post-modern intelligentsia's obsession with language and the naming of things, which leads them to believe that by changing the words we use to describe a phenomenon, we can change the discourse and thus change the phenomenon. This is the same principle that is used in sympathetic magic. Its practitioners believe that they can create real change in the world by changing a representation of someone or something in the world, such as a voodoo doll, a lock of hair, or an old sock. However, changing your given name to Eve or Moonstar or Cougar will not change your essential biscuit-like nature. You will remain flaky.
Not that such reckless ad hominem detracts from Ms. Loven's point. Which is: people who aren't politically engaged can be reached by a legion of women showing their panties.
Joshua Spahn, a participant in the Ring Out project, opines that it is
"...an exciting new way to energize people. It piques people's curiosity rather than hit them over the head with a political message."
Piqued Onlooker: Why're you ringing those bells? I'm curious.
Bell-ringer: Because George Bush is an evil warmongerer. Halliburton! Oil! Abu Ghraib!
Mr. Spahn, I'm not sure that attracting attention to your message is the problem here.
Meanwhile, Mr. Luke "self-described radical" Kuhn is, at 38, an unemployed bike messenger. He's seeking a method to conduct his New Line Cinema-inspired protest. To melt his brass ring and make the point that "Bush is a dark lord," he is thinking of maybe using a barbecue grill with coals fanned by a hair dryer. Failing that, he claims, "I can make a bellows from salvaged wood that day, if necessary. I can easily rig the grill to be an improvised 'forge,' as a blacksmith would know it, and that will easily handle the destruction."
Think about that for a minute. In the midst of potentially thousands of protestors, many more thousands of convention attendees and media personnel, and tens of thousands of New Yorkers attempting to go about their business, Mr. Kuhn, by himself, maybe wearing a red bandana, panties, and ringing a small bell, is going to have a barbecue grill set up, attached to a hairdryer with a two-hundred foot extension cord or to a bellows made from some of the vast quantity of quality scrap wood that litters Manhattan, and on the Kingsford briquettes of this grill will be a brass ring about a half-inch across, with Bush Über Alles engraved on it in 12-point type.
The impact of this act of political defiance cannot be overstated.
Especially if he creates a big hand-lettered sign, with an arrow pointing at the grill, that reads LOOK I AM MELTING A BRASS RING ENGRAVED WITH THE WORDS BUSH ÜBER ALLES BECAUSE HE IS A DARK LORD JUST LIKE SAURON AND I WAS REALLY INSPIRED BY LORD OF THE RINGS AND HE'S LIKE HITLER TOO.
The bell-ringing Mr. Spahn wonders, "How do we make the message real clear to people, to innocent bystanders?"
I think you might want to try developing a coherent, rational politics from which the idea that bells, panties, and barbecue grills are essential elements of convincing political discourse does not naturally flow. That could help.
It also may help to regard your intended audience as something other than "innocent bystanders," which implies that your activities have "intended victims." That conjures up other activities that have bystanders and victims...like bombings.
What amuses me most about all of this is that while the stated aim of these protest activities is to reach out to the politically disengaged, their creators are designing the sorts of activities that they find appealing, which means that they'll appeal to people like them.
Someone who is on the political fence, caught between Bush's faith-based conviction and resolve and Kerry's 60's-based nuance and sophistication, is not going to be swayed by a group of earnest street-theater performers in bedsheets re-enacting a Roman vomitorium (Tim Robbins, take note). And no Republican conventioneer is going to catch a glimpse of a LICK BUSH thong, smack himself on the forehead and exclaim, "By God, you're right! Kerry is the better choice!" The people who would be reached by such theater are, more than likely, already firmly in the anti-Bush camp.
Like sympathetic magic, these efforts will only be effective among those who already believe. The activists are talking to themselves.
Good for them! This is America. You can do that sort of thing here.
However, when I pass by someone on the street doing strange things and talking to themselves, I give them a wide berth.
That's what I'll be doing during the convention, too.
