Hey, I can sympathize, but--

THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY SOUNDS LIKE!
THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY SOUNDS LIKE!
THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY SOUNDS LIKE!
THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY SOUNDS LIKE!
THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY SOUNDS LIKE!
THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY SOUNDS LIKE!
THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY SOUNDS LIKE!
THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY SOUNDS LIKE!
THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY SOUNDS LIKE!
THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY SOUNDS LIKE!
THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY SOUNDS LIKE!
THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY SOUNDS LIKE!

Et cetera.

Yeah, democracy and all, but surely there's a free speech zone they can go to, so as not to disturb anyone.

Sigh. I sympathize with the protest, I would just also like to keep my job, which requires that I finish all this writing by my deadline, which requires less yelling.

Plus, I'm just burned out on protests. They didn't do anything to stop the war, it seems; I'm not sure that a bunch of people yelling in SF are going to convince anyone here of anything we don't already know and already agree with.

I mean, they didn't do anything to prevent the war.

I was just messin' with ya, occhiblu. I hate loud yelling people in any context.

I was just messin' with ya, occhiblu.

Hee, yes, I know. I just feel bad for being annoyed with the people outside my window, but ... still annoyed.

Well, this begs the question, what are those people actually attempting to accomplish? If their aim is to end the war, this is not a very effective strategy. If it is intended to convince people who are not allready opposed that the war is a bad thing, then it may be counterproductive their aims. To be technically, clear, this is not what "democracy" sounds like, it's what the first ammendment sounds like. But then, so are a bunch of skinheads yelling their slogans.

I get this queasy feeling from cognative dissonance whenever I encounter protesters here in Portland. On the one hand, I'd bet that I agree with their causes. However, the impression they communicate to the casual observer is not, IMO, effective marketing for said causes.

In New York, protests happen all the time. Since my store is on Broadway, they usually march right past. I usually go outside and yell "All you hippies get outta my driveway!"

It never works.

Jon: What do we want? NO MORE HIPPIES! When do we want it? 1973!!!!

Yeah, I think my annoyance with this particular protest was due in large part to its non-moving-ness. It wasn't a march where they just filed past; they camped out in front of various buildings downtown and blocked traffic and yelled for hours. So it was constant blaring noise (chanting, radios, yelling, sirens, police megaphones) from about 11 until about 2.

It seems an odd way to mark the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion. Silent honoring of the dead, I think, might have been more effective -- I feel like the majority of San Franciscans are against the war, that that's not what needs to be protested, that what needs to be protested is forgetting its cost.

I don't know. Now I'm just rambling. It just seems, as pie points out, that their aims are probably not being served by their methods. The newspaper article I linked made it sound like a circus, with dance and performance art and music, and the organizers seem to be congratulating themselves because everyone who passed by supported them, which would lead me to believe that "protesting" is not really what needs to be happening in that context.

(And I'm finding it hilarious that *every* time I click that link, the number of people arrested has gone up substantially. It was 50 when I posted it.)

Well, my walk from the office to Muni took me past the Sherriff's station, and there were a number of folks there to cheer on their compadres as they were released after the obligatory checks to make sure the sherriff hadn't rounded up a Known Terrerist!

I too feel somewhat conflicted about my apathy towards the protests in SF today. It's a mishmash of pity at the futility of it all, amusement that folks think that 5th-year protests will amount to anything more than snide mentions on the evening news for having tied up traffic, and the memories of being teargassed in PDX back when 41 was calling us the "Beirut of America".

You want change? Focus your efforts on reforming the methods by which we hold "elections" in this country.

I work at the state capitol, and protestors happen from time to time. Last week a LARGE number of people came to protest Dept. of Health & Human Services budget cuts, and, seriously, I have plenty of sympathy for their cause. But, you know, I also had files to deliver, and had to wade through them to do so, and I get nervous in crowds, so that was a problem, but really, the worst thing was, they filled up the BATHROOMS, and, sympathetic as I am, GRRRR, I NEED TO PEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

As I wondered above, what are their aims? Are these folks thinking about outcomes at all?

This all makes me sad. :(

See? Sad.

*sigh*

Wish i could articulate it better. There's absolutely no personal criticism here. I could have gone to a protest. Didn't. Too much risk, too little reward. Sad. Not the way it should be.

Yeah, I'm annoyed by these sorts of protests too. And I was there for nearly all of the pre-war anti-war rallies, up to and including the day that the war started.

Protests just make me feel old, these days. Working in a government building that is close the the executive offices, we get protesters in the streets every now and again, but they all seem so tame by comparison with the real protests that took place here in the late '70s and early '80s. In those days, any form of street protest was illegal here, so the protest itself was a statement on top of the cause they were protesting for/against and people in the protest actually supported the cause, because there was a very real chance of being arrested and having a criminal record just for being there. Nowadays, it just seems to be something that uni students do as part of their rite of passage (the protesters are, I believe, all from the uni right next to parliament house, so it's hardly a stretch for them to participate anyway). I really think that protests are something that has had their day and they are largely ineffective now, as they are just part of the landscape.

Find a new way to bring about revolt, you damn hippies!

It's not the protesters that didn't prevent the war, it's that there was no way to prevent the war given the way our oligarchy is set up.

Protest is important because it gives people a way to distance themselves from the war as a community.

Protest is important because it is an education for young activists who then go on to do essential, more boring community work, etc.

On behalf of the anti-war protest movement I apologise for the loud protest disturbing your work. I know you've had a stressful time of it lately.

The combination of the Obama speech and the big antiwar protest last weekend which had a bigger turnout than we expected lifted my spirits immensely, and I really needed that.

I'm supposed to be a good liberal, yet I am tired of strikes. All services shut down yesterday, rolling electricity blackouts (I'm just now back online after a two-hour blackout in our area), the garbage hasn't been collected for six days... and so on, and so on.

I feel very bad for being incredibly annoyed, because I'm pro-union, and I love that people take an active part in the political process here, at least so far as protests, demonstrations, and yes, even strikes... but there are strikes all the fucking time. It causes one to not take them seriously. I admit it: I take strike action a mere fraction as seriously as I did when I moved here, because it's always and ever and ever and always All. The. Time. Now I mostly roll my eyes.

These days have been more intense, with general strikes. That means pretty much everybody. Except the small business people. Rolling blackouts because electrical workers are striking? WTF, people? There are tons of mom and pop operations getting by on the skin of their teeth, and losing money because they can't do business with no electricity (strike), losing more business because their patrons can't use the public transit (strike), because they can't get produce or goods delivered (strike) - this means they fucking go out of business. Three strikes and they're out. How many people are going to die or be severely impacted because hospitals only have skeleton staff? Rich people will find a doctor... poor people will suffer. Hey, yeah! Way to fight for the little people! I appreciate civil unrest, I really, honestly do - especially in comparison to what has been the relative apathy of the U.S. citizenry (my own country, I'm saying) in the face of some really horrible and sickening stuff (people would be burning down the parliment here)... but I'm kind of disgusted at the moment.

Ah, one bright spot: lawyers are on strike. Almost bright: so are the media (or at least some, apparently. who knows. I'd check the paper, but....) Ex-journalist here, so half-kidding, but only half. I'm not mourning the yellow press & T&A-TV ooze if those bottom-dwellers are actually striking, it makes me laugh to imagine it: "We is serious, now, y'all! We putting our foots down, I say. No nearly naked starlets caught in embarrassing contretemps for THREE DAYS.")

And the terribly cynical side of me also laughs that all the strikes are to get everyone's attention and deliver the message THE MESSAGE and get the word out, but then when the media strikes... um. oops. Plus, "why is there no electricity? I dunno, turn on the TV and find out." Fail.

/sorta kidding. sorta.

Hee, taz. I used to love that in the Italian version of the IHT, there was *always* a list of strikes for the day. "Weather, sunny and cold. Price of gold, up. Strikes, metal workers and taxis."

My favorite was the gondola strike. Though I think it was actually a gondola / vaporetto / water taxi strike. It was like a parade going up the Grand Canal.

I never knew what any of the strikes were about, and most Italians cynically pointed out that they tended to happen most on the days before major holidays. This also, slightly tangentially, reminds me of my favorite Italian political comment, made by a friend, "You can't be too much of a Fascist, because then you work all the time. But you can't be too much of a Communist, because then you never work at all. So you have to be somewhere in the middle."

Protest is important because it gives people a way to distance themselves from the war as a community.

But that's kind of what I mean -- SF is pretty much against the war. We were one of the first American cities to pass a resolution against it. The passersby were all overwhelmingly in favor of the cause of the protesters. Given that context, it seems like more actual *work* of some sort could have been done.

My response (emotional and intellectual) would have been totally different if the protest were going on in Washington, or at McCain's headquarters, or someplace where expressing a dissenting opinion *is* a statement, rather than, as it is on the streets of SF, kind of a given.

The Berkeley protest, which was outside an Armed Forces recruiting center, makes sense to me.

And I'm obviously sympathetic to the protesters' aims. It just kind of seems like "protest" was the wrong tool to pull out of the kit for this particular job.

Protest is important because it is an education for young activists who then go on to do essential, more boring community work, etc.

That's a very neat idea. If you have time and inclination, can you expand?

Interesting follow-up piece from the SF Chronicle.