Well, fuck. I should have known that any decent idea I come up with, Matt Taibbi's already said it far better. Even on the odd occasion he's wrong, I'm a huge fan, especially his work in The Exile.
The thing is, though, this isn't a particularly arcane observation. In fact, it'd probably be one of the first things I'd care about if I were interested in designing an effective social action movement.
Which leads me to the conclusion that no matter what they say, the bulk of the people who show up for protests *don't really care* about ending the Iraq war.
They.
Don't.
Care.
If they say they do, they're either lying to you, lying to themselves, or both. Probably the second one, to be fair.
They derive social benefits from it as well as satisfying their self-image. Both are powerful motivators.
Four members of the Seminal staff decided to test out dressing professional for the Sept 15th anti-war march. Wearing suits they hit the street and found that reactions from both protesters and anti-protesters treated them better then they have thought would happen.
From their blog entry on the matter:
"We feel confident that a coordinate group of ten people, all dressed in professional attire, would present a striking visual image, and that a hundred or more would literally cause jaws to drop - and perhaps attract serious media attention as well."
You can read the whole story and see their pictures here: theSeminal.com
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The thing is, though, this isn't a particularly arcane observation. In fact, it'd probably be one of the first things I'd care about if I were interested in designing an effective social action movement.
Which leads me to the conclusion that no matter what they say, the bulk of the people who show up for protests *don't really care* about ending the Iraq war.
They.
Don't.
Care.
If they say they do, they're either lying to you, lying to themselves, or both. Probably the second one, to be fair.
They derive social benefits from it as well as satisfying their self-image. Both are powerful motivators.