Guest Post by Morbo
I’m always wary of extrapolating too much from my personal observations. Too many personal prejudices can enter the picture, as well as that ever-popular human foible: assuming something is so because you wish it were so.
With those caveats in mind, I’d like to say something about the anti-war march in Washington last weekend: The people looked extremely … normal.
It must have driven the Fox News Channel batty. GOP TV loves to portray those opposed to the war as social misfits. Thus, during the original round of protests before and after the war started, Fox cameras were wont to linger on the most unusual-looking people they could find, usually young men with neon green hair and 15 facial piercings.
Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against neon green hair and 15 facial piercings if that’s your thing. More power to you. Free to be you and me. But let’s face it: Fox and other right-wing outlets loved to showcase people like that for a reason: They knew the unorthodox appearance of such protestors would shock middle America.
This time, many of the marchers appeared to be middle America.
Just to be clear, I was not a participant in the march. I wanted to go, but I had promised my children I would take them to the National Book Festival, which took place on the Washington Mall the same day. We shared a subway ride down with many marchers, and we saw them all over the city. Several had stopped by the Festival. We also took in several views of the march as we walked around after an unsuccessful attempt by my son to get a book signed by Mary Pope Osborne. (But that’s another post on some other blog.)
What struck me was how typical the marchers look, how suburban, how boring. I see that as a good thing. Polls now show a majority of Americans oppose the war. Apparently at least some of them are now ready to take to the streets.
A few days before the march, The Washington Post ran a story indicating that for many people, this event would be their first march ever. I was skeptical these newbies would show up. It looks like they did.
I was also impressed by the large number of older marchers I saw. I’ve always thought of marching in protests as a young person’s game. Yet here was a sizeable gray-haired contingent hoisting signs and shouting. To be honest, I felt a little ashamed. Here I was playing typical suburban dad while folks 30 years older were out doing the heavy lifting of protesting the war.
Media reports later put the size of the crowd at 150,000 to 300,000. (Oddly enough, that’s the same number of people who were in line to see Mary Pope Osborne — but I digress.) A counter-protest, by contrast, drew a paltry 200. Walking by a trashcan, I spotted one of their discarded signs. It read, “Freedom Isn’t Free.” Can’t these people even come up with some new slogans?
It’s always difficult to predict the impact of an event like this, but I’d like to think it will play the same role the protests against the Vietnam War did of eventually forcing government leaders to abandon an untenable policy.
One march won’t do that, so we’ll need some more protests just to drive the point home. Next time I’ll be there. With my short hair, button-down shirts and Dockers, I can easily pass for a conservative Republican, so I should fit right in.