"Thank you for coming to take care of your country," shouted Rep. Maxine Waters to a rapturous response. It wasn't even 10:30 in the morning - the official march hadn't even started and the scores of concerned citizens hadn't even fully assembled - yet you could tell it was going to be a special day. And it was. It was a day of engaging speeches and engaged Americans. A day for taking stock and taking power. A day of
hope and
optimism. It was hard to disagree Saturday when someone would yell, "This is what democracy looks like." Because it is. It looks like tens of thousands of Americans of every stripe giving voice to an idea - ending the Iraq war - overwhelmingly more popular than the alternative. It looks like veterans and active-duty military speaking truth to the Commander-in-Chief. It looks like so many staying behind to lobby their elected officials and work long after to bring our troops home. Saturday, our presence in Washington showed that we, not the misguided hawks still standing behind the war, reflect the will of the people. And no one - no pundit, politician or counter-protester - could convince anyone otherwise.
Joining Waters at the pre-march rally sponsored by CODEPINK we attended were her fellow elected officials, Reps. Lynn Woolsey and Dennis Kucinich, actors Sean Penn and Jane Fonda (among others), veterans and families of those currently serving in Iraq. For an hour, we gathered to raise our voices in support for ending this war. While the words of Waters, Woolsey and Kucinich were very inspiring, most effective were those of a 21-year-old. Oriana Futrell, a native of Spokane, Washington, came to the protest carrying a sign that read, "Bring my husband home now!" Her husband, an Army lieutenant, is currently serving in Baghdad. "My husband deployed last June to Iraq,"
said Futrell, emotion in her voice. "He is an Army infantry officer currently patrolling the streets of Baghdad. And I just have to say I'm sick of attending the funerals of my friends. I have seen the weeping majors. I have seen the weeping colonels. I am sick of the death." When she finished, there wasn't a dry eye in sight.
Quick aside: A staple, of course, of any such protest is the right-wing counter-protest. And Saturday's march was no different. While vocal (with the help of a bullhorn), this bunch was, in a word, small. In another word, pathetic. Our side -
America's side - numbered in the tens to hundreds of thousands. Theirs? Barely 30, by my count. (Perhaps each of them came to Washington to stand for one of the 30 or so percent of Americans who still support the Decider-in-Chief.) More than a few of those "patriots" - representatives, the Washington Post reported, of the Free Republic - seemed able-bodied enough, so it was puzzling to me that they would go to such lengths to hang a stuffed dummy of Jane Fonda when, I'm fairly certain, an enlistment office was nearby. Their chants were trite, their signs, frankly, sad. With slogans like "Anti-American peaceniks think sedition is patriotic" and "We gave peace a chance. We got 9/11", can anyone honestly tell me they were even trying? Besides, Futrell's sign rebutted the anti-peace protesters far better than any of our shouting could.
From the pre-march rally, we walked the several blocks from the Navy Memorial to the National Mall, where we met with the other constituent groups and thousands of other attendees to hear from numerous speakers, including many of those we had heard at the previous event. After nearly two hours of impassioned speeches, spirited chanting and informative dialogue - including fiery rhetoric from Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson and Rep. John Conyers - those in attendance began to queue for the march, the route set to take everyone by the Capitol. Looking back from our position near the front of the marchers and later from a perch above the fray, it appeared to us that the group stretched for quite a distance. One hundred thousand participants, we decided, was a conservative estimate. Turnout aside, do our actions still matter as
the online world becomes the preeminent force in the progressive movement?
Now that we've entered the digital age of people-powered politics, one ponders the usefulness of analog activism, which we saw Saturday. As a participant (like you) in both, I have found there's still something to be said for a massive show of force. Call it nonviolent shock and awe. Because in each and every one of us Saturday is a fire, a desire to take things far beyond the day's march. To Monday's lobbying day, for instance. To support and promote candidates who represent our interests, not those of the cautious, the timid, the purveyors of the
Beltway conventional wisdom that helped get us into this mess in the first place. To reconnect online with those we met Saturday, people from Texas, New Hampshire, Minnesota and Arkansas, among many other states.
What brought us all to our nation's capital for the march? Netroots organization, something that shows me that the days of the massive protest aren't yet numbered. Instead, it shows me that the large-scale event can and should remain one of many arrows in our progressive quiver, like targeted fundraising, candidate recruitment, messaging and rapid response. Each tactic has its strength, just like each has its weaknesses. Saturday's march, for instance, was successful at bringing people together and painting a picture of exactly how strong the progressive movement is. How diverse it is. How much potential it has. When we looked around Saturday,
like we have before, staring back at us were men and women of every age, every race, every economic group. There were families of soldiers current and fallen, veterans, union members, church groups, longtime activists and first-time participants. In fact, if the number of children we saw were any indication, the future of the progressive movement is strong.
If I have one complaint about Saturday's rally and others like it I've seen and attended in the past, it's this: Message control. If the goal of the protest was to stand in opposition to escalation specifically and the
disastrous Iraq war in general, I see no value in discussing - both by the speakers and those in the crowd via their signs - the Israel/Palestine situation. Both that and the myriad other tangential rallying cries heard Saturday may and do indeed have merit, but
not if your goal is an overwhelming show of opposition to a specific policy. To wit: When I go to a basketball game, I'm not also expecting to see a baseball, football, hockey and soccer game erupt. Great, maybe, but not what I paid for. Now, at the same time, the same can be said for the progressive blogosphere. Having a big tent filled with numerous interests isn't a problem. Staying focused is.
That said, watching the local Washington media this weekend and in reading other accounts of the protest, I find fault with the coverage of the event. The dominant frame through which the media view the protest movement - and, often, progressive activism itself - is as a sideshow, a colorful tapestry comprising ex-hippies, dreadlocked potheads and militant communists. One television reporter expressed surprise that active-duty military took part in the protest. Another newspaper account
made a passing reference to marijuana use. One photo in the print edition of the Washington Post depicted three young people dancing. Above, editors placed a photo of a twentysomething male veteran, an amputee, heckling an anti-war speaker. The latter image screamed "serious and sober"; the former didn't. Not pictured in the pages of the Post, however, was Futrell. There was no message more serious - or personal - Saturday than hers.
Criticizing the media, though, is easy. With rare exception, coverage of
anything of note is
shoddy at best, blatantly biased at worst. So, with an event like Saturday's march, the media approach their reporting armed both with the traditional frame
and what we, the marchers, give them. Give them a mishmash of issues that obscures an effective core and they report on the color of the event, not the substance. The solution, then? Either give them a clearer picture or think about different models of activism. This isn't to decry at all Saturday's march, but, like anything, we must always be evaluating the effectiveness of what it is we do. Large-scale protests are no different. Have they changed much from the late-'60s, other than how they're organized? Is a rally like Saturday's as important as, say, ensuring turnout at the ballot box on election day? Is a front-page, above-the-fold photo of a throng of protesters as effective as an iconic shot of the lone activist?
Questions like these, though they may produce difficult answers, are important, because what we're fighting for is so important. Important, too, is that we maximize the impact of our actions. I would like to see the massive protest remain vital if for no other reason than to consistently remind people that, yes, it's more than alright to voice our dissent; it's our duty. Also, because the more opportunities for concerned citizens to gather together and potentially forge networks, the better. That said, protesting for protesting's sake can't be the answer. What, therefore, was the value of Saturday's march? Will the sum of our efforts help convince Congress to move beyond non-binding resolutions? Will our hope and determination endure? I remain eternally optimistic, and Saturday's march didn't do anything to change that. We both left Washington refreshed and recharged, focused on seeing our goals achieved. We also left inspired by the scores of patriotic Americans we met and the thousands more surrounding us. Saturday, as many said, wasn't the ending of anything. It was merely the beginning. Or, more accurately, the next step in a growing movement that helped sweep Democrats into power with one overwhelming message - end this war. But as vital as the step itself is that we as progressives capitalize on every opportunity we're presented with to study what we do and work to do it better. Because the better we do what we do, the more likely it is we accomplish what it is we were marching for in the first place.
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