Discipline, and why you dirty hippies should get some

The reviews are in from the anti-war march/concert in D.C. on Saturday, and the lefties, of all people, aren't too happy with it. Jeff emailed me on the night of the show to complain about an over-enthusiastic Adam Eidinger:

In a supposed crowd of three hundred thousand, I was pinned at the front fence before the stage by the whitest representation of digital camera-toting Washington D.C., all of whom were emphatically, triumphantly thrusting their hands in the air with [local "socially conscious" rapper] Head Roc, shouting, "Yeah, yeah, hell yeah," all in time to the beat, when I notice a figure at the corner of the stage very energetically encouraging the crowd to shout along. He was rocking side to side with the rhythm, arms swaying until the participatory "Hell yeah!" was to be shouted by the crowd, at which point this figure would throw his hands into the air and wail with fervor--and I realized that those glasses were not worn by your average party promoter. There Eidinger was, the model of the historic struggle of all oppressed peoples, helping the band lead the crowd away from tyranny.

I'm probably being too harsh on him, too harsh on all of them, but, [R.J.], seriously, I gotta tell ya, I think our peers are fucking retards.

Great image. Tom of the Zunta crew has more:

The concert seemed very well-run. Not too many detestable hippies in the crowd, and everyone behaved themselves. The politics expressed on stage were predictably silly. The bands mostly avoided embarassment, sticking to "Fuck George Bush" and "Let's Party!" But the inter-set haranguing veered wildly from general, sane opposition to the Iraq War, to incitements to interfere with all forms of military recruitment, to broad anticorporate diatribes that, while up my alley, seemed a bit far afield from the show's stated purpose.

Neither Tom nor Jeff enjoyed themselves much, despite a general musical affinity for the performers.

Steve Gillard takes a wider view:

You know, it's time for the campus radicals to go home and take ANSWER with them.

I watched an hour or so of the rally and I wanted to smash my screen.

Why can't they have adults who can speak in words, not slogans.

Here's a hint, Palestine is really unpopular in the US, even among liberals. You do not gain support for the Palestinians by having some campus clown talk about the injustices of the Palestinian people. You know, why not have a real Palestinian from Palestine who doesn't speak in slogans. You know, but a human face on it. And leave the support of terrorists like FARC at home, after all, you can't call Israelis terrorists when you're praising drug dealing terrorists.

This is serious shit and I had to listen to someone say he was a communist. Now what in the fuck does that have to do with Iraq? Too many people on the left glom on to any protest and use it as their hobby horse.

I have a proposal: For once, let's have an anti-war rally that is as well-organized as a Bush rally.

• Screen everybody at the gathering point and give them a t-shirt, creating a visual to compete with the sea of prop-soldiers that Dubya likes to have behind him. It is televised event that should be designed to buck up antiwar voters who don't live in places where many others share their views and to encourage others who may be pro-war that they are not weirdos, radicals or traitors for expressing their concerns. Effective protests are shows of strength in numbers, not gatherings for the ideologically similarly-situated (that's what radical bookstores are for.).
• Print signs in advance. It's important to have message control. Yes, we're liberals and we care about personal expression, but sometimes expression has to take a temporary back seat to accomplish the above goals of normalization and movement-wide morale. Plus, they look better.
• One issue per rally. Yeah, yeah, I understand why you might think that money spent in Iraq could be better spent in schools and that the Middle East philosophy that led to war may lead to outcomes in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that not everyone likes. Still, if the goal of the anti-war movement is to stop the war and discredit the philosophy behind it, it's not worthwhile to alienate people with your Palestinian flags and your lionization of Palestinian suicide bombers. Just like the anti-tax libertarians find common cause with homeschooling religious wackos to defund and destroy public schools, left-leaning groups must find a way to cooperate on issues of common concern with a united front interested in victory, not self-expression. Note that those two things are different.
• Less chanting, more speeches. There is only so much you can say with the classic "hey hey, ho ho" formulation. Protests get condensed to soundbytes, so every sound, from speakers, individual protestors or the crowd in general should be calculated to maximum effect.
• Speaking of individuals, it may be a good idea to give everyone talking points upon entry. If everyone says the same on-point, articulate sentence, that sentence will be the one on TV. If some yahoo starts mouthing off on how the government arrested Mumia because he knew too much about the CIA plot to introduce crack to the inner-cities in order to pay for anti-Castro activities, that will end up on TV. Once again, the choice is between a rally that serves to unite diverse groups under a common goal and a freakshow that turns people off.