On Protest
“It is not only by shooting bullets in the battlefields that tyranny is overthrown, but also by hurling ideas of redemption, words of freedom and terrible anathemas against the hangmen that people bring down dictators and empires.”
– Emiliano Zapata, Mexican revolutionary, 1914
You don't need to burn your bra or throw paint on somebody to protest something. You need only defend your own beliefs against the bluster of ignorant blowhards should you happen to cross paths with one. If one should happen to be president then a vote against him can be a protest. Confronted with an agenda of greed, war, and lust for power, you have three choices: Validation, rejection, or apathy, and a candidate for each...
...or you can move to Mexico and be King Of The Little Brown People and have anal sex with barely legal orphans. Actually, to me that is a rejection, and a protest. So how 'bout a little solidarity...?
posted by El Bozo at 11:21 PM
1 Comments:
I'm assuming you are referring to my "Protests can make a difference in Mexico but not in the U.S." comment on that dumb list I sent the other day. I made that comment as a reaction to a phenomenon that I witnessed last week that I had forgotten about- "una protesta de las taxistas." This is when the taxi drivers have a particular gripe with the government or other powers that be and decide to park their taxis in a way to block all traffic, and cause a headache for everybody.
In the case of last week, the taxis blocked all traffic coming in and going out of Huatulco, as well as all traffic traveling up and down Highway 200, The Pacific Highway. It caused extreme havoc and after about 5 hours, sticks and machetes were waving in the air. Some directed toward the taxistas for blocking one of the most important roads in Mexico, some toward the police for not shooting the taxistas, and some toward the government for allowing there to be a problem in the first place (and some were probably being directed toward the U.S., just because). Anyway, the whole thing ended after about 12 hours because, from what a taxista told me, the state government agreed to schedule a meeting to hear their concerns.
Now compare that with what was accomplished by all the protests against going to war or staying in Iraq.
That said, I agree with your post. Protest can and should be made in all forms. But I also think that the organized urban march has been an extremely disappointing and ineffective form in the U.S.
On another note, she's 21- 3 years away from being barely legal.
Post a Comment
<< Home