I do believe that protests have their place. I do not believe that myself, a political activist, shadows the efforts of the hippies. I have an extreme disdain for hippies in fact....
I would ask you what you believe would be "productive way forward" as you said in your previous post.
Firstly, it would be for people who truly want a country that's healthy, to wash themselves of anti-American opportunists. Someone chanting anti-American slogans doesn't care for anything but airing a greivance and looking for some form of vengeance. Vengeance isn't a way forward. A foul mouthed tirade might be based on a logic premise, but it's delivery is going to alienate it. Weed out the angry and the opportunistic and find people who actually like what America is and could be, based on what our forefathers had in mind.
I think like Gardner said, people see this as an opportunity to manipulate people and turned protests into organizations, and like everything else, once it becomes an organization, it is susceptible to corruption and abuse.
If a group of people must get together to make their voice known, a less militant display would help. Insulting caricatures and excessive exagerrations on placards is a turn off. Loud doesn't mean right, it just means loud.
I don't believe crippling our economy is a way forward, unless forward means putting America over a barrel. That just means making America vulnerable.
Forward is not only accepting and acknowledging America's flaws and wrong doing's, but changing policy based on it, to insure it doesn't happen in the future. Truly fair market dealings, in the natural resources we buy and in trade. No longer turning a blind eye to dictators because they tow the line and benefit us.
How this is done is making it evident that the American people have no wish to dominate and be 'better', just to be self determining and equal. And fair. Engaging people in public positions, like writers and reporters, in a calm and reasonable manner will garner more attention. Having students do
research and write about what they've learned is more productive than striking and closing down schools. Schools are full of resources, having them empty doesn't push things forward.
I'm not a political activist. I'm not a Republican or a Democrat. Nor am I an "Independant". I'm an American. I'm turned off by extremism of any bent, as is the average American, who comprises the majority. The majority cares about this country, because despite our problems, we have it good here. I'd rather be homeless in America than Middle Class in most countries, because no matter how low you go, you can find an opportunity to clean up your act and move forward in America. I'm not saying you can't anywhere else, but I know you can do it here.
If getting the average American to listen and act is priority one, then threatening what we love isn't going to work. Division is contrary to the very name of our country, and the majority doesn't want that.
Resting on one party's excessive denigration of another is not enough. The Democrats have just as much complicity in the war and overall policy as do the Republicans, they're just taking the popular route and washing their hands of the blame.
Calling our government killers and the President Hitler is extremism, and there very well was some valid reasoning for concern before the Iraq invasion, but it was hidden behind cacaphonous minority, that ensures it's agenda will not go forward.
If anything should be protested, it's the elections themselves. Demand that the status quo be broken: A Democrat get's in, the Repubs find ways to make them look bad; a Republican gets in the Democrats get to work plotting a revenge. On and on it goes and it's counter productive and a disservice to the American people. Mainly, because whatever transgression that's going on, both sides know about it and allow it to happen, only to know full well, it will work great as a smear tactic later on. It's a game and the average American is an after thought once their vote is out of the way.
