I am not a protester. I have never demonstrated against anything. I'm not saying that I wouldn't, but I have yet to find anything that I feel would really make an effective stand by doing so. Maybe keeping vigil with the So. LA farmers is the closest I have come so far, but I have not yet stood with them physically.
I do have friends that are part of demonstrations. Some of them and many in their circle of friends wear each march, or sit-in with pride.
I have mixed feelings about demonstrations. Maybe because in America the majority of them are ineffective and they consist of one-sided, polemical folk. There were many anti-Bush protests outside my apartment, and the people were not only pithy in their statements, their rhetoric was not even intelligent.
That is not to say that all demonstrations are bad or unintelligent. Far from it. We have the luxury in our country to protest. Anyone who says that people protesting the war are "unAmerican" are fools. It is the most American thing they can do - in fact it is what makes America, America - free speech and little harm done in protesting.
I then read stories about demonstrations in Zimbabwe. People really have problems there, and the government is oppressive - and effectively so. They are able to squelch unregistered demonstrations with a thwack of the baton. They arrest leaders. They cannot hide behind free-speech laws, because laws are not upheld by the law-makers.
So I reflect - thankful that the people who stood outside my window once a week (before I moved) causing people to honk their horns incessantly, had the right and ability to do so. They as a mob were idiotic at best, with horrible rhetoric that will change nothing but increase silly, apathetic, word-fanaticism, with little action. But they were exercising their rights.
I think one day that I will be involved in a demonstration. A friend of mine who participates in many, and almost ruined his wedding because of an arrest, knows the dangers of protesting. I wish to avoid these and find some of them unnecessary (the future Mrs. Tension Treatises would kill me - forget prison, upsetting a fiance is not a good punishment). I am thankful all my friend would have gotten (which he didn't) was a ruined wedding day, an upset fiance and some time looking through vertical bars. It is nothing like that of the Zimbabweans.
That is my reflection - it spurs many different directions and barely completes any thoughts. To conclude I do not take my freedom and safety in demonstrations lightly. It makes me happy to be an American at this point and makes me recognize my desire for solidarity who do not enjoy even close to the same freedoms as me.
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