I don't know how many of you knew this, but today was the Official Unofficial Protest War in Syria Day. Think Occupy 2.0, but somehow more impotent. I attended the San Diego rally out of mild interest and boredom, and I'm not entirely sure it was worth my afternoon.
To start off, just like the Occupy movement, there was not a very strong consensus as to the purpose of the rally (somehow 'No War in Syria' is not clear enough). There were asshats with anti-Monsanto, anti-GMO, and legalize weed signs, and this one lady who would not shut up about the "Zionist plot". This is why I hate left-leaning rallies; nobody can stick to one fucking subject as the source of their outrage. Everyone has to drag their pet project in to this. Hell, even the speakers couldn't stick to the topic without careening into "Legalize weed", "Release nonviolent (drug) offenders", or whatever else bullshit that isn't remotely related to bombing another country.
And the speakers. Oh my gods did these people piss me off. The first dude starts off with this dumbass, feelgood meditation (complete with a bell) to contemplate "the inner peace within our hearts". The rest were pretty much the same; liberal activists with the message that "war is bad" and other typical speeches that, while passionate, were rather light on solutions outside of more rallies and voting. There were a few, however, that were outright hilarious. A couple of them ran independent radio stations, cuz that's such an effective means of communication nowadays. One of them thought Secretary of State John Kerry, the same asshat that somehow lost to Bush in 2004, was the right man to patch up all the political turmoil in the Middle East. I have never wanted to hit someone so hard out of sheer disgust in my entire life.
This other dude had a major hardon for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and was, I thought, a complete disgrace to the man's name. He spoke of the great accomplishments King managed as the civil rights leader, but has clearly failed to understand how much King had to suffer to make his dream a reality. I sincerely doubt anybody in that crowd realizes what we'll all have to go through to affect the change we desire. The only speaker I have some respect for is a woman who's part of some Muslim-American activist group, who has family in Syria. She had, hands down, the best grasp of the events in Syria, and made some of the best points of anyone all afternoon. Naturally, the local news stations who'd put their mics up on the podium, pulled said mics and promptly left when this woman started talking about how Obama's violating the Constitution. Talk about journalism, right?
While the overall message of these protests may be heard, if only because of their (inter)national scope, I sincerely doubt San Diego will be much help overall. The afternoon was filled with empty platitudes that solve nothing. Sure, most of the people there may feel better, and certainly gain a sense of accomplishment, but they're not going to be useful on their own. Waving signs at traffic (I swear to gods, that was the best idea they had) will solve nothing. These people have no interest in taking the kinds of drastic steps needed to be heard and obeyed. Like it or not, nothing will get done if our outrage is not feared in Washington; until the leaders have to start worrying about their careers, if not their well-being, they have no reason to listen to us.
Occupy proved that. Occupy had everyone in power scared. Even if the reaction was delayed, Wall St. was scared. The media and government paid attention. Tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people, gathered together in every major city across the country, forced the debate to shift in a direction we wanted it to go, and they did it by becoming the kind of nuisance that gets attention. These people put their lives on hold to send a message... and promptly forgot what that message was. Every asshat with an agenda tried to solve their pet problem, and the entire movement lost cohesion. All that political power, all that outrage, all that fear, completely wasted because those fools wouldn't accept leadership to rally them, or take more direct action than camping in the public square. The same people who set up Occupy San Diego are running this current movement; these morons will accomplish nothing.