Protesting .....
August 29, 2010: This weekend there was a large event in Washington DC.
Only some of us may know about it. The mainstream media seemed to think it was a non-event. Heck, there are a lot of conservative commentators who pretended it did not happen. But, it did.
While it does not merit the same coverage of a Category 5 hurricane, the Beck rally and the reasons that drove it to happen may well have the same effect as a hurricane. We will have to wait until November to see if the grass roots efforts of the Tea Party tears down the current structure of Washington DC. This is a hurricane that has been brewing for 20 months. Glenn did a pretty good job of capitalizing on it. While the rally seemed to be well attended, it was a pretty mild breeze.
Aside from the current politics, I wanted to use this event to point you to an interesting way to think about protesting.
We Baby Boomers think we invented everything. One thing we like to claim as ours is the "political protest". We sat-in, marched, rallied, chanted, screamed and agitated our way through college in the 60's and 70's. We were pretty good at it. Some might say we stopped a war.
(Well, SOME of you were. I wasn't. Someone had to go to class!)
However clever we thought we were, we were just a continuation of a long and rich history of protesting. America was founded by a bunch of rabble rousing malcontents. Thank God. One thing they insured for us was the right, the privilege and the responsibly to stand up and yell at our government when we disagree with the direction it is heading.
To illustrate this better then my words ever could, I want to share with you some amazing photos taken by Ken Steinhoff. Ken is from Cape Girardeau MO. He and I went to the same high school. Ken graduated five years before I did so we do not know each other, although we have emailed.
Ken, a photojournalist, has had a long career in the newspaper business, which included Cape's paper, The Southeast Missourian. He has a website devoted to Cape and growing up there. Generally, it would hold little interest for most of you not from Cape. But today he posted photographs he took in Washington DC in 1971 at a PRO-War rally on The Mall, lead by one of the leaders of the Christian Right.
Ken makes the point that many of the issues being rallied for and against in 1971 are the same issues being tossed around today.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I will share three of my favorite Steinhoff photos but go to Ken's site to see many more pictures and his interesting commentary. CLICK
Who knew you could shrink wrap little old ladies?
Photograph by Ken Steinhoff
This one says it all. The young hippies on one side and establishment they protested against on the other. See the young boy with the flag? He is flashing them their sign back to them. What seems odd is that they all actually look to be rather polite.
Photograph by Ken Steinhoff
Bless his heart.....who needs a sour wife?
Photograph by Ken Steinhoff