Exploring Protest

"We're not going to take this any more." Senate Democrats act up.

Reuters reports that "Democrats close Senate doors in Iraq protest." Liz Sidoti summarizes the protest by Democratic Senators, calling it "a day of political drama." Josh Marshall at TPM Cafe posted the text of Senator Reid's comments here. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's howls of protest were classic Republican obfuscation of the Democrat's real issue, the failure to investigate administration wrong-doing in the leadup to the war in Iraq. Mark Schmitt at TPM Cafe speculates that Reid's protest action may mark the beginning of a power shift in Congress. Do you suppose that could actually be true? We can only hope. My old favorite, Steve Clemons at TWN, endorses Senator Reid's parliamentary tactic, and in a subsequent post points out what we are all beginning to see - that Republican unity may not be universal.
Speaking of howling to obfuscate the core issue, even Representative Tom DeLay has learned how to protest successfully. He will get a new trial judge, because the first one was a Democrat. But I don't think it will make a difference in his deserved outcome. The prosecutor has a good enough case to win.
Even High Schoolers are getting into activist mode. In Seattle a group has organized a protest by students, who plan to walk out of class to protest the war in Iraq. In a similar vein, here are a couple of peace protest sites, including one called A.N.S.W.E.R. The title link of this post points to a general site that aggregates a large number of reference resources on the subject of protest. And any post on protest must refer to Cindy Sheehan, because she was the leader that broke open the current climate of increased formalized activist protest. Public opinion figures about Cindy Sheehan are available here.
Marches and gatherings in the public square are not the only kinds of protest that have been used successfully. This story reports that 1500 Boeing workers have gone on strike over the very traditional issues of pay increases, retirement and health benefits. We know that protest can often be silent, but effective, as in this great picture of chalk-marking.
The news these days is full of information about international protests as well as our own domestic ones. President Bush is sure to face a good deal of organized protest on his upcoming trip to Argentina and Brazil. These protests related to elections in Ethiopia brought death yesterday. It is so very easy to cross the line. There is a difference between organized protests and riots, illustrated by this BBC story about the clashes between youth and police in suburban Paris.
South by Southwest is my own protest march. I identify with the antiwar movement and did so during the war in Vietnam. So much of the information on the web today hearkens back to the 1960's.
Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks recently died at the age of 92. Today she will be buried in her beloved adopted city of Detroit. Wikipedia's entry about this period in her life states,

"Later that year, (1957) at the urging of her younger brother, Sylvester, Mrs. Parks, Raymond Parks and her mother, Leona McCauley, moved to Detroit, Michigan. Mrs. Parks worked as a seamstress until 1965 when U.S. Representative John Conyers (D-Michigan) hired her as a secretary and receptionist for his Congressional office in Detroit. She held this position until she retired in 1988.[10] In a telephone interview with CNN on October 24, 2005, Conyers recalled, "You treated her with deference because she was so quiet, so serene—just a very special person...'there is only one' Rosa Parks."

Thousands have stood in long lines Montgomery, Washington D.C., and today Detroit residents and others from all around the country are to pay their last respects to one of the most effective protestors of the last century. In the 1960's I stood at my ironing board and watched with satisfaction as the civil rights movement emerged. All those brave and peaceful people marched across the television screen, and now another one of them is gone. At least she got to live a wonderfully long life, rather than die far too young, as did Dr. Martin Luther King.