When to protest:
When the parliament of your country hustles in* a “Personal Status Law” declaring, among other things, that your husband can rape you (at least once every four days, that is), that as an 8-year old, you can be married off on a whim to a man many times your age, and that you are not permitted to live in the world freely and equally, but rather subject to the constant control of your closest male relative.
Gallant marches for her rights! Via Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images for The New York Times
That is, when you are an un- or under-represented population being systematically discriminated against by powers that wish to exploit you for their own nefarious purposes, take to the streets, like several hundred Shi’ite Afghan women did yesterday in Kabul.
And when the group that holds power in your society floods into the streets to silence you with rocks, epithets and threats of violence against you for proclaiming your humanity, you’ll know you’re doing it right.
When not to protest:
When you get cranky about what your duly elected leaders are doing to salvage the economy (which is in the shitter in large part due to your own party’s policies), even though it will result in the lowering taxes on the vast majority of citizens (including you), because you’re programmed by the oligarchs of Fox News and couldn’t parse the terms “socialist,” “liberal,” or “fascist” if your life depended on it.
Goofus uses a teabag. Via cmbellman @ Flickr.
That is, if you’ve got your knickers in a twist about any governmental action and a bad understanding of American history, go gather on a street corner somewhere in your peaceful, well-to-do area, as US citizens did yesterday in cities around the nation, and rail on television against the sticky-fingered overlords who are coming to eat steal bread from your mouth, or desecrate the memory of Lincoln, or something. (Tinfoil hat optional.)
Moreover, when your absurd, embarrassingly-named protest movement, which can better be understood as astroturf rather than “grassroots,” consists of name-calling and lobbing tea bags onto the White House grounds (although maybe Michelle could use them as compost for her garden?), when you take no risk to your professional or personal safety, and when almost no one bothers to even come out to observe your sad little display, you’ll know that not only are you doing it wrong, you’re a ridiculous parody of true courage in the face of real oppression.
*As of April 17, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who signed the legislation last month, has declared that he will “in consultation with clergy of the country, [revise the law], and any article that is not in keeping with the Afghan constitution and Islamic Sharia must be removed from this law.” How…vague. Story from CNN here.
As infuriatingly absurd/ignorant as the teabag protests are… isn’t it kind of worth it to hear the wingnuts endless go on about “teabagging”?
I meant “endlessly go on…” though I suppose “endless wingnuts” works too.
A (bad) haiku:
The endless wingnuts
Will choose to ignore freedoms
That are for women
Taxes are a part
Of US democracy
Suck it the fuck up
My Canadian schadenfreude readings were off the charts yesterday.
Make of that what you will.
This is like the Goofus and Gallant of protesting.
I will never understand the ability of the GOP to get ignorant middle-to-working-class Americans to rally on behalf of the plight of the poor poor rich people. Though the fact that these people are too stupid to understand why “no taxation without representation” is not applicable to them probably explains their willingness to protest.
Great piece. Those women in Afghanistan are heroes.
I’ve heard/read a lot of commentary about these epic fail protests lately (I liked Andrew Sullivan calling them tantrums instead of protests, and Jon Stewart pointing out that these people are confusing taxation-without-representation with losing), but yours is by far the best. Excellent perspective.
Yesterday I had no idea what this tea-bagging business was – well, the NEW term at least…
Now, it’s just comical. Democrats will protest what Republicans do and Republicans will protest what Democrats do. It was like the news was telling me the grass was green today! Amazing.
And the world turns…
I think I’m going to have to change my political position to “Laughs at the Ridiculous” it is far more accurate.
Also – “When to Protest” is downright correct. I’ll join that party. With all my bleeding heart. (power fist to strong women across the world)
These whiners are a joke. An absolute joke. Honestly, teabags?
My liberal, socialist ass had a lovely cup of black tea with cream and sugar last night after dinner. I was protesting the stupidity of the teabaggers desecrating my favorite caffeinated beverage.