http://worldpoliticswatch.com/article.aspx?id=168

At Today's Protests, the Streets are Getting Ugly
Bridget Johnson | Bio | 11 Sep 2006
World Politics Watch Exclusive
Once upon a time long ago, when civil rights was the goal and a brave black woman refused to give up her seat to a white man on a bus, Martin Luther King Jr. led the people with moral clarity and belief in nonviolent resistance, dreaming of a day when freedom would ring and blacks and whites would join hands as brothers and sisters.

Today, the roost is ruled by moral ambiguity and the rules of protesting -- be it against the war in Iraq or immigration legislation -- have changed. A few key pointers for today's would-be protestors:

-- Call everyone with whom you disagree a Nazi. And be sure to call your opponents fascists while blaming Jews for the globe's ills in a manner reminiscent of Germany, 1935.

-- Waste no time: Perfect your drum-beating and bullhorn skills. People will hear you and absorb the message so much better if it is screamed like bloody murder, laced with obscenities and delivered in hypnotic chant form.

-- Be ready to designate a proxy nation on which to unleash your fury: Denied protest permits for this month's World Bank meeting in Singapore, the usual suspects planned to make their statement with protests in Indonesia instead (until Indonesia banned them, too).


-- If you tire of domestic causes, there are plenty of global causes to get bent out of shape about. Can't go camp in a Mexico City plaza to back Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador? Bring your AMLO sign to any related or unrelated protest. Pal of the Palestinians? Kaffiyehs can be high demonstration fashion.

-- Bring the little ones for an afternoon of hollering, death threats and bottle throwing. Why have the babies watch Barney showing them how to get along with others, when they can learn early how to deride their opponents as Satan?

-- Who cares about what your cause is? Remember your main purpose: to pick fights with the cops. You haven't done your job until they bring out the riot gear.

-- Muddy the waters as best you can. Sure, you may be protesting the Sensenbrenner immigration bill one sunny Saturday afternoon, but isn't it that much more effective to thrown in Bush bashing, war opposition, communist-party pitches, Death Row opposition, G-8 gripes, abortion, Islamic recruitment, Che cuddling, global warming activism, Enron invocations and Hezbollah cheering?

Today's demonstrators take less guidance from the valiant, tide-turning, peaceful demonstrations of old and instead rip the playbook from the hands of those masters of urban redecoration -- the wannabe revolutionaries and anarchists with a conspiracy theory in every pot who grace every meeting of the G-8, World Bank and IMF, as well as every locale where George W. Bush happens to land.

Recently I've been protest crashing -- moseying behind the lines with a camera, notepad and nonchalance -- to observe the demonstrators in their natural habitat, becoming one with their drum circles and listening to political analyses that sound like chapters from "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Hugo Chavez." And I've come to a few well-schooled conclusions.

First, the American right does not protest like the American left. The right's protests are more like Fourth of July parades, except they tend to stand in one spot, armed with bottled water and sun-shielding visors. Police only show up to keep the left from trying to beat them up. Right-wingers, in fact, are less the protest types to begin with, preferring the letter to the editor, blog or ballot box as venues to voice opinions. They, along with many moderates, are generally not inclined to show up to counter-protest the leftists, preferring instead to stay in the air conditioning and let the left knock themselves out by preaching via cranked-up bullhorn to their eager choir.

Exceptions to this general rule include anti-abortion and immigration protests. But even though many Americans support tighter border controls, only the most hardcore tend to pick up the flags and signs and head for the streets. But the right may be picking up cues on the high-drama protest: One group in Los Angeles was ringing in the Sept. 11 anniversary by hanging Osama bin Laden in effigy in front of the Saudi-funded King Fahd Mosque in Culver City.

Next, do not assume that everyone holding a sign aloft and repeating the refrain of the closest bullhorn wielder actually can articulate the issue for which they're demonstrating. This goes for anarchists chucking Molotov cocktails at an International Monetary Fund meeting and for local demonstrations about global matters. Last month, I went to the protest of several dozen Save Our State members outside Maywood City Hall (Maywood being a 96-percent Hispanic hamlet near downtown Los Angeles that has declared itself a haven for illegal immigrants). Hundreds of counter-demonstrators showed up to scream racism, pitch water bottles from the other side of a police barricade, rag on white people and lobby for the deportation of all Europeans. "We will never live in peace until we get the European squatters off our lands," read one sign; another read "Stolen continent" and pictured North and South America -- which is, um, two continents.

Many local residents who grabbed their Mexican flags to come out and join the fray, though, seemed to think it was one big happy Hispanic pride rally. Oh, the white people with the American flags on the other side of the police are racist? Oh, okay. The cops hate us, too? Oh, okay.

Ignorance was bliss, too, for the Los Angeles Unified School District students who ditched school en masse last spring to block freeways and supposedly protest the Sensenbrenner immigration bill, in reality protesting the idea of immigration controls, or just protesting having to be in class. Many students freely admitted to the media that they were seizing the opportunity to skip school, this being an inspired district with a dropout rate over 50 percent and all.

I've also come to the conclusion that armchair protest watching is not adequate for the average person to understand the mentality that has taken hold out there -- because there's a good chance it won't be reported. At an anti-Israel rally in downtown Los Angeles in early August, there were cries of "Long live Hezbollah!" as well as signs praising the terrorist organization as "people's resistance" and others reading "Hezbollah forever -- for the children." I took notes and took pictures, but didn't see those incendiary elements reported in any other news reports of the day's events, which were mainly confined to tots waving Palestinian flags. At the immigration protest, counter-demonstrators raised the Mexican flag on the pole over the U.S. Post Office in Maywood, and police scrambled to lower and dispose of it. That also wasn't on the evening's news reports.

Another conclusion -- which will come very close to sounding like a Barney simplification -- is that people are getting really mean, in a way that would make King roll over in his grave.

If counter-protesters show up to a demonstration to make their voice heard in good ol' American, freedom-of-speech style, they can expect to get their sign ripped to pieces and need police protection -- as was the case with a handful of pro-Israel fellows at the downtown L.A. demonstration . One would think this would violate principles that the protesters are attempting to champion, but "do as I say, not as I do" is another golden rule of modern protesting.

And why stop at sign-ripping, tire-slashing and naughty slurs when you can demonstrate power to the people by taking the fist to your opponents? At a recent immigration protest, men kidney punched, hit in the head, and grabbed the hair of a woman attempting to cross through opposition ranks to join her fellow anti-illegal-immigration demonstrators. They also grabbed and twisted an elderly man's arm. Picking on those least able to fight back is another guideline for a good protest mob.

Yes, the streets are getting ugly, as I've seen with my own two eyes, and protesters are speaking loudly and carrying big sticks that they're not afraid to use. What the best way to counter these rising extremist displays? Show up with a big smile, speak softly and carry a huge Israeli flag. And wear running shoes.

Bridget Johnson is a columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News. She blogs at GOP Vixen.