oh my god, traffic's going to be a nightmare...

i love the last line.

So *that's* what was going on when I was walking to class at 12:30. By the time I came back at 2:20, the area in front of the campus seemed to have been cleared, but judging by the congestion I suppose there may still be some people lying in the road.

It's a lovely day to do it, though. They'd drown in semiliquid asphault if they tried it during the summer.

I'm going to take a stand by lying down...on my couch.

Thanks for posting this. I'm in San Marcos at the moment and have to somehow get back up to Austin to get home. I'm glad I know which area to avoid driving by.

Any word about the clearing? I know there was a circle of people in snakes. Those are cardboard or pvc pipes, large enough for arms to fit inside, so that protesters can sit and hold hands, and the police won't be able to break their grip, since they can't reach their hands.

So, if anyone got their heads knocked, it was probably one of these guys, because they didn't exactly give the police any other choice if they wanted to move them. (Not that that's going to stop them from complaining about police brutality.)

This protest was very poor, compared to the last one. Less people, more severe tactics. Oh, and then there was the guy on the megaphone complaining about how Bush and crew "severed their ties to the brotherhood of humanity" with their "careless disregard for their fellow humans." Yea, great idea, let's try to foster peace by dehumanizing out enemies. (Oh, and then he talked about how the "Shock and Awe" tactics were currently going on, and how they "could be compared to the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima." A very poor rhetorical choice when the Red Cross is reporting a grand total of 16 casualties. The blitz would have been a much more appropriate, and powerful, analogy to draw.)

Ah well, I have a lot of nit-picks about this protest. Suffice it to say that there were no meaningful goals accomplished there.

personally, i think that the gain lies in simply making our dissent obvious. by disrupting traffic, we are forcing our community (and, hopefully, the media) to acknowledge our unrest. maybe one isolated event like this doesn't mean much, but should events like this happen in more and more places in more and more dramatic ways, we canmake ourselves heard. this administration so far has been all about how showing the american people how powerless we are and how little our voices matter. this is just a different language at our disposal; one that we hope can't be ignored.

After the fact?

Is the war over already? Did we stop bombing?

Political murder merits a headache.

--d

Your quote could easily be used to validate the action taken by protestors. Are the people who chose to get arrested tonight to make their statement cowardly or miserable creatures?

The point isn't to change anyone's mind tonight or to end the war tonight. No one is that naive, not even the protestors wearing fairy wings and talking about the Iraqi pets. The point is that there aren't any other avenues of political expression left open that will get you heard. Your representatives don't represent your beliefs and the media doesn't show your views. So you show them how you feel. That's the point.

If protestors had given up the day fighting started in Vietnam because it was "after the fact" then that war might have gone on indefinitely.

--d

"I guess my point is that you don't hear much about anti-war protesting during WWII -- hell no, back then people were proud of the country they lived in, the greatest country in the world."

the enemy we faced in world war II was quite a bit better defined, the objective of that conflict was infinitely more clear, and the leaders of this country still believed that the citizens who put them in those positions of power deserved respect and deference. president bush is creating a much more hostile world for america and americans by proceeding with this war. he is alienating the united nations and broadcasting his arrogance to the global community. he does not represent my views and ideas, and i am terrified that his actions will be taken by people across the world as actions that any good patriotic american would take. the media asks questions, but gives disproportionately little coverage to the dissenting opinion.

i love my country, but this is not my war. this is a bad war for all the wrong reasons. i would gladly spend some time in traffic if it meant that my voice would be heard on an issue as important as this lethal and unjustified conflict.

I think the logic here is, "Look at all these people who don't like what you're doing. If they're passionate enough about you to organize, come up with slogans, lay in the streets, stand out in the cold, walk from the capitol to the bridge and back, they're definitely passionate enough to hit the polls next election day and vote for whoever your best opponent is."

This war is definitely a polarizing issue, and I think a lot of otherwise more centrist or even previously apathetic people have felt really alienated by Bush's policies. When at its most successful, this kind of protest reaches such a staggering size (like the one in Britain a while back. Largest public protest in that nation's history, apparently) that it's clear not all the participants started out as 'radicals' beforehand, and that your policies are no longer in tune with public sentiment.

I think that's what all protests aspire to. It's a bit like an election; you may have a hunch that you're in the majority, or at least a large and passionate minority, but you really can't say for sure until you hold the thing and see who shows up.

News 8 focused on the San Marcos protest of 30 people before going into a segment on the troops getting ready at Fort Hood. ABC, instead, did a story on the UT/Capitol/Congress Bridge protest.

yeah, i was walking past that and I saw a police smiling. It made me feel really happy (as long as it wasnt a malicious smile). Not that Im a protestor but I think its cool when police are just doing their thang.

"Now, how would you feel if something bad happened and the protestors all of a sudden were obstructing rescue workers? Perhaps because of this some child dies. How's that for making yourselves heard?"
I hate these analogies. I mean, c'mon, they were just blockin some traffic for a few hours it could've been worse.

Don't holiday parades, marathons and such do effectively the same thing? Granted, the public doesn't have any advance notice of the spontaneous protest actions, but in this age of rapid and mass communication, it's easy enough to get the word out and route around the blockage.

Not that this matters-- these protesters (all protesters, really) are people of conscience, even if you don't agree with what their conscience tells them. If it needed through, I don't doubt that all effort would be taken to clear a path for an oncoming ambulance or firetruck with blaring sirens.

Yeah, someone actually sat in front of my dad's car downtown today, and the police literally had to pick the guy up so that my dad could get out of his parking spot.