So What?

This article should be appearing in the April 5 issue of the Lumberjack (although it might not be until the 12).

So What?

I have a friend who’s studying in Europe right now that was asking me for a political update. I happily proclaimed the Democrats’ successes in the mid-term elections and I told her that President Bush’s approval rating has been below 40 percent for months.

“So what?” she asked me. “It’s a pretty passive disapproval, isn’t it?”

It caught me off guard. I write our politicians now and then. I read the news. I explain current politics to my friends. I write articles. I post blogs. When it comes down to it though, it’s all pretty passive.

While the polls might reflect a dramatic opposition to the war, in reality, those numbers might as well be reversed. They aren’t causing any change. Numbers alone don’t scare politicians into action – they only lead politicians to dissociate themselves from the war. A passive disapproval is just as good as a rousing approval to the suits handling the war.

To make matters worse, the problem isn’t just the small number of protests. Most of the movement against the war is led by angry twenty-somethings in the netroots crowd – all those internet-based grassroots organizations. Quite frankly, a mob of ferocious, screaming college kids just isn’t going to have enough credibility to put fire under our fearful do-nothing politicians on Capitol Hill.

So what can we do? What really has to take place is a reinvention of our opposition to the war. Our protests need to be creative, original, and heartfelt, or they’ll be easily ignored. Furthermore, when we protest, our protests need to reflect the peace we want to create more closely than they reflect violence we hope to end. When we challenge politicians, we need to appeal to the best part of them, the part that got them excited about politics in the first place, before they were more focused on keeping their jobs than creating change. When we turn on the TV and see more bad news from Iraq and Afghanistan, we need to think not only of the fallen soldiers, but their families, and of all of the civilians on both sides of the conflict dragged into such a catastrophe.

More than anything, we need to stop thinking that doing a little bit is enough. This “every little bit helps” business may actually do more harm than good, if it makes people think they’ve done their part and they can get on with their lives. So write your politicians, go to some good protests (check out newdaypeace.org), and then – most importantly -- keep doing it. A group of have begun writing letters to Iraqi children on Wednesdays between 12:30 and 1:30 in the Union. Drop by if you want. At this point, though, it matters most that you do something constructive rather than nothing at all. This stuff can work, but remember that Gandhi didn’t go to one rally and forget about it; in many ways, he was more persistent and determined than he was inherently saintly.