Protests, Individuality, and Dirty Hippies

[forsyth]

This post over at Unfogged I found interesting, since it's about the current rounds of stuff in the realm of political punditry where people who were for the war are still trying to explain why they still shouldn't have to listen to people who were against the war. Mostly pro-war liberals, because pro-war conservatives now, as before, don't give a shit. But the basic point is this, there's going to be people you think are silly on ANY side of any idea, so don't let your distaste for aesthetic silliness determine what you think. And that mostly, if you're on the same side as the people dressed as sea turtles, you're probably on the right side.

But the other thing that caught my mind was in the comments thread. One of the people suggested that part of why 60s style protests aren't as effective now is because culture's changed. Which it obviously has. Long hair, colorful clothes, etc, aren't any kind of threat any more. Black clothes and spikes aren't even any kind of threat. They're all stuff you can buy at the mall. If there's anywhere The Man is present, it's Corporate America. So funny clothes and long hair don't threaten anybody except the terminally reactionary, and you're never gonna win those guys over anyway. Individuality isn't a threat any more. It's a commodity.

Now, on the other hand, imagine this, my expansion on one of the commenter's suggestions. Imagine the streets full of protesters, all dressed alike. Not in uniforms, like the military or fascist boot camp, just dressed the same. Even if it's just a white button shirt and blue jeans. That means organization. It means coordination. It means cooperation. It means it'd be harder for floofy haired pundits to go "And here's some shots of the freaks out protesting!" on the evening news. I have nothing against puppets and tie dye. I'm fond of both. But for the purposes of scaring The Man, and presenting something the political establishment would have to take as a threat I think it might work better. The Bush Administration could ignore a hundred thousand people on the streets in suits as well as the people with puppets. (Hell, when I was at the pre-war protests, most of the people there were regular people. But the puppets and sea turtles make better photos, especially for the media outlets totally invested in the status quo.) But it might have more of an impact on the rest of the people. At least the ones outside the 20-30% that'd support Bush even if he ate a live puppy on national TV.

Comments

[colinmo.livejournal.com]

It occurs that during the 60s, Long hair and colourful clothes was the uniform. So all we need is the new 'uniform'.

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

Kind of. But now The Man isn't some 50s dad who's scared of kids with long hair. The Man doesn't care what you look like, as long as you spend money. The Man bought out rock and roll and sells individuality in cheesy mall botiques. Being more weird and individual isn't going to hurt The Man now.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

The media outlets don't care about preserving the status quo. Especially the people who are responsible for taking those pictures. It really is just because they make better photos. A pic of a giant Dubya stick puppet is way more interesting that a pic of a bunch of people standing around and maybe yelling.