And bring your effigies of GW Bush to burn!! You know, that is one good thing about Bush, he has been very good for the effigie business.

Dan: REALLY bad quote to use. The same quote (change Bellevue to Dallas) was said to JFK just before being shot.

all of my puppets voted for bush.

How could they arrest someone for wearing a t-shirt? What in the fuck?!?!

I have front row seats! WOOT!

Yeah, forget the puppets, forget the signs, forget the protest; let's all just blog really furiously. Isn't that how they ended the Vietnam war?

I read a similar piece in the NYT either Friday or Saturday morning. Very KGB.

@6, you expect Slog readers/posters to do anything??!!! HA HA HA !!!!!

Levislade, please don't tell me you believe puppets ended the Vietnam War.

Hippie protesters PROLONGED that war.

No, I don't believe puppets ended the Vietnam war. I'm pretty sure bloggers didn't either, though.

And I'd rather err on the side of giving a crap and actually taking action (beyond typing) to register my disgust with this administration, you know? Not that I'm going out to Bellevue, I can't, but I am glad that people are, whether they bring puppets or signs or effigies.

I bought one of Dan's ITMFA bumper stickers and a T-Shirt and I wear it to work at my software company. My bumper sticker and T-Shirt will do more than a whole army of puppets.

It's time to leave the puppets and funny costumes at home.

If we liberals want to be taken seriously, it's time to dress seriously. Wear a suit and tie to the protest. Act seriously. This is serious shit. It's not a damn costume party. It's not Mardi Gras. It's not supposed to be fun. It's a protest and it's a very serious affair. Did Dr. King wear a funny costume? No. He wore a suit and a tie because that's what serious people wear when they want to be taken seriously.

Funny costumes and puppets are for kids. Put on a suit and a tie. It's time to grow the fuck up.

Oh fuck that "we liberals" bullshit--don't stuff everybody into those too-tight underpants you're wearing, Tacoma.

And puppets are perfectly suitable for GWB--after all, he's had Cheney's hand up his ass since 2000.

Seriously, after reading that white house memo, I think a bunch of serious people in suits would be just what they would want - no big objects to block, no yelling to shout down . . . perfect!

TacomaRoma has it exactly right. The purpose of a public protest is not to rub your own ego's wet place, but to influence public opinion. The public votes Republican when they see the dreadlocks and the puppets and the other usual protest accouterments.

And so they'll vote Dem when they see Bush surrounded by a bunch of polite people in suits, looking "serious"? I'm not saying dreadlocked hippies with puppets is the way to influence public opinion, but come on now.

It's important to have people on the street showing the non-Fox viewers that the majority are fed up and not going to take it anymore. As far as suits go, this is a fund raising trip (Bush and the RNC only care what Washintonians think to the extent of putting your money where your mouth is) so protest should probably be registered in your support of the Burner campaign. It's a sad state of affairs, but the military industrial complex has hijacked US democracy. As stated above, the only puppet that Cheney, Haliburton, Boeing etc. are concerned with is Bush.

What they need to see is people protesting who look like ordinary, hardworking citizens who make a difference in the world. You have no idea how off-putting to middle America the typical protester is, even when their message may have some resonance.

Fnarf, when has being polite and informal instead of being the opposite gotten any more done on a grass roots level?

This is a rhetorical question, not an accusatory one.

formal, not informal. sorry.

I'm looking out the window and I see No Puppets!!

I can't defend the usefulness of puppets in particular, but I have to say that I really appreciate protest done street theater style. That being said, we need to run the fucker out of town like Portland did. I won't be satisfied til the GOP thinks we're scarier than Portland.

Who said anything about being polite? Perhaps I missed something in my reading of previous pro-suit posts, but why can't you wear a tie and raise your voice at the same time? Unless you tied it too tight.

OK, NYC, you want to be a clown in a clown suit clowning around Clown Town at your clown protest, go ahead. You'll surely make the nightly news and they'll have pictures of you and your clown-ass friends at your clown rally and the o-so-serious news reader is going to read a "tut-tut" statement about your little protest and scoff at the silly-costumed liberal freaks.

Because that's how the General Public views us. Silly. Costumed. Liberal. Freaks.

And every time you show up at a protest wearing a big-head costume and brandishing puppets, you reinforce this meme. You re-invigorate it and you turn OUR cause into a silly cause championed by silly people.

This is serious shit and we need to be serious about it. Look to the civil rights leaders of the 1960s for guidence here. Did Malcom X wear a big-head costume? Did Dr. King use puppets in his protest marches? Fuck no! They wanted to be taken seriously, so they dressed seriously and they acted seriously.

If we want to change the establishment, we have to show that we're capable of running it. A good way of demonstrating that starts with wearing clothes appropriate to the job.

Is it shallow? Surely. Is it petty and stupid that people in suits and ties get taken more seriously than people who don't? Of course, but the wisdom of Ice-T addresses this, "Don't hate the player, hate the game."

THANK YOU Fnarf and TacomaRoma! I remember being involved in organizing in the run up to the WTO protests, and most of the (incredibly well-meaning) people I was working with seemed to be putting 80% of their time into building a "really cool puppet", 15% of their time into coming up with catchy slogans and 5% of their time formulating some kind of response to any sort of intelligent challenge to their simplified critiques of the WTO and free trade in general.

Ultimately all the fucking puppets and the fucking costumes and gas masks and the GODDAMN SEA TURTLE COSTUMES became an immensely easy thing for the media to latch on to so that they wouldn't have to say anything substantive about the issues. And we handed that right fucking to them.

I've always thought it would be an immensely powerful protest to have everybody show up dressed really nice and just stand there and fucking glower.
Could we maybe just try that once? Cuz the puppets don't seem to be working so much. I've often wondered what would have happened at the WTO if 40,000 people had just marched down the street silently in an orderly fashion and just STOOD THERE staring at the convention center.

Way more powerful than a bunch of people playing dress up and playing directly into the dumb fucking hippie stereotype that has undercut anything to the left of Bill & Hillary Clinton for the past 20 years.

The person who started the whole puppets thing at protests was either an acid casualty or a fucking COINTELPRO mole.

Wow all that talk about roving pro-administation squads was really disturbing. The whole thing is just way too Emporer's New Clothes.

People need to ask themselves why they are protesting?

If the goal is self gratification then by all means make puppets and scream and shout.

If the goal is actual change then something else needs to be tried. Most Americans disagree with Bush at this point, so what is the point of the protest? To convince the rest of America to do something? To register your disapproval? What?

Here's a powerful image for you: Picture thousands of silent, sullen, conservatively dressed folks simply holding signs stating, "Mr. Bush, you've betrayed us. You are not an American." The message is clear, and I think the mood would reflect how most of us feel about him.

Perhaps the upstanding citizens who would be willing to take a day off their office job and can afford to do should do something. Otherwise, you're left with people who bring puppets to protest.

There are plenty of white collar people who severely disagree with Bush's policies. Perhaps it's been their lack of attendance all these years which is why we've succumbed to protesting puppets?

Because the only way to show upper class white people that they are doing wrong is to have other upper class white people tell them so.

Right?

Is that the point?

@29:
It takes a serious racist to suggest that only white people could have a white collar job.

Hey if people hate Bush and Cheney, sitting on the sidelines and criticizing those who are doing something is no longer acceptable.

People should check out World Cant Wait Drive Out The Bush Regime.

Method Man and Rage Against The Machine spoke out against Bush and have openly endorsed World Cant Wait.

www.worldcantwait.org

What has the Stranger done to drive Bush from office?

Everybody knows all the writers worth while left for the weekly.

Hi signori!
voi compartecipe brillante le informazioni ..!
A capretto come a ritrovamento corsi web .
Sito dei formazione scienze ad una base di corsi proprio?
Ma Noi desideri scelga completo soddisfare di corsi computer.
Ammetta quello cercato non buon :-\