Protesting against protests

You can't seriously complain about peaceful protests - being free expression in most countries, and, in the US, an additional bill of rights thing. But they are unlikely to work with the current US government.

In 2003, at the outset of Iraq War II, the Bush administration managed to ignore the largest protests ever in the US, and across the world. This, when they knew that if the actual fighting with the Iraqi forces lasted till the next year, it could jeopardize the chances of a president seeking re-election.

Protests work when there's a viable replacement, a vibrant media, a thinking majority. Protests driven by mere indignation are, well, a little pathetic. And those driven by hostility alone, farce.

The protesters in Washington, DC, who badmouthed the girlfriend of the marine in Iraq (Sep 25, 2005) may have been indulging in a sub-protest - that parties with direct investments in the result of the protest should not participate. More likely, it was a variation of the you're-with-us-or-against-us argument (the kind Democrat Tom Lantos used against India for not immediately lining up, like Britain, behind the US against Iran). This asks: "If you're against the war, why is your boyfriend - to save whom you're protesting - fighting in Iraq?"

Given that truth is just one weapon in politics, it's unlikely that it alone can formulate policy. It does not matter where the politicians using it lie - to the right, the left or straddling them precariously in the center.

Also, protests are poor foils for a strategy that relies on love of God and fear/hate of the enemy. As Classical Realists, political experts and opportunists through time (Sun Tzu, Kautilya, Machiavelli, Goebbels) have recognized, there's nothing like hate and bigotry to motivate a population.

We define ourselves more by what we aren't than what we are. And if we can define how we are different from the Other - even if it polarizes us in the process - it gives us an identity we would otherwise lack. Socrates' "Know yourself" is thus transformed into the more emotional, if not as intuitive, "Know the Other to know yourself."

Times change, and, though, it may be hard to believe, one can also tire of hate. Sense may dawn, but it's usually too late. It's what excites you, not what you tire of, that drives you. So, politicians know, it's often okay not to worry about an allergic reaction to an old stimulant.

They know that, barring some cataclysmic event, it is unlikely that the Iraq war will figure in the 2008 elections. In the absence of colorful footage to rival the worst from Hollywood, the media (remember 2003: "America at war" from CBS; MSNBC's "Operation: Iraqi Freedom"; and NBC's "Target Iraq"?) may not be interested in coverage that, other than for the odd Cindy Sheehan, lacks strong subjects.

If the protesters indeed start making some headway, you can always claim that, like Lucifer, they walk on the left hand side of God.
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