But to actually do something? Well, who has time?
Every so often, I cruise into Yellow Springs, Ohio, the home of Antioch College and radical politics and lifestyle. When I was a teenager livingnear this community, it was pretty normal to see protestors marching through the streets for whatever cause they were supporting. Antioch was one of the Freedom Riders training centers in the 50s and 60s, and a center of anti-Vietnam activities. The place fairly teemed with activism. There was more than one public hunger strike and several vigils that lasted months.
But these days, the only sign of protest is a tiny gaggle of aging peace mongers who gather on a street corner and hold up signs calling for an end to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The protests are regularly scheduled and last from about noon till 4 p.m. on Sundays, weather permitting.
It's sort of pathetic, really. I drive by and, while I support their cause wholly, I shake my head -- sometimes with a little laugh, more often with a sigh of depression -- and drive on. I've considered stopping and joining them, but, honestly, they are so ineffectual that it would be silly. A protest run on a schedule so that it doesn't interfere with Sunday sports broadcasts, to me, is rather counter to my sensibilities.
In a democracy, it is not the voices heard that matter. After all, everyone has a voice of some sort and everyone has the alleged right to raise that voice in protest. If a government responded with action every time a cry was raised, not only would it not be able to keep up with the sheer number of demands, but it would be continually contradicting itself, as with the above-stated Volsteadt Act, which was, as we know, repealed in 1933 after it became abundantly clear that legislating morals simply did not work (hint to moralist legislators and their friends)
We often refer to ourselves as a Democracy, even though we are not. We are, as many point out when it serves their purpose (no exception here) a Representative Republic. The difference is that, in a democracy, everyone has the right to decide on what happens. In ancient Athens, in fact, it was law that every free man had to vote, with severe penalties for those who didn't. In a government such as ours, we elect those who supposedly represent our views to speak for us, thereby relieving us of the drudgery of taking responsibility for running the country.
But the end result in this is that, once installed, the representatives are isolated from those they represent and end up paying attention only to that which makes the most noise.
Did organizers gain any ground for unions until there were huge work stoppages and even street wars demanding them? Was there any significant action on Civil Rights until there were mass demonstrations and riots? Would we still be slugging it out in Vietnam if no one had taken to the streets, burned their draft cars, defected to Canada and said "Hell no, we won't go" and backed it up with their willingness to go to jail?
Government of the people, by the people and for the people my, by its very definition, be a reactive government. It was intended that way. Anything else would be contrary to the idea of democratic principals. So I fail to see why we are so unpleasantly surprised to find that our elected officials find little influence in our opinions and why we do not understand why they take action only after we become intolerant of the current way of doing things.
Representative government, I have determined, is like the parent of a small child who, hearing it cry, figures out that it is not in any real danger, but only wants attention, and, so, ignores the wails and shrieks and goes on about their business. It's only when the child crawls up and whacks the parent on the ankle with an empty bottle that parent takes note and does something about it.
What we say matters only when we care enough to back up the words with action.
The fact is that the people do still control the direction and activity of the government. The radical right has proven that over the past 20 years with the way it continually forces the issues it supports through their threats of withholding donations, boycotts, and the like.
The question is when is that knowledge going to sink into the heads of the distracted and too-busy "progressives" and tear them away from their comfortable lives to make the changes they insist need to happen?
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