DISGUSTED….

I’d planned on writing a fairly mocking narrative of my day as an anti-globalization protester. And, in fact, there were some humorous moments — there’s lots about these morons that’s worth mocking. But I gotta’ say, for the most part, the experience gave me a wrenching stomachache. And had I stayed much longer, there’d probably be other body parts hurting, too, because it was all I could do to bite my tongue, and not jump headfirst into the fray.

I got to Dupont Circle at about 10:30am. I was to meet a friend there before heading over to the IMF protests. There were a smattering of pro-Palestine signs, a few people sipping coffee and reading the paper, and lots of cops on bicycles in riot gear. A half dozen people calling themselves “Iranian Leftists” unfurled a large banner depicting an exed-out Israeli flag. Two little boys, probably not more than ten, held the banner and posed in front of the Dupont fountain with grins, while an older man — likely a dad — snapped pictures. It was still relatively quiet.

There were two demonstrations this morning. The first, kicking of at 10:30, was the pro-Palestine rally. My friend Bryan and I didn’t have much interest in attending that one. Mainly, I guess, because I’m not entirely sure where I stand on the Middle East. Instead, we headed to 18th and H, for the anti-globalization march. In the end, it didn’t matter. By noon, all the demonstrations had converged.

The original plan was to do some demonstrating ourselves, to work our way in, then hopefully have some humorous stories to tell about the twisted logic, misplaced anger, and market ignorance of the militant left. When we got to the site, we realized we wouldn’t even be able to fake it. The stupidity was so overwhelming, the activism so empty and boneheaded, we were awed to silence.

“Bush Is Hitler,” read one sign. “Free Trade=Holocaust” read another. “IMF, International Mother Fucker,” read one particularly uncreative poster. One guy dropped all pretense and went with, simply, “Fuck America.” Drum circles broke out, and just in front of us, a quintuplet of spiraling, hairy college girls in sundresses and sneakers began chanting something about “profit is the enemy,” and “George Bush is a ho! IMF has got to go!”

In my mind, I’ve always thought that leftist protest events inevitably yield hot, free spirited hippie chicks. Isn’t that the way it is on TV? You know, girls with lose morals, lose clothes, and long, flowing, sun bleached hair? Man, was I ever wrong. We got unshaved fat girls falling out of their clothes. And that’s about it.

We wandered around a bit. A guy in his fifties with a braided beard and a girl who could’ve been his daughter walked through the demonstration, holding hands — on three foot stilts. We passed a fat man dressed up like a cheerleader, and a girl in her teens dressed up like a cop, who handed out anti-World Bank fliers. We got a little worried. Were we supposed to come in costume?

After ten minutes or so, a kid in glasses wearing a “Nerds Against War” button asked us if we were “interested in justice.” Well, of course. Who isn’t?

“Justice,” it turns out is the official newspaper of the Socialist Alternative, a group that demands, among other things: 30 hour work weeks, $12.50/hour minimum wage or $500/ week (whichever is greater), public ownership of the 500 largest companies in the country, and immediate cancellation of the public debt, with zero payoff to “big investors.”

“Sure,” Bryan said, “I’ll take a copy.”

“That’ll be a dollar.”

“A dollar?”

“Yeah, a dollar.”

“I have to pay for a socialist newspaper?”

“Of course.”

“But I don’t believe in money,” Bryan said, obviously jerking the guy’s chain.

“Oh. Man. Not at all? How do you eat?”

“I beg.”

“Really? That’s so fucking cool. I admire that. But I can’t give these out for free, man. They’ll make me pay for them. Maybe your friend has a dollar?”

I ponied up — purely for entertainment value.

He then asked if we needed “legal aid,” the phone number of a free legal service he’d written on his arm, in the event he was arrested.

“I don’t have a pen,” I said.

“No problem,” he said, “if we end up in the same tank, you can use my arm.”

Sweet.

On the main stage, a woman from Fiji had just finished reading an “indictment” of the “north” for pilfering resources from the “south,” leaving the “south” impoverished, diseased and destitute, while the “north” lives in privilege, wealth and comfort.

Wait. Did we end up at the LewRockwell.com protest by mistake?

Not quite. As it turns out, by “north” she meant “western thought,” and by “south,” she meant “third world.”

After Ms. Fiji’s incoherent ramblings, an Egyptian feminist took the stage, and attacked the World Bank for unfairly tying aid to neoliberal reform (if only!). She followed by demaning we bring George W. Bush and Ariel Sharon before the International Criminal Court for war crimes. How the two are related is beyond me. Speaker after speaker followed — with screed after screed — as corporations, Europeans, Jews, George Bush (Jr. and Sr.), the founding fathers, the media, materialism, Jesus, and western values were blamed for Vieques, Palestine, poverty, teen angst, disease, heartburn, acne, and the “Seinfeld curse.”

One girl was handing out small hand signs with this picture cut out and pasted to a Popsicle stick. Beneath her picture read “She Is Not the Enemy.” Curious, I approached her.

“Do you know who that woman is?” I asked.

“Yes,” the girl said. She was redheaded and freckled, and she wore an American Flag for a top, with a “No War With Iraq” button pinned to her chest.

“You realize that America is the reason she was able to photographed again, right?”

“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you know the story?”

“Yes. She’s an oppressed woman. She’s the face of U.S. oppression of the third world.”

Pardon my French. But this chick was fucking clueless.

“No,” I said. “She’s a Pashtun Afghani. She was photographed by National Geographic in the ’70’s (I was a little off here — the link above says it was in 1985). The photographer’s been searching for her for twenty years. He couldn’t find her because, well, because it’s tough to find a woman in a country where women aren’t permitted to show their faces in public. It wasn’t until the U.S. military came in, and rid Afghanistan of the Taliban, that she could come out from behind her veil. The photographer finally found her last year, in a Pakistani refugee camp.”

I barely made a dent.

“Yes, but she’s just one woman. She’s just one oppressed woman. There are so many more.”

“What does that mean? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I see your point my friend.”

So young, so dumb. The girl couldn’t even figure out I was arguing with her.

“Keep fighting,” she said.

Jesus.

There then was some commotion behind us. We started toward the activity, near 18th St., just in front of Starbucks. As we approached, (mostly) white kids in scarves and black bandanas wore wide grins and retrieved cameras from their backpacks. Jet black smoke spiraled up from the midst of the melee.

Bryan and I stood in front of an eight-foot paper mache contraption that had built into it several drum faces made of various materials to produce a wide range of sounds. Two guys blew hard into trumpets (they were pretty damned good), while a motley crew of protesters pounded the drums into a monotonous rhythm. Others joined in, beating on buckets, empty water coolers, trash cans — whatever was handy, and made a nifty sound. The chaotic drumming, from all over the street, settled into a pattern: pa-pa-de-pa-pa, pa-pa-de-pa-pa, pa-pa-de-pa-pa-pop. (You might call it “spontaneous order.”) The rythym got a little hypnotic, and bore a rather thick groove in my head.

A few minutes later, a swath cut open in the mob behind us, allowing us to finally see what the fuss was about. A kid in a face scarf, cargo shorts and black gloves was holding an American flag that he’d set aflame. A second flag was afire, too, already on the ground, mostly ash. College kids gathered around the flag on the street, zooming with video and digital cameras, snickering, stomping on the ashes, and elbowing one another. A middle aged guy slithered up next to the kid holding the flag, smiled wryly, and began asking him questions while scribbling on a reporter’s notebook. But this guy was hardly a reporter. He sported a “Drop Debt, Not Bombs” t-shirt. He chatted for a moment or two more, then patted the kid’s shoulder and sank back into the crowd.

When the opening let the mass behind us see the flaming flags, they too cheered, and more protesters — nearly all of them college-aged — lurched forward to get pictures.

At this point, my mood soured from bemusement to disgust.

I’d never seen a public flag burning before, despite a couple of years now living in D.C. I’ve always (and still do) thought movements to ban flag burning were a colossal waste of time and misplaced energy. But believe me, watching one burn — in person — does some crazy things to you. Especially it burns while snotty middle class kids take pictures and giggle and hi-five one another. It was more insulting than I’d ever imagined. I was personally offended.

And for a moment, to be honest, it was surreal — sort of dreamlike, spurred by the incessant rhythms thumping on behind me. Anger bubbled up from my gut. None of this was all that funny any more. Mostly, I wanted to pound these smug little shits. These kids weren’t even pissed off. They weren’t outraged. You should be furious when you chose to burn the flag. They were smiling. This was a social event. They were snapping pictures. They were haughty and self-satisfied and completely content with their ignorance. Smarmy bastards.

We walked away, mostly because we both feared that if they attempted to burn another one, we’d have intervened, and likely wound up in the hospital.

We walked past the blue line, up the eventual march route. We circled around, and found ourselves in the midst of the Palestine rally.

As I wrote above, I’m still of a middling position on the Middle East. I’m certainly more pro-Israel now than I was a few months ago. But I’m still too aware of legitimate gripes on either side to take a strong position. That said, the Palestine rally was infinitely more legitimate than the anti-globalization rally. These weren’t clueless college kids, ignorant of the very issues that allegedly inspire them. The Palestine protesters were knowledgeable, passionate, and peaceful. Yes, they were loud. And some of the signs and symbolism went over the top. One sign, for instance, said, “A suicide bomber is no more than a poor man’s F-16.” Further up in the demonstration, the crowd carried an unwieldy makeshift pine coffin, with a real little girl inside (she looked terrified). Nevertheless, you did at least sense genuine feeling in the crowd — real sadness, real loss, real perceptions of injustice.

Unfortunately, the two demonstrations soon met, turning the entire uptown area into a activist stew of random causes, screams and protests. Palestinian flags flew next to signs excoriating Citibank and Monsanto. The crowd was anti-wealth, anti-racism, anti-terrorism, anti-war on terrorism, anti-poverty, anti-drug war, anti-Israel. All the messages blurred together. The few legitimate causes were quickly swallowed up by the insipid ones. Effigies of Bush and Ashcroft hung from poles backdropped by “Cannabis Isn’t Criminal” signs.

When the cops rolled in on motorcycles, we decided to leave.

I think I need a shower.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 20th, 2002 at 3:58 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.