Protesting is your right

I am with the hippies. Everyone needs to get off his or her lazy butt and start protesting. It doesn't even have to be about the environment. We have hundreds of issues to choose from -- pro-life, pro-choice, feminism, chauvinism, police brutality, police congeniality, white power, black power, gray power and so forth. \n You see, we have something called the Bill of Rights, and it lets you go outside and run your mouth off on any moronic thought that enters your head. \n Sometimes, you can be lucky enough to do so in a newspaper column.\n Let's face it, folks. We have an awful lot to protest about, and the only time our representatives pretend to listen to us is right before Election Day. You don't have to believe me. Just ask yourself which do you think your senator will pay attention to -- a well-worded letter to your congresswoman about the endangered banana slugs in your backyard or an oil industry executive who wants the party he paid millions of dollars to do something about the baby seals who keep being sucked into his oil rig and damaging his drilling equipment?\nIf you're broke like me, the best way to get the attention of powerful people is to do something stupid. More the better if that "stupid" act also happens to be illegal. After all, doing something illegal to call attention to a problem is a proud American tradition. Dumping tea in Boston Harbor was illegal. Helping slaves escape the South was illegal. Sitting at the front of the bus if you were black was illegal. Burning draft cards was illegal. Sitting in a tree located on private property without the owners' permission is illegal. \nAlthough these acts have varying degrees of importance, they all have two things in common. First, the only people who could be harmed were themselves. Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. perfected this technique and called it nonviolent resistance. In the end, it killed them both.\nSecond, these acts made the front page of a newspaper, above the fold, even, and that's what it's all about -- publicizing your cause. Some very rich people pay tons of money to try to swing public opinion, but protesters can do it for free. Thanks to all of these longhairs throwing rocks through windows and playing bike tag with police, we now know that Starbucks is evil and developers are cutting down trees so they can pack more people into housing developments and apartment complexes with price-gouging rents. At least, that's what the protesters get to say on the front page of the IDS, and a lot of people think that everything they read in the paper is true, especially on the front page.\nNot only does protesting call attention to problems, it also gets you out of the house. A study in The Journal of the American Medical Association found that walking at least an hour a week halves a woman's risk of coronary heart disease. What better way to spend that time and energy than a weekly march on city hall? For those wanting a brisker workout, resisting arrest burns 200 calories.\nAnother boring activity that could be effectively combined with protest is sunbathing. On a sunny day, don't lay on your face for an hour, march on the police station in your bikinis and board shorts to protest the fascist party patrols during Little 500. You will have their attention.\nI suppose I'm only encouraging protest for selfish reasons. I claim to be a journalist, and free speech is very important to my job. I like to hear from every crackpot out there so I can have more views to shop from in the marketplace of ideas. This is why I get kind of misty-eyed when I see a tree-sitter trespassing on private property. I know that if she doesn't get tear-gassed maybe I won't be, if I ever want to protest for something I believe. As long as the idiocy of my views are on the same level or less than that which is allowed, my free speech is protected.\nSo don't waste it. Go out there and wallow in democracy. Ignore those who see your protest as useless or stupid. If somebody can't figure out what all the fuss is about and asks you what are you protesting against, just answer, "Whaddya got"