I've been thinking this same thing since about the mid-80s, basically during the Anti-Apartheid stuff:

"Second, there's that aimlessness that has pervaded most major protests in the past several years. Or maybe not aimlessness as much as pointlessness. Or wannabe hippies who use any protest as an opportunity to spout off about anything and everything in an attempt to recapture the spirit of the late '60s."

I get this same impression today. I'm sure everyone is really sincere in their beliefs, but you *do* get the impression that some are also of the sort that are thinking, "Wheeee!! This is just like the 60s!!!", etc. Again, I'm not saying they're insincere, only that this sort of nastolgia plays into it.

As to the rest of your article... I guess I agree to a certain extent, but you can't really expect people to ignore the *now* in favor of the *why*; the *now is... well... *now* and thus creates more visceral, immediate emotions. I think, too, that if we took care of the *now*, the *why* would fall into place.

Of course, the reverse could be said, too. ;-)

Hank

I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that the only protest that's going to get this government's attention will have to come in the form of being quite sternly shown the door come November 2004 and a sharp kick in the ass as they're leaving.

After all, this President called a simultaneous gathering of millions of people all over the world a 'focus group.' The only way we can say 'no, fuck *you*, George' will be on election day.

Responding to the immediate present rather than examining the causes that created the immediate present is a very common theme in our society if you think about it:

-- When dealing with criminals, people care less about the circumstances that create criminals, and more about putting them in jail (or killing them); and they'd rather focus on punishing the ones around now than finding out how to reduce their sources: briefly, "I'd rather pay taxes for a jail to hold 50 criminals than a school that prevents 100 from being created..." (not that the statistics are that nicely set out)

-- the medical industry focuses most of its efforts on treatment rather than research and prevention. why? it's much more profitable to treat a sick person for years than to cure them once. But then why does the population take it?

-- The World Trade Center bombing is probably one of the most poignant examples of all: you were barely even allowed to mention why terrorists might have been motivated to undertake such a horrific act, lest you be condemned as unamerican. The host of "Politically Incorrect" nearly gets canned for voicing something less than pure vengeance -- the very TITLE of the program states the plain desire to offend! But we'd rather write the terrorists off as crazies -- which only makes us vulnerable to more such incidents becuase, while they are nutters, there's more going on there!

-- and in the broader context of the middle east, the worst part is that the general population's unwillingness to examine the causes of current events prevents them from seeing the patterns that keep repeating -- how insane it is when we support and arm leaders that we later want to assassinate; that we have to fight forces armed with weapons WE sold them...

But all that said, I think it's important to remember that a lot of the groups that organize these protests ARE working year round and do focus on the "whys" when there's not a war going on. The efforts of green parties to gain recognition is a good example -- Nader (good candidate or not) tried to hammer that point (the Bush-oil ties) home in his speeches, and is currently involved in peace demonstrations carrying the same message. And I do think that the war protest is valuable in itself as a message to the rest of the world that (1) there is a vocal dissent in this country, (2) our government isn't so evil as to try to quash that voice (well, they do try, but not in a very evil way...).