Sunday Morning  

I Protest

by Rycke Brown

One may be the loneliest number, but it makes for the most effective protest.

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It's 10:45 Sunday morning, and as usual, I head downtown to the city center — 6th and G Street. As usual, my favorite parking spot, on G closest to the corner, is open. As usual, my heart is beating a little fast, and I sit a few seconds, willing it to slow. But getting on with it is the best cure, and I slip out of the truck and start putting my signs together, sliding the forked willow poles between the sandwiched poster boards and jamming two signs between the cab and bed of the truck, high enough to read the messages over the cab. I get out the two folding chairs that I started bringing when the city took away their bench, and set them up a little closer to the corner than the bench used to be. I get out my CD player and a small folding table for my bumper stickers (a recent addition), and set them up next to the chairs. Last, I grab my basket of goodies, my leaflet box, my water, and my sign. I set my basket and box up next to the curb, box leaning on the basket, showing off the bumper stickers on the back and holding leaflets at ready. I pull one out far enough for easy grabbing and put on a CD, all the while keeping the sign facing toward moving traffic. The music starts and I start dancing, holding my sign steady while my body moves to the beat, watching the drivers for signs of reaction. It's showtime.

Welcome to the Sunday midday Protest Party. It's a one-woman party most of the time, and I like it that way. I used to yearn for others to join me on the street, and some do, for a half-hour or an hour, sometimes the whole two hours, sometimes for several weeks in a row. I welcome them when they come, and I like it when they go, because I've figured out that I work best alone.

A street protest has two main purposes: informing the public about a cause, and demonstrating support or disapproval. Obviously, before you can get the masses out, you have to reach 'em and teach 'em. And you have to reduce the fear level: when people lose their fear of talking about a subject, they find that they are not alone in their beliefs, that they might even be a majority. That's when change happens in a democracy. (Don't tell me it's a republic. Franklin said that we had a republic, if we could keep it, and we didn't. But we can regain it.)

Mass protest isn't necessary for radical change, and may even be counter-productive. The masses only get out on the street when they are really pissed off, and it is not pretty. The American people have plenty of reasons to be pissed off and they know it, but they're comfortable. Which is why we won't be seeing a draft anytime soon.

This leaves either lone protests or small to middling-size protests, to reach and teach. Face it; small-to-middle-sized protests are pathetic. They certainly don't demonstrate mass support. But when it comes to reaching, teaching, and reducing the fear, a lone protester with leaflets excels.

The first advantage of the lone protester lies in abandoning the group. Groups have to decide everything by consensus in long, boring meetings, and then depend on each other to follow through. The lone protester sets his own protest time and place for his own convenience, writes his own leaflets, makes his own signs, and doesn't depend on anyone else. A weekly group protest cannot be sustained for years; some people get tired of it, and as the ranks thin, so does everyone else. A lone protester can keep it up until the problem is solved, because she feels no lessening of support; all her support is external, from the public. At a group protest, the protesters are talking to each other, not the public. The lone protester is talking to the public and learning from the public.

One person with a sign and leaflets is unthreatening to all but the most timid. Most people will not go out of their way to avoid passing one person closely enough to accept or decline a leaflet. The same cannot be said for a group with signs: the larger the group, the more likely passing pedestrians will avoid it. I start to see the effect when more than four people join me, a rare happening.

People not only have an easier time passing or approaching a lone protester, they also are more likely to stop and talk. Fellow protesters can be a distraction and sometimes interrupt and interject their own opinions, usually trying to soft-peddle my radical opinions. (Soft-peddling doesn't work very well, in my experience. People respond much better to a consistent, radical position that is well stated.)

Fellow protesters can also be a distraction from the basic business of handing out leaflets, as people tend to talk to each other and miss out on opportunities. It takes great discipline, when I have helpers, not to let them distract me from the job. My discipline is not always that great.

A lone protester is not only non-threatening, she also appears uniquely vulnerable, out there all by herself, week after week. The fact that I am out there — week after week for over two years, without being attacked, hassled, or investigated for anything I say — brings down the fear of discussing what I say. My arrest four months ago (for what I did, not said) brought it back up a notch, but since I'm still out there every week, the fear is once again abating.

I have wondered if a protester has to get arrested to get any publicity. Now I know. A radical protest doesn't get any publicity unless someone gets arrested. Still, it was good that I spent two years building a following first. And while the arrest was helpful, it was not necessary. The people were getting educated, one leaflet at a time, without the help of the local paper.

Now they're waiting to see if I get crucified. It's a sideshow, but I'll take publicity where I can find it. It's the only way to recoup the damage done to the fear-to-curiosity ratio.

I might have thought that this town is extraordinarily friendly to protesters, except that for the first few weeks of my protest, most passers-by disapproved. The problem was that my message was not clear. One side of my sign said "STOP THE WAR ON US!" — leading people to believe I was protesting the Iraq war. The other side said:

JUST SAY NO!
TO THE HOLY WAR ON DRUGS

leading people to think I was against drugs, because the second line was too small. I was catching it from both the rednecks and the hippies! First lesson: the message must be clear.

So I changed my sign to: "NO MORE DRUG WAR!" and "LEGALIZE FREEDOM OF MEDICINE." (This one has a pot leaf, which leads people to believe that the protest is mainly about pot. I intended it to be about all drugs, prescription as well, and the practice of medicine.) The rate of disapproval abruptly dropped to almost nothing, while the approval shot way up.

My first leaflet was titled, "Stop the Holy War on US!" and was mainly about the drug war. It was well-received among the persecuted, but was not reaching the straights. They didn't believe the drug war affected them, even though they were paying for it with their taxes.

Then I had to go to a doctor to get a prescription for a cheap antibiotic for a bladder infection. I was complaining to the doctor about having to pay $130 to see him to find out what I already knew and get permission to take what I knew I needed. He said, "Go to Mexico. You don't need a prescription for anything there."

That was my hook! Everybody is affected by the prescription drug system, which is just a licensing system for illegal drugs. Licensing of doctors, prescription power, and drug prohibition are all part of the same unconstitutional medical regulation system and must be attacked together.

I wrote a new leaflet — "Legalize Freedom of Medicine." People read it, and they understood. People who are willing to read are mostly reachable, and it is reaching them, even second-hand.

This is a cause whose time has come. And this is a way to spread the news, a fun and effective way. It's my Sunday devotion and performance art. The devotion comes into play when it's cold, rainy, or sweltering hot. That persistence and devotion to a cause has induced a lot of people to take a leaflet.

If you're an aspiring Libertarian politician (I'm not, but I know a few) there are worse ways to get name recognition. What has being careful gotten you?

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