Inaugural Edition

The inauguration presents protesters with some logistical problems. First, how to they avoid being treated like Iraqi detainees?  My advice would be to protest only around TV cameras whose little red lights are on. 

Personal safety aside, the biggest question is what can you co to make a difference, even a microscopic one?  This group may have the answer. 

Their idea is to stand along the parade route and at a prearranged signal, turn their backs (not as some have suggested, their backsides) on Bush.  I'm sure the Bushies will try and make this impossible, or ship the organizers out to Guantanamo for questioning, but you have to admit it's a decent answer to the question, what kind of public protest makes a difference anymore?

When Martin Luther King marched on Washington, it was a huge deal.  The mobilization against the Vietnam War and the early Earth Days showed the power of people marching.  But that power diminishes with every decade filled with more public protest.  New ideas like Hands Across America (remember that one?) turn out to be schemes to build a database.

So I like the civility of just turning one's back on an offensive charachter. In fact, I invented this protest back in 1988.

I was with a group of friends at the inaugural of George H. W. Bush.  A few minutes into his speech I said to my group, "I've had it with this guy.  I'm going to stand up, turn my back, walk out of here and not look back."

And so I did.  Now some like-minded souls are taking this notion to a much larger level.  Hopefully they won't end up in jail. Tune in tomorrow.