Not so long ago, I was made aware of a website where just about anyone who decided to could post pictures of themselves or whatever else they wanted, to protest the reelection of President Bush. Now I’ve not until recent years become cognizant of what labels I might wear politically speaking and the link was a sent to me as a joke. Or at least that’s the impression I’ve been left with.
The idea of using bandwidth and server space to send a message is nothing new to me. I’ve worked for a large computer company for 20 years now, so you’ll have to excuse me if I look at these little protests from a different perspective. My computing skills are nothing to brag about but the idea of sending email and sending files to other persons and sharing electronic messages and data of all kinds began for me in 1986. The modems and other equipment were a lot slower and the datasets a lot smaller then but the idea of sharing information and ideas was still pretty much the same. We’ve supposedly just gotten better at it over time.
My first impression about the “protest website” was to laugh and say to myself that it’s a great way to share a common message or way of thinking, to create a website and make a graphic statement about your feelings about a candidate. Then I started to look at how the persons who used the tool (or the Internet) chose to communicate.
Many of the pictures posted represented some kind of lame apology for the results of the election or the words “I’m sorry” and a mug shot of the disgruntled constituent. Viewing these pictures left me wondering about those poor individuals. Are they whining or just taking part in some kind of mass exhibitionist event? “Sorry” is obviously the “action word” in their protest. And sorry they are, in more than one sense of the word; because their “regrets” if that’s what they are, accomplish absolutely nothing.
Some of the posts represented outright insults or objections to the military action in the Middle East (as if it were all completely unavoidable) by the United States with no obvious suggestions about what other viable options are available or a constructive comment. Don’t get me wrong, some of the pictures required some serious thought and were truly creative (even pretty) but they all failed to make the next step, which was to offer something of substance or something positive or even some direction (however misguided).
My observations eventually led me to believe that all these liberal protesters were whining (some crying). Many were merely exercising their rights of free speech, while others were more “mean-spirited”. The idea behind the website, seems to be that, somehow by aggregating all of these similarly minded (of many well meaning but misguided?) persons and images, they might instantly become more relevant. Frankly, I doubt that conservative constituents would have been as sore about losing an election as this group has been. The common theme of these protests was “sorry” and the tendency to “whine”. Maybe they should start a support group?
Don’t misunderstand what I am trying to say here. Yes, sometimes all we know to do is complain. And complain we must sometimes, or others will never know or appreciate the source or the cause of the complaints. But these persons have other choices. One can’t deny the results of the elections at this late date. The folks need to “Move On” so to speak. The current administration is not the end of the world for Americans, and the majority of us are inclined to support our leaders as has been indicated (some say overwhelmingly so) in the elections.
Aren’t these “protesters” just one-step away from those who would actually remove a yard sign for a conservative candidate? And two steps away from becoming an anarchist? Haven’t these persons by their actions (and their whining) made less of their politics by failing to offer tangible solutions with their objections to the recently re-elected president or by engaging in attacks of a more personal nature (name calling etc)? In doing what these persons have done, haven’t these persons made “a joke of themselves” in a majority of these cases?
Sometimes I wonder what the state of our nation would be in if the elections had gone the way these persons wanted… haven’t these people learned that if a message is worth sending out to the rest of the world, it should be worth repeating, or represent something joyous or remotely useful? Or are liberals the only ones I’ve recently seen wasting server space and bandwidth (personal and Internet related)? If we (Americans) are going to get any better at spreading the word about the benefits of free speech, maybe we shouldn’t waste so much time on “whining”.
http://www.sorryeverybody.com/
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4141857
http://www.wral.com/news/3804934/detail.html
http://www.wral.com/news/3897036/detail.html
