We staged a protest today. Couple people from town, one guy came down from Reno county.
It was fun. Cool to see all the different reactions on people’s faces. The Pro-Casino slogan is “Yes, Yes, Win-Win” (summarizing how they want you to mark your ballot, and who they think it will benefit). So, we started out with:
Yes
Yes
Pave this Library
People looked at it and wondered what we were saying. We also brought out “Gamble with the Future”. Grey made “FUN before Learning” and “Bookworms never made MILLIONS” and taped himself in between. We had a “Libraries are for Loosers” [sic.] sign, and Jason drew up “Books R 4 fools” and put it on. But, after talking to people we realized that we were acting on some obscure and faulty premises—it turns out the “remove the library” proposal had been withdrawn two weeks ago, and it was just one idea out of many, so people didn’t know about it. Of course, everything is still a possibility because the counsel won’t decide until after we vote, but we were satirically protesting an idea that wasn’t forefront in people’s minds. So, maybe our “Gamble with the Future” sign was the most fitting. Anyway, we decided we needed a different angle.
Grey thought up “Casinos Now, Progress Never” so we split it onto two signs and stood side by side. It wasn’t as anti-library, so we felt more comfortable, but I think it drew more criticism from the passersby. But some people were cheering for us—probably because they saw the word “Casino”.
See, protesting with satire is hard–usually you only have time to convey “I’m on your side” or “I hate you and all you stand for”—which makes protests largely useless, because people either already agree with you, or already have written you off. So, when have a complex message, they see a key word, and use that to determine what side you are on. Really all you can get across is what camp you are associated with, not a whole message. But, maybe with a Burma-Shave style multi-message it would work. That way, you could have time to transmit a whole sentence. As it was, our message was pretty well hidden. The few people who walked by and talked to us needed to have it explained to them, so I am guessing that the people in cars reallydidn’t get it.
But, even just watching people drive by for a couple hours was instructive. I saw many different types of people, and it gave the city a face and showed me that you can reach a vertical slice of the social classes from the side of the road. Also, I learned about people’s reactions to this sort of thing. Some people waved and gave us a thumbs up. Some smiled and gave us a thumbs down. (down with us? down with casinos? the library?) Some people acted like they didn’t see anything, but most people wore confusion. It was a good trial run to know how things work. When I have a real message to get across, I’ll know how to do it.
You should try protesting sometime. It is fun. Even if what you say mostly gets confused stares, all the looks are worth a laugh or two.
