Gopher a 45
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A VIEW FROM HERE
by deb weiss
What Would Rosie Do (WWRD)?
May 8, 2000
I affirm the right of free people to assemble -- unhindered by the state -- to express their grievances or promote their causes.
Back when the civil rights movement was (at least nominally) about equal opportunity, rather than the raw fascism of quotas, diversity cults, and federally-mandated "equal outcomes," I did my share of marching and chanting.
True, unlike some of my fellow-demonstrators -- born Movement types -- I didn't much enjoy the act of activism.
In fact, I always felt kind of silly, trudging back and forth in front of one of my home town's notorious "blockbusting" realtors, toting an artfully hand-lettered sign ("Fair Housing: It's As American As Apple Pie") while gently-bred elderly women in hats glared at me and snapped, "Young lady, you should be ashamed of yourself!"
No matter. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. It still does. I make no apologies.
To this day, the notion of ordinary folks standing up for simple justice affects me deeply. It's my inheritance, that faith in liberty -- in the right of free men to determine their own destinies -- that was once America's gift to the world, inspiring freedom-fighters from the Gdansk shipyards to Tienanmen Square.
Just the same, I'm wary of mass gatherings, especially those which have been elaborately planned and orchestrated, not to further public discourse, but to manipulate public emotion.
Always in the name of public virtue, of course.
Even the most benign such demonstrations remind me, uneasily, unavoidably, of Leni Riefenstahl's groundbreaking film, "Triumph of the Will, " which documented the massive Nazi Party rally in Nuremburg in 1933.
Commissioned by Hitler himself (impressed by Ms. Riefenstahl's cinematic genius, he was also smitten by the beautiful young filmmaker), "Triumph of the Will" glossed the rally with a kind of horrifying clockwork gorgeousness.
All those torches: all those swastikas: all those precision marchers, blond and scrubbed and joyful.
Chilling even at the time (at least, to those with eyes wide open), it would become, in the cold hindsight of history, a celluloid monument to evil -- and to the modern art of propaganda.
Film historian John Wakeman describes the meticulous staging of the event, calculated to the last detail by Riefenstahl, who even installed cameras in the giant flagpoles that lined the route to ensure a panoramic view of "the ecstatic parade involving hundreds of thousands of carefully-drilled participants."
With such documents to remind us of the possibilities, we can be forgiven for an instinctive aversion to all extravagant appeals to mass unreason -- even when they are protected by the Bill of Rights.
****.
There won't be hundreds of thousands of participants at next Sunday's Million Mom March in Washington. Nor even tens of thousands.
There will be ecstasy a-plenty, though, and careful drilling of the troops, not to mention a multitude of network cameras ingeniously positioned along the route to maximize the impact.
And there will be Moms.
Lots and lots of Moms.
Black moms. White moms. Asian moms. Hispanic moms. Single moms. Married moms. Urban moms. Rural moms. Rich moms. Poor moms. Pregnant young moms. Withered but plucky grand-moms.
According to the official Million Mom March website, this vast spontaneous event was the brainchild of an Ordinary American Mom named Donna Dees-Thomases.
Mrs. Dees-Thomases dreamed up the Mothers' Day rally in response to what she -- echoing the network newsreaders -- dubs the "gun violence epidemic." She was, she says, "ashamed because I've sat back while others battle the gun lobby to protect our children." Her solution: a civilizing horde of American mothers (led by the inevitable Rosie O'Donnell) who would descend on the nation's capital to "put Congress on notice that common sense gun policy -- specifically licensing and registration -- is the will of the people."
Even before the fact, the March has been heralded, in reams of soft-core coverage (the worst is yet to come), as a triumph of that will.
Actually, as Ordinary American Moms go, Mrs. Dees-Thomases ain't so very ordinary.
Internet junkies know (though network news consumers sure enough don't) that the girl's a sometime CBS publicist who has worked for Clintonista Dan Rather, among others, and whose sister-in-law, New York lawyer Susan Thomases, is a member of Hillary Clinton's inner circle.
But hey. Nobody said a heavily-connected party operative can't be a Mom, too.
Besides, this assault on the second amendment is a privilege protected by the first. Even agitprop is free speech. The Moms have every right to swarm on Washington.
It just happens to send cold chills down my spine, is all. It's the Couricification of America. Estrogen on parade. Gender-gappery in the first degree.
And I hate it.
Which is why I'm one mom who'll be sending a Mothers' Day donation to the NRA.
At least they don't do torchlight parades.
by deb weiss
What Would Rosie Do (WWRD)?
May 8, 2000
I affirm the right of free people to assemble -- unhindered by the state -- to express their grievances or promote their causes.
Back when the civil rights movement was (at least nominally) about equal opportunity, rather than the raw fascism of quotas, diversity cults, and federally-mandated "equal outcomes," I did my share of marching and chanting.
True, unlike some of my fellow-demonstrators -- born Movement types -- I didn't much enjoy the act of activism.
In fact, I always felt kind of silly, trudging back and forth in front of one of my home town's notorious "blockbusting" realtors, toting an artfully hand-lettered sign ("Fair Housing: It's As American As Apple Pie") while gently-bred elderly women in hats glared at me and snapped, "Young lady, you should be ashamed of yourself!"
No matter. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. It still does. I make no apologies.
To this day, the notion of ordinary folks standing up for simple justice affects me deeply. It's my inheritance, that faith in liberty -- in the right of free men to determine their own destinies -- that was once America's gift to the world, inspiring freedom-fighters from the Gdansk shipyards to Tienanmen Square.
Just the same, I'm wary of mass gatherings, especially those which have been elaborately planned and orchestrated, not to further public discourse, but to manipulate public emotion.
Always in the name of public virtue, of course.
Even the most benign such demonstrations remind me, uneasily, unavoidably, of Leni Riefenstahl's groundbreaking film, "Triumph of the Will, " which documented the massive Nazi Party rally in Nuremburg in 1933.
Commissioned by Hitler himself (impressed by Ms. Riefenstahl's cinematic genius, he was also smitten by the beautiful young filmmaker), "Triumph of the Will" glossed the rally with a kind of horrifying clockwork gorgeousness.
All those torches: all those swastikas: all those precision marchers, blond and scrubbed and joyful.
Chilling even at the time (at least, to those with eyes wide open), it would become, in the cold hindsight of history, a celluloid monument to evil -- and to the modern art of propaganda.
Film historian John Wakeman describes the meticulous staging of the event, calculated to the last detail by Riefenstahl, who even installed cameras in the giant flagpoles that lined the route to ensure a panoramic view of "the ecstatic parade involving hundreds of thousands of carefully-drilled participants."
With such documents to remind us of the possibilities, we can be forgiven for an instinctive aversion to all extravagant appeals to mass unreason -- even when they are protected by the Bill of Rights.
****.
There won't be hundreds of thousands of participants at next Sunday's Million Mom March in Washington. Nor even tens of thousands.
There will be ecstasy a-plenty, though, and careful drilling of the troops, not to mention a multitude of network cameras ingeniously positioned along the route to maximize the impact.
And there will be Moms.
Lots and lots of Moms.
Black moms. White moms. Asian moms. Hispanic moms. Single moms. Married moms. Urban moms. Rural moms. Rich moms. Poor moms. Pregnant young moms. Withered but plucky grand-moms.
According to the official Million Mom March website, this vast spontaneous event was the brainchild of an Ordinary American Mom named Donna Dees-Thomases.
Mrs. Dees-Thomases dreamed up the Mothers' Day rally in response to what she -- echoing the network newsreaders -- dubs the "gun violence epidemic." She was, she says, "ashamed because I've sat back while others battle the gun lobby to protect our children." Her solution: a civilizing horde of American mothers (led by the inevitable Rosie O'Donnell) who would descend on the nation's capital to "put Congress on notice that common sense gun policy -- specifically licensing and registration -- is the will of the people."
Even before the fact, the March has been heralded, in reams of soft-core coverage (the worst is yet to come), as a triumph of that will.
Actually, as Ordinary American Moms go, Mrs. Dees-Thomases ain't so very ordinary.
Internet junkies know (though network news consumers sure enough don't) that the girl's a sometime CBS publicist who has worked for Clintonista Dan Rather, among others, and whose sister-in-law, New York lawyer Susan Thomases, is a member of Hillary Clinton's inner circle.
But hey. Nobody said a heavily-connected party operative can't be a Mom, too.
Besides, this assault on the second amendment is a privilege protected by the first. Even agitprop is free speech. The Moms have every right to swarm on Washington.
It just happens to send cold chills down my spine, is all. It's the Couricification of America. Estrogen on parade. Gender-gappery in the first degree.
And I hate it.
Which is why I'm one mom who'll be sending a Mothers' Day donation to the NRA.
At least they don't do torchlight parades.
