Protesty

Last night several of my friends spent a few hours in jail. 


They were among the 700 arrested when a protest march attempted to cross the Brooklyn Bridge, and some of the protesters walked on the Brooklyn-bound roadway, blocking traffic. 


I wasn't there, so can't speak from firsthand experience. I'm only going on what I've read online. 


I've been thinking about this all morning. In fact, I can't get it out of my head. I have some opinions that might not make me super popular amongst my lefty friends. 


But, come on. 


I support your right to protest. I even support your cause. Clearly the way that our society has created the distribution of wealth is flawed and needs addressing. Protest. Hard. But don't be shocked, surprised or appalled when you are arrested after breaking the law. In the Times article, Christopher T. Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union said that protesters in the back of the march may not have heard any warnings from the police and "would have had no idea that it was not O.K. to walk on the roadway of the bridge."


Really? They would have no idea that it's not OK to walk on a roadway of a bridge? I think my 4-year-old niece knows that it's not OK to walk on the roadway of a bridge. If a car had driven on the pedestrian walkway, and the driver was arrested and said, "I didn't know that that's not cool," would anyone entertain this for a second?


There are some reports that the police didn't in fact give warnings not to walk on the roadway. That they deliberately led protesters onto the bridge to entrap them.  Perhaps this is true. I've actually seen this done before. 


My response is, you fell for that?


Look, some of those people driving across the bridge may have been trying to go to work. And maybe they get paid by the hour and your protest march made them late, essentially taking food out of their mouth. Or maybe they were trying to go visit a sick relative, or rushing home to try to save their marriage. You blocked traffic by walking on the street. This is illegal and you were arrested. Don't bitch.


To my knowledge, the police handled this better than the protest at Union Square last week, where protesters were beat up and pepper sprayed.  


In 2004, before I lived in New York, I was visiting during the Republican National Convention. I heard of a protest march that would start at ground zero and march to Madison Square Garden. I was a fierce opponent of the war in Iraq and other policies of the Bush administration and I wanted to make a statement so I went. 


The protest organizers didn't have a permit to march on the city streets so we were told we had to stay on the sidewalk. There were thousands of us, so the word was passed that we would march two-by-two so as not to break any laws. The police said nothing. They waited until the march started and several hundred people had crossed the street and were on the sidewalk next to St. Paul's church. They then stopped the march and out came the orange nets. They were all arrested. I was not as I hadn't crossed the street yet. I'm glad Tony Baloney didn't pepper spray me. 


The march dissipated. I sat on the ground feeling defeated. As I thought about how I could make my voice heard a kid walked past me with "fuck Bush" written on his tennis shoes. I thought, no one is going to hear that. No one. They have Madison Square Garden. We have kids with "fuck Bush" written on their shoes. I felt like I was screaming "NO!" to policies with which I disagreed and no one was going to hear me. 


I left the protest. I haven't been to one since. I guess I'm not an activist in that way. I guess I realized at that moment that a "yes" makes a louder sound then a "no." 


So although I support the protesters of Occupy Wall Street and their cause, I'm going to fight in a different way. I'm going to teach my ass off, encouraging excellence in music as I feel this will create fewer greedy corporate douchebags. I'm going to write music and play and arrange and produce, all with a commitment to excellence, content in my decision that even though I could make so much more money if I applied my talents and abilities in the financial sector or corporate world, this is what I choose. Because I feel it's important.