A Tale of Two Protests

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I'll start off this article by telling you that I dislike people who say they're going to do something, then fail to do it. Such inaction makes the person or group appear to be unreliable or ineffective, and one should question their word again in the future if they say they are going to do something.

This has turned out to be the case with Stand Up For Peace(SUFP), a local peacenik group here in Laramie, WY that decided to protest a recent speaking engagement at the University of Wyoming. The speaker in question was Kenneth Starr, currently the dean of School of Law at Pepperdine University, and former independent counsel who investigated Bill Clinton's involvement in Whitewater and charges stemming from it, including lying under oath about sexual encounters with Monica Lewinsky. These charges resulted in impeachment proceedings, which resulted in Clinton's impeachment, but not his removal from office.

To set up my point, we have to go through the whole story of SUFP and Ken Starr.

SUFP announced that they were going to protest the Starr appearance on their listserv, although at the time, they didn't really know HOW they wanted to go about making a protest...they just knew they wanted to show up and make their presence known.

I was concerned...not because SUFP might interfere with Starr or his speech...I figured that even if they were standing around outside the doors with signs, it would still be a respectable demonstration, and an act of free speech...and let me be clear here that I support SUFP's rights to free speech...I never know when I may need someone to defend my own free speech rights...

I was concerned because I had recently seen a newspaper article about a group of Christians who had surrounded a gay pride get-together in a public park. While the Christians did not engage the crowd, those who approached and showed an interest in the Christians were given some words of encouragement from the Christians in their own Chirstian sort of way. Nothing anti-gay, just "Jesus loves you," "Jesus died for you," that sort of thing.

Police soon contacted the Christians and told them that they were demonstrating without a liscense. I believe at least one of the Christians was arrested for this incident.

With this in mind, I wrote to a couple of people in SUFP and told them that they should consider going to the university police and getting a permit. I also told them that I disagreed with their protest, and I asked why they couldn't get over the whole thing. It has been several years since the impeachment fight, and even I don't bother with anti-Clinton rhetoric much anymore.

I really should reprint the response I got from SUFP. It was a classic left-wing tirade about how SUFP didn't need a permit to engage in free speech, and how I was wrong, and blah blah.It was that letter that initially got my dander up and started the inspiration for this rant.
I will find the letter and reprint it here for you...

HOWEVER, as the time for the protest neared, publicity of the protest escalated, and it was printed in the university paper,which as most university rags, tends to be quite liberal-leaning.

Shortly before the day of the Starr speech, SUFP came up with a plan to come to the speech wearing blue dresses with a stain on them, a reference to the semen-stained blue dress that was made famous in the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. I did what I could responsibly in opposition to the protest...I notified the college Republican group about the protest, and encouraged them to engage in some free speech of their own.
Then I sat back to watch the fireworks.

On Saturday, February 19, one day after the Starr speech, the local newspaper, the "Laramie Boomerang" had the following to say about the protests in their story on the speech...and the story ran on the front page of the paper...

"Rumored protestors never materialized for the event and Starr didn't make even passing reference to his role as chief Whitewater investigator during the Clinton administration or the Monica Lewinsky scandal during the address."

Please read that last paragraph again. It's kinda important.

So! It seems that for all their bluster about how they were going to SHOW Ken Starr, how they were going to make their voices heard, how they were going to use their rights of free speech and such...when it came down to show time, when it came time for SUFP to put their money where their mouth was, they failed miserably.

Let me re-state for the record:

"Rumored protestors never materialized for the event and Starr didn't make even passing reference to his role as chief Whitewater investigator during the Clinton administration or the Monica Lewinsky scandal during the address."

So much for wearing stained blue dresses.

Now, the story is not quite over. See, today I ran into one of the members of SUFP, and I politely asked her what happened to the protest,and I said that I had been expecting something more substantial.

Her response was that SUFP had in fact showed up for the speech, and had entered the venue as listeners, thus skirting around the need for a protest permit...who is going to arrest anyone because they are wearing a blue dress? However, the protestors apparently were scattered throughout the audience. My SUFP acquaintance believes that they made an effective statement against Republicans, the neocon-dominated Bush administration, and Ken Starr in particular.

But, once again, I bring you to the official eye-witness account of the speech:

"Rumored protestors never materialized for the event and Starr didn't make even passing reference to his role as chief Whitewater investigator during the Clinton administration or the Monica Lewinsky scandal during the address."

Even if SUFP had stuck with the strategy of attending the speech wearing blue dresses, they should have stayed together as a single group...that way they would stand out visably, and that would have gotten them noticed.

Instead, they chose to spread out, and send a quiet message.

The message was so quiet that it was not noticed.

SUFP has thus proven that they really don't know what they are doing when it comes to putting on a protest. Rather than maximizing their effect and cleverly making their presence known in a respectful manner, they diluted themselves in a sea of suits, ties, and dresses of a multitude of colors.

SUFP let people down.

They are inept as a protest group, and I for one won't pay much attention to them again.

As if that weren't enough, my SUFP acquaintance apparently thought that I didn't have the right of free speech...just because I don't happen to share her (and SUFP's) liberal anti-Bush policies. She asked me why I didn't sign up to go to Iraq. The conversation wasn't pointing in that direction. We were not talking about the military,and we were not discussing any possibility of a draft (there is none). This just seemed to come out of nowhere. So, according to SUFP, if you believe in the Bush administration and what we are doing in Iraq, or if you perhaps believe in Ken Starr and the Whitewater investigation, you should sign up to go to Iraq.

I would if I could. However, with my health, no armed force will take me. However, I should not have to sign up for military service simply because I have a point of view.

However, it was an excellent dodge. The real issue was SUFP, and how they can't put on an effective protest. They and their representatives certainly are good at dodging the issues though.

John B.

PS: I'll post the email I received from an SUFP representative as a seperate article...