Good work, hippies!

Earlier in the week I scoffed at the "Fax-In" that Democrats.org was organizing to protest the war. It just seemed to be such an absurd gesture - it required little to no effort on the part of the participants and it would do absolutely nothing for the cause. In addition these sort of things are so easily mockable that I think they do more damage to the credibility of the anti-war movement than they do any type of good. So it's not only ineffective, it's actually a net negative.

Paul Waldman at The American Prospect wrote a short piece about this very issue yesterday.

If nothing else, progressives can take heart in the fact that relative to the extremists on the right, the fringe elements on the left are utterly harmless. The occasional eco-vandal notwithstanding, these days radical leftists don't stockpile weapons, they don't bomb federal buildings, and they aren't plotting the overthrow of the government. There was a time when leftists did such things, of course, but decades have passed since the Weathermen and their ilk passed into history. Our extremists may be ridiculous, but they aren't hurting anyone. Except, that is, for the causes they advocate and the progressive movement itself.

Political participation takes many forms, and it is not possible to draw clean lines between activity that is primarily instrumental (undertaken for the purpose of affecting a specific and achievable goal) and activity that is expressive (undertaken to just make one's voice heard). The band of nincompoops protesting outside the Marine recruiting center in Berkeley certainly have a specific goal in mind: They want to end the Iraq War, and make the American government more reluctant to use military force in the future. But when a certain distance is reached between the goal and the means employed to achieve it, the activity becomes almost entirely expressive. The idea that yelling at a couple of Marine recruiters week after week might have some actual impact on the speed with which we leave Iraq is so absurd one wonders whether even the participants believe it, assuming that most of them are in full possession of their faculties.

But that's not why they're there. They're there because it makes them feel good. There's nothing wrong with that, of course. That's why all of us do most of what we do; even the most altruistic of actions give us an internal satisfaction that provides the incentive for the next good deed. But it becomes a problem when you hurt the cause you're trying to help, particularly when there are actual opportunities for effective action.

As usual, you really should read the whole thing