Today at the Minnesota state capitol, people have gathered for concerts, yoga, and registering to vote. The Ripple Effect, which could better be described as Hippie Fest '08, put an emphasis on ending the war and enacting a leftist Middle East policy. One of the performers asked attendees to recycle properly and then asked for anyone to yell if they wanted to end the war. A second performer was excited to see Palestinian scarves in the audience. The smell of incense was strong, and you could even see some attendees creating a sculpture out of flowers (see below).
It was almost surprising to see such a collection of college-aged young people in dreadlocks cheering to "give peace a chance" after living inside the Beltway for two years. The kind of youth participation I typically see is more of the button-down, get-a-job-at-an-activist-organization kind. But the appearance of this brand of anti-war liberals should be of comfort to those like Tom Friedman , who say that we're all too quiet and spend too much time online. It seems like a mistake to take a group of office-working DC activists for the whole of the generation. Clearly the protest kind of activism born in the 1960s still exists.
Cross posted at Pushback.
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