PROTEST AND ME

In the wake of the January 6th storming of the Capitol Building by an angry mob, here are some random thoughts that could be of interest.

CROWDS. The Indy 500 race features the largest crowd of people (maybe 250,000) within my personal experience. Still, that crowd tends to be spread out over a large area while one’s attention tends to be diverted from the race itself and the crowd has no consensus favorite. Still, there is some indescribable change of consciousness when you are one of so very many people.

UNITED CROWDS. When any one asks when I attended the IU Law School in Bloomington I respond that I started in Quinn Buckner’s freshman year. That means I was there for a great deal of excellent college basketball, though I was gone (graduated and practicing law) when the Hoosiers won their NCAA championship in 1976. One of the most popular diversions (from Law School) in Bloomington was attendance at an Assembly Hall basketball game. Sixteen thousand or so Hoosier fans in close proximity and with a single goal: victory for the Big Red. There was no room for sympathy for the worthy opponent that left dazed and defeated. The united crowds of Assembly Hall featured what may be described as a robust group consciousness.

THE WAR PROTEST AND ONE (or more) IN EVERY CROWD. Prior to Law School I was at Indy’s Butler University during some peak years of the war in Vietnam and the corresponding anti-war protests. It was probably 1971, after the invasion of Cambodia and after the Kent State massacre, when I learned of an anti-war protest in Indianapolis. There would be a march down Meridian Street and a gathering on (a closed) Monument Circle where speakers would address the crowd. I persuaded my girlfriend Ann to go with me. Though she was no fan of war, she was much less disposed than I was to protest against the war in Vietnam.

The March seemed congenial enough. There were a few placards. There was some profane chanting. The affair had been okayed by the City. Police were at a distance and mostly on traffic control. Then there was the gathering on Monument Circle. The crowd was substantial in number with folks in close proximity. Before the speakers could start two or three morons unfurled a Viet Cong flag and began waving it. My wish was to support our soldier boys by bringing them home from a senseless war. I had no affinity with the Viet Cong enemy. These morons were not of like mind. Police appeared out of nowhere and took the morons into custody. That’s when Ann told me it was time for us to leave. She was right. The protest loses its fulfilling character when the morons (a/k/a “extremists”) take things too far in the effort to lead a united crowd down the path of their choice.

AT THE CAPITOL BUILDING. The Capitol Building mob of January 6th began as a devoted MAGA crowd outside the White House when they were dispatched down Pennsylvania Avenue to “take back our country” or some such thing. I suspect that the majority of them were not there to commit mayhem. Still, they didn’t hear the voice of Ann saying that it was time to leave the crowd. There is something about the crowd/mob consciousness that gratifies and dulls one’s inhibitions.¹  Still, those who follow the crowd share the moral and legal liability for the destruction, injury, and death that ensued.

For the record, I detest the actions of the WHITE mob at the Capitol Building. I will not defend them in any fashion though I try to understand how people who are not inherently violent can be swept up in the mentality of a mob led by violent extremists. The same phenomenon can be seen from time to time in crowds of color.

A PROTEST OF ONE. My most recent protest other than those expressed in print had to have been in 1987 when Sen. Joe Biden was derailing the nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court Bench. My own inclination was solidly anti-Bork. I heard of a weekday march in Gary to rally against the Bork nomination. As luck would have it I was in Superior Court in Gary an hour or so before the scheduled march. Gary Mayor Barnes was supposed to lead the march.

After my court business I exchanged my briefcase for some appropriate “PPE” and walked down Broadway to 9th Avenue or thereabouts where the march was supposed to begin. I waited to the appointed time. No throng. No Mayor Barnes. So I marched up Broadway (on the sidewalk, of course) back to the 4th Avenue point of beginning and thought negative thoughts about Robert Bork with each stride. I was proud to march against Bork and proud not to be kept waiting by Tom Barnes.

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¹ You may find mention of “mob mentality” by the Indiana Supreme Court in D.M. v State, 949 N.E.2d 327 (Ind. 2011).