In my vast experience of standing on the sidelines and gawking at protests, I've noticed that there are generally three types of rallies: 1) winning the hearts and minds, 2) building awareness, and 3) catharsis and opportunism.  The first type of protest is fairly obvious: most anti-war protests attempt to do this through speakers and music in public parks, although they generally miss the mark.  Protests designed to build awareness generally use spectacle and absurdity to give the media something to talk about, as exemplified by the Arab Spring, the Mission's anti-gentrification protests of the late 90s, or various street art campaigns.  Catharic protests exist merely to burn it all down when people feel like they have nothing left, and maybe get a new pair of shoes.

People somehow manage to convince themselves that protests are designed to win public support and forget about other potential objectives, which is why at first glance, #OpBART appeared to be a complete failure.  No signage, no organized message, no speakers, no obvious rallying point, no clear objective, less than 100 people turned out, and the 5 idiots from Oakland that carry around a banner covered in Swastikas and anarchist circle-As hijacked a protest about free-speech, turned it into a protest against cops with guns, and began marching down Market Street roughly 30 minutes after the protest was scheduled to begin, fracturing any critical mass that could have been established.  Then to top it off, they closed off the Ferry Building and access to BART to the majority of San Franciscans.

However, as the obviously irritable and impatient people such as Jason Permenter seem to miss, the goal wasn't to win over the hearts and minds of mid-Market coffee snobs and downtown accountants.  That's not why websites were hacked, personal information leaked, and public transportation crippled.  No, the fact of the matter is no one in this city would be talking about egregious violations of our right to assembly and free speech unless a few dozen sexless nerds in Teva sandals and Vibram toe shoes made it so Jason had to take the bus home for work.  Admittedly a fate worse than death in San Francisco, but it's only one day.

(Also, deeply sorry to use a hashtag in the post title.  This is truly a sad day.)

KRON-4 had the spot, then all the sudden this other guy came outta nowhere to “steal the shot.”  I was expecting someone to get pushed down into the Dolores Park bathrooms to get mauled by Kodiak bears or genital crabs, but no dice.

I'm always down for a good protest, but claiming that Saturday's shooting victim Kenneth Harding was 'murdered' for “not paying his MUNI fare” is a bit of a stretch.  If you've been reading Tumblr recently, you might have missed this:

According to the Chronicle this morning, SFPD identified the victim as 19-year-old Kenneth Harding a parolee from Washington State who was also wanted by Seattle police as a suspect in a shooting that left one 19-year-old pregnant woman dead and three others injured last week.

And this:

Police say the victim fired at them during the chase, prompting the officers to fire back several shots. The man was taken to San Francisco General Hospital where he later died.

Now, I've been alive long enough to not trust the police when they claim a victim fired the first shot (remember Mehserle claiming he thought Oscar Grant was reaching for a gun?), and I do believe everyone deserves their constitutionally-guaranteed fair trial.  It also seems excessively inhumane for the police to just let the guy bleed out on the sidewalk with their guns drawn and refuse him any medical assistance.  But this man doesn't strike me as a character to prop up as a civil rights victim.

Anyways, I'm sure this will make for some good theater and protest tourism, so perhaps I'll take a break from my busy boozing schedule gawk at the absurdity.  And if you need to tweet about it, the organizers have suggested these clever hashtags for your “digital rocks through the windows of government”: