IN CATCHING UP with emails I'd neglected during a short illness, I noticed a discussion about protesting America's wars. Such actions have no impact, but serve as a form of self-advertisement for the participants. I marched in several protests in 2003, and realize now it was all smoke, useful today only as a way of saying, "I was on the right side."
The better way to influence the system is to target, and if possible take over, the system's power centers, as I sought to do through the Petition to PEN at www.penpetition.blogspot.com
PEN, after all, is nothing but gesture politics; standing up for dissident writers halfway across the globe while ignoring dissident writers at home. Further, PEN's protests against select targets like Iran provide cover for the very imperialist wars and actions that writers are upset about.
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