... holding unpopular opinions

There's an episode of Seinfeld where Kramer is walking in an AIDS march. He's jazzed and excited, but he's not going to wear the red ribbon. He won't give in to the ribbon bullies, and in the end he is pummeled by said bullies for not wearing the ribbon.

In university I was the ribbon guy. I wore all the right coloured t-shirts on the right days. I had my ribbons lined up for the right weeks. I always seemed to have a safety pin on me to hold the appropriate ribbon. I knew all the slogans by heart and would toss them out as needed. I was so earnest, and displaying to the world that I was going to make some big changes around here.

That was a long time ago and I'm not being wistful, I'm being honest. A lot has changed in the world and a lot has changed in me. I don't have the energy to be as idealistic as I used to, even though I still have many of those ideals. I still believe in an essential equality between people. I've settled pretty much on the pacifistic side of the fence. I still don't fully believe in democracy (that's a long story for another time). But instead of wearing my heart on my sleeve, I try to make my actions more a reflection of what I believe.

This is hard to explain, and not something I want to write, but we're all aware of the crisis in Iran right now over the disputed election. I'm not going to go into it all here mostly because if you aren't aware, well then you're not really my target audience.

Twitter, however, has been a great hive of activity. People have been sharing stories that have leaked out about police and military actions taken against demonstrators. There have also been efforts to keep lines of communication between people in Iran and the outside world open so that the citizens can be aware that their stories are getting out. I commend these actions.

To show sympathy, people are changing their icons on twitter to green.

And that's where I lose the script.

See, this is what I hate: the medium might be the message, but the medium is not the action. You turn your icons green. Great. What does that accomplish? Well, you say it shows solidarity. Great. It's an action, however, that costs you nothing and nets even less in return. It's wearing the ribbon: it's announcing to the world that you care, but has no real follow up action. Sure it might raise awareness, and here's that conversation for you: "Why is your icon green?" "To raise awareness of the threat to democracy in Iran." "Wow! That's so cool. And how to the green icons help?" *Silence* "Do you hope to make them think that it's St Patrick's Day?"

Okay, that last point is not fair. But this does tie in to something I try to ask myself every time I start a course of action: What now? I've turned my icon green, what now? Well, realistically I should contact my elected officials in my country and ask if they are going to put pressure on international bodies and the Iranian government to open up their processes to inspection and verification. I should also make sure that they know I've learnt the lesson of the past 8 years and we don't want to go into international situations guns-a-blazin' and upset a fragile, developing condition.

This isn't just limited to twitter and Iran. I'm tired of seeing people in funny hats with "Give it back" signs at congressional hearings on executive compensation. I'm tired of globalization protests being as much street theater as agitpop. I'm tired of seeing any issue that people don't agree with being used as subtitles to the scene of Hitler in the bunker from Downfall. In short, I'm just tired tired TIRED of the theatricality of making a stand. It's great and it gets attention, and communicates so very little.

Awareness is good. Wear ribbons and change avatars and buy Livestrong bracelets. But please, back these up with actions. Don't toss a quote back with a neener neener, but make a case, an argument. If you're going to make discussion an amateur production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, then please remember the line "Don't dream it....be it!"