I went to a Greenpeace rally a few weeks ago. They called it “Chicago Climate Action”.  I was late, as I seem to be for these things lately, but I made it just in time for the march. So like a good little photographer I jogged into the mob and started fluttering. The pictures look about like I felt that day. I’m not too happy with them.

I was somewhere between a marcher and a spectator. I was in it physically, walking in the center of the blob, but emotionally I was completely detached. When I looked around I thought the majority of these people felt the same. Maybe it was me projecting but it seemed like these kids had just enough energy to get there but not much else. I was late though so I should shut up on that….

What I WAS there for in it’s entirety was the “sit-in” occurring on the street in front of the power plant. It went down like a boring, syndicated, mid-day program. Boring as in little to no action or movement, Syndicated as in an old method of 30 years past, and Mid-Day because it was the afternoon. I could have been watching Golden Girls.

“What do we want? green energy! when do want it? now! what’re we gonna stop? global warming! when’re we gonna stop it? …now!”

There was a group of about 8 people sitting in the street with a sign resting at their feet. The cops had blocked off the street previous for the (sanctioned) march but it was now past 4pm and the cops had to wait. The Chicago police department gave them a warning. They nodded along. At the same time this band is playing pirate/marching music on the sidewalk and a ton of video cameras are swarming the scene. It was a B-story media dance.

The police were tired of waiting around and the rally folks were running out of cheers so they did what everybody was waiting for and arrested them. The band played them off as they exited stage riot van.

“aint no power like the solar power, cuz the global power won’t stop!”

The cameras left and nobody wept. Everyone went home and slept. There wasn’t anything bad-ass about it. It wasn’t like the movies. Or the 60′s. There wasn’t anything productive communicated. There was no new statement made. It was just a boring drawn out ritual further diluting the significance of events like these.