Imagine all the people at a huge Anti-WAR rally singing the sweet Peace and Patriotic songs we all know, in perfect unison and on key. Songs like 'Give Peace a Chance', 'We Shall Overcome', 'Imagine', 'Yesterday', 'Blowin' In The Wind', 'This Land Is My Land', Brother Can You Spare A Dime', 'God Bless America' and 'America The Beautiful'. Did I miss any? You can think of others that bring tears, especially in these tragic times and especially if well-sung by a chorus of thousands. Please give me titles or links.
I'm sure you're thinking, 'How are you going to keep it from sounding like your typical 'Happy Birthday' at Farrells Ice Cream Parlor or even worse, the drunken concert and soccer game sing-alongs?...Out-of-sync and way off-key?
Well I'll tell you how below the fold:
Ask participants to bring portable radios/boomboxes/etc and tell them the frequency on which a cooperative local radio station (or our own transmitter) will be broadcasting the songs. Enough radios randomly distributed throughout the crowd will keep everybody in speed-of-light unison and on key. The lyrics to the chosen songs can even be distributed on song-sheets (like hymnals in church, and boy do they ever use mass chorus effectively). And because the 'media' won't really cover it, professionals can be recruited to position cameras & microphones to produce videos of astounding emotion. What could be more effective than tens of thousands of peace-loving voices singing in perfect unison the songs of three generations that stir the hearts of all TRUE patriots?
Before I relate my experience and impressions of mass Peace demonstration without crowd singing, here are some links. They probably didn't use radios; probably some visual or other. Europeans and churches are better at this than 'secular humanists' except for maybe 'Take Me Out To The Ballgame' led by the big organ:
Britannia Rules The Waves
La Marseillaise
Silent Night
I didn't make it to the Oct 27 protest. Even Jonesboro, TN was too far this time but I had several times previously carried carloads more than 400 miles to DC protests. My first of the Bush era was in Feb 2003 where I carried my now well-worn sign, "Osama's Plan - The Self-Destruction of America - Bush Is Right On Schedule". In reading the few stories about Oct 27, one protester in California said that she couldn't understand why more people were not driven to the streets in outrage. Well amen to that but there are reasons:
First, rallies are organized for weekends to increase participation but then the whole town is empty except for demonstrators and cops. Second, cops are now taught that 'they'll be gone by nightfall', taught to control their reactions and taught to arrest only lawbreakers, and third, organizers now coordinate their plans with police and discourage lawbreaking as it creates a bad impression. They may be right but I think effective protest requires civil disobedience and jailtime martyrs.
Though I have found all my participations with like-minded masses to be envigorating, I always returned home feeling that our efforts had been largely ineffectual. As I said, the town is mostly empty, the MSM ignores us, the police no longer publish crowd estimates, and the overstaffed police on duty, unlike in the 60s, are disciplined and polite, ('they'll be gone by nightfall').
I was once threatened when a policeman next to me in their long line of bicycles on both sides of the parade momentarily lost control of his slow-moving bike. I jovially remarked, "Watch out; bikes can get a bit skittish". He dismounted his bike and approached me but another cop intervened and he thought better of his intention. A few of the 100,000 were arrested that day but I couldn't find any mention on the internets.
Mass protests typically consist of speeches, and sometimes performances, by anti-war celebrities from a stage set up in Lafayette Park or some other large lawn. And by the way, I usually find it difficult to understand their speech from the blaringly distorted amplified speakers. This could be another role for the cooperative radio station; broadcast the stage microphones so that the crowd can hear it on their radios.
Anyway, after the speeches and all, the parade gets confusedly moving at the start of the police-designated route. It's oddly quiet except for impromptu chants and groups with drums or other noisemakers. The only spectators are paraders like us who occasionally drop out to enjoy the procession, then rejoin the march for awhile. So, sadly when it's over everyone just drifts away, just as the police had been briefed. The photos & videos don't appear in the MSM and can only be found by internet search or in emails from the organizers.
And that's why demonstrations must find a way to create phenomena worthy of MSM attention. In the 60s (before the draft was revoked) this was created by civil 'disobedience' (don't you detest that appellation?), a strategy that organizers have deemed counterproductive in today's complacent society. But if we can show the world a humongous gathering united in moving song, just perhaps we can make them pay attention and maybe they will listen for awhile.
Mega-churches employ mass singing so effectively that millions answer the call with total suspension of reality. Joseph Goebbels was a master at exploiting the massive power of crowd chorus among a people with a long tradition of participation in beer hall drinking songs, (I would have included in the selections above, a crowd rendition of 'Deutshland Uber Alles' that I found, , but it was just too much). As I said above, Europeans (and churches)seem to do this better than secular US citizens except for seventh inning stretches and (weakly) our horribly selected 'Star Spangled Banner'. European football (soccer) fans always 'sing' the familiar but drunken 'Olé, Olé' and Liverpool fans 'sing' 'You'll Never Walk Alone'. Having no director, and sound propagating too slowly, they are way out of unison and sort of achieve a bad consensus on the pitch; and they're drunk, so volume trumps musicality. But sobriety and radios with reasonably competent singers near each radio can keep the whole crowd together.
Probably the most heart-moving crowd performances have been from nations in dire peril who gathered and sang their national anthems, their constitutions in song. Well, we are a nation in deepest peril, this time from within. It's time we sang it to the world.