Reply #18: What color or emblem should our pro-democracy "revolution" have? [View All]

[progressive_realist]

I was hoping to start a new thread related to this one, but I don't have those privileges yet. Permission to repost as a new thread is granted to anyone who wants to do so.

I think it is a great idea for all those who believe our elections have become fraudulent to adopt a universal color or symbol. But is orange really the best color for us, since it was just used? Perhaps blue, to symbolize blue-staters? Other ideas?

From the New York Times, March 13, 2005:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/weekinreview/13vince.html

It took a while, but Lebanon's uprising against the Syrian occupation finally has a color. Some had called it a Rose Revolution - like the one that felled President Eduard Shevardnadze of Georgia in 2003 - because protesters distributed red roses to soldiers. For a moment, it looked poised to possibly be a Candy Cane Revolution, based on the demonstrators' red and white striped scarves.

Now, in the last few days, Lebanon's stirrings have become widely known as a Cedar Revolution, after the tree on the national flag.

Lately, it seems, you can't have a decent political upheaval unless you color it in. The pro-democracy movement that recently swept Ukraine was famously known as the Orange Revolution, after its emblematic hue. When Iraqi voters dipped their fingers in purple ink last month to signify that they had cast their ballots, President Bush declared a Purple Revolution.

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Karen Beckwith, a political science professor at Wooster College of Ohio and an authority on comparative political movements, thinks that color is a uniquely effective weapon.

"How does the state respond to it?" she asked. "It's very hard to defeat. You can't go around making people take off their clothes. Also, the state can't tell who's organizing it. And it shows incredible solidarity. You know that you're not alone. You don't even need to carry a sign. The person himself or herself is the protest."

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