That Song by Buffalo Springfield, or, The Myth of Sisyphus on the Floor of a BART Station

Blogger's Note:  I will not respond to comments to this post.  Rip me a new one on your own.

Ah, yes, Monday, and time for another set of protests from our friends at Anonymous or No Justice No BART.  I feel for commuters.  I feel for the general public.

I feel like more and more of my posts these days should open with an apology.  This one won't.  I have been reading all kinds of input on the BART protests since July, and last week I almost thought that I wouldn't have a desire to write this post--Anonymous came up with something closer to making sense than anything else they had previously tried by trying a "Spare the Fare Day" with the gates, but that wasn't exactly what I was thinking of.  (And it didn't exactly work out for them, either.)

I should probably take a couple of steps back for a second.

First of all, I'm going to dwell on "Moneyball" again for about the length of a sentence or two.  Reading "Moneyball" taught me that the best player in baseball has accomplishment, proven experience of winning through small steps, and not just sex appeal and "heart."  The best baseball player has proven himself:  in high school, in college, in the minors.

So, Anonymous?  No Justice No BART?  Let's remove your "heart" and media sex appeal from the equation and consider this situation.

Ready?  Show me your accomplishment.

You need to hit BART with competition.  Period.  I don't know what that "competition" is, exactly; chartered buses over the span?  But make it easier, sexier, to NOT ride BART, with a viable alternative other than sitting on the bridge.  You need to hit BART in the moneybags.  Make it sexy to not...ride...BART.  I'm sure there are corporate enemies of BART who would love to fund their downfall.  To convince these enemies to back your better idea you do need a very important trait, though:  professionalism.

You can demonstrate, yes, but you can't demonstrate professionalism.  That's your biggest problem.  It's like a batter that can't get on base.  "Look!  I can hit!" you say, but you're only hitting pop-ups and fouls.  You need to get on base.

Tell me, how professional do you look with a bunch of masks you won't keep on ("Whaddo I wanna wear a mask for when I can be on TELEVISION???")?  How rational do you look yelling in the face of cops who can't change the policy or action of one of their fellow men in arms while they're standing in formation protecting the public?  How rational do you look shutting down traffic on Market Street and angering the public?  Who, in fact, are you saving?

It's too late to save those men who died.  And if BART really wanted to stop these cases of mistaking guns for tasers, they would have already felt enough public pressure to do just that.  But they won't if the only protesters and media bring the drama.  Things won't change until you have the public overwhelmingly on your side.  And right now the protesters and media have the wrong poster children. The public is dismayed, yes.  Outraged?  Nope.  The BART police haven't shot the wrong person yet.  Will they?  The odds are there.  It just doesn't look inevitable.

Bottom line:  if these protest groups want to change BART, they have to get the public behind them.  I don't care what right is being violated here--you can't accomplish anything without the public behind you.  (Hint:  Getting innocent bystanders/commuters hurt or killed in your protests won't do it.  Just sayin'.)  If you don't get the public behind you, BART looks like the sane one.  I'm not saying they ARE the sane one, they just LOOK like it.  That is all you need to continue your actions.

I can show you calm, rational, effective grass roots movement.  It was called Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.  It was called the Civil Rights movement of the 60's (on the minority side, not on the law enforcement side).  Did both of those movements hit all of their targets?  Nope.  But they made a DAMN FINE START.  I'm not sure what Anonymous's and No Justice No BART's objectives are.  I'm sure there are printed documents somewhere (knowing our luck written in crayon left-handed), but the point is, if your public doesn't know from your actions what your goal is, then you're just wasting your breath.

Sadly, some of those protesting don't even know the particulars.

You can protest smarter.

You protest smarter?  Hell, I'll join you.  I'll write your demands.  I'll meet with BART myself.

That's not the goal, though, is it?  The goal, ultimately, is to get on camera, isn't it?  And that's all the commitment you want.  If you wanted actual change, you would have a message your public could get behind once that camera is on you.

But what do I know?  I'm just counting stats in the cheap seats at the ballpark on this one.

P.S. - This song is the inspiration for the title of today's post.  My apologies to Albert C.

That Song by Adele, or, You Can't Go Home Again

Never thought I would see a box in these colors again.

Keep in mind that this box was bigger than what it should have been. It included the one thing I wanted sent from my previous employer, and it included a bunch of crap that I asked be discarded on site. I explained to several people, on several occasions, that what I left behind I didn't want. If someone else needed them, they could use them. Whoever packed the box packed what I wanted and promptly used that other stuff as packing material.

Which, of course, caused quite the flashback.

I wanted to be bigger, though, so I responded to the two messages you see above in text messages to the people who wrote them. One isn't signed, but I know who he is.

No acknowledgment of the texts from either one.

To be honest, I have sent folks from that branch text messages just after leaving, with very limited response. Two people know me on Facebook, so we can stay in touch one way or another. But the others have completely ignored me. I'm always a little stunned by this, given how much I used to do for the people who worked for me.

I try to rationalize it. It doesn't work. I've often thought of just walking in on them one day to say hi, but honestly...would any of them care one way or the other? Two of them would, but we see each other on Facebook.

About a month out, I talked to the Airman about this. He said it would probably just be best to stay in touch with those who wanted to, and to not walk back in that building. He wasn't trying to protect me, he just didn't see the point.

If nothing else, this will teach me not to look back. I have a whole new set of "coworkers" now in the Meetup writing sessions that I attend, and some of them I see over and over. Others I saw twice and they disappeared. It teaches me, once again, not to take things for granted. To take in and relax with every interaction, and to appreciate people for as long as I get to know them. This will also teach me how much weight to give people...differing degrees of commitment from others should grant me options in how much commitment I portion out to others. When I worked with my last employer, I had these nightmares where I would work the counter or phones alone, with no employees. And then it really happened, during a little period expansion, and it happened for a month. I learned that I could do it, but that I shouldn't do it. There are limits to health. And I crossed them. Several times.

Given that I have been deserted while I worked with these people (I won't discuss how that happened when I broke my hand) and that it took them over two months to send the one thing I wanted from Oakland to San Francisco (and the fact that they didn't listen and included about twelve things I didn't need when I finally did get it), tells me that that part of my life is over, regardless of how desperate in the employment department I get.

Onward, dear reader.

P.S. - This is where the title of today's post of Life For Rent comes from. It seemed extreme...for only about a minute. "I won't let you close enough to hurt me." Again.