When I made fun of the protesters earlier this semester, I was gentle. And when I brought into… When I made fun of the protesters earlier this semester, I was gentle. And when I brought into question the value of democracy, I was abstract. I’ve tried to be subtle. Enough. With Iran on the horizon, it’s time to be blunt.

On the way to class the other day I heard some folks making a scene across from the library. They were trying to bring the troops home. Noble a goal as this is, 15 Pitt students aren’t going to solve the Iraqi occupation nightmare with fliers and a megaphone.

I was almost out of earshot when I heard the topic change: The Iraqis did not have a completely free election. How long is this thing going to take to click? We had as free an election as is plausible, and we still ended up with Bush. So, what is it exactly that a free election guarantees?

Maybe that gathering wasn’t about change. Maybe it’s just become the fashionable thing for caring college students to do these days — stand on campus corners imitating ’60s protesters and remind the rest of us that the Iraqis still don’t have as much freedom as we do. I suppose they don’t, at that, but miserable as their situation is, at least some of them are willing to fight for their way of life.

What do we do? We make posters.

If anyone’s ready to put down the markers, here are a few hints:

Stop handing out fliers between classes. You bring the cause down to the same level as those who wave giant signs about repentance from sin and scream, “The end is nigh.”

And stop trying to stir up the American youth. If Sept. 11, 2001 and Iraq didn’t make someone politically active, nothing you say’s going to do a damn thing. Aside from your present course of semi-action, you’ve got three options: Go into politics and change things from the inside, blow something up or organize.

I recommend that you organize. Trust me, when they try to draft the apathetic, everything will change. Make sure there’s a channel for the then-awakened rage and terror to flow through. And aim it well, because it could be our only chance.

Potheads, chemists, clansmen, poets, hackers, hell even Bush-lovers — we all want to live. There’s your unity.

Since you care enough to be out in the cold, why not put the time to good use? Build an infrastructure for the latecomers’ passion to stand on.

No matter how much weed gets smoked, no one can beat goliath financial interests, shallow minds and a formidable age gap with righteous anger alone. Victory requires strategy and honesty.

Right now, we’re still deceiving ourselves about the whole situation. The people making the decisions aren’t stupid, and currently we’re absolutely no threat to them. But, they can very easily threaten our lives with a piece of legislation. They’ve already killed a lot of people without so much as losing an election.

I will not kill or die for a cause I don’t believe in. But unless someone can find me a house on Paper Street full of space monkeys and soap, preventing that could soon become a little tough.

Because we object to policy decisions, we pretend that we’re somehow a separate nation — or at least a different culture. But we have the same books in our library as they did. We can rent the same movies they saw on the screen. Their music is better than ours. We know them. We’re their future.

We’re all preparing to take our place in society. We’ve learned or are learning how to find jobs and to network. We know what to wear and how to speak at an important interview. We know how the corporate mechanism functions, and it is incredibly effective.

Next time you’re planning to make a statement on campus, have someone going into marketing help you get people’s attention. Instead of throwing a Geocities site up and putting the link on a flier, talk to someone in information technology. We’ve been taught how to be the best in the corporate world. We are good at what we do. Let’s use those skills to affect the coming conflict with Iran.

It’s hard for anyone to dismiss the appearance of three people in immaculate suits making a logical anti-war argument on the monitors of a few million hacked computers. It’s harder, at least, than dismissing scattered groups of college kids using tactics that didn’t even work that well in the 60s.

Zak Sharif doesn’t want another flier. Send him your computer passcodes at [email protected].