Protesters at Brown both predictable and ineffective

April 28, 2008 —

Approximately eight seconds after New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman took the stage at Brown University last Tuesday evening, two people jumped up and rushed toward him, hurling green-colored pies in an apparent protest. Friedman blocked the first pie with his hand and the second one fell to the floor. Nevertheless, there he stood in the middle of the stage in front of a bewildered audience with green whipped cream all over his black outfit. Pamphlets were then thrown into the crowd criticizing Friedman's views on capitalism and the environment.

"It's a pie in the face of corporate environmentalism and capitalism," said a member of the group that distributed the fliers in a phone call to the university's student newspaper.

Another liberal protest on a college campus. Yawn. It's the hip thing to do now, almost becoming the initiation ritual of the nation's leftist student organizations. It's also expected and boring, the type of activity which when you observe it, makes you want to roll your eyes.

One of the pie-throwers, later identified as Brown senior Margaree Little, was apprehended in the hallway as she tried to escape by Assistant Professor of Biology Stephen Porder, who was sitting in the front row of the speech. He then proceeded to lead her to Director of Public Safety (DPS) officers.

Little's reaction of running away after throwing the pie shows how cowardly both she and the act are. If the protest was for such a dignified cause, as she claims, why did she run away like a scared little (no pun intended) girl?

The other assailant overshadows Little. As I write this, he has yet to be identified, and there are reports indicating he may not be a Brown student. A telephone call was made to the university's student newspaper by the group that distributed the pamphlets into the crowd. The caller, who may be the other assailant, refused to give his name, opting instead to be called "Colonel Custard, or the corporate criminal creamer." There is nothing like making a joke of your cause by being a joke yourself.

The Colonel also provided this gem of a quote: "The climate deniers are easy to take down because they've been proven wrong. If we're actually going to do anything about the problem, we need to look at the false solutions. Things like biofuels are just as harmful as climate change itself."

He failed to enlighten us on his solutions for the upcoming "crisis." One other thing that left people puzzled was the target of the protest. Thomas Friedman? Friedman is an environmentalist himself. In addition, he does a pretty good job of towing the line when it comes to the center of the political spectrum. Perhaps the group, which calls themselves the Greenwash Guerillas, was just looking for attention and wanted to target anyone who would bring significant coverage from the press if attacked.

The group, which apparently has global ties, focuses on just about any "anti-Earth" event you can imagine. Most of the general public realizes that protests and groups like these do more to hurt their cause rather than to forward it. They care about the Earth, this much is obvious; however their cause would be better benefited through education and discussion rather than publicity stunts.