The people who want to fuck shit up in New York next week won't read Rick Perlstein's Village Voice article on the potential parallels between Chicago '68 and now. Or they'll read it and just assume he's pathetic, because anyone who doesn't want to go all out has to be pathetic.

They know that if they go all out, if they fuck shit up, people will get it. It's obvious -- how could people not get it? They just will.

One protest veteran tells Perlstein, "We need to do what we think is right to do, and not so much worry about, ah, 'Well, what if this? What if that?'" A younger activist insists that "people understand that the so-called chaos of streets being shut down by protesters or even a window being broken is nothing compared to the day-to-day chaos and destruction of people being able to afford housing, or health care."

Er, no, they don't understand that. I drag my ass through the world of ordinary people every day, and believe me, they won't understand if you're destructive or make life miserable for people who've done no harm to you. Some will just grumble; a hell of a lot will hate your guts. And you don't really have the right to shrug off the response of ordinary people, because if you believe in democracy then what you believe in is the will of the people -- and that means all the people, or at least a majority. It doesn't mean just your cohort.

But I doubt you'll listen to me, either, or to Norman and John Mailer, or to Barbara from the Mahablog or theoria from the Daily Kos, all of whom really, really believe that you could be handing George W. Bush a big fat early Christmas present if you generate chaos, because he would just love to run against chaos.

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I've done a fair amount of protesting. But I have to admit a dirty secret: I sometimes have doubts about whether even peaceful protests are worth it.

Right-wingers don't protest. Ever notice that? Oh, sure, every so often there's a big anti-abortion rally, and these "Protest Warrior" people like to pee in left-wingers' punch, and the Freepers like to play dress-up, and of course there's this moron. But most righties never march in the streets.

You'll say it's because they have corporate power behind them, and that's mostly true -- but even the gun lovers don't march, and gun manufacturers aren't particularly big businesses.

Right-wingers don't protest, and yet they've been kicking our butts for years.

The cold reality is that demos make lousy television -- unless they're violent, in which case they make the demonstators look bad. A peaceful demonstration is visually dull, and there hasn't been a truly memorable speech at a demo since "I Have a Dream," so there's not much for print journalists to write about, either.

I'm not telling you not to demonstrate. I just think you should question something you probably haven't ever questioned, which is the proposition that protesting the convention is absolutely necessary.

Look: They know we're furious at them. Everyone knows we're furious at them.

There weren't any big right-wing demos in Boston. Does that make you think that conservatives are mellowing toward us? Me either.

It's good to protest, but it's not necessary to protest. What's necessary is getting these people the hell out of office. Do what you can to accomplish that goal -- or, at least, do no harm.