Letter: Debate on traffic circle blockade misses point

The protest blockade of the traffic circle continues to raise voices on both sides, including that of Chronicle editorial on Monday. Perhaps there's little to add. Were the purpose of the action to open such debate, this purpose has been reached: Multiple perspectives, from agreement through tactical objections to resentful opposition, have resounded, without adding much to the original statement, but also without taking away from it.

Yet this was not the purpose. The statement stands: Were The Chronicle to print it again, the degree to which most of the debates missed the point would be clear. The event was to change perspectives, to change our lens; the which is precisely what many, what you, have failed to respond to. "There is no peace" was no declaration of war on a tiny scale either; it was a statement of fact, which we are now as blind to as we have been before. Even this undeclared war has not ended. Yet if we overlook even that in the media hum, we are so much more likely to miss the continuing war of which this was a sequence. Or, to use the image of a television war modeled after a television show, an episode.

"Anti-war protests have become as much a part of the evening news as basketball scores." So has the war. So many respondents to the protest insisted on at least a commercial break. "The show is over; now we'll get back to fun, having the law and the police make sure there are no roadblocks and nobody gets wet." The war is not over since it was not a show - and it will never be over if we don't know this. If we can exit the war, we have not learned anything.

The protest has taught us that there is no way out: That if we force a right to shelter for ourselves, we do not see where we are. We will not avoid choosing sides, just seeing that we have.