First things first: I did not attend the Occupy Portland protest on purpose; I was in Old Town for my own reasons.--- Like many who stayed away, I have always been leery of large masses of people shouting for one side or another, whether at stadiums or in street marches, even if the side they're on is my own.

The reason is less the suffocating claustrophobia of such crowds—though this is also true—but rather something akin to a scene described in Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being: When a Czechoslovakian political refugee declines to participate in a political march against the Russian occupation of her country, it is out of a feeling that "behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil and that the image of that evil was a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unison." Which is to say I have always found myself more in tune with the dogged, often lonely, unsung work of community organizers, advocates and longtime volunteers, however rare such dedication may be. It is not that symbolic manifestations have no power, but that such symbols often spin out of the control of even the best intentioned.