The March 15th Protest

This event was less crowded and better organized than the previous two, or at least it seemed that way to me. It started at United Nations Plaza in San Francisco's Civic Center, which is right in front of City Hall. Willie Brown, our corrupt mayor, has his office in there. Among his recent outrageous acts was demanding that the police chief and his senior staff remain in office while under indictment for obstruction of justice in the SF Police scandal. It sure is an impressive building, though.

Broadband users can click many of the images for larger pictures

The crowd was much less oppressive than last time, so I was able to get to the exhibits and near enough to the stage to hear something this time. As usual the revolutionary communists were there, selling their tabloid newspaper.

On stage, I heard an articulate young man speak sensibly about the new MOAB weapon the USA tested on 3-11 (video here). After he was done, some painfully young and shrill young women from one of the local colleges got up to announce more college protests in April, and then a Palestinian activist started reciting rather simple and unconvincing slogans denouncing Israel and the USA, so I lost interest and wandered away. As I left, I saw this line of news vans. There were also a lot of police helicopters hovering over the crowd.

I read an article in the newspaper that said there would be anarchists at the march wearing black clothes and masks, who would participate in illegal actions afterwards and get arrested. One of them handed me a business-card-sized flyer which I have reproduced to the right. They were not very threatening people when I saw them, in fact they looked so theatrical that I thought they were just performers at first. As you can see below, their outfits were not really out of place among all the other marchers.

Food Not Bombs was there and I liked this guy's bike cart. He was transporting several gallons of tea and a card table in it. I might get one like it. It connects to the frame near the rear wheel and looks easily removed.

These folks watched and cheered from their windows as we went past. The route went through a nice cheerful business district with little charming stores and coffeehouses, many of which had "NO WAR" signs in the window. From my experiences in Berkeley, I know such signs reflect both the sentiments of the staff and the desire of the owners not to be trashed by the anarchists, in approximately equal measures. Then we went through the nice residential district with the Victorian pictured below, and through what looked like sleazy housing projects with cynical hostile-looking guys drinking beer from paper-bag-covered 40 oz. bottles and sneering at us as we passed.

At the end of the march, we entered a large park, which was warm and inviting in the sun. The police there had riot gear, but they seemed at ease when I saw them.

Here is the park, with a large stage and a lot of exhibits. There was a different bunch of Communists selling books, and I looked in vain for anything by Noam Chomsky there. I was not sure I wanted to support them anyway, so I moved along. I could hear an enthusiastic man screaming slogans far too loudly into the mike on stage, in a performance that seemed like slam poetry. It hurt my ears.

The next speaker on stage was a Catholic priest who has been arrested 235 times for protesting against the government. He spoke briefly, saying that we should "fuck Bush" (which he said was a theological term), and that Bush was trying to build an empire and that was not what God wanted. As usual, I was disgusted and wandered away.

It was a lovely day, the colors were brilliant and the air was fresh and clean. We did not get rained on, and there was no violence or misbehavior that I observed. After I left the park and walked back downtown, I saw that people were still leaving the original site and marching down, so I think the attendance was enormous even though it was less crowded than last time, because the properly organized presentations interested people enough to keep them from just leaving and trying to march all at once.

My students and friends who go to these things seem to glow with joy and team spirit afterwards, but as usual I am a wet blanket. The speakers struck me as naive and foolish, and most of the organized groups that go there struck me as sinister and dangerous. Food Not Bombs is about the only group I can really support, and I saw the same woman in charge of their booth that I saw 15 years ago doing the same thing. As usual, I see it as just what the Buddhists said it would be: the only moral purity one can find is in the simplest, kindest act and taking sides in a conflict tends to dirty all the participants.

I oppose the war, because I think it will do a lot of harm and not enough good to justify it, but these events and organizations do not represent me much at all. I can certainly see how disciplined and logical people would find a lot more to respect in military and governmental groups than these ragged and childish protesters. But in the crowd there were a lot of quiet, gray-haired, thoughtful people and I imagine some of them felt as I did. It's just like church: a bunch of silly nonsense is done to entertain the children, and a certain core of older people are there for other reasons, enduring the silly spectacle as an unpleasant necessity.

As far as I can tell, government, especially US government, has always been a matter of rabble-rousers and religious carnival acts inspiring the people to rise up in angry mobs and do senseless acts. And in that disgraceful tradition, these protests have been successful and good-hearted. But while I am compelled to at least stand up and be counted in this matter, I certainly do not want to be in the thick of the conflict, or to be counted as a member of any of the organized groups, because I do not really trust or respect either side.

Here is the San Francisco Chronicle's account of the protest, with lots more pictures.

2:57:54 PM     comment []    .

Sour Bob

This Is How It Happens is Sour Bob at his best, with clear descriptions of his feelings after divorce. It's heavily trodden ground, but Bob is really eloquent, and there is nothing new under the sun anyway.

12:42:56 PM     comment []    .