CIVIC CENTER AND THE MOONBATS

Saturday was a beautiful sunny day. And how would anyone rather spend it than face-to-face with vicious beasts?


SIGNS

I discovered within minutes of leaving the house that my two protest signs would not fit in a taxi. Shoot. Too big.

According to the Indymedia site my signs are also racist.

Quote: "Kinda looks like 1930s charactures of Jews -- You see a lot of racist charactures of Arabs at pro-Israel protests but these just look a little too close to the antiSemitic cartoons the Nazis put out in the 1930s".
[See here, tenth photo down: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/08/12/18296586.php]


Well DUH!

Perhaps that was the point, moron!


I thought the irony and sarcastic 'in-yer-face' idea was so thick you could cut it with a knife. I was aiming for a 'right back at ya' message.

The kefiyeh-wearing daemon (text: '60 YEARS OF THREATS, LIES, AND HUBRIS') was an answer to the standard illustration of Sharon and others as baby-eating vampires. The generic mad mullah (text: 'NO PEACE WITH EXTREMISM') was supposed to look Iranian - sort of Kho- and Khameini mixed with a little Nasrallah laqnat-ullah-anhu (and notice particularly the colour-scheme). Because it deserves to be stressed that Hezbollah are proxies of the nutjobs in Tehran.


Apparently the photographer did not get it. Maybe no sense of humour.



REVOLUTIONARY RANTING

The speechifying on the other side illustrated how pitifully ignorant most of the crowd on that side were - simplistic history lessons based on half-truths and ideological interpretation. Lots of both suppressio veri et suggestio falsi. It reminded me of the Marxist cant I used to be forced to listen to in Holland, and had the same strident hatred of America, Western World Humanism, and Israel, coupled with anti-colonialist sentiment and white-guilt over the "horrible condition of the world it's all the fault of American pigs except us 'cause were actually fighting it what a pity those third-worlders don't grasp the correct political point of view bla bla bla".

Five hours of it. Inconsequential ranting, and venomous hatred.
[Except for the revolutionairy march through down-town, to yell anti-imperialist slogans at the tourists and shopkeepers. One and a half hours of relative quiet for our side. But by that time there were less of us, our point having been made.]

Rude gestures by a bunch of teenage brats on the other side of the street. La adab!

Praise for Sheikh Sayid Hassan Nasrallah (laqnat-ullah-anhu!) as a guerilla leader in a righteous war of liberation against the forces of transnational fascism, defending the poor upright oppressed peasants of Lebanon as they struggle to restore the beauty and grandeur of Arab civilization!

A call to arms! Destroy all borders, down with America, Palestine from the river to the sea!

Plus a flag-burning.



The truly great thing about such demonstrations is that their slogans and revolutionary agenda serve to turn people away from their message. I'm sure that there are many people on the fence, who have not given the matter anymore thought than 'war bad, poor dead civilians good', but decide against joining a demo once they hear 'America must be destroyed, and those who kill Americans are heroes'. So from my point of view, I sincerely hope the other side never comes down to earth. Their rhetoric will only serve to discredit their side, and highlight how dangerous they and their followers truly are.



RIVER DANCE!

But the group of Levantine maidens performing a heroic Irish-Palestinian jig a la riverdance, to a stirring hero-of-soviet-labour tune, made the price of admission ($0.00) worthwhile.
Strapping lasses, definitely worth a second glance.
Up on stage, with half-length skirts, and flashing calves.

Hippity, hippity. Hop, hop, hop!

Zesty.



IN FRONT OF THE CONSULATE THE DAY BEFORE

I should also mention the bunch in front of the consulate Friday around tea-time. Probably well over a hundred people, ninety percent of them post-friday services Islamites in a rabid frenzy. Fiery speeches in Arabic by true-believers, with a distinct tone of anti-Semitism.
Who made clear that they despise el yahud w'el amriki. My Arabic is bad, but their blistering hatred was unmistakable.

Of course some of the usual pro-Palestinian idiot fellow travellers were part of the crowd, cheering along whenever the rest of them roared responses to the preacher. They probably didn't have a clue what they were chanting. Which was a call to liberate all of Filistin from the heathens by means of jihad and hatred of el yahud.

I confess I did something utterly stupid. I went and stood on the opposite side of the street from them with my 'DESTROY HEZBOLLAH - NIX TO FILISTINIST ENTITIES' EXTREMISM' sign.
I guess I was just pissed as all git-out, but in retrospect being the only counter-protestor to a mob of Islamists isn't a rational thing to do (even with the riot squad out keeping an eye on things). Once they saw the lone representative of the "worldwide zionist plot to enslave the entire universe" across the street, their screaming reached fever-pitch. They quivered, they shook, they stomped their angry little muslim feet.


So I took off a shoe and waved it in their direction.

In my defense I would offer that these are not rational times.

I have promised Savage Kitten that I will be more sensible next time.