PROTESTS: SUNDAY, MONDAY

SUNDAY
International Answer Anti-War Protest.

When I arrived shortly after eleven, one of our people was standing with an Israeli flag blocking a pro-Palestinian banner. Confronting her with an angry stare was a person with spiky punked hair and wearing a studded leather jacket. I thought the stud-jacket person was female, one of our other members, however, remains equally convinced that it was male.


We shall never know, for I have no intention of finding out.

Let us call it a troll, and move on.


The very first speech, in almost the very first sentence, made reference to Palestine. Which was perhaps inappropriate for a protest against the Irak war. A number of the other speakers also brought up Palestine. In addition to the third-world working classes, political murders in the Philippines, Native Americans, Hugo Chavez, Haiti......
California political hack Carole Migden, sounding shrill and evincing scant control of logic or eloquence, yelled and woofed her way through a pandering to the rads speech.


I noticed a slow trickle of people leaving the Justin Herman area - perhaps the agenda items and angry lectures about matters which had no connection to the actual war told them that there were strings attached to the event. The stridently extremist presence may also have disquieted some.
Too many sellers of revolutionary newspapers. The sneer about Barak Obama went over like a wet firecracker.


The response of the crowd to non-war related harangues was anaemic at best.
The slogan about 'occupation' got a half-hearted response.


It is likely that many of the people there did not listen to the speakers with any great interest - tolerated the preaching only because of their opposition to the war.
Did not see more than a dozen actual anti-Israel or anti-Semitic signs, though one middle-aged couple made a crack about AIPAC as they walked past. There were one or two vitriolic confrontations, but nowhere near the level of previous International Answer rallies.
The young doofus republican near me tried to get into a debate with some people about the human rights situation in Cuba - they changed the discussion to East Palo Alto and the disproportionate representation of blacks among the incarcerated.

Some attendees may have been revisiting their youth - Jerry Garcia, tie-dye, and bongo drums.
We didn't have a presence down at Civic Center, towards which the marchers eventually headed. But the most revolutionary rhetoric was evidently saved for the end. On the way home I passed by - it resembled an outdoor party, most people paying as little attention to the speakers as they had at Justin Herman. Party on, stop the war, and pass the spliff.

The news media did not mention any of the rhetoric, or our little group, but merely reported that about three thousand people demonstrated for peace on a sunny day.

If the anti-war protests can only bring three thousand people out, then their message is neither straightforward enough nor focused.



MONDAY
Die-ins on Market Street.

Montgomery and Market after twelve: speechifying, people lying down and pulling bed sheets over themselves. Cops calm. No anti-Israel signs in evidence. Participants consisted of the youthful and the elderly.

Powell and Market at 3:15: "This crosswalk is closed until further notice!" - this from a police bullhorn. Mass of youngsters in various stages of highly individualistic clothing choices. Man ranting into a speaker, not particularly intelligibly. Some chanting, and the sounds of a tuba. Cops looking bored, irritated, tense. Onlookers gawking.

There had been arrests earlier. About fifty people.

On the way back to the office saw Shawkat and a friend of his on the other side of the street. Shawkat is the young Arab rabble-rouser who screamed himself hoarse last summer at Justin Herman, one of the ringleaders of the intifadistas in the Bay Area. I'm sure y'all remember him from all the confrontations in front of the consulate. What was he doing in this area? He was only three blocks away from the consulate.........

He was pointing something out on Market Street to a fellow Edomite. He looked angry - I decided not to yell "Ya Shawki, keyf-ak hal?" He seemed preoccupied. It might not have been the right moment.