DEMO AND COUNTER DEMO

Saturday was lovely - sunny, not too warm, hardly a cloud in the sky.

A lovely day to spend some time out doors - at a counter-demo.


Some hundred or so of us on the south side of Market Street, versus around two-thousand on the other side. Not all of whom were members of International ANSWER or similar front-groups. Most were probably the usual ultra-lefties, willing to troll for any group that demands the U.S. be destroyed and willing to scream in favour of violent radicals in third-world hell-holes.


SIGNS:
Iraq. Iran. Cuba and Venezuela. Sudan. Free-Mason conspiracy. Bankers. Christians. North-Korea. Animals. Skull-and-crosbones. A zombie. A big hand. A bald man. A rabbit. Spandex. Orange jumpsuits. A big bird. Bushzerkers. Bad grammar, mis-spellings, and incomprehensible stuff.



Kinda hard to figure out what it was all about - several signs were off-message, some of the agendas were inchoate anger only.


All the usual anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic garbage slogan signs and banners were evident.
Though the protest was SUPPOSED to be about Iraq, these folks just cannot leave their favoured props in the closet.
Israel, in their eyes, is the alpha and omega of all that they think wrong with the world.


Their sound-system was mediocre, so their speechifying was well-nigh incomprehensible (it often is, but this time it was because of sound quality, not content).

Grumble, rumble, rumble, roar. Belch, static, shriek, mumble mumble mumble.

Imagine listening to an airport announcement. An angry airport announcement. An airport announcement that lasts for well-over two bitchy haranguing hours (that airport has issues, and desperately needs therapy).

After working up the emotions of the crowd, they moved off down Market Street, to win friends and influence people in the shopping district. Or overturn garbage cans outside of Macys.



Hatred of Jews was strangely back-burnered (though nevertheless present -- as someone put it "anti-Semitism is like crack, they just can't keep away from it").

Maybe they finally realized that overtly screaming obscenities about the Zionist world plot turns off all rational people.

Strange how that works.


It is also quite possible that International ANSWER deliberately advised the hard-core Muslim fundamentalists and Islamo-nationalists not to come this time - sad to say, the usual lively young Levantine thuggim were not in attendance. Not the bald fellow with the likeable grin and creative slogans, nor the brutish oaf with nazi-salutes. Nor even the buff bullethead (on probation, I've heard - he was arrested for flag-burning at the previous love-fest).

No inbred-looking Abdullah the Shrimp-Boy with dull eyes and plastic darbuqa (for playing revolutionary rythms on). No feisty vixen with the flashing eyes. No long-tressed temptress with mouth agape in sensuous outrage. No rabid gazelle with shapely calves in tight denim.

Not even the livid plump charmer who shook so delightfully four months ago.

There were no hate-filled anti-Semitic chants. No Arabic screams about el yahud. No yallah yallah paeans about the latest suicidal fanatic, or the Islamo-loony of the hour. No praise-songs to sheikhs or mullahs. No formulaic curses and vitriol.


Even the poisonous potato woman, seduced by a Palestinian and converted to her bed-mate's cause, was absent.

In front of the consulate three months before, even from across the street, one could tell that spit was flying from her scream-hole. She trembled with fury, she vibrated, she quivered, she nictitated (tick nervosa?), and her jowls wobbled. A flapping, foaming, fist-clenched hopping harpy. Dumpy virago in a bag-dress and kerchief - very tzniusdik.

I missed her. I was kinda hoping this time to witness a fit.

I know she can do it.

Oh well, maybe next time - I'm keeping the faith, baby.



The angry hawk-faced Imam in the dishdasha was also absent.

He normally shows up at these events....

Maybe he blew himself up?



The most exciting thing on the north side of Market was the little tyke with a kefiyeh hiding his face, only his eyes showing, resolutely flashing us a V sign. Just the cutest little fellow.



Final note: My sign said "Int'l Answer, apologists for Janjaweedism!" It was as pointed as I could get without offending ethnic or religious sensitivities.

But the thought was there.