Mild ruckus down at Market and Montgomery Streets - about two hundred rather disreputable people confronting the very patient constabulary. Traffic blocked in all directions, with a white arrestee bus on South Montgomery near the art school. Two people with megaphones making what sounded like airport announcements.
No news helicopters overhead.
I'm bored.
Twelve Galaxies guy was also bored. He moved off before I could take a photo.
Some simple-minded fat man got into a screaming match with an unwellspoken young person with a bad haircut. Even though he presented his arguments supporting the war in an unconvincing manner, it was evident that he and his opponent were intellectual equals - the top-of-their-lungs conversation revealed no surprises, no talent for rhetoric, no cogent argumentation. Such a perfect match, they should've made passionate love to each other right there and then - I doubt that they would have ever found each other again, and despite their repulsiveness and unaesthetic physiques, they made a lovely couple.
Unfortunately, they simple kept it at high-decibel flirting. Shoot.
I'm soooo bored.
Eventually most of the police moved off. There was little point in staying, as they had expeditiously packed the dangerous people into the prison bus.
I really must commend the police in San Francisco. Patient, forbearing. Courteous. Very well-mannered. Such a contrast with our visitors from Berkeley. Better dressed, too.
Crap this is boring.
For your information, the city is still not shut down. This is a breach of promise on the part of the Direct Action to Stop the War folks and their cohorts.
Frank Chiu is wandering around looking for a protest. The guy selling his own rap-ceedees outside the Wells Fargo on the corner is doing no more and no less business as usual. The newspaper vendor seems happily in his own world, unconcerned with the unimpressive ruckus two blocks away. There are several people in the window-lounge of the cigar shop, less than half a block from the angry hairy folks at Market and Montgomery street, enjoying what appears to be a quiet and relaxed post-prandial smoke. An unbalanced person at Sansome and Sutter Streets is hollering at an invisible friend to stop kicking him. The gaunt engineer in the office across the street from me is smoking a pipe while correcting some documents.
There are no helicopters. The sky is nice and blue, with spots of white. A gentle breeze stirs the fresh green of the trees. Did I ever mention that I smoke a pipe?
Krikey I'm bored.
Showing posts with label Anti-WarWednesday03/19/08. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anti-WarWednesday03/19/08. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
DIRECT ACTION IN SF TO STOP THE WAR - UPDATE ao 1:35 PM
Man I'm bored. Sooooo bally boooored!
"What a totally gay performance. Gay gay gay gay gay gay gay! Damn hippies!"
------- Eric Cartman
Really, this is a waste of time. There aren't any protestors to be found. There are no hovering news helicopters overhead marking the spot of a confrontation.
Occasionally a desperate television copter scoots across the downtown sky looking for action. There are no sirens, no platoons of blue with billy clubs getting set to move off into a distant fray. No paddy wagons. No motorcycle brigade four abreast with sirens. Nothing. Nada. Zip.
How much more total zero nix diddly can it get?
I left the office with my disposable camera to get lunch. Past the Import Export Bank. No protests, no heavy security presence, no peaceniks.
Went over to the plaza with the bankers black heart in front of the Bank of America building (targets: Carlyle Group , Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley), where I took a photo of a lovely sun-drenched plaza with American and Californian flags gently flapping in a mild spring breeze -- not a single peacenik to be seen.
Over to the TransAmerica Pyramid (URS Corp. and Carlyle Group). Photo of a sunny street with a normal flow of traffic, some amiable pedestrians -- no peaceniks.
Back down Montgomery Street, past the Israeli Consulate (yes, also a target). Peace, peace, peace, sunny, sunny, sunny... photo!
Not a nik in sight.
California Street between Battery and Sansome (345 California Street, Chevron Energy Solutions, a major target). Such a lovely shady courtyard area, so quiet, so restful. Said howdy to Abdullah from Yemen (salaam, ya akhi, keyf-ak hal? Bi kheyr, alhamdulillah.....).
And, as could not possibly have been praedicted, no peaceniks anywhere!
Didn't even bother taking a photo.
Man I'm bored. What is it with you folks? You promised a day of direct action, a day of raging against da man, fury, righteousness, traffic jams, civil disobedience, flags, banners, signs, and broken glass. Not that I approve of most of that, but shee, can't y'all even organize a storm in a teacup? Where are y'all? Why aren't you at least providing entertainment? Street-theatre? Revolutionary interpretive dance? Impromptu mime performances? An overturned garbage can?
Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored!
Anyways, I had a half-way decent biriani for lunch, along with some rocking mango lassi. So it wasn't a complete waste of time. And I saw Abdullah from Yemen.
Maybe later in the afternoon something will happen. After the folks in Berkeley finish their leisurely breakfast, and down the last of their organic fair-trade lattes and cappuccinos.
Probably made with 0% fat 'Cream-o-Soy' instead of dairy.
"What a totally gay performance. Gay gay gay gay gay gay gay! Damn hippies!"
------- Eric Cartman
Really, this is a waste of time. There aren't any protestors to be found. There are no hovering news helicopters overhead marking the spot of a confrontation.
Occasionally a desperate television copter scoots across the downtown sky looking for action. There are no sirens, no platoons of blue with billy clubs getting set to move off into a distant fray. No paddy wagons. No motorcycle brigade four abreast with sirens. Nothing. Nada. Zip.
How much more total zero nix diddly can it get?
I left the office with my disposable camera to get lunch. Past the Import Export Bank. No protests, no heavy security presence, no peaceniks.
Went over to the plaza with the bankers black heart in front of the Bank of America building (targets: Carlyle Group , Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley), where I took a photo of a lovely sun-drenched plaza with American and Californian flags gently flapping in a mild spring breeze -- not a single peacenik to be seen.
Over to the TransAmerica Pyramid (URS Corp. and Carlyle Group). Photo of a sunny street with a normal flow of traffic, some amiable pedestrians -- no peaceniks.
Back down Montgomery Street, past the Israeli Consulate (yes, also a target). Peace, peace, peace, sunny, sunny, sunny... photo!
Not a nik in sight.
California Street between Battery and Sansome (345 California Street, Chevron Energy Solutions, a major target). Such a lovely shady courtyard area, so quiet, so restful. Said howdy to Abdullah from Yemen (salaam, ya akhi, keyf-ak hal? Bi kheyr, alhamdulillah.....).
And, as could not possibly have been praedicted, no peaceniks anywhere!
Didn't even bother taking a photo.
Man I'm bored. What is it with you folks? You promised a day of direct action, a day of raging against da man, fury, righteousness, traffic jams, civil disobedience, flags, banners, signs, and broken glass. Not that I approve of most of that, but shee, can't y'all even organize a storm in a teacup? Where are y'all? Why aren't you at least providing entertainment? Street-theatre? Revolutionary interpretive dance? Impromptu mime performances? An overturned garbage can?
Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored!
Anyways, I had a half-way decent biriani for lunch, along with some rocking mango lassi. So it wasn't a complete waste of time. And I saw Abdullah from Yemen.
Maybe later in the afternoon something will happen. After the folks in Berkeley finish their leisurely breakfast, and down the last of their organic fair-trade lattes and cappuccinos.
Probably made with 0% fat 'Cream-o-Soy' instead of dairy.
DIRECT ACTION LAYS AN EGG
Quick report on events near my office , as of 12:00 PM
[Note: The anti-war community spent two months preparing for mass-protests to shut down San Francisco today, it being the fifth anniversary of our invasion of Iraq. This is supposed to be the last big huzzah before Bush is out of office, my office is located right in the centre of events. Whoopee.]
Intersection of Sansome and Sutter: a table with some activists, two or three very nice professionally done banners, and a backdrop banner stating that it is a non-violent direct action to stop the war. Including passers-by, maybe ten people.
Nobody at the Citicorp plaza or the BART exit. Earlier there had been some people with George Bush and Cheney masks dancing to the music of Barbarella - or something like that. It didn't interfere with anyone coming to work in any way at all.
At 9:30 AM a peloton of maybe forty anti-Chevron bicyclists had come down Montgomery and turned onto Bush. They did not interfere with traffic.
Fewer sirens than normal in this neighborhood for the past two hours. It is quiet. Traffic has been a bit slower and more sludgy than usual, but transit was/is not interrupted.
---
Montgomery and Market at 11:30: About three hundred to four-hundred wheatish-looking people blocking traffic on Post Street, dully listening to speeches, being very unphotogenic.
Market street is clear. Montgomery is clear. The cops are calm, the bystanders bored.
---
If this is an attempt to "shut down the city", it isn't working.
There is no anger. There are no furious chants and screams. There is nothing to photograph.
Many of the participants are having a bad hair-day and their mom dresses them funny.
Anaemic. Pathetic. Futile. Silly.
However, as many of the people likely to come to SF for further protests are only just now waking up, who knows what else will happen.
At least it looks like 'stark-nekkid fer peas' is still on at four-thirty.
-----BOTH
PS. I'll be posting more later. At this point I expect the "Day Of Direct Action' to end up an anticlimax - their grand plans appear to have fizzeled, and whatever advantage there may have been to spreading action out (both in time and place) seems negated by the sheer convenience to the police of having small isolated groups who can easily be arrested in stages rather than a large unruly and potentially violent mass of demonstrators.
Taking these people into custody is much more like a leisurely dimsum brunch than a hot-dog eating contest. And who doesn't like dimsum?
The SFPD should really thank the extremists for so nicely sabotaging themselves. It was very kind.
[Note: The anti-war community spent two months preparing for mass-protests to shut down San Francisco today, it being the fifth anniversary of our invasion of Iraq. This is supposed to be the last big huzzah before Bush is out of office, my office is located right in the centre of events. Whoopee.]
Intersection of Sansome and Sutter: a table with some activists, two or three very nice professionally done banners, and a backdrop banner stating that it is a non-violent direct action to stop the war. Including passers-by, maybe ten people.
Nobody at the Citicorp plaza or the BART exit. Earlier there had been some people with George Bush and Cheney masks dancing to the music of Barbarella - or something like that. It didn't interfere with anyone coming to work in any way at all.
At 9:30 AM a peloton of maybe forty anti-Chevron bicyclists had come down Montgomery and turned onto Bush. They did not interfere with traffic.
Fewer sirens than normal in this neighborhood for the past two hours. It is quiet. Traffic has been a bit slower and more sludgy than usual, but transit was/is not interrupted.
---
Montgomery and Market at 11:30: About three hundred to four-hundred wheatish-looking people blocking traffic on Post Street, dully listening to speeches, being very unphotogenic.
Market street is clear. Montgomery is clear. The cops are calm, the bystanders bored.
---
If this is an attempt to "shut down the city", it isn't working.
There is no anger. There are no furious chants and screams. There is nothing to photograph.
Many of the participants are having a bad hair-day and their mom dresses them funny.
Anaemic. Pathetic. Futile. Silly.
However, as many of the people likely to come to SF for further protests are only just now waking up, who knows what else will happen.
At least it looks like 'stark-nekkid fer peas' is still on at four-thirty.
-----BOTH
PS. I'll be posting more later. At this point I expect the "Day Of Direct Action' to end up an anticlimax - their grand plans appear to have fizzeled, and whatever advantage there may have been to spreading action out (both in time and place) seems negated by the sheer convenience to the police of having small isolated groups who can easily be arrested in stages rather than a large unruly and potentially violent mass of demonstrators.
Taking these people into custody is much more like a leisurely dimsum brunch than a hot-dog eating contest. And who doesn't like dimsum?
The SFPD should really thank the extremists for so nicely sabotaging themselves. It was very kind.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
NUDE PEACE RALLY
As part of the SF Bay Area's contribution to protesting the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, I wish to inform y'all of one particular action planned for tomorrow.
Nudes for peace:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/02/19/18480200.php
March 19,
Wednesday:
Nudes4peace will gather at 4:30 pm, in United Nations Plaza, San Francisco; near the equestrian statue (Simon Bolivar on his horse).
Heavens.
As Dildo Bob often yells at people in the bar: GIT NEKKID!
Seeing as most of the people in Nudes for Peace are significantly beyond retirement age, this is one place where any of us can truly make a difference. By sheer dilution of the ghast-factor.
Not that I have any intention of doing so.
I shall be both dressed and entertained.
My idea of entertainment at times involves either nose-wrinkling or schadenfreude.
And this qualifies as far more edumacalacational than anything else the peace movement is planning.
PS.I: Scrotal-inflation guy will be there. So bring your family, they've never seen anything like it. Tell them it’s a cultural experience. A San Francisco treat.
PS.II: If the nudists pour baby-oil over themselves, they will be much harder to arrest.
PS. III: Peace is manifestly not a pretty sight.
Nudes for peace:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/02/19/18480200.php
March 19,
Wednesday:
Nudes4peace will gather at 4:30 pm, in United Nations Plaza, San Francisco; near the equestrian statue (Simon Bolivar on his horse).
Heavens.
As Dildo Bob often yells at people in the bar: GIT NEKKID!
Seeing as most of the people in Nudes for Peace are significantly beyond retirement age, this is one place where any of us can truly make a difference. By sheer dilution of the ghast-factor.
Not that I have any intention of doing so.
I shall be both dressed and entertained.
My idea of entertainment at times involves either nose-wrinkling or schadenfreude.
And this qualifies as far more edumacalacational than anything else the peace movement is planning.
PS.I: Scrotal-inflation guy will be there. So bring your family, they've never seen anything like it. Tell them it’s a cultural experience. A San Francisco treat.
PS.II: If the nudists pour baby-oil over themselves, they will be much harder to arrest.
PS. III: Peace is manifestly not a pretty sight.
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GRITS AND TOFU
Like most Americans, I have a list of people who should be peacefully retired from public service and thereafter kept away from their desks,...
