8.30.2004
Sickos to the left us - jokers in the street
Rich Lowry of National Review Online posts an article http://www.nationalreview.com/lowry/lowry200408300804.asp of his own experiences yesterday. Would but that I could experience the wacky streets of Manhattan this week. All that energy! Excerpts interesting:
You have to admire the protesters' inventiveness — who knew how many ways there are to express your hatred of Bush and Cheney? . . .
Mostly, though, the whole thing seemed, as far as I could tell, to be motivated by an incoherent and sputtering animus toward Bush. Here is a brief recounting of my interactions with various marchers. They shouldn't necessarily be taken as representative. After each talk I had with someone my friend would say, "You know, there are reasonable people here too." Maybe. But it wasn't at all hard to find people who were not a great credit to the cause of peace and justice.
A kid was holding a sign, "Stop the war on youth, from here to Najaf."
"So," I asked, "do you support al Sadr?"
"I do as long as he's resisting U.S. imperialism."
"OK, so you support Islamic fundamentalism?"
"No," he said, walking away.
"Well, he's an Islamic fundamentalist," I said.
He came back up to me, "Just because you support the youth doesn't mean you side with an extremist."
"Sadr is an Islamic extremist, he's very clear about it."
"It's their mosque."
"He seized the mosque by force!"
"You're wrong," he said. "He supports elections."
"No, he doesn't! He opposes elections."
"Well," he said, walking away again, "they are U.S.-supported elections. Of course he opposes U.S.-supported elections."
Then, this goateed, cigarette-smoking little Chomsky walked off for good.
Next, there were the people holding mock American-flag-draped coffins made out of cardboard.
I asked a couple of women "pall-bearers" what they symbolized. They said it was an effort put together by an organization called 1,000coffins.org, and the coffins symbolized American and Iraqi deaths in Iraq and "all the dead people in the world."
"Do any of them symbolize victims of 9/11?" I asked, since they seemed to be casting a pretty wide net.
"I don't know," said one woman.
"You'd have to ask 1,000coffins.org," said another.
Further up the march route was a guy wearing a Yasser Arafat-style headdress and holding a sign reading, "Poland 1939. Iraq 2003."
"So," I asked him, "you think the invasion of Iraq was the same as Hitler's invasion of Poland?"
He went into a spiel about how both invasions were launched under false pretenses. I asked if he saw any differences in the natures of the Polish and Iraqi governments. "With any metaphor," he explained, "there are going to be imprecisions."
Oh, OK.
Onto the nice Asian lady holding a sign with pictures of Bush and Cheney on it, emblazoned with the word "Traitors!"
I asked whether she thought they should be tried for treason: "Completely. Of course. Its not even a question."
Should they be executed? "No."
"Well, why not? It's typically been a punishment for treason."
She said "no" again, and I left it at that.
Near the end of the march there was a guy standing in the middle of the street doing brisk business in T-shirts with Bush officials' names spelled with Swastikas. "Do you really think Rumsfeld is a Nazi?" I asked, since he was wearing a Rumsfeld shirt with the S as a Swastika.
"Oh, yes," he said, "absolutely."
He was briefly distracted by someone asking for a small in one of the shirts — I didn't catch which — and he had to say, "Sorry, that's all out in the baby-T." Then, he was ready to address my question again. He explained that Rumsfeld wasn't taking responsibility for Abu Ghraib, speaking to "a type of arrogance that is fascist."
He had shirts with Condoleezza's name spelled with two Swastikas. "Is Condoleezza a Nazi?" I asked.
He thought for a moment: "Condoleezza? Mmmmm. Not so much."
She is, I guess, only partly a Nazi, which is still enough to render her name in double Swastikas.
And so it went at the peace march.
You have to admire the protesters' inventiveness — who knew how many ways there are to express your hatred of Bush and Cheney? . . .
Mostly, though, the whole thing seemed, as far as I could tell, to be motivated by an incoherent and sputtering animus toward Bush. Here is a brief recounting of my interactions with various marchers. They shouldn't necessarily be taken as representative. After each talk I had with someone my friend would say, "You know, there are reasonable people here too." Maybe. But it wasn't at all hard to find people who were not a great credit to the cause of peace and justice.
A kid was holding a sign, "Stop the war on youth, from here to Najaf."
"So," I asked, "do you support al Sadr?"
"I do as long as he's resisting U.S. imperialism."
"OK, so you support Islamic fundamentalism?"
"No," he said, walking away.
"Well, he's an Islamic fundamentalist," I said.
He came back up to me, "Just because you support the youth doesn't mean you side with an extremist."
"Sadr is an Islamic extremist, he's very clear about it."
"It's their mosque."
"He seized the mosque by force!"
"You're wrong," he said. "He supports elections."
"No, he doesn't! He opposes elections."
"Well," he said, walking away again, "they are U.S.-supported elections. Of course he opposes U.S.-supported elections."
Then, this goateed, cigarette-smoking little Chomsky walked off for good.
Next, there were the people holding mock American-flag-draped coffins made out of cardboard.
I asked a couple of women "pall-bearers" what they symbolized. They said it was an effort put together by an organization called 1,000coffins.org, and the coffins symbolized American and Iraqi deaths in Iraq and "all the dead people in the world."
"Do any of them symbolize victims of 9/11?" I asked, since they seemed to be casting a pretty wide net.
"I don't know," said one woman.
"You'd have to ask 1,000coffins.org," said another.
Further up the march route was a guy wearing a Yasser Arafat-style headdress and holding a sign reading, "Poland 1939. Iraq 2003."
"So," I asked him, "you think the invasion of Iraq was the same as Hitler's invasion of Poland?"
He went into a spiel about how both invasions were launched under false pretenses. I asked if he saw any differences in the natures of the Polish and Iraqi governments. "With any metaphor," he explained, "there are going to be imprecisions."
Oh, OK.
Onto the nice Asian lady holding a sign with pictures of Bush and Cheney on it, emblazoned with the word "Traitors!"
I asked whether she thought they should be tried for treason: "Completely. Of course. Its not even a question."
Should they be executed? "No."
"Well, why not? It's typically been a punishment for treason."
She said "no" again, and I left it at that.
Near the end of the march there was a guy standing in the middle of the street doing brisk business in T-shirts with Bush officials' names spelled with Swastikas. "Do you really think Rumsfeld is a Nazi?" I asked, since he was wearing a Rumsfeld shirt with the S as a Swastika.
"Oh, yes," he said, "absolutely."
He was briefly distracted by someone asking for a small in one of the shirts — I didn't catch which — and he had to say, "Sorry, that's all out in the baby-T." Then, he was ready to address my question again. He explained that Rumsfeld wasn't taking responsibility for Abu Ghraib, speaking to "a type of arrogance that is fascist."
He had shirts with Condoleezza's name spelled with two Swastikas. "Is Condoleezza a Nazi?" I asked.
He thought for a moment: "Condoleezza? Mmmmm. Not so much."
She is, I guess, only partly a Nazi, which is still enough to render her name in double Swastikas.
And so it went at the peace march.
// posted by HunterByrd @ 2:10 PM 
