peace march in San Francisco, 2003-01-18

[Kragen Sitaker]

Beatrice and I awoke this morning at 9:45 to attend the antiwar
protest downtown.  

We had originally hoped to take the bus, but we awoke too late.  We
ran into some of Beatrice's Bolinas neighbors at the bus stop, waiting
for the bus to take them to the protest; we considered sharing a taxi,
but the taxi couldn't accomodate all of us.

The taxi driver told us about how an army occupied his village in
Nepal and killed 50 people, a small part of Nepal's ongoing civil war.

He dropped us off at the Embarcadero One building at 11:00, where we
met some friends, and we all went down to the end of Market street to
join the gathering crowd.

A huge sign on the fountain read, "WHO WOULD JESUS BOMB?"  I don't
know what answers its authors expected.

Someone had made a number of huge dove puppets; each
chickenwire-and-papier-mache dove head, three times bigger than my
own, clasped a dried laurel branch in its beak.  One person held the
head erect on a bamboo pole; the body and wings consisted of white
bedsheets, stapled together at the edges and cut into the shape of a
dove, and the ends of the wings floated aloft on two more bamboo poles
held by other people.

Our group took up one of the birds.

Speakers stood on a stage haranguing the crowd through amplifiers and
speakers, occasionally exciting the protesters into cheers.  They
cared about many different issues, and they spoke about all of them
--- Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal, civil liberties, the upcoming
war on Iraq (the reason for the protest).

I brought some Balance bars and Luna bars for Beatrice and me to munch
on; we finished them by the end of the march.

Another of Beatrice's Bolinas neighbors ran into us as we stood around
under the giant dove; we chatted for a bit.

A couple of people wearing elaborate silken costumes and face paint
marched by on stilts.  A little later, we saw a smiling executive on
stilts and in sunglasses; unlike real executives, he wore a sports
coat covered with corporate logos, mostly belonging to oil companies.
He walked a life-size marionette of George W. Bush (played by a man in
a George W. Bush mask) in front of him, and behind him, on stilts,
walked Lady Liberty and Justice, both in chains.  Lady Liberty looked
particularly unhappy; she wore a gag and bore bruises and scrapes on
her face.  Justice lacked her wonted blindfold, and atop her head, her
scales weighed the Earth against a huge pile of gold coins, tipping
far to the side of the gold.

After standing around in the cold for an hour, we began to march down
to the Civic Center around noon.  I had taken a few pictures as we
stood waiting, but Beatrice's digital camera stopped working shortly
thereafter.

I ducked into a Walgreen's and bought three disposable cameras,
totaling 81 exposures.  I haven't yet figured out how I'll digitize
them, but I plan to get that done within the week.

A group of socialist revolutionaries marched behind us, chanting:

WHAT DO WE WANT?
                     CLASS WAR!
WHEN DO WE WANT IT? 
                     NOW!

I outshouted them for a short distance; I didn't want "CLASS WAR!",
but "PEACE!"  One of them tried to explain to me that we needed class
war first in order to have peace, but I ignored him.  I disagree with
his point of view, but unfortunately, my shouting occupied my voice
and prevented me from discussing the matter in words of more than one
syllable, or sentences of more than one word.

A group of witches, carrying brooms and wearing black pointed hats for
show, marched near our dove.

I wandered away from the dove to see the sights of the rest of the
protest, running up sidewalks and through subway stations to get ahead
of the crowd.  I climbed the architectural details on San Francisco's
picturesque Market Street lampposts, which got me to about four feet
above everyone's heads.  Took lots of pictures.

One group of women carried huge black statues of women, apparently
archetypes.

In front of our dove, Uncle Sam walked, burdened with a drum of oil
strapped to his back.

Someone had set up a booth about the Total Information Awareness
program by the side of the road.  A man shouted to the crowd about how
they would preserve national security by tracking us all, holding up a
huge copy of their sinister logo; behind him, yellow police tape
hemmed in detainees with their hands up.

We ran into someone we'd met last summer at the Love Rangers
"Diaphanous Delight" party; he had worshipped some bellies, delighting
their owners.  Now he marched with us against war.

Near the end of our walk, men stood with trash barrels full of dollar
bills, accepting donations.  Apparently they worked for the march
organizers, but they dressed like Yasser Arafat.

Three of the witches got off the bus with me at the stop near my
house.  I guess I have witches for neighbors.  I love San Francisco.

The police estimated the march at 55000 people; the organizers
estimated 200 000; Lisa Rein estimated 350 000.

More details later.

-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
Edsger Wybe Dijkstra died in August of 2002.  The world has lost a great
man.  See http://advogato.org/person/raph/diary.html?start=252 and
http://www.kode-fu.com/geek/2002_08_04_archive.shtml for details.