As some of you may know today marks the fifth anniversary of the Iraqi war...so Wifey and I went to San Francisco today for the Anti War Faire celebration. It's similar to a Renaissance Faire, only the theme is, of course, The War, so there's lots of gurella theatre going on and a few people dressed as oil barrels, plus the obligatory coffins and crosses.
It was actually not too bad- some of the speakers droned on and on, and they didn't have a beer booth, but the food booths weren't all that bad if you like raw spinach and tofu salads.
Some of the skits were actually kinda funny, if you like seeing guys in Saudi costumes pretending to pump oil up a guy's butt who's wearing a GWB mask, but some of the skinny old hippie lady poet recitals didn't make much sense to me- for example, one old hippie made a poem about Afghanistan and flowers, but to the best of my knowledge the only flowers they grow in Afghanistan are opium poppies- but all in all it was OK, although one major, MAJOR complaint I had was 35 dollars for an autographed Cindy Sheehan picture is WAY too spendy, even if a percentage of the proceeds benefit Hezbollah.
However, one thing I noticed about this crowd that was so different from the protests of the 60s was this group lacks the raw passion and pure hatred of the Establishment the 60s protesters had. I didn't see one protester blow a whistle, over and over again, in a cop's face- not a single car window got broken- and the only fire I saw was some guy lighting a joint. There were no fights, and no beat downs by the cops. No women wailing in agony. No couples overcome with the passion of the moment ducking behind a bush for a quickie.
This group might as well have been attending the Renaissance Faire. No fire, no passion- it was sad, actually. We walked from peace booth to peace booth, collected brochures advocating one peace cause after another, and listened to people advocate the causes of everything from baby seals to the Eskimos who kill them. It was depressing.
Not to be a Puxocanny Phil here, but if this is the best the peace movement can do I'll stick my head out of my cage, see my shadow and predict another four years of war in Iraq. When the people protesting the war have the passion of a lump of coal those of us who oppose this war have only one hope to inflame passions--and that is the draft.
Not only does our military need it, but our peace movement needs it too. We need the draft, or the war won't stop.
