Saturday's protest
There was something downtown for everybody Saturday.
A baseball game. Center City Park in full bloom. A high school prom at the Empire Room. An anti-war demonstration. And an anti-anti-war demonstration.
I dropped by Phill G. McDonald Plaza to see the event firsthand and was struck by several sights.
1. The Greensboro police were in more than full force, including a Mobile Command Center in the City Hall parking lot.
And that's how it should have been. The show of numbers was reassuring, even if, ultimately, the protesters and counter protesters only traded dueling words and signs.
2. Speaking of signs, there were plenty. On the one hand: "[Cindy] Sheehan is a disgrace to the USA." "Peace comes only through victory." "The World Can't Wait for Cindy Sheehan to shut her mouth." On the other: "Blindly following a bad leader is not patriotism." "Power to the peaceful."
3. The counter-protester on the bullhorn was alternately funny and mean. "Look at the people around you," he said to the anti-war crowd in one barrage. "They're not from around here. They're from the Socialist Republic of New York." And later: "Why in the world would want to bring children to a communist party?"
But I was most struck by the apparent extremes on both sides. Many of the counter protesters looked like Hell's Angels, although there were some moms and kids. The antiwar contingent was an odd, wide-ranging coalition of the willing, bringing to the stage such pet views as global warming, racism and Hurricane Katrina.
Between those two extremes there were probably some moderate voices, but, from as far as I could tell, not a lot of them.
If you are to believe nearly every poll, this is not a popular war among most Americans, from many different walks of life.
You didn't see many of them Saturday.
Let's be clear. I respect the willingness of both groups to take their convictions to the streets.
But Saturday's rallies seemed better suited to more extreme voices. There didn't appear to be a lot of territory for middle-grounders to stand on.
Comments (3)
To report abuse of the comment feature on this site, please use the feedback form at the bottom of any page.
How could the pro-peace demonstrators be both "wide-ranging" and not "from many different walks of life?"
Posted on April 23, 2007 7:42 AM
Sure they could, Roch. Within the broader umbrella of hard-left views, they represented a variety of specific causes, from labor to environmentalism.
Posted on April 23, 2007 3:07 PM
But Saturday's rallies seemed better suited to more extreme voices. There didn't appear to be a lot of territory for middle-grounders to stand on.* Allen Johnson
Allen! Whether you know it or not. I was able to access Homeland Defense video command post Saturday at the Rally. You thought that Hot Dog vender was simply trying to make a buck off the pro-war Hell Angels bikers. Well each hot dog had a secret mini-cam in them. Watching a hot dog in a Biker Eagle stomach is not a petty sight like Joe Killan trying to start a riot at the rally.
Where do you come off as being the only moderate reporter at the rally when you were wearing that silly Ronald MacDonald uniform as your undercover role for the paper?
Posted on April 23, 2007 7:47 PM