Saturday, September 24, 2005

Anti-War Rally in Birmingham

Just got back from my first Anti-War March and Rally. Lasted from about 2pm to 5pm. Saw lots of interesting people, talked to a couple, and listened to a couple of good speakers and a few good singers. Listened to a good many bad ones as well, but so it goes.

All the reaction seemed to be positive, and there didn't seem to be anyone there to counter-protest or anything. Of course, most of the folks there seemed to be too obsessed with "W"--which gives me the distinct impression that if Clinton or Kerry or someone of their ilk had initiated this war, many of these folks would have been spot on with it. Of course, that may be unfair in many cases, but that is my impression.

Had a pretty good time, and managed to stay fairly separate from the crowd, so I didn't have any problems with too many people around me. Most folks seemed pretty friendly.

The Auburn Campus Libertarians were great--they had some good signs, got a few folks to come along, and had their own table rather than just "riding along" on the state party table. Dick Clark had a good sign: "Make Money, Not War." That was unusual enough to get him some media attention, so we'll see how that comes out.

The state party crew was there, of course, and they seemed to be getting a good number of visitors to their table. It was nice to see them away from the executive committee meetings. Gotta do that more often.

Had a pretty good time overall, so maybe I'll do it again some time.

I was disappointed that I missed the Veterans For Peace and their Anti-Recruiter seminar--I didn't realize they were doing it in the morning. Guess I should have paid more attention--I reckon I might be able to catch up with them later on. I have some ideas, but I want to see what they do already first.

2 comments:

liberranter said...

You're probably right about some of the protests being explicitly anti-Bush, which really misses the point. On the other hand, it's hard to avoid taking an anti-Bush stance given his behavior over the last four years of war. He's just happens to be the most visible target.

I unfortunately missed the big demonstration in Washington yesterday. I feel bad about that, since I live in the D.C. suburbs of Northern Virginia and could easily have made the trip. Somehow I don't think this protest will be the last.

BTW, if you don't want any additional spam posts like the one above mine, enable "word verification" in the settings menu. That will stop the spam dead in its tracks. It took me a hard couple of weeks to figure that out.

govtsux said...

Thanks--I appreciate the advice. I deleted the post, but I reckon I'll have to enable the filter.

I'm anti-Bush myself--of course, I'm anti-government, no matter who's in at the moment.