solarbird | Seattle Anti-War Protests (Reply)

That went really quite well.

So I went downtown with

llaghlin for the protests. We'd planned on catching the 74 bus to Seattle Centre for the rally around the International Fountain, but it blew right past us at the stop, already overloaded with protestors. Fortunately,

kathrynt knew that you could get a good response time on cabs - I thought it took like 20 or 25 minutes - and we just all shared one there.

I was going to make a sign - based on the deficit graph that I posted before - but we ended up going out to dinner and to see Daredevil (rating: boring, stupid, with a few good scenes) and not getting back until after midnight and then I was lame and didn't get to it until about 20 minutes before they got here, and so the rendering was lousy and I just left it at home. Of course, I wasn't planning on taking pictures, but

llaghlin brought his camera, and since he was carrying a sign, couldn't actually use it, so he handed it to me and asked if I'd take pictures. So, I did.

I'm not a pacifist. I'm not a friend of Mr. Hussain's regime; he's an evil fuck who needs to die. I was strongly for the actions in Afghanistan, and, in fact, had been calling for the overthrow of the Taliban government for years before 9/11.

But in terms of terror support? He's a nobody. Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea - those are all far worse. But nobody in the administration is interested in talking about that. There are rumours that people in the administration want to use Iraq as a staging area for an attack in Iran.

We can't afford that. That's waltzing in and begging for the kind of overseas entanglement which this country has always avoided.

Hell, we can't afford this. Not by ourselves. It's not so much the war - we can afford that part - it's the post-war reconstruction. Sure, they have a lot of oil. But: either we don't take it (or tax it) in which case we're looking at paying for a 15-20 year reconstruction project if you want to try to make a democratic state there - and that assumes things go well (e.g., Germany and Japan) and not badly (e.g., Vietnam and Somalia). But I've talked about why I think Iran is a harder case.

Or we are looking at paying for it with Iraqi oil, and that's much too Imperial a solution for me. Other nations paying tribute is just a tad too Roman; I don't really want the orgies and the vomitoriums.

Particularly not the vomitoriums. Ew.

And if we invade - without a broad coalition - then I think that's what we're looking at. Paying for it with Irai oil proceeds. Taking tribute.

I don't want this to be a transition from American Republic to American Empire. And I don't trust this administration to do the right thing. I just don't. I don't see them having the stamina - or the interest - needed to make democracy work in Iraq. Hopefully I'm wrong.

But back to the protest.

I've been in some big crowds. I mean, some seriously big crowds. I rather accidentally ended up covering WTO. I was there for that; I know from big crowds.

This was a big crowd.

It wasn't as big, of course. But it was seriously large. Nothing under 40,000 sounds reasonable to me; it just doesn't. I'd buy 60,000, and that on a rainy day.

Of course, this was a much smaller, simpler event; an hour of speeches at Seattle Centre followed by a march through town to the International District and the immigrant jail. So everyone was well-behaved. But more interesting was the nature of the crowd.

There weren't many strollers at WTO. There were a lot of families at this protest. Not just pushcart babies, either. Middle and high schoolers, some carrying signs identifying their schools. And most of those were from places like Snohomish Valley, which votes conservative. And college kids, of course. I mean, don't get me wrong, the usual suspects were in attendance, too, but their participation was totally dwarfed by people who have, you know - jobs. And more than a few who have served in the military.

I think Mr. Bush has failed to grasp the nature of the opposition here.

Not that I think he cares.