15,000 people showed up at the war protests in
Nathan Phillip Square (Toronto) this afternoon. It was the coldest Saturday so far this year. Lots of signs to look at, each with their own agenda:
Stop the War, Son of a Bush - punk rocker
War Kills Humans, Animals, Everyone - animal rights
US, France, Britain = Axis of evil - socialist
Stop imperialist attacks! - socialist student group
Peace and security for all the children - children's group
A little Iraqi boy was running around with a sign that said
bush is alien, get rid of alien
There was a lot of women's, socialist, and communist groups. The United Auto Workers were there and I wondered what self-interest they could be serving.
All of these extremists seemed very un-Canadian to me. Then were these girls, not pretty enough to be real cheerleaders, being cheerleaders for peace chanting "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer so kiss my ass!" then turning around. There was megaphones all over the place, more screaming about 'stop imperialist attacks'! There was a giant puppet, an 'uncle sam' looking guy beating a drum. In front of him there were 3 people with big plastic letters that transformed from OIL to WAR. A man held a bloody stick with a fake George Bush head on it. A group of people with paper-mache pheonixes and painted faces were chanting and dancing to the beat of a drum.
I stood closer to people with signs like this:
Don't you get it George?!
War fuels terrorism
I find my personal crusade against this war has made me associate with people I normally would have nothing to do with.
I was photographed and filmed at least 100 times today. I tried to hide my eyes with my hat, and face with my scarf. No sign, no chant, nothing extreme. Just a regular person, a member of the silent majority, who believes this action is wrong.