It was 3 blocks long and took up the sidewalk on one side of the street. That was all. In New York. Signs included: "US out of Cuba" and "End the Occupation - Iraq and Palestine."
The march in London seems just as bedraggled, and protesters ambivalent:
'I'm not really against the occupation; I don't think we should pull out,' said Laura Parry, from Leeds. 'I'm here because Tony Blair sneered at us after the 15 February march. I want to show him we haven't forgotten that,' she added.This reminds me of a friend who called me before the big march last February (was that only seven months ago?) to ask if I was going.
"To heckle, maybe," I said. "But probably not."
She was surprised I was for the war, then asked me for some more information. It became clear she had been planning to go to the protest because a group from her synagogue was going, and she had no opinion of her own at all. She was just doing what her friends were doing. (These people are in their 40s.)
When you view some news about a protest, imagine how many of the people there are like Laura Parry or my friend, and subtract them from the total.
Meanwhile, this is one of the best fiskings yet of the antiwar position(s).
(These links are courtesy of Hurry Up Harry, who instigated a "virtual counter-protest" to this week's global antiwar activities. Jeff Jarvis, Norm Geras, and Bill Herbert all contributed - go to Harry's blog and follow the links.)
Oxblog reports on protest activity in Cambridge, MA.
A Rosh Hashana cut short by terrorists, and a funeral. This is the 3rd anniversary of Intifada II, remember?
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