Posted on 07/23/2004 11:51:57 PM PDT by Michael.SF.
Over a hundred and fifty years ago Benicia, California, a sleepy little community in the North Bay area near San Francisco, had its 18 months of fame as the state capitol. Today, the town is known more for its antique stores and artistic community, then it is for its political activism. However, since shortly after the Iraq War started a small, but persistent group of the Anti War Crowd (AWC) have ‘occupied’ the downtown city park each Thursday evening. Well, actually, it is not the whole park, but instead it is the prime corner of the park, directly across the street from the VFW hall and at the main crossroad leading to the downtown area. After more than fourteen months of this and with the return of my son from the War, it was time to do something, even if it was only in our own small way.
The group of AWC’s is headed by woman named Patricia Kneisler, who operates a website called the Iraqi body count. This website attempts to track all of those killed in the Iraq War. Certainly, no one in their right mind wants to see needless deaths and the goal of preventing additional deaths is a noble cause indeed. However, Ms. Kneisler’s interest in deaths in Iraq seems to have started sometime after March 17, 2002, as no tally is given for those killed during the UN sponsored, well tolerated, regime of Sadaam Hussein. It also makes no attempt to predict how many thousands of Iraqi’s would have been killed under Sadaam, had he been allowed to continue in power. The website also makes no attempt to track how many Iraqi girls fell victim to the infamous rape rooms, which would still be operating had Sadaam not been deposed. Of course what is the rape of several hundred Iraqi teenagers, if one can promote the defeat of George Bush. After all, we need to recognize their priorities.
A few weeks ago, it was another Thursday evening, my wife and I went past the corner, on the way to the weekly ‘Farmer’s Market’. On that occasion the AWC numbers seemed to be stronger (20-25) then I had ever noticed before. This prompted me to comment to my wife that I was tired of seeing these people at the park.
‘Well’, she said, ‘Why don’t you do something about it?’ Don’t you love it when wives pipe up like that?
The seed, which was planted that evening, began to germinate into a plan. The intent was not to drive them from the park, but to simply lower their visibility on that very prime corner of the city park. An added benefit might be to make them a bit uncomfortable, at their weekly Bush-Bash-Fest. I am pleased to say that having implemented the plan, we have met with some success. Here is what we did:
Arriving at the park in the late afternoon, my son and I set up a series of signs obtained through Protest Warrior. The signs selected were purposefully chosen for their apparent “Anti war” appearance, but with the true message masked behind irony, combined with a sense of humor. Of course the ‘humor’ depends on your POV, as I soon learned the AWC found no humor in them.
At first I was greeted in a friendly fashion, by the first of the AWC, as she began setting up her signs amongst mine. I remained silent and a bit aloof, but the cat was soon out of the bag with the arrival of the second anti war demonstrator. She read the messages and understood the thoughts behind them (my apology to all, but I am not that good with the computer, so I will post this and then reply with samples of the signs). As a side note, during one conversation with the first AWC woman, she admitted that she “agreed with the message”, but found the signs to be “over the top”. That was before she was properly coached by the more perceptive of the group.
After some discussions with both women, regarding territorial ‘rights’ in the park, they determined that that could not move us, and were not going to allow my signs to be associated with theirs. Thus my son, his girlfriend and I staked out the prime corner, forcing them to stake out their turf in a less visible and much smaller section of the park. Week two was a repeat of the first, though they did become a bit more vociferous in their objections to our presence. Actually, they were a bit humorous in their approach. First they tried to surreptitiously video tape me, while I was questioned by them. They also called the police on me, but the officer turned out to be a fan of Protest Warrior and a fellow ‘Freeper’. His comment to me, which was made out of earshot from them, was:
“We’re tired of these A-holes too, we just cannot do anything about it, officially”
I especially found it humorous when one of them chastised me for parking my car for longer then the posted two hour limit. Mayberry, I mean Benicia, does not have any meters or parking ticket patrols, as all of us locals well know.
“Do you have a problem with that? I asked.
“Yes I do. I play by the rules.” She snidely replied. Yeah, right.
So now we have a group of Bush supporters of 20-25 people, in front of the Vets Hall and my son and I across the street holding down a half block of prime territory in the city park. At the far end of the park, bunched together, are the Bush bashers. They seem rather silent and a lot less visible. I have not taken a count, but if we judge from the horn honkers, I would say that the Bush supporters out honk the AWC, by a considerable margin.
Well, I know it is not a major victory, but here in the bay area, we will take our minor victories in small increments.
Your response and words of encouragement are appreciated.
Looks like they are well organized. There are two articles about the Thursday protests.
well done!! hope you can stay in touch with us protest warriors and come to more events. we can use all the bodies we can get. great job!!
The weapons inspections were working-
This is a common misnomer, one made by the use of the word "inspectors". Actually the UN representatives were not sent to "find" WMD's, they were sent to verify that alll WMD's had been destroyed. There is a huge difference, one which is not understood by most people.
if not finding any WMD they were preventing new projects from being launched.
Upon what first hand info is that based? We only would have the word of Saddam and his followers to confirm that.
Sometimes constructive change takes time, and forcing it too quickly does more harm than good.
What is the time frame that you are defining here. Ten years? That was how long we waited. A lot of people were killed, raped and tortured during that interim. All the while, key people within th UN and others were receiving enormous kick backs from Sadaam's people.
Regime change occurred in Russia and South Africa without military intervention.
Your kidding? Russia? You are forgetting the roadblocks we put in front of Soviet expansion. Do you not think the threat of NATO was not a factor in the ultimate collapse of the USSR?
South Africa? Only a total world boycott, one w/o massive kickbacks allowed SA to become what it is today. Also, the new government of SA wanted to be rid of their WMD's and cooperated. This is in complete contradiction to the response in Iraq.
Yes, I'll probably get kicked off
I hope not. I for one would welcome this kind of exchange.
So you are willing to put the death of the Kurds into the 'context of war', but are unwilling to put the death of Iraqi civilians today into the same context?
One of the beauties of allowing the leftist ideology to express itself is that it usually is unable to withstand direct questions based on statements that have been made by those who espouse a leftist and Anti-American attitude.
This is a perfect example. You are willing to forgive Saddam for the direct use of chemical weapons to kill tens of thousands of civilians, but you stand in the park in Benicia each Thursday to condemn Bush and US soldiers for the collateral damage which is inevitable in all wars.
Well, again, it seems that you and your friends choose to only look at one aspect of the situation today. I did a quick search and found this website which claims over 400,000 Iraqi's killed during Saddam's reign. I am sure if I had more time I could find any number of sources to confirm those numbers. Even if those numbers are wrong by a large factor, the number which would remain is far larger then the civilian deaths that have occurred during this war.
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