Well, I’ve done it. I’ve participated (sort of) in my first protest. A friend and I walked (very green!) the 2 miles or so downtown to Spanish Plaza to check out the rally while Bush & consort were “appearing” at the Convention Center half a mile away. My friend is a veteran of the Vietnam Years, so she was unfazed, but I felt some trepidation. Would we be harassed? firehosed? loaded into an unmarked plane and sent to Gitmo? More realistically, would somebody shove a microphone in my face? You’ve got to remember, Mobile is a very small town and since we moved here fifteen years ago I think I’ve been asked my “woman on the street” opinion by a TV reporter three times, my husband twice. I don’t know, maybe we just look opinionated and articulate—or maybe it has something to do with the fact that very few people are home during the day and when our neighbor was carjacked at ten in the morning they had to find SOMEBODY to say she still felt safe. They let me go inside and put lipstick on first. But I digress.
We arrived at Spanish Plaza around 4:00. There was a straggling crowd dispersed along the curb edge all along the block. I recognized many of them from the more-or-less regular “peace protests” at the Loop, dedicated souls who have been assembling a few times a year in all kinds of weather ever since 2003. But this was bigger than their usual crowd, about fifty people by our count. There were a few Veterans for Peace there, irreproachable older men wearing their military hats or ribbons. Gosh, I love those guys.
We settled ourselves in the cool shade about forty feet from the street, in the crowd but not of it, so to speak. (Hey, at least we were there. That damned TV truck was front and center, broadcast pole raised, and I wasn’t taking any chances. My father-in-law didn’t speak to my sister-in-law for months after she got her picture on the front page of the LSU paper with the Nestle boycott.)
It was pleasant. There was a nice breeze. I said hello to a few people I knew from church. We bought the humorous $5 Bush plates and fanned ourselves with them. There were a surprisingly large number of passersby honking and flashing the peace sign—as many as one car in ten on that busy street. (A satellite “HONK FOR PEACE” group was stationed on the other side of the street, to catch traffic headed west.) Some people were just honking at poor drivers, but the general cacophony was heartening. One woman even opened her window during a red light to holler “Thank y’all for being here!”
Of course, the majority of drivers kept their faces turned resolutely towards the street, but at least there weren’t the angry denunciations and lifted middle fingers I remember from the early days of the Loop appearances. One young man dressed in camouflage and a black beret did walk by yelling (a la Col. Jessup) something like, “Nobody’s asking you to go to Iraq! Just let me go!” Finally a skinny black kid retorted, “Git yo’ ass on out of Iraq and quit hurtin yo’ mama’s feelins!”
So by 5:00 the crowd was bigger. We did another count and there were about a hundred right before things broke up. As we were leaving, we saw our first lifted middle finger of the day—attached to an arm in camouflage strangely like that worn by the angry pedestrian we’d seen earlier. This individual was screaming something about Osama bin Laden. He seemed to want to be in the thick of things so badly—surely he’ll get over there soon.
We walked back home, stopping on the way to have a few glasses of wine support a locally-owned neighborhood bistro. We talked about why there weren’t more people there—I could think of a couple dozen folks I wouldn’t have been surprised to see, but they didn’t show. Were they, like me, hesitant to participate in something that might get your face on the five o’clock news? Was it just the hassle of getting downtown in the middle of a weekday afternoon? Was it the general apathy of a TV and high-carb sated American public, who as my friend put it “don’t know how to protest anything”?
Who knows. And while we sat there fanning ourselves with five-dollar paper plates, Sessions raised a cool million half a mile away. But… there sure were a lot of people honking for peace. Let’s hope they all vote.
Del,
Power to the people, Sister! Wish I could have been with you.
Del, I don’t know the geography of Mobile. Was the protest located half a mile away from the Bush-Sessions
ass-kissinglovefest because it was the best location or because it was designated by the Dear Leader as a “free speech zone”?I wish I could have been there. Thanks for representing the central Alabama contingent of the Blues!
Well, it’s a large open space on the main drag through town, so in that sense it was a good location. There’s a park on the river right next to the Convention Center, but the only people who would have been able to Honk for Peace there would be CSX engineers on the nearby train tracks. I don’t know anything about how Spanish Plaza was selected or who did the selecting. According to the paper, there was a small group right there on Water street, presumably near the Convention Center itself, protesting immigration. Even though they were presumably Republicans, I was surprised they were allowed to be so close.
A lot of us are reluctant to get involved with demonstrations or really anything that identifies us as having a definite point of view. Up here the local Democrats are giving away little oval stickers that just have DEM in the middle — very low key stuff — and I’m always surprised how many people won’t take them because “my car might be vandalized.” Can you imagine a Republican refusing a W sticker for fear someone would key their car? As someone who has had candidate and party bumper stickers for years ( and a 3′ x 5′ Kerry sign in my truck for 2 months in 2004) plus assorted yard signs at my home, I think those fears are way overblown. And I’m kind of surprised that we are so worried about that stuff, because I think of Republicans as being the party of fear.
It seems like we’re holding ourselves back by worrying what other people will think if they know who we really are. In truth, they will probably respect us more if we stand up for what we believe in. We have good, important ideas and need to talk about them more. Let’s not hide our light under a bushel.
Thanks for going to the protest and for telling the rest of us about it.
Hey Mooncat, I have a little fish on the back of my car and inside it says “NCHIPS”….get it FISH N CHIPS??? I haven’t been vandalized yet, but maybe just b/c no one gets it but me!!
Well, my minivan was keyed after I put on the Pro-America/Anti-Bush sticker. No biggie – it’s eleven years old and not exactly “gently used.” But these things do happen.
I finally took the Darwin fish off the car. My kids were still young, and they go to public school, where lots of Bible-believing Christian families also enroll their children. I saw no point in alienating the families of my kids’ classmates.
When I get a new car, I think the bumper will stay naked. Then if I’m called upon to fill out the jury duty questionnaire, I’ll proudly write “NONE” to the bumper sticker question. Put me on your jury, counselor, if you want to find out how I’ll vote.
Fantastic! Doesn’t it feel good to join a group in opposing this illegal and immoral junta?
Bush’s babysitter, Deadeye Cheney visited Upstate last November to support some GOP goon running for reelection and a bunch of us protested outside the hotel where he whored himself. Many signs and middle fingers were raised in his direction along with much terse language.
500 or so days to go and the nightmare ends.
way to go birmingham moms!
from your friends at http://www.honk4peace.org
Well, with all those stickers on my vehicles — not to mention the Kerry billboard — the only time my truck got keyed was many years ago when I had no stickers of any kind on it. Why? Because I pulled into a parking place that another woman felt belonged to her. Granted, I didn’t actually see her do it, but she gave me the dirtiest look imaginable and when I came out of the store, there was this big scratch all down the side. So I don’t think we’re at much increased risk of vandalism for taking a visible political stand.
My bumper is covered with stickers, but with the exception of the “No Moore” one they’re all for something rather than against. I don’t think anyone has keyed my car — it has so many dings and scrapes from close encounters with the garage door frame that it’s hard to tell. We did catch some people stealing the (two) Kerry signs in our neighborhood on election night 2004.
I did have a friend riding in the back seat on a trip to and from Montgomery a couple of years ago who told me it was hilarious to watch the faces of the people passing me, but if anyone has flipped me off, I’ve been too busy watching the road or arguing with my children to notice.
Thanks again, Del!
Thanks for the update and for going, Del. It’s appalling that such a person with such limited perspective “speaks” for the people of Alabama.
It’s also a shame that people do not feel up to expressing their views publicly. They might find others will give a thumbs up (I do that as much as I can, too) or other encouragement. And no one in my 10-town-house row of people with different political views has ever said anything about what signs go on my strip of the grass. Seems they still ‘get’ the Constitution (or reluctant to express their feelings?–so Southern, that).
Another thing people can do is place stickers in the lower back windshield and tuck them away when not sure about having them out. I’ve got positive ones on my bumber at present, but have never, in 27 years of driving in Alabama, had anyone retaliate–even with items like the “Darviwn” amphibian “Pro-Choice Y’all” on the car.