Golden Gate Bridge Protest, Public Entry
On Sunday, 11 September, my friends (I'll call them S and H) and I joined hundreds of other protesters, bystanders, activists, and regular folk for a pretty awesome peace march/rally at the Golden Gate Bridge:
Half of us rallied on the San Francisco side of the bridge while the other half rallied on the Marin side (actually, our group on the SF side was a bit larger-it was about a 60%/40% split), and then at 11:30 we marched across with our signs, banners, flashing the peace sign, etc. and our groups met roughly in the center. We did get the rare glare from passersby and one dumbass driving by yelled, "Get a job, losers!" out his window (because people out protesting on a Sunday afternoon don't ever have Mon.-Fri. jobs, amirite?), but 99% of the reactions we got, from the tourists walking the bridge with us to the cars honking from the road and the tourists waving from the sightseeing buses, were all positive and supportive and it was really uplifting. (I mean, this is San Francisco we're talking about, but tourist sites like the Bridge don't always have as left-wing an "audience" as the rest of the city does.)
When our groups met at the center of the bridge we stayed there for a few minutes of silence, to honor of the victims of terror, not only those who died on 9/11 but the thousands who have died in our name since then, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and beyond. We stood in silence to mourn the slow and steady death of government respect for civil liberties; to mourn the deflation and decimation of the anti-war movement post-Obama; to mourn the exploitation of fear to keep the country in perpetual war; and to mourn the way perpetual war is used to silence dissent, expand executive powers to a dangerously authoritarian level, and keep the killing machine on and running. We mourned the way the deaths of American on 9/11 have been absolutely USED by the powers that be to weaken progressive forces, to justify torture, to imprison our own citizens without due process, and to drain the public coffers dry in the name of security theater as poverty and income inequality continue to increase while thousands continue to die due to lack of access to "entitlements" that are taken for granted in other rich nations that still have some semblance of respect for the concept of a public commons/welfare state.
Below the cut are pictures from the San Francisco Chronicle article which mentions our protest; S, H, and I are visible in a few of the photos. :D
(S took her own photos of the protest, which I will be posting in a friends-only post after this one.)
H is carrying the first sign. She is only fifteen and it was her very first protest:
For the record, S and I fucking hated the Gandhi for various reasons:
I'm hidden in the background but you can see my bright orange sign and that I'm making the peace sign. S is next to me, wearing white with the sweater tied around her waist:
Lolflags:
I'm on the right. S is next to me but got cut off:
The Marin contingent:
Friends-only post with a few more details and more photos to follow.
Half of us rallied on the San Francisco side of the bridge while the other half rallied on the Marin side (actually, our group on the SF side was a bit larger-it was about a 60%/40% split), and then at 11:30 we marched across with our signs, banners, flashing the peace sign, etc. and our groups met roughly in the center. We did get the rare glare from passersby and one dumbass driving by yelled, "Get a job, losers!" out his window (because people out protesting on a Sunday afternoon don't ever have Mon.-Fri. jobs, amirite?), but 99% of the reactions we got, from the tourists walking the bridge with us to the cars honking from the road and the tourists waving from the sightseeing buses, were all positive and supportive and it was really uplifting. (I mean, this is San Francisco we're talking about, but tourist sites like the Bridge don't always have as left-wing an "audience" as the rest of the city does.)
When our groups met at the center of the bridge we stayed there for a few minutes of silence, to honor of the victims of terror, not only those who died on 9/11 but the thousands who have died in our name since then, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and beyond. We stood in silence to mourn the slow and steady death of government respect for civil liberties; to mourn the deflation and decimation of the anti-war movement post-Obama; to mourn the exploitation of fear to keep the country in perpetual war; and to mourn the way perpetual war is used to silence dissent, expand executive powers to a dangerously authoritarian level, and keep the killing machine on and running. We mourned the way the deaths of American on 9/11 have been absolutely USED by the powers that be to weaken progressive forces, to justify torture, to imprison our own citizens without due process, and to drain the public coffers dry in the name of security theater as poverty and income inequality continue to increase while thousands continue to die due to lack of access to "entitlements" that are taken for granted in other rich nations that still have some semblance of respect for the concept of a public commons/welfare state.
Below the cut are pictures from the San Francisco Chronicle article which mentions our protest; S, H, and I are visible in a few of the photos. :D
(S took her own photos of the protest, which I will be posting in a friends-only post after this one.)
H is carrying the first sign. She is only fifteen and it was her very first protest:
For the record, S and I fucking hated the Gandhi for various reasons:
I'm hidden in the background but you can see my bright orange sign and that I'm making the peace sign. S is next to me, wearing white with the sweater tied around her waist:
Lolflags:
I'm on the right. S is next to me but got cut off:
The Marin contingent:
Friends-only post with a few more details and more photos to follow.