Wonkette
The key to any hippie protest is having a wide range of signs, usually homemade, each of which features some wry slogan of the individual protester's making. This strategy creates a safeguard against the corrosive effects of Mob Rule upon the brain. To illustrate further: a protester is at home reading conspiracy theories on the Internet, and this protester's mind is churning out revolutionary new postulates by the second. The protester can write the best of them all — "The Bush is burning," say — on his or her sign. Each protester does this, the Mob Mentality sets in, and voila, it's a protest: a sea of ugly signs with pathetic phrases and a loud roar of "BWAH BWAH BWAH BWAH" erupting from hundreds of overfed mouths. A Wonkette Photo Tour of today's best signs, after the jump.
What is this, some Al Gore elitist global warming imagery? Bush is going to light a bunch of gasoline-soaked North Pole elves on fire and cackle as the flames spread south? The protest for that is tomorrow, Mo-ran.
This lady was outside the Army Recruitment Center on L Street, which absorbed much of the vitriol today. The various recruiters were standing outside holding some sort of counter-protest (an INSURGENCY, we might say?). This lady asks a lot: we already have to support the troops — so much effort! — and now we have to support the people who raid impoverished ghettos to enlist said troops?
Duh, obviously war "is not pro-life." This Idaho strawberry farmer is Pro-Life.
Your Wonkette associate editor is not very talented with a camera, but get over it. There wasn't some big twist at the bottom of this sign or anything. 99% sure it was "All Hail the Devil." But the Devil is Bush, you see! Ha ha ha, ho ho ho.
Yeah right. Three, two, one, FRAUD — there is no way that SDS still exists. Too much of a dated entity. If Vietnam had SDS, then the best Iraq can have is SDS Jr.
"Snarf snarf look at me, I replace 'church' with 'oil' because, uh, it's funny, and also because oil is the government's new religion. I'm so smart with my fetching 1930s hat. Snarf snarf snarf."
Yes, surely the War Profiteers are taking a Wednesday off because of your XXXXtra Large sign, Chris Parnell.
Simple and subtle. Best of the day. Thank you for drawing this masterpiece of crayon for us, Senator David Vitter. We'll change your diaper shortly.
Comments
These are lame. Makes me support the war.
GO IRAQ FREEDOM LIBERATION EXTRAVAGANZA FOREVER!
We go "BWAH BWAH BWAH" while Cheney goes "Mwah MWAH Mwah" is my favorite sign.
You can tell by their condition that most of those signs (except for the crazy pro-recruiter lady and the fetching crayon piece) have seen way more than one protest. Here's the thing. If you've taken to reserving a special corner in your closet for storing your sign between protests, it's probably time to change tactics or signs, cuz your current ones are not working.
The powerful peace-shitting goose of the final picture will surely do the trick.
All of these crazy protest things aren't wild enough to get those images of Ashley Dupree #3 out of my head! To wit:
Hey! What's the "We Support Our Recruiters" library-lady doing giving us two middle fingers?!? Not very patriotic or anything...
I'm impressed that these signs are all actually about the war. As a member of the 2% of American families that have actually had to pay a physical toll for Bush's li'l adventure in Iraq I felt obliged to suppress my patchouli-triggered gag reflex and take part in the September 2005 protest march. But once there I was a little confused about what we were protesting. Israel in Palestine? Land rights for Native Americans? Global warming? The drug war in Colombia? GET ON MESSAGE PEOPLE!
Am I the only one who wants to drop a bomb on these people? Hey, if Bush is in town, that's a two-fer...
@Eac_o_System: YEAH! Little old ladies who like telling war protesters to f-off. I loves it!
What? No:
War for Profit Makes Me Sick
Bush and Cheney Eat Saudi Dick?
or
Stop This Evil War
And Also Show Me Your Titties
@Eac_o_System: stifler's mom?
@Pelagius: Your forgot "Free Mumia"
can we has wall around DC now?
@JimNewell: Wow. I think you've just discovered the opposite of Viagra.
@JimNewell: Exactly what I thought. Stifler's mom minus 20 years. Actually more like 5.
@DudeLooksLikeALady: I think there are a lot more little old ladies among the protesters. Only people left in the US with any common sense.
I only want to drop a bomb on the dildos from the Answer Coalition. In the normal course of things they are the ones screwing up the stop the war message by including the Free Mumia, free Palestine, stop DU, crush the state, decriminalize hemp and the Shining Path constituencies into the anti-war demonstrations. They are rotten Maoists.
@FlakJack: Hopefully, it doesn't last four hours....
Those protesters are weak. Now THIS is a protest:
How come Wonkette forgot to make fun of all those troops over the weekend whining about the horrible things the army made them do in Iraq
+ Watch video
I swear to fucking god I'm about to start supporting the war just out of hatred for those fucking douchebags.
@JimNewell:
I am strangely and unexplainably aroused by this photo.
@catmybunny: Please give me the exact location of this protest. I want to.... investigate.
@Pelagius: @Publican: Oh goodness ... I think that may be the reason we ended up with a complacent majority of Democrats in the House and Senate ... we were off message! It's complex... 2002 we were just waking up ... 2003 we were bogged down by pro-warites ... 2004 we were too focused on lame candidate John Kerry ... 2005 we were recooperating from presidential defeat ... and this year: Ashley Dupree@Eac_o_System: Your fault!!!
@PeteJayhawk: Aw, hell, even most of the troops don't support the war. Hating this war/this presidency can be mutually exclusive from hating loud-mouthed, ignorant, smelly, paultarded jackasses that have made war protests a joke in the last 5 years.
@catmybunny: But, they aren't burning the right bras.
Well, except the tranny, and the pink-braed chick front and center. They can leve 'em on.
because posting slightly irrelevant videos is my favorite: I think we should have gotten an interview or two
[www.thedailyshow.com]
@scotterl:
I have an all the answers for the Answer folks:
An emphatic NO. NO NO NO.
@shortsshortsshorts: Agreed, good Maoists stay on message...
Anti-War Protests will be cool again when they bring back the draft. And/or martial law.
This is good stuff though:
[www.liveleak.com]
Performers at Iraq Protest in San Francisco
3/19/2008
"Insane in the McCain brain."
Instant protest:
Q: "What do we want?"
A: [Everybody in crowd shouts something different]
Q: "When do we want it?"
A: "NOW!!!"
Well, the Winter Soldier event was ignored by The New York Times, the TV Networks, Wonkette, etc, but today's protesters made it into the Times: [www.nytimes.com] good work, protestards!
@magneticfields:
NY's got Nothin' on SF.... [www.sfgate.com]
Imagine the snark if Wonkette had been inconvenienced by MLK and his crowd? "I have a dream...that one day all of these annoying black people get back on the bus..."
@Gopherit: No, I know that. I just hate these douchebag dirty hippie-types so much I'm considering buying a Ford Expedition and enlisting just to spite them.
@PeteJayhawk:
Please do. You will probably need payday loans to keep your SUV running and that thought makes me happy.
PAX NOT POX
@palmbeachmaven: Yeah, because today's protests were so terribly effective.
Smoking dope and dancing to shitty cover bands makes you a poser, not a progressive.
@magneticfields: Well, I posted something about the Winter Soldier thing last night on one of the Ashley threads.
[wonkette.com]
Speaking of protests, Gordon Browne is going to meet with the Dalai Lama, and protesters are demonstrating today at the Chinese embassy in Seoul, Korea, against the crackdown in Tibet just before the Beijing Olympics.
@Gopherit:
Nevertheless, these annoying, ill-organized DFHs thought the Iraq War was a pretty fucking stupid idea from the get-go which is more than I can say about the so-called DC brain trust running this country.
Nothing about morans getting brains today???
@palmbeachmaven: There's a big difference between inspiring hope for a cause and being an annoyance and therefore liability to a cause by the group's actions. Due to their actions today, the anti-war protesters fell into the second category.
It doesn't help the anti-war movement to have protests like those seen in DC today, and I guarantee you the few leaders still pro-war in DC were happy to see it pan out that way.
@Gopherit: The few leaders still pro-war? Who exactly are the anti-war leaders in DC, please tell?
@palmbeachmaven: Hahaha.
No.
Some of us that aren't dirty hippies went out and got real jobs so we don't have to settle for driving ethnic peace bicycles to the co-op.
@magneticfields: You'd be hard-pressed to find a Dem leader who is happy about the war...my definition of pro-war. Now, if we're talking invertebrate, scum-sucking politicians who won't vote their consciences, well, you're right there.
@Gopherit:
Note to self: Organize a less annoying, more suitable anti-war demonstration to protest the tenth anniversary of the Iraq War.
@Gopherit: I don't know if you checked any of it out, but really, this was tragically pathetic. This "K Street" group of a couple hundred was dancing in costumes, to M.I.A. and some other mix station on a big stereo, walking in front of cars. It was a fucking pub crawl, minus the alcohol (well probably not), that took the High Cause of ending the Iraq War as an excuse to be even more careless and obnoxious. I don't even think, deep down, they "meant well" with this protest -- in that they really, really hoped to effect change today. Bland self-justification and a day off, that's it. What was it Ken said recently... this country should be bombed from space, forever.
@palmbeachmaven: With the way your buddies protest, that's probably not giving enugh time for planning.
@JimNewell: No, I'm in Arizona. You would think the home state of John "War! War! War!" McCain could muster a decent anti-war protest, but it's Spring Break and it's warm outside. It's too much like work for the folks who normally represent the anti-war point of view around here.
Except for the little old ladies that picket in front of the military recruiters in Tucson. They're out every Wed morning, and will be until the stupidity ends.
. @JimNewell:
I don't even think, deep down, they "meant well" with this protest -- in that they really, really hoped to effect change today.
Yeah, I'm pretty skeptical that those 200 DFHs thought they were going to effect any change today. You'd have to be dumb as a bag of hammers to think that.
But you guys at Wonkette have to get a grip. You spent the entire day bitching about some harmless hippies who annoyed the shit out of you because they felt like letting off steam about our lousy government.
The way you go on, you sound as propietary about the nation's capital as Sally Quinn when she complained that the Clintons had ruined "her" town.
I've been against this war for at least four years now, I think it's the greatest foreign policy disaster in United States history, and I legitimately believe there are grounds for trying Rumsfeld as a war criminal.
And yet, these protesters make me want to go outside, find a hippie (I live in the East Village, shouldn't be too hard), and punch him good.
They use the power of Rock N' Roll to change the world, wooohooooooo!
@JimNewell: Your critique would cut a lot deeper if you had paid any attention to the courageous winter soldiers explaining just what the US is doing in Iraq. But apparently the only thing that can distract you from the rather limited charms of Ashley Dupre is dancing polar bears. So bring on the polarbeartards!
@PeteJayhawk: Please enlist!
why is everyone hating on the freaks? i LOVE these weirdos! i actually feel kinda normal at events like this. wrong?
also, i am gay for home-made protest signs.
@magneticfields: Hey, I don't pretend to feel passionately about anything, making me a different species of douchebag. As far as the Winter Soldier stuff, I've been following that stuff pretty closely, but I don't feel shallow for not trying to translate that into a Wonkette post (it would take hours to pin down the right tone -- hours!). Isn't it sad that we used to think these protests (especially the much larger ones in '05 and whenever) might really go somewhere? As long as either party can find at least marginal political utility out of staying in Iraq, we'll be there. In the meantime, if people want to dress up like polar bears and dance via some new interpretation of "war protest," we'll have fun with them, because why not, it is comical and nothing else.
@Gopherit:
Hey hey
Ho ho
Tired hippie slogans have got to go
Repeat arythmically several times, until the reefer slows your reflexes
What do we want?
Better sloganeering
When do we want it
now!
...if not twenty years ago.
@MikeL: Yes, exactly. F-ing hippies. Saying the same shit that the natural fibre crowd was parroting when I was in college 20 years ago, which was the same shit that the hippies were saying when my uncle was in college, in 1968 (right before his adventures in South East Asia).
For fucks' sake, hippies, at least take one course on social movemnents or protest or media studies, or anything that will help you fully grok the futility of your little stunts. Oh, and don't vote for Ralph Nader. Fucking douches.
@SloppyCronkite: These are lame. Makes me support the war. 'GO IRAQ FREEDOM LIBERATION EXTRAVAGANZA FOREVER!'
How 'bout this one...'OIF! OIF! OIF!'
@JimNewell: Hey Jim, what're you doing up so late? never seen you on here after midnight!
@feelclose: 'peace-shitting goose' ...heh, heh, heh...that's funny, and we could sure use some more of 'em at a time like this! (...AND very perceptive...I sure didn't see it the first time?)
@JimNewell: I agree with you on the Winter Soldier...I've watched a couple of hours and THAT should be mandatory viewing for ALL Americans! peace, out
Excuse me - brain trust?
I was just wondering - since you've declared all forms of protest as essentially pointless, how do we get the troops out of Iraq?
No, seriously..
@RevWaldo: very simple: put a democrat in the white house. if either starts to renege on a pledge for withdrawal, hope the political reality of likely re-election defeat reverses that. cross your fingers and sacrifice small animals to zeus.
@RevWaldo: I think the objection might be to stoned, polar bar-furry types and the like.
You think that's effective?
@JimNewell: Yeah.....but make sure they have a spine. I think that's stopped being a pre-reg for Dems around 2001.
@Gopherit: yes, that whole difference between serious protests that keep up the pressure on politicians vs. protests that marginalize the cause. although dancing is fun.
@JimNewell: I'll be the first person to put on a polar bear costume and dance on Cheney's grave.....but this war stuff is to goddamn serious for the bullshit that happened today.
@JimNewell: Oh, and I hope there's snark-worthy news tomorrow. Today was way to serious.
Where have all the flowers gone? : (
@jagorev:Well asswipe you live in the East Village too? What ever for?You ought to be thanking a hippie everyday for all the dope you do and for getting to fuck whatever it is you like to fuck and even the ability to post the word fuck and not get thrown in jail. Oh yes, I almost forgot you should remember you'll never get drafted and forced to serve in a war you know is immoral along side the extra douchy @PeteJayhawk: who is always talking about enlisting but would have to be dragged by his nuts all the way to Iraq because hippies ended the draft so the poor soldiers we all support wouldn't have to deal with douche bags like we have now in the East Village.
No, I did not go and stand in the rain to protest this stupid war again. Why chance getting my poor old ass kicked by people who think they have real jobs?This war won't end until Iraq sucks this country dry no matter who is elected@