Protests in Los Angeles

I don't know why, but I watched some of C-SPAN's coverage of the LA protests. Some highlights:

• A sign in the audience read: "Bush: Anti-Christ in the Making." So let's tally up what our peace activist friends have discovered about our president so far: he's a rogue cowboy; he's dumber than a ten-gallon hat; he's in league with Big Oil; he's Hitler; he's a messianic fundamentalist; and he's the Anti-Christ (or is he just a anti-Christ?). You think at a certain point our friends would see how oxymoronic this all is--not to mention how just plain silly--and abandon the "Bush is X" line of "reasoning."

• A Zen Buddhist, who looked like a Jedi Knight, revealed the answer to all of the world's problems: for ten minutes each day, we should just be silent and listen. That will make us more pure, more peaceful; and a peaceful people leads to a peaceful country; and a peaceful country leads to a peaceful world. The ghosts of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Lenin could be seen doubled over in laughter.

• A nurse, upset over budget cuts to a LA hospital, naturally blamed Bush for killing people both in Iraq and in LA. She also said that the US is buring hospitals in Iraq. She punctuated her rant with occassional outbursts of "health care, not warfare." At one point, it sounded like she said "health care, not welfare."

• A young Muslim woman led a ecumenical prayer. I wonder if she knows that some Muslims in Iraq weren't allowed to pray or attend mosque under Saddam's rule.

• The overall theme now is that the US is going to occupy Iraq and force Iraqi citizens to eat at McDonald's and KFC, thus killing them slowly. The horror, the horror.