These photos were taken by zombie at the "U.S. Out of Iraq Now" anti-war rally sponsored by ANSWER in San Francisco on Sunday, March 18, 2007.
The rally -- which started at the Embarcardero and continued down Market Street to Civic Center -- coincided with the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq.
This sign pretty much summed up the message of the entire rally.
This single protester inspired the greatest number of passersby to seriously ponder the idea of impeachment. From all angles.
Just count your lucky stars that this guy's not your gynecologist.
Which pleople?
Well...this is San Francisco. Anything is possible.
Once, long ago, it was considered illegal to threaten to kill the President.
Here's a video of a Code Pink member dancing, well, ecstatically.
Which turd?
Ever notice how Truthers have this "look" in their eyes?
Furry power!
A colorful World Can't Wait acolyte.
Homo-erotic Brazilian stilt dancers kept the crowd entertained. Notice that the one on the left was wearing a red kaffiyeh around his neck.
Here's a video of them dancing up a storm.
When a mask for the rally you select, into account its effect on people you must take.
"That's funny -- you don't look Palestinian..."
Blonde hair: check. Calling other people gringos: check. Well, I guessed we've got that all covered.
Here's an interesting couple. They may have been sarcastic counter-protesters. Or maybe not. At this stage, it's not really possible to distinguish parody from self-parody.
A small group of pro-America counter-protesters were interviewed by a journalist before the march.
I was curious as to what she had written on her pad, so I zoomed in on the words. It said:
"Felt awful about this for a long time. First march. Never a good indication to go in in the beginning, in disbelief. The[n] talks about invading/attacking. Iran put her over the edge. Joni Gardner, 88."
Mysterious!
The counter-protesters -- about 25 or 30 in number -- followed along with the main march. They were occasionally dogged by hecklers, such as the man on the left in this picture.
The Filipino communists seemed inordinately obsessed with Israel. I wonder how many people in Tel Aviv protest against the United States' alliance with the Philippines?
Moscow, we have a problem. I don't know which way to tend!
San Francisco is so left-wing, even the Republicans are Socialists.
The Bay Area's premiere Jew-hater had a new sign for today's rally. Glad to see he finally got rid of the binder clips.
United for Peace & Justice is a rival organization to ANSWER: the two groups have similar goals but are currently in a serious public spat. I'm not sure how one of their signs ended up at this rally.
Conflating America and Israel was a common theme at the rally.
This group of girls was a popular subject for the many photographers at the rally.
Step 1: Spend decades over-emphasizing racism and defining it as the worst imaginable human attribute. Once that's settled, move on to Step 2: Equate anything you don't like with racism. Works like a charm!
In case you're confused, Gaza is "beseiged" by the mere existence of Israel.
This fellow's protest took the form of dragging an American flag on the street.
Here's a video montage of various musical performances at the rally: a marching band, some belly dancers, and a drum circle.
Now that is devotion to Che!
They start young.
I have yet to decipher what this is supposed to mean. So much effort, so little clarity.
Another very popular group, hamming it up for the photographers.
Fashion statement.
Kaffiyehs are hip. Don't miss out on the trend!
This bloody "Free Palestine" flag has also become quite popular of late.
Now here's a protest group I could half-agree with. The Iranian contingent protested against a US attack on Iran, but for regime change by the democratic resistance. Hell, if they succeeded in overthrowing the current Iranian government, I'd be all for them. 1954, 1979...2008? Let's hope. (Readers have emailed to point out that this group are very likely Iranian communists.)
His font size was a little small, but he knew exactly what he wanted to say.
Chairman Mao says "Peek-a-boo!" to the atheists.
The ISM was on hand, as always, recruiting human shields and Caterpillar-fodder.
I checked out the blog this "blogger for peace." She seems a reasonable person -- apparently one of the few people at the rally who sees the toppling of Saddam as a good thing, and appreciates that America allows the freedom to protest, contrasted with most of the nations who oppose us. Her main beef is that the war has been mismanaged and gone on too long. Fair enough. I'm not quite sure she realized she was marching under the aegis of virulently anti-American groups like ANSWER. One wonders what percentage of the crowd know they support the downfall of Western democracy, and what percentage are naive peaceniks obliviously trooping along, unaware of who's leading their parade?
Witches against Bush.
Interesting: generally, the "tentacles encircling the globe" motif is reserved solely for evil Jews and the Elders of Zion. This is the first time I've seen it used with the USA as the evil octopus.
Snehal Shingavi -- a former U.C. Berkeley graduate student who became notorious for not allowing conservatives into his class about "Palestinian Resistance" -- gave a rousing speech, denouncing everything in sight.
This ANSWER coordinator sported "wings" made of Palestinian and Iraqi flags, while wearing a "right of return" Dome of The Rock banner as a cape.
Israel naturally came in for the usual bashing.
One of hundreds of such signs at the rally.
Making an appearance was this new, less euphemistic kind of kaffiyeh.
Remember the political genitalia sign from higher up the page? This poor little girl had to stand right in front of it.
One huge sign had this array of bizarre stickers along the bottom.
This one in particular intrigued me. Is it making fun of the "war for oil" meme; or does it convey some esoteric weltanschauung that eludes me?
U.S. out of everywhere...and we mean everywhere.
Ah, hand over Iraq to the UN. Great idea! They have such a good track record in Rwanda and Bosnia. And they've expressed such eagerness to take control of Iraq! Then we can apologize to the world, have a few war crimes trials, set up a few hundred guillotines and re-education camps for the warmongers, and everything will be hunky-dory.
The sad little wannabe anarchists wearing their corporate-designed, corporate-distributed V for Vendetta Guy Fawkes faux-anarchy masks made by slave prison labor in China and sold for three bucks a pop to American rebels-without-a-pause-for-thought made their usual appearance as well.
If Bush is to the right of Stalin, and the left of Hitler, does that mean he's a...moderate? And if we put a mustache on him, is he an extreme moderate?
To wrap things up, here are some pictures from the rally grouped according to theme, presented without captions. Starting with:
Truthers
Next up:
Communists
And finally, the most controversial section of all.
There's only one kind of picture I ever get requests for: "protest babes," as they have come to be called. The public (or at least a certain segment of the public) can't seem to get enough of them. And I've certainly noticed that whenever I append these types of images to the end of a report, my visitor statistics go way up. And so, theoretically to please my male chauvinist readers -- but actually to lure in unsuspecting Web surfers looking for sexy pictures but who will instead get a dose of politics as they scroll down to the bottom of the page -- I give you:
