PrintSeptember 17, 2005
A few protest war in Chicago
The greater metropolitan Chicago area has over 8 million people; 1000 of them straggled in Saturday to exercise their right to protest the war in Iraq. So naturally the protesters had a tantrum, denouncing the USA and Chicago as fascist, because they couldn't demonstrate on the city's most fashionable shopping street. Boo hoo!
Earl Silbar, of Chicago, said the city's permit denial was meant to keep protesters away from the city's tony Michigan Avenue shopping district.
"They don't want to show the size of the opposition (to the war)," Silbar said. "It's a free country if you agree with the government."
Oh yes, they also complained about the war in their usual fashion: Bush is evil; the US is a despicable oil guzzling colonizer; money for more entitlement programs, not war. Of course it wouldn't be a protest without Jesse Jackson, so he obligingly appeared. So did a few other ministers —— no objections about religion injected into government by the ACLU this time.
Anti war protesters, peace activists, troublemakers, patriotic citizens, anti Americans, deluded naifs. Call them what you will but call them to remind them they could protest without fear of death unlike, until recently, the countries for which they profess concern.
Ethel C. Fenig 3 20 05
