Bush's Visit

I had seen on the Fallout Shelter News list that Shrub would be in the Bay Area on April 30th. I planned to protest his vist, but then my weekly demonstrations against the war, a Teach-In on 9-11 at SFSU, three kids, lots of camping trips and illnesses kept me busy and I wanted to be SURE of where he would be, before trying to organize a big demo. At the last minute, I heard the location had been changed and a fleeting e-mail late at night on the 29th alerted me to the early visit to the Tech Museum... (One suspects that the Government wants to DISCOURAGE visible protests...)

I picked up a friend, drove to catch the light rail to downtown San Jose and the Tech Museum.

We obviously came to the right place VTA security people would not allow us to unfurl and assemble our banner on "their property." We had a large 8' by 5' banner which said-

REAL TERRORISTS-
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld...
Guilty of 9-11
You ask "Why?" Oil, Drigs, Power...
How? http://www.tenc.net

on the other side (suddenly outdated by Snider's resignation the day before our protest)-

Allowing Ex-CIA Snider
to investigate 9-11
Is like allowing Ex-CEO Lay
to investigate Enron

At the Tech Museum, we were strongly encouraged by police to leave and join "sign holders in the park across the street," mounted police came over to "escort" us across the street. We calmly waited for the light to change to green (who wants to get a ticket with so many police around?), but they stopped traffic to hurry us away from the Tech Museum. The group of sign wavers appeared to be "Bush supporters" waving Israeli and American flags. We distanced ourselves a bit from them (although a few came over to ask for our leaflets "Questioning the War on Terrorism." A few anti-Bush, anti-war protesters did join us. There were a few television stations there and we were interviewed by two KQED reporters. A protester wearing a Bush mask and grim reaper costume detailed how misinformed and misdirected he was about Bush's wearabouts. I think more protesters would have been there, had they had some genuine advance warning!

After Bush sneaked out the back way and people began to disperse, we debated where he would turn up next and decided to try the Santa Clara Convention Center- which is where the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center said Bush would be (the IAC website said Foster City).

Again the VTA folks tried to make our lives more difficult by not letting us get out of the light rail at the appropriate stop and forced us to walk back from the next stop. Police herded us to join the others at a designated "protest area" far across the street from the Convention Center. Apparently this time the vast majority of sign holders, flag wavers were clearly anti-Bush, anti-war, anti-racism, in support of the Palestinians, with a token few Israeli, Simon for Governer supporters. Labor was also represented. We were late for the scheduled rally and missed Bush's entrance. There was a scattering of press, television and radio and about a hundred and fifty people.

As the day wore on, light rain fell intermittently. I recognized lots of friends from previous anti-war demonstrations/meetings/ a decade of activism. We were in good spirits and glad to be there, visibly letting "Shrub" know that he hadn't fooled us and that we challenged his policies (to say the least!).

I just wish we had remembered to bring PRETZELS!