www.zombietime.com/operation_first_casualty -> www.zombietime.com/operation_first_casualty/
Operation First Casualty Anti-war protest and street theater San Francisco, November 28, 2008 The anti-American group "Iraq Veterans Against the War" decided that the day after Thanksgiving would be a good time to stage an anti-war protest and street theater in San Francisco's Union Square -- because California's most crowded shopping district on the busiest day of the year would provide the largest audience for their antics. I place "Iraq Veterans Against the War" in quotation marks because it's quite evident to anyone who sees them in action that few of their members are actual veterans, and they only claim to be veterans to give their ridiculous tales the tone of authority.
The protest started at 11am in San Francisco's Union Square. Despite weeks of intense planning and rehearsal, the IVAW "street theater" flopped even at its very onset, because almost none of the shoppers had the slightest idea what was going on; not only did they not know what was being protested, they didn't even know it was a protest at all, or rather perhaps some kind of high school prank or fraternity hazing ritual. The IVAW actors divided into two groups: about five or six cruel "soldiers" and a dozen or so "innocent civilians." After a couple minutes of chaotic shouting and running through the plaza, the cruel soldiers put black hoods on the innocent civilians and had them lay their heads on the ground, preparing to be executed by the psychotic sadistic Americans.
Some media members, granting validity to the whole charade, interviewed a "prisoner," as if to imply that by crossing your arms behind your back and kneeling down, suddenly you have an opinion worthy of the evening news.
The soldiers had to mime holding guns, because the police had informed them ahead of time that the use of toy guns or cardboard cut-out guns (as have been used at earlier Bay Area street theater actions) would result in an immediate termination of the protest.
A Cindy Sheehan/Obama voter got stuck in traffic right in front, almost certainly unaware of what was going on just a few feet away. A perfectly good audience member, squandered -- oh, the tragedy.
There was very high security all around downtown San Francisco that day, in case of terrorist attacks, as indicated by this Homeland Security vehicle parked nearby. Keep in mind that this violence-invoking street theater, which was probably intended to scare and shock shoppers, was happening the day after the blood-soaked massacre by terrorists in Mumbai, India.
In accordance with their carefully planned (though entirely ill-conceived) script, the "soldiers" then herded half the prisoners several blocks down the street, where they were to be "waterboarded." Since a grand total of zero shoppers or bystanders accompanied the actors from one vignette to the next, no one followed the "plot" of the play, so none of it made any sense to passersby.
To test the boundaries of what the police would allow, the protesters then set off a very small and brief indendiary device on the street, to add drama and scary smoke to the proceedings.
A few shoppers were in fact genuinely scared, being completely unaware that this was supposed to be play-acting, and not real. Good way to win converts to the anti-American cause, IVAW!
Earlier, back at the fountain, World Can't Wait had showed up and gave a "real" waterboarding demonstration, but not a single non-participant was around to witness it.
Next, in perhaps the most ill-conceived part of a completely dunderheaded script, the soldiers swarmed through the adjacent Westfield Mall, "shooting" at shoppers and making "rat-a-tat-tat" sounds.
The protesters' plan was to force the tourists to go through a mock "checkpoint," but the police had pre-emptively nixed that idea, so only the non-soldier protester-actors had to go through the checkpoint. Oh, but those mean soldiers just weren't letting them through!
a grey-haired leftover from the Vietnam era, trying to relive her past; and a fake soldier from the Bush era, also unknowingly trying to recreate the Vietnam era, but with new costumes.
Meanwhile, back up at Union Square, there were supposed to be two additional protests going on. One was an anti-consumerism protest by some "Stop Shopping Day" groups, but it never seemed to materialize. The other was this protest by an anti-fur group, "In Defence of Animals."
There are two basic fundamentals to any anti-fur protest: 1 Cover the best-looking young woman protester in leopard-spot body paint and a bikini, if it's warm enough;
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