In San Francisco: Theatrical Bush hate

The biggest demonstration in decades turns out on a balmy day, and the city of love doesn't show any to the president.

By Gary Kamiya

Jan 20, 2003 | On an unseasonably warm Saturday, the biggest demonstration in years packed the downtown streets of this famously liberal city, voicing angry opposition to the Bush administration's plans to invade Iraq. Coming just weeks before most observers expect the Bush administration to launch its attack, the demonstration, along with the huge march in Washington, D.C., and many smaller protests around the country, was intended to send a loud message to the White House that many Americans are strongly opposed to its coming war.

And, this being the Bay Area, they also sent the message that they are even more strongly opposed to Bush himself.

As always, the exact size of the protest was a subject of dispute. In one of those absurd estimates that give credence to left-wing paranoia theories that local authorities are taking their marching orders from Attorney General Ashcroft, police estimated the size of the march at 55,000. I'm no professional crowd estimator, but I've been to plenty of games at Candlestick Park (football capacity: 60,000) and the idea that a sellout crowd there would completely fill four-lane Market Street all the way from the Ferry Building, on the Bay, to the Civic Center, about two miles away, is patently ridiculous. Organizers claimed the real figure was closer to 200,000. A veteran San Francisco policeman said it was the largest march he had witnessed in two decades.

San Francisco has always provided the Dadaist flavor to the American left (New York City's anti-shopping guru "Rev. Billy," Bill Talen, cut his teeth in the performance scene here) and Saturday's protesters did not disappoint. On the corner of Front and Market, a sinister Uncle Sam on stilts cackled as he poured a can of gasoline down the craw of a man costumed as a grotesque Bush, a rolled dollar bill shoved up his nose for youthful-indiscretion purposes. A pale, frightened-looking woman on stilts dressed as the Statue of Liberty cowered next to Uncle Sam, chained to a lamppost. "Drink up, buddy!" loudly exulted Uncle Sam as the reeling, arm-waving Bush chug-a-lugged the unleaded. "That's what makes him strong!"

Turning to the crowd, Uncle Sam bellowed to nearby cops, "Arrest all these people!" He shook his fists and screamed, "I hate this city! Why can't you be normal Americans! Buy, buy, buy! Kill, kill, kill!"

Extreme fear and loathing of Bush was a common theme of the day's signs, banners, T-shirts, speeches and conversations. "Dear Florida, thanks for the war -- Love, SF," read one sign. Other expressions of distaste ranged from the time-honored sign "Regime Change Begins at Home" to "Emperor Bush -- You Do Not Represent Me" to "Georgy Porgy Pudding and Pie/Bombing the People and Making Them Die" to "End Bush's Evil Regime" to "George Bush: Weapon of Mass Destruction" to "Born to Kill, Born to Drill" (accompanied by a photo of Bush as Rambo) to the somewhat crude but undeniably straightforward "Bullying Unilateralist Shithead."

At a booth in the Civic Center, next to a sign reading "Antiwar magazines" was another reading "Anti-Bush Magazines -- $1, $2, and $3." Sales appeared brisk.

Considerable creative energy went into some attacks on the president. One large one read "Stop the Fourth Reich -- Visualize Nuremberg/ Iraq." On the other side were rows of doctored photos of all the top-ranking Bush administration officials wearing Nazi uniforms and officers' caps, each with an identifying caption. Bush was identified as "The Angry Puppet" and Mind-controlled Slave/ 'Pro-life' Executioner." Cheney: "The Fuhrer, Already in His Bunker." Powell: "House Negro -- Fakes Left, Moves Right." Rice: "Will Kill Africans for Oil." Ashcroft: "Faith-based fascist, sexless sadist." "Field Marshall Rummy," "Chickenhawk Wolfowitz -- Jews for Genocide," and "Minister of Dis-info -- Ari Goebbels" rounded out the field.

As the march crossed scuzzy 6th Street, a scruffy young guy walked along, wearing a sandwich board with a photo of President Bush reading "Have Some More Pretzels, Bush (Fucker)." He had attempted to kick the sophomoric humor up a notch by gluing several dozen pretzels to the sign.

Another man wore a shirt bearing one of those Bush-is-a-moron images constantly disseminated on the Internet, showing the commander in chief looking through a pair of binoculars that still had the lens caps on. The sign read "Follow Him Blindly? Hell No!"

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