The rally was held in a church, with the speakers and musicians on the altar.
The genesis of the sponsoring group was the Evanston 4th of July parade, where they apparently won 2nd place for participation.
(Don't know if they still march, but my favorite was always the kazoo band.) Sharing the parade limelight was their congressperson, Jan Schakowsky, Marching with Pride.
Inspired by their success, the antiwar coalition reached out to other performers, including "Call me Bob" Kennedy Jr., who gave them some tips on communicating in red states. (I thought Illinois was a blue state, but perhaps they were confused by the traditional use of Red around here.) According to Bob, the biggest difference between the two is that red states lack access to the media---they are limited to Clear Channel and FoxNews.
This is of course, news to us. We can watch the Kennedy family and their friends on the old media networks all the time, should we choose to do so.
Guess Kennedy thinks us red-state rubes need a new TVA-style media takeover, bringing news to the grateful masses. Apparently Kennedy went on to say about red-staters, that their values are really exactly the same as ours...if you talk to them, they say "oh, that's what's really going on", they are dumbfounded, and we've made a new friend.
The speaker then cited MTV as a great source, which the audience wildly applauded.
We were treated to a "Justice through Multiculti Music" experience, which consisted of several unforgettable 3-note songs with repetitive lyrics accompanied by the obligatory guitar, tambourine and some sort of drum. One song did say peace in 3 different languages. Another described Senn high school as a war zone because they have a junior ROTC program.
Finally Cindy was introduced. Apparently she thought so too, because she popped up when her name was mentioned with great emphasis, but the speaker wasn't done yet, and ended up with a metaphor about singing. ( I was worried we might be in for another round of song, people were falling asleep, this was a heavily gray-hair crowd.)
Someone gave her flowers, and she did the beauty queen wave.
Ms. Sheehan spoke for some time tossing out her usual unsubstantiated and hateful remarks, suggesting we entered the war to profit from it, and that our soldiers are engaging in murder and mayhem in Iraq. Sheehan said she had only encountered opposition on her road tour ("3 RVs filled with Peace Activists") by House Speaker Hastert's office and by "three women in South Carolina", so that "tells her the Tide is Turning".
She accused the president of being arrogant, irresponsible and callous, then shared with us that John Kerry's cellphone played "Hail to the Chief".
Harking back to Eugene McCarthy's quixotic run for President, she likes Sen. Russ Feingold for President, thought he was from Wisconsin, but wasn't sure, the crowd helped her out. Sheehan finished with a flourish "We are members of the human race first and Americans second, all brothers and sisters in the same universe", and then confided that she too has been nominated for a NOBEL PEACE PRIZE. (wild applause) (Insert here rollcall of previous recipients--- most recently dictators, terrorists, frauds and appeasers mixed in with a few admirable people.)
The evening ended with a lovely rendition of Don Quixote's "The Impossible Dream", with Cindy's book-signing and money-collecting going on in the background.
And as they drift out, they still hear that Dylan song, circa 1974, in their heads, Forever Young...
".....May you always know the truth"
I don't think so.
2 comments:
Would have been too much for me... I couldn't have stood through this.
Yeah, it was painful Bill. Once every 25 years is too often.
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