| Obama
supporters blast antiwar protesters |
A number of people from St. Pete
for Peace and other groups were at the
Obama appearance at St. Pete College in Seminole on Saturday, Sept.
8. Whew, it was quite a day.
We reached
thousands with our antiwar banners but the response to us
was brutal. We tried to engage the Obama supporters in
peaceful
dialogue, but with the exception of a few instances, we were just
yelled out. Response to us was about as bad, if not worse as
when
we protested Bush. "Bomb 'em all", "They're going to attack
us
here so Obama has to be there", "Obama hasn't killed anyone overseas",
"Why don't you move to another country", "Get out of here and go to the
free speech zone", "All Muslims are taught to kill", etc.
etc.
One person even told us to go stand in the middle of traffic.
And
almost all of the people yelling at us were either in denial or totally
ignorant - even worse than the Bush people.
But we distributed hundreds of flyers
(though, when some people saw what we were handing out they started
yelling to others "don't take the flyer, it's a bunch of
lies".)
And Team Obama set up a free speech zone, but many of us instead
decided to walk around with a banner among the thousands of
people
waiting to get in to see Obama. And just like at other
events,
the cops kept hassling us, but we just kept playing the little game and
didn't do what they said.
So, response to our antiwar message was worse than anticipated (though
we were under no illusion of getting a positive response), but it
didn't matter -- we were there and it was totally worth
while. If
Obama comes back into town, we will be there and hope you will be too!
See photos and
read about the protests at the DNC in Charlotte, Sept. 2012
|
E-mail: info@stpeteforpeace.org
