War protesters have lost thier minds. I was reading a story this morning that 30 of them got arrested on yesterday. Some for throwing paint on a person and on the ground to represent the blood shed in Iraq.
OH.... hell 2 the no. They actually threw paint on someone's clothes! There is no way in hell I would have not been going to jail. You let somebody throw anything on me. I will bust their head to the white meat. I understand the whole thing about protesters making a statement about fur, war, things they believe etc. but if you violate:
1. my personal space
2. My body or clothing attached to my body
3. My ability to freely go where I need to go
You will have a whole lot to deal with. I wish a muthaf*cker would throw paint on me.
It is one thing to deface a building to make your statement...but to throw blood red paint on someones clothes who happens to be coming out of the building you are protesting.That's not happening. I bet you five dollars the person they threw paint on was not Black.
Protesters danced in the streets of downtown Washington, acted out a
Baghdad street scene in
Syracuse, N.Y., and gave out "unhappy birthday cake" in
San Francisco to mark the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of
Iraq.
Dozens of people were arrested during demonstrations in the three cities and elsewhere around the nation.
At the
IRS, about 100 protesters led by a marching band gathered Wednesday morning at the main entrance. Some of them jumped a barricade and sat down in front of the doors and were immediately detained. A second group did the same thing at a side entrance.
The demonstrators said they were focusing on the IRS, among other institutions, because it gathers taxes used to fund the war. A spokeswoman for the Federal Protective Service said 32 people were arrested. Another person was arrested by
District of Columbia police for crossing a police line, spokeswoman
Traci Hughes said.
GA_googleFillSlot("Article-300x250-A");
Later Wednesday, about 20 protesters were arrested during a march about a block from the U.S. Capitol. Police made the arrests after the protesters, dressed mostly in black with white masks, froze in place and stopped traffic. In some cases, police had to drag the protesters off the street.
Brian Bickett, 29, was among the first arrested at the IRS building. The high school theater teacher from
Brooklyn, N.Y., said he had never engaged in civil disobedience before.
"We need to find lots of different ways to resist the war, and I decided to try this," he said.
Events were held around the U.S. calling for an end to the war. In Syracuse, police arrested 20 protesters who blocked traffic by creating a mock Baghdad street scene. One person dressed in camouflage lay on the ground. Another was covered in a white sheet with red markings and a woman leaned over as if grieving. They were from a group of more than 100 demonstrators who marched downtown in a steady rain over the lunch hour.
In
Chicopee, Mass., eight people were arrested when they blocked a gate at
Westover Air Reserve Base, police said.
Capt. John Muraski said most of the six women and two men are retirees over 60.
Five people were arrested In
Hartford, Conn., for blocking the front door of a federal courthouse.
On the West Coast, San Francisco police arrested about 100 protesters by early afternoon for blocking traffic and chaining themselves to buildings, police said.
The rallies, which drew hundreds to the city's busy financial district, were mostly peaceful, though some demonstrators threw glass Christmas ornaments filled with paint at police, said
Sgt. Steve Mannina, a San Francisco police spokesman.
Black balloons were tied to trees along San Francisco's main downtown thoroughfare, and protesters at a table offered coffee, oranges and "unhappy birthday cake" to passers-by.
Across the street a few hundred protesters banging drums and waving banners that read "Was it worth it" took to the streets for an impromptu parade that blocked morning traffic.
Demonstrators also converged in
Ohio, where more than 20 different vigils, rallies, marches and other events were planned.
In
New York City, the
Granny Peace Brigade sang songs and counted out the war dead outside the military recruiting station in
Times Square, which was recently the target of a bomb.
Half a dozen anti-war protesters in
Miami dressed in black placed flowers outside the
U.S. Southern Command during rush-hour Wednesday morning.
In Washington, hundreds of protesters gathered downtown at noon for an action called "Funk the War." With music blaring, the crowd marched and danced in the middle of the street for hours, blocking traffic as they went. Police pushed them out of the way when they lingered at major intersections. Some of the protesters used chalk to draw peace symbols and anti-war messages on the pavement.
"The loss of life needs to end," said Manihi Kotnik, 19, a college student from
Flagstaff, Ariz. "Maybe if the people can unite and shut down traffic and shut down whatever, maybe they'll start listening."
Outside a military recruitment office, the protesters were met by a handful of counterdemonstrators.
Colby Dillard, who held a sign reading, "we support our brave military and their just mission," pointed to some red paint that one of the anti-war protesters had splattered on the sidewalk.
"The same blood was spilled to give you the right to do what you're doing," Dillard, who served in Iraq in 2003, told the protesters.
Earlier, about 150 people, mostly with the group
Veterans for Peace, marched down Independence Avenue. Many of them carried upside-down American flags, which they said symbolized a nation in distress.
Daniel Black, who was stationed in
Fallujah with the
Marines in 2004, said that after he returned he came to believe the war was a mistake.
"The more I read the more it just didn't add up," said the 25-year-old, a student at
Marist College in
Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
A couple of miles away at the
American Petroleum Institute, protesters chanted "No blood for Oil!" and tried to block traffic by sitting in the street and linking arms. At least once, they were dragged away by police.
On Tuesday, 10 people were arrested at an anti-war rally in
upstate New York. About 60 people participated in the demonstration, which started at
Binghamton University campus and moved into the street as demonstrators made their way to a military recruiting station. Police said the demonstrators tied up traffic in the town of Vestal, N.Y., causing two traffic accidents.
Vandals in
Milwaukee damaged the front door of an Army recruiting center and spray-painted anti-war graffiti across its front windows. Milwaukee police said the vandalism occurred Monday night or Tuesday.
The Iraq war has been unpopular both abroad and in the
United States, although an
Associated Press-
Ipsos poll in December showed that growing numbers think the U.S. is making progress and will eventually be able to claim some success in Iraq.
