So, so, so, I have spent the last few days with my sister and niece romping around SF, mostly walking and protesting and it has been really fun! I have always considered my sister more on the conservative side but after spending some time with her this weekend, I have decided that if she had grown up in the 60s or 70s here in the Bay Area, she would have been one heck of leftie hippie. She was like giving me the scoop on Martin Luther King and the FBI, corporate slime-balling, and other such delicacies. I was surprised given some of the things she had told me in the past, like that eating with chopsticks is uncivilized so of course, I had to eat chopsticks for the week she was visiting my dad and I when I was 15. Anyway, it was great to hang with her before she moves to France.

The protest in SF was pretty large this weekend, with a heavy and colorful representation of signs, even more signage than last time. But the coolest thing about the protest this weekend was really “the protest(s).” There were a ton of them, worldwide with some very large numbers. In Italy there were like two million protesters. Can you imagine, TWO MILLION ITALIANS?!!! The collective passion must have been colorfully oozing through every inch of the city . But some of the smaller protests like the one in
Antartica also spoke a thousand words.

But really, I think that soon we will realize just how significant this world wide, coordinated, pouring of anti-war protesting is. The numbers are not to be taken lightly especially given that the US has not even gone to war yet. I think the world is also taking this opportunity to collectively say to the US, “we are sick of your meddling ways,” and I just hope that this country will start to listen. Also, how about this: we just might turn what is a “preemptive strikes” into a preempt the war through protests….

Check out protests pictures from around the world.