Thousands of British protestors are storming the streets ... well, sort of, as David Carr lets us know at Samizdata:

I took my camera along because, frankly, I was expecting sparks to fly but as I stepped out of Goodge Street Underground Station into the pre-demo melee, I detected an atmosphere that I judged to be disappointingly muted. Perhaps I had set the bar of my expectations too high. The gathering protestors seemed to me to be quite bouyant but way short of combustible. You don't spend three decades attending soccer matches in England without developing a sense of smell for impending mob violence. There was not even a whiff of it here.

Carr notes that the turnout was much less than trumpeted, although it was estimated at 70,000, which is not a small showing. He details the composition of the crowd as a "usual suspects" crowd consisting of:

Socialist Workers, Young Socialist Workers, Old Socialist Workers, Retired Socialist Workers, Communist Revolutionaries, Trade Unionists, Enviro-mentalists, Gay Rights, Animal Rights, Anarchist Rights, a whole slew of ageing CND veterans, a mere smattering of Islamic banners and one po-faced old duffer demanding 'Subsidies For The Arts Now!'. No, this was pretty much a whitebread event. Or, more accurately, a redbread event. It was if the Guardian has disgorged the contents of its subscription database onto the streets of London.

Now, everyone has a right to speak up in a democracy; as Bush tellingly reminded the protestors last night, it's a right that the Iraqis have just now been able to exercise as well, no thanks to this crowd. But we're not about to allow our foreign policy and national security to be dictated by people like this:

Yes, from right to left, Fred Flintstone, Barney Rubble, and Fred's mother-in-law want to protect us by disarming us. Great costumes, bad teeth, and no brains. Exactly what I look for in serious political debate.

Read the whole thing. Like one of his commenters note, David Carr has a gift for satire.

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry is