Man, I was so hungover this morning I completely missed today's big protest. Couldn't hear nary a drum, a chant nor a cheer. Oh well. Sorry I missed it.

And yes, today was another "National Day of Protest" here in good ole S.F. Whoopee! I'm sure the Bush Administration is extremely worried about protests like these considering they don’t seem to be the slightest bit concerned what the rest of the world thinks. These particular protests are particularly intriguing because they've evolved into different things as time went by. They originally started off as a National Day of Protest to "Free Palestine!" then, with all this Iraq mucky-muck going on and all the anti-war protestors foaming at the mouth to bring their signs out of the closet, it got turned into a double-billing of a protest, Sammy Hagar/David Lee Roth Tour of protests.

First off, again, the whole marketing part needs work- people need one thing to focus on, not two. It's like Coke saying both "have a coke and smile!" and "we'd like to teach the world to sing" at the same time. What is it? Should we drink Coke because it'll make us smile or because it'll make us sing? Somebody needs to work on the Marketing of these things.

Why are there protests today? Because today marks the anniversary of the "Second Infitada" and I guess that deserves some sort of commemoration or show of support even though it's pretty stupid to march in commemoration of something that was just so plain stupid. At the time, Barak had pretty much given the Palestinian's more than they could ever hope for and Arafat just walked away, too chicken to actually make the call. Instead, he encouraged the Infitada. And where has it gotten the Palestinians? Nowhere. Arafat's pretty much holed up in his compound, surrounded by Israeli's can't even take a shit without getting permission from the Israeli's. The rest of the world is pretty much tired of him and I'm sure even the Palestinian's and the European's wouldn't mind if Israel just threw him in a pillow case and dump him in downtown Beirut or someplace far, far away. The Israeli's lost all their patience with the Palestinian's and just want blood and the Palestinian's themselves have not only had thousands killed, but their economy is completely destroyed. Not exactly something that should be celebrated.

Anyways, the really intriguing thing about the protests isn't the protest themselves, but the flyer's that I'm seeing all over town about them. Besides the usual slogans, there's a lovely picture of some 13 year old or so Palestinian kid, psychotic look on his face, aiming a slingshot. This, I guess, is the kind of image that's supposed to rally people. Like people look at it and go, "right on, man, fight the power, little brother" or some such nonsense. Other people, however, like me, can also look at it and say something along the lines of "wow, that's really fucked up." The 13 year old kid, after all, is not doing this because he's a big Little Rascals fan, but using the sling shot against Israeli soldiers- Israeli soldiers with big guns. Yeah, I know, Israeli oppression, despair, blah, blah blah, but, dude, the kids like 13 years old. The kid should be watching Middle East TRL Live! or playing soccer in a field, not flinging rocks at soldiers.

Here's what I'm saying- if you remember, during the summer the Palestinian's (editor's note- I, of course, do not mean every Palestinian or the majority of Palestinians because to do that would be wrong, but I mean those in charge or the extremists. Most Palestinians, like most Israeli's, just want the fucking thing to be over and don't care how. It's just that I don't want to have to qualify things every time I say "Palestinian" because I'm lazy, mmmmkay?) were using teenage kids as suicide bombers to go into Israel to blow people up. Innocent people. That's way fucked up, but there wasn't a huge outcry of protest about how fucked up it was. You didn't hear it from many of the Palestinians and you certainly didn't hear much from all the dreadlocked unwashed protestors here in the States or the "anti-Semitic? Who us?" Europeans. That's one of the big issues about the whole icky mess in the Middle East, that there won't be peace until certain people realize that suicide bombing is only going to make matters much much worse but from a sheer moral standpoint, it's just plain ole fucking wrong.


The image, however, bugs the crap out of me, and not just because I think it's a fucked up image. It's the reason behind the image. Why are the Palestinian's using 13-year-old kids to shoot slingshots at Israeli soldiers? It's not because those are the only people who could do it, or that the Palestinians are just that desperate, but because it makes their plight look that much more sympathetic when the images are broadcast throughout the world. I mean, it is a pretty courageous looking picture in a way, except for the fact that's the point of it all. Just look at all the anti-war protestors who think the pictures are right up there with portraits of Che Guerrera and the collected works of Mumia as stick it to the Man chic.

But it's not just because the image looks so good, it's because deep down, those in charge are actually hoping that the kids get a reaction out of the Israeli soldiers, the one's with the big guns. They want the kids to bug the crap out of the Israeli's. They want the Israeli's to get annoyed with them to the point that they'll whip out those big guns and use them. That's the main reason the kids are out there. Because what's a bunch of maimed and dead children when you get images of maimed and dead children being broadcast all over the world via TV. In other words, those kids are nothing but cannon. And to make sure that they get those images, the Palestinian's would also hide snipers behind kids and take pot shots at the Israeli soldiers. The Israeli soldiers could do nothing do but fire back in self-defense. If a couple of kids got shot, oh well.

I don't want to come off as one of those Jews who thinks Israel can do no wrong because they have and I'm pretty sure that part of the reason why Sharon seems to get along so well with Rummy and Dicky is because he loves to blow things up just as much as they do. Israel has done a lot of nasty, brutal, stupid things and need to stop building settlements. And I certainly don't have much of a problem with Palestinian's protesting because they should (if they did that instead of blowing up Israeli's, they'd probably have their country by now). I saw two Palestinian girls walking around today, wearing their scarves and banners and thought nothing of it (plus, they were both kind of cute), it's all the others that I have a problem with, the great. Because despite all their claims of superior knowledge and intelligence, all their claims to have a deeper understanding of what's going on than your average brainwashed, CNN watching because they read alternative weekly's they really don't know what the fuck they are talking about. They be getting played and they don't even know it.