Yes, there were posters of Bush as Hitler. There were also hanging effigees of Cheney, Rumsfield, et al and cartoons of Condoleeza Rice that some might have detected racist undertones in. I heard people joke about assassinating Bush - always met with moans as people rejoined that that would make Cheney president. While I might understand the anger that people felt (and still feel) toward the Bush administration, I personally discourage that kind of activity as it is hatemonging and, as I see it, it feeds "the Beast" and serves the purposes of "Fear Inc.". Not helpful. Label the behavior not the person.

Protest Zones are not new. I was arrested in 1993 for having walked out of a protest zone that had been established to prevent people from having to encounter protesters while attending a commissioning ceremony for the U.S.S. Rhode Island (a nuclear weapons carrying submarine). I took the case to court and eventually was acquitted.

When George W. was in office, he and Cheney routinely ordered the clearing of all visible signs of protest from anywhere along the routes they traveled. I was threatened with arrest by secret service agents with dogs because I wouldn't re-locate to a "protest zone" when Dick Cheney came to Newport, RI to solicit funds from the folks in the mansions on Bellevue Ave. Most people who refused those orders in various parts of the country were arrested for violating "national security directives".

I feel pretty certain that no one would have been allowed to stand outside of a Bush/Cheney event with an automatic rifle and a sign proclaiming it "time to water the tree of liberty" without having been under arrest and subject to some pretty intense questioning. Quaker ladies in peace quilt making groups were under FBI investigation - people WERE arrested for wearing peace sign T-shirts in shopping malls - people lost their jobs and became the subject of homeland security surveillance for voicing anti-Bush statements.

I have been a consistent critic of U.S. military policy through administrations Republican and Democrat since I was nine years old and first figured out what a weapon of mass destruction was. From where I sit, it seems to me we are falling for a continuing campaign of divide and conquer as the US slips further and further into a total surveillanced and increasingly militarized society .

Like it or not (believe it or not) we are all in this together.
Hate is hate is hate is hate. It only breeds more hate.

I'd rather try something completely different...

----
out of the box,
Joyce