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circus protest


the Asocial Ape
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ringling bros has been coming to our town every year for a long long time. we've been protesting and leafleting every show for the last five or six years. it's our largest action of the year. it's really draining b/c there are so many shows (three a day, i think) over four days. it takes a lot of planning to make sure there are people at every show, materials available, enough signs, etc. plus, you get a lot of abuse from the hicks going to the show, the scumbag lowlifes that work at ringling, and sometimes the police.

since my wife is the director of our local group, a lot of the work falls to us.

 

last year was really good though - i got the ringling security boss so angryi swear he came within a hair of a stroke, and i mocked one of their barkers so badly that i think he cried.

 

anyway, this year ringling do NOT come to town. they bypassed tallahassee (which is good, because i was planning to do a four day hunger strike at the civic center when they came and being hungry is just about the worst thing i can imagine).

 

anyway, here's a picture from last year (i think it's last year).

 

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/3263/dsc02001oj8.jpg

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Nice! Activism rocks my socks. I've been an animal rights activist for a few years now and I love it. I'm pretty outspoken usually when I'm in my element, but I try and stay somewhat civil and "respectful". Afterall we are trying to show people the great injustices against nonhumans (and other disadvantaged groups) but we don't want to be so hardcore that we put them off. It can be a fine line. I like the veganbodybuilding approach where we lead by example and show them a healthy happy vegan lifestyle without being too confrontational but I also like the "your mommy kills animals you filthy waste of life" approach sometimes too. Whatever works, I say.

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potter - that's about the biggest group we've gotten. more often it's just a few people.

 

josh - the circus people are so cruel and ignorant that things got a little out of hand, but normally we try to stay more restrained, if only so the cops don't make up laws and force us to leave. it's so crooked - they tell you you can't protest (a lie of course) but if you don't leave, they arrest you for not resisting/interfering. then if you go to court, you get convicted, not for protesting, but resisting/interfering.

 

and they know the poor can't afford attorneys, and so they win - you have to leave. that happened to us at the rodeo, and at an action at the American Cancer Society/Relay for Life.

 

I'm in AFSCME, and at the next meeting, i'm bringing a motion to expel all law enforcement and prison employees from the union on the grounds that they are, by definition, counterrevolutionary. no one'll second it, i know, but i want them to know where i stand.

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In Baltimore its hard to even get 5 people out for nearly anything that doesn't involve free stuff. Normally the first day main event night of a circus protest will draw maybe 8-12 people but thats only because PETA shows up. Once they leave to go somewhere else I'm normally the only person picketing.

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...Once they leave to go somewhere else I'm normally the only person picketing.

 

i'm sorry! i started laughing when i read that. i can totally relate. still, to the right eye, that's a powerful image - one person, alone, standing up to power.

 

makes me think of this statement by Eleanor Roosevelt, "When you have decided what you believe, what you feel must be done, have the courage to stand alone and be counted."

 

that's what you're doing!

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It does make me feel good to be out there...even alone but the real thing that bothers me is that I called everyone on a phone list that PETA sent me and less than 10 different people showed up for two weeks or protesting. I went to every show(2 a day on Sunday and Monday but 3 a day every other day) and called 180 people with about 30 saying they'd make at least a couple and barely any showed. It really bugs me...its very much a Baltimore thing...nobody does anything here. I went to a few in Philly and there were many more than that and nobody really organizing it...they just wanted to come out.

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