I canvassed the weekly Sunday anti-war vigil from 1:30 to 3:30 at Chicago Arts Institute yesterday. It is a very lively and spirited demo. There were about twelve demonstrators who made a message and commotion, with their signs, including the ones that said “honk for peace” on busy Michigan Avenue, and their fists stabbing victory toward the sky, far out of proportion to their numbers. The signs are very artistic and creative. There is a large audience of passersby at this demo both going to and from the institute and in transit elsewhere. The most fundamental thing I’d like to note about my participation yesterday in addition to it being productive, and I suppose it helped because the weather was relatively mild compared to what it will be say in December, is that it was just plain fun to be out there.

I have previously been a somewhat regular participant in this demo but have gone missing for a long time. Despite my ardent desire to, I only finally got back there yesterday after my long absence. I will make every effort to attend weekly.

I have also previously been strongly encouraged to continue my participation in this vigil by its organizers, as I was again yesterday, and to pass out WCW materials. They like that passersby get some literature which otherwise they don’t. I hope I don’t sound vain when I say they have also complimented me for engaging the passersby in debate. They don’t mention, tactfully, that that is only as far as I am able; which is to say many people don’t really have time in cultured and affluent America for considering a paltry thing like children being blown to smithereens 10,000 miles away as the result of its government’s policies.

My approach is typically as follows: I hand what passersby I am able, because three get by for every one I can get to, a flyer at the same time I say “World can’t wait; drive out the Bush regime.” I’d say eighty percent of the people are amenable to my approach, which isn’t to say they all accept the flyer. Of the entirety, probably twenty percent are apathetic and uninterested. I try to prompt them, as you shall see others too, by saying gently but provocatively, “You don’t support Bush, do you?” I usually get no response but hope to have planted a seed of concern.

There is a mixture of others who it is difficult to tell are apathetic or Bush supporters. If for no other reason than my own edification they receive the same supplication: “You don’t support Bush, do you?” Two-thirds remain withdrawn politically. The others show their colors in support of the criminal in chief. These combined with the outright and proud supporters are often the funnest to deal with. When my offer of a flyer was ignored one time, an organizer said humorously, “I don’t know; I don’t want to know; and I’m proud of it.”

“Yes, I support my president,” they say piously, or versions thereof. My standard retort to these yesterday was, “You’re still with the thirty-five percent?” [I was informed it was now actually thirty-one but remained stuck on thirty-five because of a recent story I’d read.] A couple of times I managed also, although this was a little more difficult because of the emotional sparks their egregious support prompts in me, in tandem with the narrow time-frame for dialogue, to riposte, “What is it? The progress of the war in Iraq? The illegal wiretapping? The torture?” It would do well from their multitude to formulate an enunciation of two or three more egregious and terse indictments of the Bush regime to really lay it on at this point as making this already impactful line of argument more impactful. There is little supporters can say in reply except for arguing positions so ridiculous they are beyond the refutation of reason. A handful do. Many passersby’s demeanor indicates their support but they don’t want to admit it. Rightly so. But to reiterate, the outright and tacit Bush supporters are a decided minority.

After the question of the flyer being accepted or not was settled, accepters were followed up with, “Would you like to get on the World Can’t Wait email list so we can keep you up-to-date on everything World Can’t Wait is doing in the Chicago area?” A significant portion are enthusiastic and sign. Many more, especially in demeanor, express interest but for one reason or another don’t follow through. These are notified that if they change their mind they can sign up on the website. Many are interested but express being on too many lists already and don’t want to get on another.

Most people are in agreement to WCW’s aversion to Bush, many ardently. I distributed about 100 flyers; seventy-five of the defective bumper stickers, which were a nice promotional item to offer for free; and gathered about twelve contacts, many of them from out of town, including two from Milwaukee, two from NYC, and one from Norman, Oklahoma

I was several times openly mistaken as the representative of the entire protest. Where this was alluded to or clearly inferred, I made clear I was a representative of World Can’t Wait, not the protest. There were many other times it seemed apparent that I was the representative of the protest, but it was impossible to shake a passerby or even an interested party by the lapel and say, “Look here; I’m with World Can’t Wait, not…” blah, blah, blah.

One interesting objection to my approach occurred as follows. I extended a flyer to a woman on crutches and said “World Can’t Wait; drive out the Bush regime.” She tacitly ignored me. I followed up with her husband nearby on a cell phone, extending the flyer. “No thanks,” he said. “You don’t support Bush, do you?” I asked. He said “Yes.” I said “What is it? The progress of the war in Iraq? The illegal wiretapping? The torture?” Smug and self-assured of my decided debate victory I resumed my task whereupon he interrupted his phone call: “No, I am against the positions of the uneducated.” He must have ESP or a sixth sense to make such a sweeping judgment in our exposure to one another of about thirty-seven seconds. Either that, or as one of the organizers told me several times throughout the demo: “We like that you engage the debate smartly because most people think we’re fools and idiots because that is what Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity tell them.” There was a whole fruit-tree full of self-aggrandizing replies available to me, all of them equal to the task of knocking me off my emotional equilibrium, mixed with an equal portion of lack of discipline, that I couldn’t help but laugh and sigh and mutter to someone nearby who had heard this exchange that “If I wasn’t educated I’d take offense at that.”

Another objection would have been funny if it didn’t strike me later as so chilling. I tried to hand a young woman a flyer along with the announcement of the world can’t wait motto. She refused with an angry demeanor and turned to cross Michigan Avenue at the light. I said, “You don’t support Bush, do you?” I don’t remember what she said but she pointed angrily at a sign behind me that I hadn’t noticed. “Why do you support a boycott of Israel?” she asked.

“We don’t,” I said, unaware.

“What about that sign?” she asked.

I turned around and saw a sign stating just that. “Oh,” I said, “that’s because we want Israel to quit murdering people.” Her and her family of two others went off, fabricating entirely their arguments, and in short blaming the victim. A man behind me immediately came to the aid of my side of the argument; equally as secure in his knowledge of the problems, and equally unable to get a rational word in edgewise.

Israeli-supporters think yelling, and screaming complete fabrications is an argument. These, for example, blamed Palestinians of killing 9,000 Israelis by blowing up buses since Israel’s creation. “Do you support blowing up buses?” they challenged me vituperatively. “Of course not,” I said. I mean really, how do you answer such a question? They completely ignored the illegal occupation. I doubt seriously the 9,000 number has any basis in fact, but even if it did it doesn’t even approximate the greater loses on the other “side;” there is no sense of proportion, in short of justice, in these attacks and is completely ignored in the yelling and screaming. As is the illegal occupation and resulting repression and destitution of the Palestinians, who, let’s remember, are villains. As if suicide bombers one day up and tired of picnics in the park and decided strapping explosives to one’s torso and blowing up a bus would be an enjoyable diversion.

In an unrelated incident, a Bush supporter responded to my challenge of “What is it? The progress of the war in Iraq? The illegal wiretapping?” etc. with the non sequitur that he didn’t support anti-Semites as he stole into the Art Institute. The implication being that anybody against Bush is ipso facto anti-Semitic.

I would encourage all and sundry to attend this vigil not only because it’s productive, but because it’s just plain fun.