On the morning of 11 January 2003, there was a left protest of the war and various other things in Downtown LA. Your roving freeper reporter DavidDennis was on the scene with photos, commentary and ideas for future activism. This also includes some brief information on yesterday's LA Chapter meeting.

Because I didn't know the lay of the land, I didn't bring my video camera. Instead, my Canon EOS D30 digital still camera would have to do.

Traffic and parking were both horrendous. I paid $7.50 for about 20 minutes of parking, despite the "$2.50 for 15 minutes" charge marked. Don't park in ripoff lots in jewlery centers unless you are truly, truly desperate to find parking. (I was).

My reporting on this event was constrained by the fact that I was very late, and I really had to get to the LA Chapter meeting at 1:00 to show everyone what was up. I left the parking garage around 12:30 and was back there by 12:50. I was, of course, very late to the freeper event. Fortunately, nobody minded; Diotima was relieved I'd gotten out alive. (The secret this time was that I went undercover and didn't wear my Simon shirt).

It was one long strange trip, something out of the 60s for sure.

A massive sea of angry faces and ugly signs, the huge left protest in Downtown LA on 11 January 2003 was surely everything I came for and more.

It was, to be honest, a bit frightening in its intensity. Just the sheer numbers inspired more than a little awe. It seemed like every left organization in the known universe, including many from other planets and alternate universes, was present and accounted for.

One thing for sure: A single costumed RonDog and friends would just get lost in the massive crowd. Among other things, there is very little freedom of movement - the masses of marchers would simply crush anyone under their relentless advance.

I got a sense that it would be easy to infiltrate the march, since it didn't appear to be organized that well. There were millions of groups there, and we would just look like another group - at first.

As I was leaving, I noticed a pair of people working on their signs. One of them referred to "the masses"! I told them there are no masses, just individuals. The pretty girl I was addressing had a deer in the headlights look in her eyes. "There are masses of people, of course". I was in a hurry to get to my car so I could attend my meeting, and I started to leave. But then I returned and said "Everyone is different. To call people masses is to miss what makes them human."

She didn't know what to say. I think she was just a little surprised.

In looking at my pictures of the march, I noticed that the more enterprising demonstrators created odd tall objects which were conspicuous camera magnets (right). It seemed to me that the only way we would have a fighting chance at this would be to emulate them and construct our own.

My vision would be Saddam, in Saddam's palace, held up by a convoy of freepers. Saddam could poke out of the palace windows and wave at the crowd. The palace itself would be similar to Howie's foam creations, but of course at a greater scale. We could throw in minarets similar to the Mother of All Battles mosque. Here is my concept:

View from top:

*-----------*
|           |
   x        | 
|       x     window (see side view)
|           |
*-----------*

* = person holding up boards
x = saddam look-alike
| = foam board walls

View from side:

------------
|THANK YOU!|  < sign of thanks to the leftists
|  _____   |
|  |   |   |  < window for Saddam to look out and wave at supporters
|  |___|   |
|          |
|          |  < other material as suggested by Tweeker and others
------------

I think the best way to carry this would be to provide handles at a convenient angle, so that only four people would be needed to hold it up. Additional people could hold up minarets designed to look like scud missiles, if we had the technology to build them. If this could be achieved, I think the effect would be quite impressive.

The cops clearly expect trouble (right), so I think we would be safe, but it would still take a lot of guts to pull this off.

Then, it was time to go to the meeting and discuss these ideas and others. I was pleased to see both "the usual suspects" and a smattering of new faces, including Tweeker. I was impressed with her, since she had some very cool ideas for enhancing our demonstrations. In particular, the idea of emphasizing previous failures of appeasement - Neville Chamberlain versus Hitler, for example, is a highly impressive one. Unfortunately, I left my notes on the table, but fortunately many better note-takers were there.

I also appreciated the "devil's advocate" nature of an Orange County freeper whose name I believe was June, Jane or something like that. I felt her observations were on-target and very thought-provoking.

I believe Barry Hartz' Tea Party idea is a first-class concept, but it needs to be fleshed out a bit. I hope we will provide him with whatever help he needs to do so in future meetings.

DoughtyOne, as always, handled the logistics beautifully, and I was very pleased to see many new and old freeper friends present, including RonDog, Diotima and Tony from Hawaii.

I hope we can have an open discussion on this thread of some of the ideas we have for future protests. We are outnumbered something like 1000:1 at this point, so we have to be clever to be noticed.

I will look forward to seeing all your ideas!