Hate Week

One of my favorite books of all time is George Orwell's 1984. One of the aspects of the society Orwell constructed in this book is the use of propaganda to stir up strong feelings of hatred, the apex of which was Hate Week. Well, with the RNC in town, many in the population of the Twin Cities, as well as other protesters trucked in from elsewhere, can now have their own Hate Week. For example, 50,000 people are expected to march today in St. Paul to protest the war in Iraq, the continued insistence by George W Bush of breathing oxygen, and whatever other grievances they have. This has been a long time coming. Years of animosity could come out this week. Too bad for them that Bush and Dick Cheney aren't coming here.

UPDATE: 50,000 was a slight overestimation, much like Ricky Vaughn was juuuust a bit outside in Major League...the protester count was more like 2,000. (note: as of 6:45 pm CDT, the article said 10,000 showed up, still far less than what they were hoping for). Here's the money quote:

"There's far too few people here," said Lennie Major, a teacher from Mounds View. "We should have 10 times this many. This will only be a blip."

Antiwar protests just ain't what they used to be.