A tale of two rallies

The News-Press published a story by Joshua Molina at the top of page A-3 today entitled Peace activists hit the street:

About 40 opponents of the war in Iraq rallied Saturday afternoon on State Street as part of a national "Out of Iraq" day of events.

Now, finding 40 leftists to march down State Street on a Saturday afternoon beating drums and carrying peace flags isn't hard--this is Santa Barbara after all. But wait, there's more!

The event on the busy downtown street featured people who displayed signs with biting political barbs denouncing the Bush administration: "They lie to us. They spy on us. Impeach." Another said "Rich man's war, poor man's blood."

It's unclear how these biting political barbs differ from the usual heavy-handed, dull-witted progressive slogans, but perhaps in Joshua Molina's eyes they sparkle. Visiting Los Angeles peace activist Jamie Green had this perceptive comment on American foreign policy over the last sixty years:

"American foreign policy has been immoral since World War II," said Ms. Green. "This war rivals Vietnam in terms of wrongness. It's probably worse, considering what we know from Vietnam."

I'm not sure what I can say about Iraq in terms of wrongness, or in terms of worseness relative to whatever Ms. Green knows from Vietnam. But I feel confident in saying that one of the cornerstones of American foreign policy after World War II was opposition to the spread of Communist dictatorships. Most self-styled progressives, then and now, supported such dictatorships. Immorality, I guess, is in the eye of the beholder.

Meanwhile, over on page A-5, a wire service story was headlined Turnout low at illegal-immigration protests. Apparently yesterday was also "Stop the Invasion" day, with events planned for cities in 17 states. Many of these it seems were sparsely attended. For instance, only fifty people showed up to protest illegal immigration in Danbury, Connecticut. Danbury is however smaller than Santa Barbara, and the weather there on Saturday was cloudy, with a high temperature of 40 F (a temperature at which many Santa Barbarans would expire). Fifty people in chilly Danbury rallying against law-breakers is termed a low turnout, but forty leftists rallying on a sunny Santa Barbara day to impeach the president...that's newsworthy! And it's as neat an illustration as any of how the news filters work at the News-Press: Heads, we win; tails, you lose.