"Solidarity With the Egyptian People" demonstration - Los Angeles 2/5/2011
On the 5th of February, 2011, at the height of the mass protests against Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, at Tahrir Square, in Cairo, I attended a small "Solidarity With the People of Egypt" demonstration at the Federal Building in Los Angeles.
There were a few hundred people there when I arrived, most of them lined up along Wilshire Blvd waving placards and Egyptian flags for the passing traffic.
Some of the participants appeared to be Egyptians.
They were quite sincere, and many seemed to be new at protesting.
But alas, this event was sponsored by International ANSWER, and most of the attendees were American Leftists or regulars at anti-Israel protests, so it didn't take long for the demonstration to devolve into the typical mess of anti-American chants and slogans that are the hallmark of every ANSWER event.
All of the major Leftist organizations were represented.
So I walked around for a while taking pictures, as keffiyeh-clad Marxists led the crowd in chants of "No Justice, No Peace, U.S. Out of the Middle East!".
The man in the picture below led the demonstrators in angry anti-American chants, stirring himself into a sweaty frenzy.
Then the raving Marxist and Iraq War vet, Mike Prysner took the microphone and gave a speech comparing the suffering of Egyptians under the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak to that of Americans in the United States today…
The most important lesson to learn from this is that for Left-wing organizations such as International ANSWER, it is not dictatorships or tyranny which they oppose (or even the lack of basic rights), it's America. Notice that Prysner does not mention the people of Iran in his litany of countries that will be "free". The Iranians have been protesting, and suffering, and fighting for freedom too. But unlike Mubarak, who is seen as being "pro-American" (and even worse, at peace with Israel), Iran, under the Ahmadinejad regime, is staunchly anti-American, which means that ANSWER and other Leftist organizations will never oppose them. When much larger demonstrations in support of Iran's pro-freedom movement were held at this very same location in 2009, International ANSWER was nowhere to be seen. If protests and uprisings continue across the Middle East, you can be certain the Left will support the uprisings in "pro-American" countries like Bahrain, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, but never in traditionally anti-American nations such as Libya, Syria and Iran.
If you feel that I have helped in some way, please, do not hesitate to donate to keep this site up and running. Any amount will be much appreciated, thank you.
