What better way to demonstrate against the Bush regime's war for oil and against it's deception on climate change and environmental issues, than on a bike?
This was the call the was put out for the bike contingency at the World Can't Wait "Bush Step Down, and take your program with you!" event. There were about 2000 people at the event which coincided with Bush's state of the Union address at 6 PM on January 31st, 2006.
There were about 30 cyclists that joined the bike ride detour - some of whom were recruited in the initial staging area of the march. The message from the bikers was "No War For Oil, Ride A Bike", "Bush Step Down", "We don't need no F***ing Oil" and "No War on Climate Science".
Unlike at some demonstrations, we didn't limit ourselves to walking our bikes with the marchers, after the march started we quickly took a detour that had us storming past snail-paced traffic on Santa Monica Blvd and Hollywood Blvd. Some of the more assertive bikers led the way and most of us enjoyed splitting lanes of traffic, while a few did so, but were a little uneasy about riding through traffic. We definitely got noticed with our big signs on our bikes and noise makers and shouting.
We did a mile long loop which lead us back to the marchers, head on. As we got close, we merged into the traffic on the Westbound side of Hollywood Blvd, riding between the cars and Eastbound marchers. The marchers shouted and cheered as we whizzed by. We replied with our own shouts and cheers.
"What a Blast" commented one of the cyclists with the "No War, Screw Big Oil, Ride a Bike"" flag on his bike. "Let's go around again!" suggested another.
So, we did another big loop and passed the marchers a second time - and enjoyed it equally as much. This time we continued down to La Brea and
turned left towards Sunset. We continued down Sunset to the rally point at Sunset and Cahuenga.
It was a loud energetic demonstration with one speaking stage and two music stages. People were listening to the speakers, chanting, dancing, drumming, passing out flyers and conversing.
Mr. NoWarBikeRide handed out lot's of flyers for the next bike-ride protest - a Valentines themed "Peace and Love, No War" bike ride, on February 19th, 2006.
Perhaps some of the Marchers, seeing how much fun we had on our bikes, will join us in the future on their bikes to protest.
See more photos of the protest in the gallery:
http://cicle.org/forimages/index.php Article can be found at:
http://www.cicle.org/cicle_content/pivot/entry.php?id=378#body Eric Einem is a dedicated local grassroots activist and organizer. Among other things, he operates the LAPostCarbon.org website -- which educates the community on the issue of oil depletion and the coming peak in global oil production.
