{"article":{"id":212366,"heading":"Not Roses - PEACHES! The full story of the pre-parade parade!","author":"Linda Krausen, SoPasPeace","created":"2008-01-08 07:49:30","modified":"2013-11-11 00:52:25","last_modified":"Mon, 11 Nov 2013 07:52:25","article":"\n

\"Not Roses- Peaches- northeast activists at

the Rose Parade in a unique way again this year.

Three of us South Pasadena and Highland Park

Activists decided to be unique again this year as we were last year when we hoisted the original IMPEACH banner at the Rose Parade of 2007 This year we ran a humorous homemade ImPEACH banner all along

the parade Route to millions of spectators waiting

to see the

Rose Parade. Reaction was attentive, quiet, occasionally hostile, sometimes overtly supportive, and in general smiling at the humor of - Give ImPEACH a Chance - We got very good support at end of the route at Sierra Madre street.

As we walked along the route by the waiting crowd

with our two sided banner- I said:, “Not Roses- Peaches, ImPEACH BUSH, ImPEACH

CHENEY! Give ImPEACHMENT a Chance.\"At one point, a Sheriff laughed and said \"Impeachment is very

‘PEACHY””. I instantly incorporated that line too! Sometimes I would also say \"One American is killed

per day in

Iraq, \"Whose Mother will cry Tonight?\".- That got

a lot of sober attention, especially from women. I

could see it left them thinking.

I did experience some negative comments – but only

about 4- that here in South Pasadena where more

common perhaps 2 years ago, proof we are ahead here

on the Left Coast than from other parts of the

country. One young 12 year old who looked like he

] was from somewhere else in the country, asked me if

I was a Hippy. He didn't mean ill, this was

obviously something he heard from his parents, who

obviously listened to Rush or Bill .

This year our group, who did the

big IMPEACH sign over Darth Vadar 's figure at last

year's parade, this year decided not to aim for

Media coverage as the White Rose Coalition did. We

felt that the advanced publicity had given time to

the authorities and the TV coverage to plan how not

to let the impeachment message get on camera and

thus through to the millions watching the spectacle

across the world. We figured that to depend on a

hostile media was chancey. I was also concerned

about how a formal protest would be percieved by the

holiday crowd and felt that a more humorous action at the Rose parade would win more converts and make it easier to spread the message. We

figured and there would be

upwards of 2 million people along the Parade route

all the way to Sierra Madre who were not on camera

and who could be exposed to the idea of Impeachment

As I reconnoitered the area the day

before the parade, I noticed there were already two

law enforcement tyes standing guard at the Norton

Simon spot where we had positioned ourselves for our

action last year.

The Parade, being a national holiday of

good cheer and family feeling, made us decide we

wanted to do something humorous. That way we would

be with people in the spirit of the event. We also

offered them an immediate way to text a vote for

impeachment if they wanted to Plus, it's always

> rewarding to be present directly with the actual

> people of America, direct contact and the back and

> forth banter is personally as satisfying as

> educational

As it turned out, our-play-on-words

sign generated a lot of “äha- now I get it! comments among the people waiting there in the cold morning

for the parade to start. They smiled and laughed

once they got it, and commented to each other and to

us. I only heard 4 negative responses , from the> usual white male demographic. We did get some

non-committal stares, and many women, perhaps

tourists- turned their gaze away. Once we

reached Sierra Madre, asiide from the loads and

loads of hispanic families, we got lots of support

from the locals and several kids stopped even ran up to us us and asked to take a picture with us and our

banner. It was a fun situation.

Among the ethnic groups we encountered

along the route, the Asian people and the black

people were more apt to cheer us on, There were many many Hispanics there, many of whom seemed to speak

only Spanish. Later we found out that there were two

bands, one from El Salvador and one from Puerto

Rico, who played in the parade. So To my

exhortations in Spanish of \"Down with Bush, Down

with Cheney, End this Stupid War, Down with the

> White House Thieves”” I got many deliberately stone

> faced silent stares. but I've seen that look before.

> It's the look of someone who wants to say something

> but is holding back. It is not necessarily hostile,

> but just shows a decision to not to make verbal the

> persons’ thoughts.

> I decided to leave as soon as the

> Parade started arriving in Sierra Madre, so I got to

> walk back towards Pasadena over the whole parade

> route again as the parade was passing me wending

> its way down Colorado towards its end .I ended up

> walking the whole way 5.5 miles back again to

> Pasadena City Hall On that trek, I didn't see any

> signs that anything political had been there for the

> 2 million people who had come to see the parad- no

> political literature thrown on the ground, and no

> one wearing any t-shirts or carrying signs or

> anything - all the way from Sierra Madre to City

> Hall. So our little group with our two-sided \"Give

> imPEACH a Chance\" banner was all that 2 million

> people along the parade route had gotten of a

> political inspiration that morning. In listening to

> the media coverage later, it seemed obvious that the

> Corporate media had put the fix on

> to downplay- or not even to mention- the presence

> of protest at the parade. In a report from the San

> Francisco Chronicle, there was a quote that I had

> feared would happen The crowd booed the protesters

> in the stands and a woman questioned said, \"This was not the occasion for this.\".

> I think you always have to respect the

> people and to be very clear about what your goal is

> for any political action.. Our goal was to bring the

> impeachment issue to people to think about,in a way that they would not reject it out of hand but the idea

> in my head afterward was that after seeing us at the

> parade with our “Peachy” banner, every time people

> saw a peach or something peachy from then on they

> would think of ImPEACHment. I think we made the

> correct choice .Linda Krausen , South Pasadena Peace

> Vigil ( 4 to 6 Saturdays - FAir Oaks and Mission -

> South Pas- COME SEE OUR BANNER!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","contact":"ljkrausen-at-sbcglobal.net","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"The Full Story of the Pre-Parade Run for Peachy Impeachmen!","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2008\/01\/212366.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}