Protest the Pope 2010

[skull_bearer]

Wow. That was like being run over by a truck made of pure fucking awesome.

So, first I head over the Hyde Park corner, and find the place swampted with god-botherers, including a whole bunch of school-trippers. WTF? Are these people nuts? Why are they taking their kids here, haven't they been reading the news about this bastard? There doesn't seem to be anyone around. I nap for an hour.

I wake up, and lo and behold, there are a handful or so of people with anti-pope signs (anti-pope! It's like antipasti and just as delicious!). I head down to meet them with an "Aha! Finally, sane people!" He have a laugh, and I begin my tried and tested routine of human loudspeaker (I have an unusually loud voice):
"If god is meant to be all-powerful, all-knowing and omnipotent, and this is the best representative on earth he can come up with, what sort of god are you worshipping here?"
"I am here, getting ATHEIST COOTIES on you! Beware the atheist cooties! FEAR THEM!"
"You're taking your kids here? seriously? Why don't you take them to a nice museum, or the Globe? I hear the merry Wives of Winsor are playing at the Globe! Why bring them here where they'll be bored stiff? And, well, their not the only thing which will be stiff..." *obscene hand gesture*
*upon seeing a bunch of people waving England flags* "Nationalism and religion, two bad things which go WORSE together!"

Then more people turned up, bringing our quota to about a hundred. Still way massively outnumbered, but hey. We set off down to Park Lane to get ready to march, and I ran into an old friend who was totally unsurprised to see me there (I'm so predictable). After about an hour of waiting around (In which the chants of "What do we want?" "A secular Europe" "When do we want it?" "NOW!" changed to "What do we want?" "TO GET GOING!") we eventually set off.

At one point early on, a group of Catholics stood on the pavement as we went by, and waved a banner, jeering at us. The reactions ranged from "Shame!" and "SCUM!" To some complete arsehole rushign up and snatching the banner, which was they dragged into the crown and trampled. I managed to rescue it, and returned it to the Catholics, and said that those idiots were not representative of the protest as a whole. They said "Well, we should have expected it, we were asking for trouble." I said "No, really, Freedom of speech, you have every right to be here." Then shook his hand and went back into the crowd.

It was abotu then, when we'd reached a bit of high ground on our way to Piccadilly Circus, that I looked back and suddenly what I though was my friend's exaggeration, that we had thousands of people here, suddenly became not so much of one. I'd thought maybe 600 people, max. People have a tendancy to estimate more people than were actually there. It actually became a problem eventually, because the protest had been planned for 2,000 and way, way more had turned up. No one's sure how many yet.

Well, needless to say it was awesome. There were speeches made by Richard Dawkins and Peter Thatchell, and a whole bunch of others. It was loud and brilliant and although by that time my voice was completely gone I did manage to distinguish myself by screaming "BASTARD!" at all the right moments.
Then it was over. Paramour managed to scare of Richard Dawkins and we both retired to the Sherlock Holmes pub for a direly needed drink.

So yeah, it was great. There we a bunch of people with the most awesome signs (My personal favourites: "Romans go Home!" and "Down with this sort of thing!" with its companion "Careful now!") Oh, and condoms everywhere. We were using them as balloons. At one point, one of the speakers was highlighting the Catholic lie that condoms are full of holes and thus do not stop HIV, then paused and pointed out that one of these 'useless' condoms was currently being used as a balloon and thus was the perfect example of that lie. We played condom volleyball.

Absolutely bloody exhausted, but an amazing showing, and it was great to see so many awesome people. Fun all round.

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And yet the British monarch is head of the Church and wields proudly the title Fidei Defensor and in the 21st Century a 17th Century prohibition on Catholics as Prime Ministers still holds affect. And statements about the evils of nationalism and religion together have a very humorous tone coming from the same Brittannia that Christianized huge chunks of the world no matter whether or not the Natives particularly desired it.

My country has a large religious nationalist subset of our politics, too.

I might also have less tendency to avoid mocking British secularism and speaking of modernity if it wasn't for the aforementioned governmental system that predates even our own 18th Century landowners' structure. A country with a monarch who heads a state church and which bars certain religions from the highest office in the land while retaining an entire upper chamber of Parliament that is a direct relict of the Age of Warlords (because I refuse to use the Term Medieval or Middle Ages, refers to the same thing) is in no business to respond to a world leader whose country is *also* a relict of the Middle Ages.

[sorion.livejournal.com]

Ha!

Seriously, I wonder if the pope ever realises just how much damage he's doing and how many deaths he's causing... asshole.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I wonder what the people in the United Kingdom who used to believe the Raj was the best thing that ever happened to the Indian Subcontinent think given the endless wars between India and Pakistan and the Bangladeshi genocide? I could give two shakes of a rat's ass about Cardinal Ratzinger. He's no Kurt Waldheim in terms of his WWII service. All the same he has about the biggest case of Foot In Mouth Syndrome of any leading world leader save.

[sorion.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I couldn't care less about the "use to"... and I'm not British, so...

Ratzinger calls same sex marriage one of the "biggest evils" in the world today. He couldn't care less about HIV. His dealing with child abuse in his oh-so-loving church is disgusting. He preaches the word of a supposedly all-loving God with the tongue of a deeply prejudiced man. He is no politician, yet his word weighs a whole fucking lot all over the world (unlike political leaders who are regional problems, with the possible exception of the US president).

Too much influence, too widely spread, too dangerous. Today.
So, yeah, I care about that.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And in the United States billions are spent on greater, more glorious bombs as every year thousands of people starve to death with money that could be invested on improving things there. Every year people remain locked in perpetual civil warfare because by this point people have grown up knowing only warfare and have no understanding of peace. Every year Indigenous peoples on two continents exist in concentration camps because a genocide enabled the great continent-spanning civilizations to grow great as they were subjected to extermination and assimilation by force.

At the end of this century 90% of human languages will be extinct. At the end of this century in fact it's debatable if we will recognize the world's political situation at all when climate change starts biting everyone in the ass hard.

So don't whine about the Pope, who has no divisions, and no actual influence, certainly not with a little scrap of land next to the old Papal states. Popes have never succeeded in getting the Faithful to honor their words in any means other than the breach. This very day citizens in the United States passively watch one ongoing creeping genocide of a people by a state that is one of our most fervent allies and remain locked in intractable wars and hemorrhaging our future on wars we will never win and have not the ability to do so.

In short, who gives a fuck what Pope Sidious thinks? How many divisions has the Pope?

[sorion.livejournal.com]

In short, who gives a fuck what Pope Sidious thinks?

Look. I thought I'd made clear that while I don't care what he thinks, I care about the damage he's doing.

Just because other damage is done, this one doesn't count? I don't think so...

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Which is because of beliefs he holds dearly. What damage did he do to Britain beyond what its leaders have done to it themselves due to this recession?

[sorion.livejournal.com]

I'm not British. I'm talking about the world, not Britain. The last time I heard, Britain wasn't Catholic, first and foremost, what with them having their own church and everything.

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

Well, it's costing us 12 million to host him, and I can think of a lot of things that money could be used for instead...

[kathie-d.livejournal.com]

I am confused by your behaviour... you acted in a decent fashion when people from your protest trampled on the Catholic's banner... but before the march you shouted offensive things at the Christians? :-/

[deviantcreature.livejournal.com]

Perception and context. It's important [to skull_bearer] to be seen LOUDLY PROTESTING CATHOLICISM when you're trying to rally protesters. But in the context of any protest, there's plenty of things you don't want to be lumped with and it's important to be perceived as fair, sporting and overall not a complete dick. Perceived fairplay is deadly important to Brits. Much more important than consistency.

You can see it as cognitive dissonance or a very romantic and selective world view.

[kathie-d.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure shouting at children is fair play... if that is indeed what's going on here. I'm probably offended by it, because I was taken to a lot of Christian events as a kid like 'March for Jesus', and I know that what he was shouting would have really upset me as a kid. I'm not sure if those children would have wanted to be there or not, but they probably wouldn't have had any choice in the matter. Shouting offensive things about their religion within earshot seems harsh.

Also, I thought the protest was about the Pope and the things he has said (fair play), not protesting Catholicism (unfair; many British Catholics aren't homophobic, sexist, pro-spreading disease etc etc etc).

Btw, I am British. Just encase you thought I wasn't.

[deviantcreature.livejournal.com]

PERCEIVED fairplay is deadly important to Brits regardless of overriding thought process. Some people call it manners. c.f. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10918880

You're talking about hotheaded, outnumbered groups of people venting at another a larger and equally obnoxious ideological group of people. Surely you see a difference between shouting juvenile one-liners at each other and invading a crowd, grabbing someone's property (vested with personal, symbolic and emotional meaning) and grinding it underfoot? Do you really think it's totally double standards to cheerfully do one but object to the other? Do you think all people that gather in a group to protest always share exactly the same ultra-polarized view? But "many British Catholics" are totally exempt from dangerously impractical preachings enforced by Papal Supremacy? Right.

[kathie-d.livejournal.com]

No, obviously I don't think that, hence 'not all British Catholics' etc etc.

I admire rescuing the protest banner, I thought this was honourable behaviour. I would probably have been too scared to do such a thing - I don't go to protests because I find people's behaviour there very aggressive. I do see a difference between stealing people's property, and shouting at them. But no exchange of jibes is described here, it's 'haha the Pope is getting off on seeing your children'.

Are you saying I'm being rude? I always thought everything posted on LJ is fair game for discussion.

[totenkopf6.livejournal.com]

I'm British. Where can I find this fair play you speak of, as I seem to keep getting f**ked over by my fellow countrymen? :p

[deviantcreature.livejournal.com]

They are often the same thing. For example your work mates drag you along to the pub. You sit there munching a single packet of crisps while watching the game while they're busy drinking the place dry. At the end of the night, they decide that its only fair that the bill is split equally.

[totenkopf6.livejournal.com]

Nah, I'm talking about much more serious stuff like spreading lies and malicious rumours, affecting career progression and so on. I honestly can't think of once instance of "fair play" overriding all else and I have lived here for 30 years!
And the example you give is blantantly unfair, and I can't think of anyone thinking otherwise.

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

It's a protest, everyone shouts stuff.
What was I saying that was offensive? I have atheist cooties?

[kathie-d.livejournal.com]

Well, shouting things on the march is all well and good. From your post it sounds as though you were going through the crowd of people who were there to see the pope, shouting at them, including people who had bought children with them. That sounds pretty aggressive and provocative.

I'd be offended if you shouted the atheist cooties comment at me personally, but in this context, given the Pope's comments, I can understand. I think telling people how to bring up their kids in front of them is very offensive. I don't see a problem with bringing your child to see a visiting head of a religion, whether you belong to it or not. Obviously if we all agreed with everything there we be no protest at all! But if you want to make a point, I think it should be done in a non-threatening manner.

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

Non-threatening?
If you count a bunch of people outnumbered about 100 to 1, standing across the street from an army a Christians and pointing out all the other stuff they could be doing instead...
Yeah, really threatening. Good grief.

[shadowvalkyrie.livejournal.com]

Condom volleyball and Dawkins speeches sounds majorly awesome! It's a shame there's so little protesting going on down here. ":-(

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

Wish I'd been there. Sounds like fun.