Report from Doo Dah parade : Cleveland IMC (((i)))

WCW Columbus Ohio- Doo Dah Parade

A crew of WCW Clevelanders joined Columbus WCW and others for the yearly Doo Dah Parade on July 4th. The theme of the parade this year was "No Intelligent Design Here".

Our contingent was the Bush Regime dressed in black and white striped chain gang shirts complete with dangling handcuffs and props. The regime consisted of Bush, Cheney,Rumsfield, Condi,Pat Robertson and Ken Blackwell (Ohio Secretary of State-Candidate for governor-Christian Theocrat- person who helped steal the election for Bush-wearing a rat on his shoulder)

We marched behind an Earth Flag contingent along with Green Party Governor candidate (and WCW signer) Bob Firtakis and others in a flatbed truck complete a"Diebold" voting machine and a crew of folks wearing shirts that said "Ban Ken Blackwell"

The whole parade was full of very creative and funny costumes and themes. The group directly behind us were the "Olengantany River Dancer," dancing apple cores and empty beer cans dangling on them, signifying the pollution in the river. There were also folks with "Border Patrol" shirts (clearly marked 'Made in Mexico'), holding little green "aliens" in fishing nets.

We had a bright green banner that said "Ban The Marriage Of Church And State" on one side and "Bush: Intelligent Design? Not!" on the other. As we marched, we banged on plastic buckets and blew noisemakers. We worked out a song to the tune of "Hokey Pokey" that we sang to the delight and dismay of thousands of people along the march route which winded through the Short North section of Columbus. As we danced using theatrical antics with a lot of hand waving and twirling around we sang::

You put your right wing in ,

You put your right wing out,

You put your right wing in

And you screw them all around,

You do the Okey Dokey

And you let them flood and drown,

That's what we're all about!

Each time we finished the song routine we would cheer and Pat Robertson would start jumping up and down ranting and raving at the crowds that they were all going to Hell. People were clapping and engaging Pat about being "sinnners" and yelling their outrages at the Bush Regime. Bush was goosestepping throughout most of the march and he actually torched 6 small flags along the route, keeping up the goosestep with the cheese-eating grin and his arm in a Nazi salute the whole time. He was hilarious. Condi kept saluting the crowd but her arm could not stop also doing a Seig Heil salute. We alternated with the chant "Tell me what Theocracy looks like; THIS is what Theocracy looks like!!"

The crowd was cracking up and I heard several people yelling at us to get out of office among other things. Bush and Rumsfield were passing out flyers throughout the march for an upcoming WCW Columbus Dixie Chick rally along with the Call / Oct. 5 mobilization. We got out thousands of flyers.

The Ukelele Man was on his bicycle playing his Kazoo as he weaved in and out of our contingent throughout the march route.

At one point a person with a loud boom box playing John Lennon's "Imagine" came around us several times. At this "outrage," Condi was waving her fists and Pat Robertson started yelling that listening to that song would send you to Hell. We were having a great time.entertaining the crowds.

Cheney just kept rolling around with that dumb smirk and it was unnerving to me how real the mask looked especially with those damn glasses on ...what was really even more funny about Cheney was the fact that the person playing Cheney was wearing a long skirt ...it added to the humor of this insane parade.

At the intersections, the banner folks would do a little spin dance with the banner and the crowd would cheer and clap as many read it aloud. One of the people holding the banner was holding a paper plate mask and he kept yelling "I support Ken Blackwell because I am a self-hating closet case! Not!" He was also yelling at folks "Believe like us or go to Hell!" He was very funny. Each time he finished his ranting the Bush Regime would break into their dance and song routine.

We were photographed and videotaped by tons of people all along the route

After the parade a youth told us that we were his favorite group in the parade.

Our guy wearing the Bush mask cracked me up because every time I turned around he was burning another flag and that I thought took a lot of balls to do that in a Forth of July parade with all of the flag wearing folks in the crowd (even though it looked like they were not the majority).

He turned to me and said "Hey...THIS is what democracy looks like" and we both cracked up.

We all agreed on the ride home that this was THE BEST Forth of July we ever had!

P.S. Today in the Columbus Dispatch (below),a report stated that she thought the World Can't Wait contingent "went too far in protesting current government policies." I am still trying to figure out why she is not saying that condoning torture, waging pre-emptive, illegal, immoral wars, leaving people to die in New Orleans, and shredding the constitution (among too many other injustices to mention here) is not "going too far" by our government? ...but anyway...to those who helped make this happen and participated... Thanks, Ya'll rock!

Job Well Done!

peace,MJ

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THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
http://www.dispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/07/05/20060705-C1-00.html

Cleveland Indy Media Center