See? See what I mean? I mean really. Who told you the innauguration was in Washington?
This type of insight from you is refreshing.
You are either evil or stupid. I don't really care which.
In San Francisco and elsewhere in Northern
California, the streets filled with thousands of
protesters banging drums and waving signs
yesterday after George W. Bush was inaugurated
president.
As many as 15,000 demonstrators in San Francisco
-- including doctors and nurses, postal workers and
software engineers, teenagers and grandparents --
spoke out against what they called a stolen election.
Some were die-hard activists, others had never
joined a protest march before.
Standing alone on Market Street with a sign that
read "Hail to the Thief," Jean Mullen, 55, said she
was angry that Bush had been declared the winner
of November's contested election.
"I'm protesting because he was not chosen by the
people but by the Supreme Court," said the San
Francisco resident. "I don't think we should take
this lying down. We can't come together as a nation
if people's votes were left out. "
Mullen later joined a rally at Civic Center Plaza
where speakers included San Francisco Supervisor
Tom Ammiano and San Francisco Labor Council
Secretary- Treasurer Walter Johnson. From there,
protesters marched to Jefferson Square Park in the
Western Addition.
Police estimated the crowd at 10,000 to 15,000;
protest organizers agreed with the latter figure. The
rally was spirited but peaceful, and police made no
arrests.
Late in the afternoon, however, several hundred
protesters split off from the rally and marched down
Market Street, through the Financial District and
back to Union Square, turning the heads of tourists
and shoppers and bringing forth a wary phalanx of
police officers on horseback, motorcycle and foot.
At 5 p.m., roughly 100 remaining demonstrators
stood drumming and chanting "Gap slave labor" in
front of the Gap clothing store at Powell and
Market streets. Several protesters entered the store
shouting, "Think more, shop less, " but were chased
out by store security guards.
Street signs up and down Bush Street had been
plastered over to read "Puppet" instead of "Bush."
The main rally included colorful political theater,
including a 15-foot- tall puppet of George W. Bush
putting a sign reading "DEMOCRACY" into a red,
white and blue toilet, and a float with Bush reclining
in a four-poster bed with several U.S. Supreme
Court justices.
Signs said: "If Gore got 500,000 more, how did
Bush win by 5 to 4?" and "What part of 'counting'
don't you understand?" and "Supreme Coup."
"I oppose his views and I don't think he won the
election," said Caitlin Sargent, 14, who took the bus
down from San Anselmo for her first-ever political
demonstration.
"Even though we can't vote, we wanted to at least
try to be heard," said her brother Jake, 13, who
accompanied her.
"I haven't protested anything since Vietnam," said
Elizabeth McCarthy, 75, a San Francisco artist.
"But I'm furious that George Bush is being declared
the president. He was half a million votes short. And
the Supreme Court was extremely partisan (in its
handling of the vote count)."
In Oakland, a crowd estimated by police as "150
peaceful demonstrators" and by rally organizers as
1,000 people protesting the "disenfranchisement of
Florida voters" rallied in front of the Federal
Building. In Sacramento, a crowd of roughly 300
protested at the State Capitol.
Those who watched yesterday morning's
inauguration but did not take to the streets included
a group of homeless people lined up for breakfast at
the St. Vincent de Paul Society in South San
Francisco.
Many there expressed doubts about the plight of the
poor under the Bush administration.
"I don't see anything in the near future that's too
bright to me," said John Redmond, 52, a former
Vietnam veteran living in a nearby homeless shelter.
Chronicle staff writers Ryan Kim, Marianne
Costantinou and Charles Burress contributed to
this report.
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