Royal is about to take off for a week for some training, so we thought it might be nice to go somewhere for a quick weekend. Glasgow was picked since I wanted to spend some time in Scotland.
And what is pretty much the first thing we see upon entering?
Protesters. And what are they protesting? My government, their government, my husband's job, nuclear weapons, Israelis, capitalism... you get the idea.
'War is expensive, peace is priceless' 'bin the bomb' 'Say no to third world war' The amount of protesters that paraded their children around was amazing. I was appalled.
One of the bombs in question. Heh.
Everyone was there, Greenpeace, Faslane 365, Stop the War Coalition, Scotland Against Criminalising Communities, Iraqi Solidarity, etc. (refuse to link their sites here, but can google if you want a laugh. Or cry.)
They were very much taking up the whole two lanes of traffic, so we waited. And waited. Cars were turning around, cars were honking. Finally one of the policeman waved to us that it would be about 5 more minutes, to which Royal called out to clarify and the man came over to our car. He reapeated that it would be 5 minutes, to which Royal said "could I not just run them over?" and the cop chuckled! It was awesome.
After marching for half an hour in our way, they gathered around a big square in Downtown.
Faslane 365 is a 365 day protest of HM Naval Base Clyde at Faslane & Coulport - where they house the nuclear subs.
For environmentalists, they were awfully messy and used a lot of paper...
Note the sign on the left - in the small print: 'mostly women and children'
The usual suspects
'World's #1 Terrorist' Yawn. Don't they know that's been done before?
No anti protest would be complete without attacking Israel!
More 'Bin the Bomb' and some tiny Trident missiles. V. creative, no?
Nice shot of the police making sure nothing scary happens. This was towards the end, and there were about 20 still around chatting.
Luckily enough, no one approached us and I was able to take the photos with no problems. Plus, it was fun laughing at the stoned & ratty looking people (a lot dressed in their camo pants and jackets, which is strange considering their hatred for the military) and their insane views.
"Welfare, not warfare", I think says quite a bit. They're more interested in immediate gratification of things they want the government to give them with taxpayers' money rather than safety for the longer term. They don't want to work. Interesting pictures.
Posted by: The big mamoo | February 26, 2007 at 07:42 AM
Thats George Square in the lower set of photos.
It used to have lots of flower beds, grass and lovely old trees, until they were all bulldozed away to be replaced by that attractive red tarmac stuff we have now.
Charming...
Nice to see you got some authentically crap weather too, though I fear the smell of damp crusties might have been a bit overpowering.
Posted by: BB | February 26, 2007 at 09:48 AM
Hi Momma, I think that's fairly true. Thanks for commenting ;o)
BB: I could imagine it being very beautiful the way you described! The buildings are something else though, very cool.
Down by the square smelled just fine (very chilly) but if you wandered further away into the streets, the smells weren't so nice! It was a good trip - now for Edinburgh!
Posted by: Kath | February 27, 2007 at 05:14 AM
That's bad luck Kath! Don't take it personally - we're not all like that!
Posted by: Pat | February 27, 2007 at 09:00 AM
Nice post... makes me sad for my Scots background, that it's come to this. (My great-great-great-great grandfather owned land a half-hour from Glasgow) ...these weak and manipulated people are a poor representative.
Posted by: Citizen Grim | March 08, 2007 at 10:07 AM