Demonstration of failure

I'm not normally a combative sort, and generally speaking would walk ten miles rather than pick a fight, but there are some people who just sit up and beg to be taken down a notch. Today's stressor were a bunch of noisy people who marched into the Bay store at the Woodgrove Mall, North Nanaimo shouting "Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey! How many animals died today!" loudly and repeatedly as they paraded around the ground floor waving lurid placards of skinned animal carcases (Yes I did see, and no, they didn't impress me) amusing the staff, and giving security the runaround.

This was a demonstration by supporters of PETA, generally referred to by those who know what goes on at one of their 'animal shelters' as People for the Elimination and Termination of Animals. I think because the Bay store occasionally sells a fur coat, the six or seven people who marched around the store with one person yelling the same tired slogan over and over thought they were justified in doing so.

Now I'm a keen supporter of free speech and the unfettered (Within reason) right to make your point publicly, but quite frankly these few people made the organisation and cause they purported to hold dear look like a bunch of right unwashed wallies. They startled around a dozen shoppers, because that's all there were in the store at that time. As demonstrations go, it was pathetic, both in numbers and effect. Had there been a hundred people outside the store protesting, now that would have made their point far better. However, knowing Nanaimo, with it's relatively high proportion of hunting and fishing types isn't quite ready to be included in the confused muddle of modern metropolitan thinking. Did the demonstrators wish to end the wanton slaughter of animals? If certain web sites are to be believed, then the members of PETA would be better off visibly demonstrating that their own house was in order before further campaigning devalues their cause further.

However, these demonstrators did succeed in one aspect; they made me want to go all Clint Eastwood on them with a 12-guage.
"Get off my lawn!" Great line. Must go see Gran Torino.