Scenes From the No Games Chicago Protest
By Karl Klockars in Arts & Entertainment on Apr 3, 2009 4:00PM
Organizers say they expected up to 2,000 protesters to join the No Games Chicago event yesterday afternoon, but just a few hundred showed up at 5pm in Federal Plaza at 50 W. Adams. Set to the predictable protest tunes* of "This Land is Your Land" and "Get Up Stand Up," protestors wrapped just about every anti-Daley social justice cause together under the banner of anti-Olympic sentiment.
Want pollution cleaned up on the South Side? Want more public housing? Want more money for education? Activists for all these causes and more were out and leading chants of "No games" and shouting "Arrest Daley" while signs and banners decried the projected costs of the 2016 bid. At points it seemed like there were more cops and press than actual protestors on site, and yesterday's Fraternal Order of Police protest certainly got better coverage, but we were on site and in observance.
*Why not tunes like Abba's "Name of the Game," Jewel's "Foolish Games" Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game," anything off of the NKOTB record "No More Games," or even "Quit Playing Games With My Heart" by noted protest auteurs, the Backstreet Boys? C'mon, guys.