On my commute home this past Friday I waited for the train at Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland. There happened to be a lot of hubbub going on, but that is not unusual in and of itself. But this particular group of noisemakers was a bit different from the usual crowd.

A young boy led a chant:

1 2 3 4
Kick Gaddafi out the door
5 6 7 8
Stop the violence, stop the hate

The boy marched at the head of a column of dozens of people, waving a large (pre-Gaddafi) Libyan flag. The throng behind him carried many flags and signs, all critical of the Gaddafi regime. I assume that many of the people in the march were Libyan ex-patriates.

I liked what I saw. It was a far sight more interesting than the usual hellfire preachers and "free hugs" crowd. I hope those folks get what they are demonstrating for. It takes a long memory to recall Libya before Gaddafi, though many of the people in the march look like they were younger than the regime. But as I am fond of quoting:

The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.