The story of two protests

Ok since i am annoyed by all the people who are like" ohh look at the pro-syrian protest, it was so much bigger then the anti-syrian one. Whatchu gonna do now mr america lover?", i decided it's time to put things in some sort of persepctive. Ot ar least attempt to anyway, god knows i am kinda biased to begin with. But hey, who isn;t these days? The Anti-Syrian protests: Comprised of christians, druze and sunnis lebanese people , with the residents coming mostly from Beirut and the surrounding Areas. They represent Lebanon's view with the exception of that of the shia lebanese, but at it still represents the lebanese majority, since the Shia are only 35% of lebanon. They are the mostly educated lebanese people, and their rallies were a spontenious effects caused by the Rafik Harriri assassination. Their goal is to get the Syrian troops, intelligence officers and cronies out of Lebanon and establish an all Lebanese government. The Pro-Syrian protest: Comprised of the lebanese Shia and the syrian workers living in Lebanon and organized by the Syria and Iran funded Hezbollah. They mostly come from the South of Lebanon, which is not the most educated or developed part of lebanon, where anti- American and Istraeli sentiments run high. They represnt the view of Hezbollah and their backers and the Syrian and lebanese government, but as we said before, actual represntation of the lebanese population isn't more then 35%. The rally took days to organize and Hizbollah used many diferent ways to pressure people to go, including using the "Israel" Boggyman and how this was all a zionist conpriracy to take over Lebanon. Their official goal is "to stop foreign Interfernce" in Lebanon with the exception of Syrian Interference. Their motivation is their own interests, not that of Lebanon. They fear of losing the protection and funding of Syria and their own basic survival, since they are put on the US terrorist group list and if the UN security council resoploution is implemented , they would have to disarm and actually be civil people. Now, take a look at these pics and tell me, which protest would you rather be on? Pro-Lebanon protest Pro Syria Hezbollah Protest Pro Lebanon Protest (Notice the amount of women present) Hezbollah Protest ( Notice the female/male ratio?) Hmmm............. I know which one i would rather be at! Now, taking in regard Twosret comments here concerning the size the the pro-syrian protests in compared to the anti-syrian ones, i have the counter argument to make, well, actually i am not the one making the argument as much as i am borrowing the argument and work of Mr Astuteblogger , who did all the clalculations himself: What does it say about the neojihadists that their demonstration in Beirut today was a man-only affair? YUP: that's right: While watching news reports on TV and looking at jpegs at blogs, I couldn't help but notice a HUGE difference between the two sides in Lebanon: on the one hand, the anti-Syria demonstrations in Beirut were obviously, totally PLURALISTIC: men and women; Christians, Druze, and Sunni; and people of all ages; and they were all HAPPILY proclaiming their the occupation of their country by the fear-mongering forces of anger and repression. On the other hand, today's Hizballah demonstration was huge, but exclusively male - and angry looking; even their speakers sounded angry - ESPECIALLY Nasrallah. I think this says a lot about each side - EVERYTHING, in fact. Besides explicitly demonstrating their beliefs, each side implicitly demonstrated what kind of nation they would engender: the anti-Syrian side showed that they embody pluralism and democracy - and even "the pursuit of happiness." Hizballah showed that they are sexist, xenophobic, and violent-at-heart. This is a classic "Good versus Evil" match-up, and it's why we must be willing to support the anti-Syrian side with EVERYTHING we got! AND ANOTHER THING: Were all those angry pro-Syrian men Lebanese? I find that very VERY hard to believe. HERE'S WHY: news agencies estimated the Hizballah crowd at nearly one MILLION people - THAT'S 25% of Lebanon's population! And since it was a MALE ONLY crowd, that would mean that the total pro-Hizballah population (which after all - like the general population - include an equal amount of women) would account for 50% of the nation's population! Well, that's MORE than the number of Lebanese Shia! YUP: according to the CIA, Lebanon has about 4 million people, of which only 35% are Shia. If half are male, then there are only 500,000 male Lebanese Shia - which means that maybe HALF of the pro-Syria, pro-Hizballah demonstrators WERE NON-LEBANESE - and were either Palestinian Arabs from the UN run refugee camps, or Syrians! THEREFORE, I think ONE MUST CONCLUDE that many MANY MANY of the Hizballah men demonstrating were Syrian - or Palestinian Arabs from the UN refugee camps. (AT LEAST HALF!) That's ANOTHER reason we must support the pluralistic, pro-democracy - LEBANESE side over the pro-Syrian forces! I, as you all know, naturally agree with him. Now, i know, some of you will say that this is misleading, since some accounts that there was only 500, 000 protesters at the Pro-Syria Rally. Well, my boy Astute accounted for that as well: A few astute commenters - and a more recently filed AP report (cited above in the INSTAPUNDIT link) - relate that perhaps the crowd was ONLY HALF as big as earlier reports: ONLY 500,000 (and NOT 1 MIllion). Further, these more recently filed reports state that the crowd was largely segregated by gender; this may account for the fact that many MANY videos and MOST still photos showed only males. This adjusts BUT DOES NOT NEGATE the thrust of my argument that: (1) Hizballah's crowd was mostly male; (2) that it was mostly VERY angry; (3) that its staging reveals that Hizballah is very sexist/gender-biased; (4) and that they may have coerced many people to attend. If there were 500,000 Lebanese Shias there, then it was nearly 50% of ALL the Shias in Lebanon! I believe that this is simply NOT LIKELY; therefore, I believe non-Lebanese people made up much of the Hizballah crowd. And then he delivers an awesome ending: Bottom-line: Commies Stalin and Mao got huge crowds. Commie Kim Jong Il still does. These leaders - like Nasrallah I suspect - made their people afraid NOT to show up and wave the flag. Which is another reason why I have more respect for the Christian, Druze and Sunni Lebanese who demontrate each day in Beirut's Martyr's Square: they show up and demonstrate at great peril. Whereas, I suspect that many of those in the Hizballah crowd were people who (like Stalin's and Mao's and Kim's tryannized people) were afraid NOT to demonstrate. Which actually makes sense if you think about it. Hezbollah literally controls South of Lebanon. If you didn't show up to show your support, well, people might tell on you and people might shun you as some sort of America lover or Israeli agent or a coward or whatever. As opposed to the Pro-Lebanon protests that was basically an unorganized response from the lebanese street in protest of them not being in control of their own country. Also, the Pro- Syria protests are supported by Both the Lebanese and Syrian governments and Hezbollah, which makes them all very organized and having access of government support and funding, while the Pro- Lebanon protests were just basically the people acting on their own. Which one do you think is more honest? I know my answer to that question!